Chapter Twelve.
“A temple, like a cloud
Slowly surmounting some invidious hill,
Rose out of darkness: the bright work stood still,
And might of its own beauty have been proud.
But it was fashioned, and to God was vow’d
By virtues that diffused, in every part,
Spirit divine through forms of human art
...
...Hope had her spire
Star-high, and pointing still to something higher.”
Wordsworth.
People who are compassionate and give themselves heartaches over suffering which seems undeserved, would be wiser and happier if they at least acknowledged other points of view than their own. If they could look at them from all, they would see gain where now they only see cost. No one ever knew what this interview, which had wrung the heart of one, did for Thérèse; not even Thérèse herself, certainly not Max. But it happened at a time when things were very bad with her, when she was losing ground, growing bitter, hard, angry with her lot. She had a feeling as if no one would help her, and that is a very unwholesome conviction to take root in any one’s heart, especially one so young as Thérèse. In the midst of it all there came this revelation. While she believed herself uncared for, this, great tender, unselfish love had been growing round her. The love she pictured was exacting, jealous, almost fierce; that which had been opened to her seemed something nobler, more divine. She acknowledged that, while her heart still clung to Fabien. Nay, Fabien had never been so well loved as after Max Deshoulières had shown her his own nobility. She felt her heart-burnings and want of faith so petty! She felt as if she could be more patient, more trustful, more content, now that this man had put before her a living picture of what love might be.
There was, moreover, a little change for the better in her position. Monsieur Deshoulières had noticed that she looked ill and worn, and was not long in pointing out the fact to Mme. Roulleau.
“You are sure that Mademoiselle Veuillot has all that she requires?” he asked, gravely.
Madame Roulleau had not much difficulty in satisfying him; men are slow to suspect cruelty on the part of one woman to another, and he was not suspicious. He thought that she had been fretting, very likely staying too much in the house during the cold weather, wanting occupation. Was there no one to whom she might go for relaxation and society? Madame assured him that it was mademoiselle’s own choice that she confined herself to their own family. “She assists me in the ménage, and I am rejoiced that she should teach the children when she is disposed. Poor mademoiselle! her teaching is not much, as monsieur may suppose. But, after all, it gives her occupation, and no one can be happy when they are idle. And they are such excellent children! They have such good hearts! As for my little Adolphe, he adores her!”
This was a very rose-coloured account, but it contained nothing to make M. Deshoulières doubt. He felt himself, poor fellow, something of the value of occupation just then. It was a little hard to go through the daily round of sadnesses, complaints, pain; but, after all, they lightened the load on his heart. He gave Madame Roulleau two or three injunctions which made her very uneasy lest he should ask questions from Thérèse, and lose the formidable character with which, she had invested him. She went home on the day on which she met him, in a great hurry, and embraced Thérèse. “You want distraction, mademoiselle; you are looking quite pale, you undertake too much. I shall be obliged to forbid your assisting me in these little things,”—the girl began to think that her toil must really be voluntary, madame’s words were so decided.
Madame Roulleau was alarmed. She and her husband had not laid any deep plot at the beginning of this affair, they had only wanted, as they told themselves, to be on the watch for such good things as might turn up, and help them out of certain difficulties in which they found themselves plunged so as to threaten faillite. When little Roulleau was called to the bedside of the dying man, his keen wits saw at once the possibility of entanglements, difficulties; all so much money in his pocket while M. Deshoulières continued to employ him as notary. This would be at an end directly M. Deshoulières, as dépositaire, had fulfilled his trust. The idea of getting hold of Thérèse, and the sum set aside for her maintenance, occurred to him at the very moment that he was taking down M. Moreau’s words. At first he thought of no more than this. By little and little other possibilities presented themselves—pieces of good luck he called them. M. Saint-Martin’s return was the event which would put a stop to the pleasant little income of which he was already beginning to taste the sweets, and he was able to arrange two or three hindrances in the way of that return. Two South American letters, for instance, found among the papers at Château Ardron, would have given a clew to the young man’s residence, which might have brought him back with inconvenient promptitude. These letters, having been examined by madame, were now no longer in existence. It was not difficult to procure from Paris an answer or two containing just as much as he desired and no more, and purporting to come from an old friend of M. Moreau’s, a lawyer, a master at Fabien’s lycée. It was not difficult, but it was a decided step. M. Roulleau used to awake in the night and think of that step in a cold perspiration. Certain great letters used to dance before his eyes, and shape themselves into something that resembled “Forgery,”—an ugly word to haunt people in the middle of the night. Afterwards came that summons to the Lion d’Or. Most likely this is the usual fashion in which crime grows into crime. Nothing very definite at first, a sort of haze over what may happen, a determined shutting of the eyes.
Madame was clever, but she was a dangerous coadjutor, little Roulleau acknowledged it with groans. There was always the risk that her temper might flame out, and ruin their most carefully concocted schemes. She knew it herself: every now and then she put tremendous restraint upon it, but the restraint did not last. The love of tyranny was overpowering. To indulge it upon Thérèse she used to jeopardise every thing. If Ignace tried to counteract it, he only added fuel to the flame. He lived in continual fear.
Husband and wife would have shared the panic could they have known what had taken place in the little talon on that December day, and how nearly it brought M. Deshoulières and Thérèse together. Perhaps Nannon guessed. She was a shrewd old woman. Thérèse was young and scarcely able to conceal her feelings; so there was a soft bright expression in her face which Nannon had never before noticed. She came slowly up the stairs and into the room where the holes were being mended for her without saying any thing, and looked out of the window with eyes which saw a great deal more than the crowded roofs, or even the broad flat plain beyond.
“Mademoiselle might give an opinion,” Nannon said at last, affronted.
Thérèse started, turned round, went quickly to her, and gratefully kissed the old brown wrinkled cheek.
“Do you know what you are like?” she said. “You are like one of the fairies who used to come to the help of the poor princesses who were shut up in terrible towers, and forced to do all kinds of hateful work. I don’t believe one of them had a worse hole than that to mend.”
“I don’t know about fairies,” answered Nannon, shaking her head doubtfully; “but, if they are evil spirits, it is not very polite of you, mademoiselle, to call me one.”
The girl laughed.
“If you lived in the north you would know more about fairies; but here, in this ugly flat country, there is not so much as a bush for them to hide behind. Allons, don’t be cross, Nannon; not even Rouen has a cathedral like yours. I am going there now; will you come?”
“What has happened?” thought the old woman to herself. Thérèse had not laughed so gayly for many a week past.
They went out, along the narrow street, under the archway at the end, into the Place Notre Dame. A strong wind was blowing from the south-west, all the earth was grey, but the sky was full of glorious lights. A delicate greenish blue made the groundwork; over that lay motionless masses of high clouds, rosy red, here and there broken with purple shadows, serene, majestic; out of one uncovered depth shone a tiny trembling star. Nearer the earth grey rain-clouds were hurrying up; they had blotted out the west and the sinking sun, and now hurled themselves across the plain, with edges torn and rent and twisted by the violence of the driving wind. Broken bits of vapour scudded before them, veiling for a moment the rosy lights above. It was a strange contrast of peace and unrest. For though the earth was saddened by the driving rain-cloud which was powerless to rob the heavens of their glory, but could blot it out and hide it from the dwellers below, there was peace even with her. In the midst of the rush and tumults—solemn, steadfast, and unmoved—rose up the spires of Charville’s great cathedral. Into the drift of the cloud itself, untouched by any ruddy glow from the glowing sky, grey with the shadow of the storm, it pierced the darkness like an eternal prayer. Never more glorious in its beauty, never more faithful in its teaching, than now when it pointed upwards through sadness and gloom. Round about it stood the sentinel statues, just men made perfect, an innumerable company of angels; overhead, flying buttresses lightly clasped the stone, interlacing pinnacles crowned the clustering shafts. From arch to arch, from gargoyle to buttress, from pinnacle to spire, the eye followed its holy guidance, until, above cloud and greyness and the sweep of the whirlwind, it reached the deep light, the burning brightness of the heavens.
One little heart, at least, felt something of all this. It seemed to come like a seal upon what the afternoon had opened to Thérèse; glimpses of a life in the midst of what was low and base, higher than she had taught herself to realise before. Out of the stones of the earth men had raised the church which pointed to heaven. Out of the little struggles of the day might grow the joys of eternity. The carved figures of the gateways looked at her with kind human eyes; until now they had seemed very far off—saints whose holiness was out of reach, martyrs who were martyrs, and not men. Thérèse used to gaze up at them with admiration, and get a little impatient. But to-day they had come down to her from out of their canopies. She had learned something of the divine lesson which glorifies life, and turns drudgery into an aureole.
The two women went together into the great church. When they came out again it was dark; the clouds were still flying wildly; between the rents stars were shining out. Nannon was a little puzzled over M. Deshoulières’ visit and Thérèse’s silence; she said, at last,—
“Mademoiselle, has any thing been heard of M. Fabien?”
“Nothing yet. But M. Deshoulières is sure that he will soon come home.”
“M. Deshoulières? Hum. Do you know what people are beginning to say?”
“What?”
“They say that even to be dépositaire to such a property is a very fine thing, and that M. Deshoulières is perhaps in no hurry to smooth M. Saint-Martin’s return.”
“They say that! And you can repeat it!” cried Thérèse flashing round upon her. “Nannon, I shall hate you if you believe what wicked people talk. Do you not know how good he is? Have you not told me yourself how much he does?”
“That may be. But he is a hard man for all that,” said Nannon, obstinately.
“So you repeat. I do not believe it. I believe there is no man in all Charville so good, so noble, and so generous, as Monsieur Deshoulières,” cried the girl, with vehemence.
“So, so! This is new doctrine. What has changed you, then, mademoiselle?”
Thérèse was silent. In the darkness, Nannon could not see her blushes. “Perhaps, because I have only now begun to know him,” she said, softly.
“This is not the first time you have met,” Nannon answered, with a certain dryness. “Peste! this wind is enough to blow one’s head off one’s shoulders. Well, well, old people can’t take these fancies like young ones.”
“Yet you have told me yourself about his kindness to your neighbours.”
“Oh, for a doctor, yes. That is quite another affair. A doctor, you see, mademoiselle, makes it a part of his trade to be good to the sick. Otherwise, nobody would take his nasty medicines. There would be a revolution, and, who knows, we might find that we could live without doctors. M. Deshoulières is very well when you have need of him. But I have heard it said, ‘Never trust a lawyer when you are in peace, a doctor when you are well.’ There is another word about curés, only mademoiselle might not like to hear it. Ouf, what a tempest!”
“Nannon, you are not good to-day at all.”
“Pardon, mademoiselle. It is rather that I think of Jean-Marie.”
“Jean-Marie is not at the farm now?”
“No, no; he has tried three masters since M. Gohon. He is too good for them, little angel, that is the truth. He is not like one of those great hulking country boys who have no wits beyond their hands and feet. M. Gohon might have suited him, though.”
“But, Nannon, it was not because of that affair at the Halle that M. Gohon dismissed him.”
“That is your innocence, mademoiselle; when any one has enemies like that Madame Mathurine and M. Deshoulières, a very little serves. No, no; M. Deshoulières is not good to have to do with, unless one has the fever. Then, certainly—”
“If ever you have the fever, and he cures you, you will not talk of him like this,” Thérèse answered, indignantly.
“If I have it I shall send for him, and not for that poor little Pinot, whom I recollect when he was a little creature in leading-strings, tumbling about like a helpless bundle. As if he could tell what was good for anybody! But, mademoiselle, I do not understand. If M. Deshoulières is so excellent as you suppose him, why do you not complain to him of these creatures—these Roulleaus—who insult you with making you slave for them? Perhaps he does not know.”
“No, he does not know,” answered Thérèse, dreamily. The same thought had come into her own mind. She knew now that she had but to speak, and her life would be lightened of those heavy burdens which had grown so hateful to her. And yet—could she speak? She believed that the sum left by her uncle for her support was, in truth, very inadequate, and she knew nothing of its being even now doubled. Few people might care to receive her; she disliked the idea of being thrown upon M. Deshoulières’ charity. And, after all, it might be so short a time before it ended! With his words ringing in her ears, she fancied Fabien might be at the doors. She would rather bear all until he came. Deliverance by him would be very sweet. With it all there spoke a nobler reason. To take up something of what she had let fall—to redeem months past in idle repining—to live a life that was not ever self-seeking, ever crying out for good things withheld: this was the purpose growing out of that day’s events. It was all feeble, imperfect, even in the act of resolution; but it was there.
“No; he does not know,” she repeated, as they stood at the door of the Roulleaus’ house. “I would rather he did not know. I would rather affairs remained as they are. Good-night, Nannon. It was very good of you to mend those holes.”
“Good-night, mademoiselle.” The old woman stood and watched the dark figure run lightly up the stairs; then she turned away, shaking her head. “Something has done all this, something has changed her, and yet her heart has not moved from M. Fabien, for I said it to see. The saints forbid that M. Deshoulières should want her to marry him, since he will always have his own way, and the poor child would have to yield. Mend holes, did she say? She has a worse hole in the temper of that madame than any thing I can mend for her. Ah, my cap!—my boy, my boy, there, in the gutter! that white thing! What a torment of a wind! Stop it! Ah, my child, you are a treasure; come and let me embrace you.”