II.
Market has come and gone again. Marie Famette was not happy as she went home last Saturday, but to-day her heart aches sorely as she goes along the dusty road to St. Gertrude. Last Saturday was the first market-day this year that Léon Roussel has not helped her into her cart and taken a friendly leave of her; but he disappeared before market was over, and to-day he was not there at all.
"And he might have walked home with me!" Tears are in poor little Marie's eyes. Léon Roussel has seemed her own special property, and he has not been to her mother's house for a fortnight. "And if he had been at market to-day, he would have been content with me: poor Nicolas must be ill indeed to stay away from market. Ma foi! I have been dull alone. Elise Lesage was civil, for a wonder: I hope she will give old Marais's note safely to his nephew. I wonder why she goes to see Nicolas?"
As she says the word a strange foreboding seizes Marie: she cannot tell what causes it, but her old dislike to Elise rises up, mingled with a kind of fear. "I ought to have given Nicolas the note myself; and yet—"
The road is very long and very dusty to-day: it is never an interesting way out of Aubette, except that being cut on the hillside it is raised high, the little river meandering through the osier meadows on the left, and also commands a fine view of the beautiful old church. But Marie does not turn back to look at the church: her heart is too heavy to take interest in anything out of herself. She has left the cart behind to bring out crockery and some new chairs which she has purchased for her mother, and she wishes she had stayed in Aubette till her cargo was packed. All at once a new thought comes, and her eyes brighten. A wood clothes the hilly side of the road, but on the left there is a steep descent into the valley, and the road is bordered either by scattered cottages or by an irregular hawthorn hedge. A little way on there is a gap in this hedge, and looking down there is a long steep flight of steps with wooden edges. At the foot stands a good-sized house divided now into several cottages. The walls are half-timbered with wood set crosswise in the plaster between two straight rows. Ladders, iron hoops and a bird-cage hang against the wall, and over the door is a wooden shelf with scarlet geraniums. There is a desolate garden divided into three by a criss-cross fence and a hedge, and over the last a huge orange citrouille has clambered and lies perched on the top.
Marie knows that Nicolas Marais sometimes lodges in one of the cottages, but she knows too that the property belongs to Léon Roussel, and that he lives close by. A blush comes to the girl's cheeks: she may see Léon there. She stops and looks down: Elise Lesage is coming out of the doorway, but she is talking over her shoulder to some one behind her. Marie sees her put her fingers into one of the brown holland pockets, pull out a note and give it to her companion.
Marie draws a deep breath: "How I wronged her! Ever since I gave her that note I have felt anxious and troubled. She seems so spiteful to me that I feared she might somehow get me into trouble with it, and yet I don't know how."
There were footsteps coming along the road, but Marie did not look round: in the quick revulsion of feeling toward Elise she was eager to make atonement. She leaned on the hand-rail that went down the steps, waiting for Mademoiselle Lesage: if she had listened she would have noticed that the footsteps had come nearer and had suddenly ceased.
Nicolas Marais came forward out of the cottage, and then Elise looked up and saw Marie. She smiled and nodded. "I am coming," she called up in her rasping voice; and she did seem in high haste to get to Marie Famette, but Marie saw that she looked beyond her at some one or something else. The girl looked over her shoulder, and there was Léon Roussel, but he did not care to look at her. His eyes were fixed sternly on Nicolas Marais, but Nicolas did not seem to care for his employer's anger: he was smiling rapturously up at Marie, and as she now looked at him he first kissed his hand and then put the note to his lips and kissed it twice.
Marie grew crimson. Elise, who had just reached the top of the steps, laughed, and Léon Roussel stood an instant pale and defiant, and then turned back toward Aubette.
"Stay, stay, Monsieur Léon!" Elise darted after him; then, stopping suddenly, she nodded back at Marie: "Stop and talk to Nicolas, mon enfant: I will make it all right for you with Monsieur Roussel;" and she hurried on in pursuit.
But Marie was too angry with Nicolas to give him even a moment: "How dare he kiss his hand to me? And oh, Léon will think that I wrote that note to him, and how can I ever tell him the truth? Will Elise Lesage tell him?"
She had just a faint hope; and then she reproached herself. Why should not Mademoiselle Lesage tell the truth? She was cross and spiteful, but then, poor thing! she was old and ugly. "And it may be," Marie thought, "that one is not half thankful enough for one's gifts, and that it is very irritating to be plain. It is Alphonse Poiseau who has made me think evil of Elise, and one should not cherish evil thoughts."
Marie went home happier and lighter-hearted: that little glimpse of Léon had quieted the sore longing at her heart, and at first the joy of having seen him made her dwell less on his stern looks and his avoidance of herself.
She came to the broad grassed turning that leads off the main road to St. Gertrude. A saddled donkey was grazing on one side, and on the other an old woman sat on a stone post. She jumped up when she saw Marie. She had looked tall as she sat: she was as broad as she was long now she stood erect in her dark striped gown and black jacket, and white cap with its plain border and lappets pinned together over her forehead.
"Well, well, well!" She spoke in a short bustling voice—a voice that would have been cheering if it had been less restless. "Hast thou then seen Léon Roussel, Marie? Hast thou learned the reason of his absence?"
Marie's tender, sweet look vanished: she tossed her pretty head and pouted: "Léon was not at the market, but I saw him as I came home; only he was not close to me, so we did not speak."
"Didst thou see that vaurien Nicolas?"
"Yes, I saw him."
Marie blushed, and her mother burst out into angry words: "Foolish, trifling child that thou art! thou lovest that black-eyed gypsy boy; and for him, the idle vagabond, thou hast flung away the best parti in Aubette. Ciel! what do I say? In Bolbec itself there is no one with better prospects than Léon Roussel." Madame Famette always failed in managing her daughter.
Marie smiled and kept down her indignation. "I hardly know that," she said: "old Marais will make Nicolas his heir, and there is no saying how rich a miser is." She crossed the road, caught the donkey by the bridle, and held him ready for her mother to mount.
Madame Famette went on grumbling, but Mouton the donkey soon drew her anger on himself; and by the time the three reached the triangle of gray, half-timbered cottages which surround the old church of St. Gertrude, the easy, sieve-like nature of the woman had recovered from its vexation.
"Holà, Jeanne, Jeanne! run there and take Mouton from Mam'selle Marie, who is tired with the market. Come, thou, mon cher, and tell me the news." Madame Famette rolled off her donkey, and then rolled on into the house.