IV.
"How is Marie Famette?" Monsieur Houlard the tailor asks of Monsieur Guéroult the doctor of Aubette, as he meets him hurrying through the Rue de la Boucherie.
"She is better, the poor child! but she must be careful this winter." Then, seeing Houlard look anxious, the good doctor says, "But she is so far better that I have discontinued my visits: I have given Marie leave to come to Aubette."
"That is good news," says Houlard as the doctor shoots past him, and the tailor tells the next person he meets that Marie Famette is as well as ever, and is coming to market as usual.
It is Léon Roussel to whom he tells this, and Monsieur Houlard is pained at the young man's want of interest.
"One would have thought," he says to his wife when he reaches his shop, "that Roussel was displeased with Marie for recovering her health."
"Perhaps he thinks she will make a fool of herself, now she is well again, by marrying Nicolas Marais: I hear they are lovers."
"It is a pity," says the dutiful husband. "Girls should not choose for themselves. You did not, my dear, and that is why our life has gone so easily."
But Marie is not really as strong as the doctor pronounces her to be: her cheeks are hollow, and the color on them is feverish and uncertain. If she could get away from home she would have more chance of mending. Madame Famette's sorrow at her daughter's changed looks expands itself in querulous remonstrance on the folly of flirting and on the good-for-nothing qualities of Nicolas Marais. Nicolas has come to inquire for Marie, but Madame Famette has received him so uncourteously that the poor fellow contents himself with hovering about on the chance of meeting Marie alone. But he never sees her, although the rumor grows strong in St. Gertrude, and is wafted on to Aubette, that Nicolas and Marie will be married as soon as she gets well enough to see about wedding-clothes.
It is the beginning of October, a bright clear morning. The red and yellow leaves come swiftly to the ground with a sudden snap from the twigs that held them: the rabbits move about briskly, and a couple of field-mice in search of winter stores run across the road nearly under Marie's feet. Marie's cheeks are rosy with the fresh, crisp air, but she does not look gay or happy. Life seems to have got into a hard knot which the poor little girl finds no power to untie. Market-day used to be a fête to Marie, but to-day she considers it a penance to be sent in to Aubette. She is not going to hold her stall—ah no, she is not nearly strong enough for such a task—but Madame Famette has a severe attack of rheumatism, and Jeanne cannot be trusted to buy the weekly provision of groceries. Marie shrinks as she goes along at the thought of meeting Léon Roussel. There is another thought, which she will not face—that it is possible Léon and Elise Lesage will be together in the market-place. "I need not go into the Grande Place at all," the poor child says. "I can get all I want in the Rue des Bons Enfants;" and she goes there when she reaches Aubette.
But Marie has miscalculated her strength. She grows suddenly so white that Monsieur le Blanc, the épicier of the Rue des Bons Enfants, takes her into his daughter's room and makes her lie down on the little sofa. Marie lies there with widely-opened eyes, wondering how she shall get back to St. Gertrude.
"You are to lie still till Thérèse comes back from market," the old man says, "and then she will arrange about your going home."
Marie lies gazing dreamily at the blue-papered ceiling. "I used to think Thérèse le Blanc a cross old maid," she ponders: "shall I be a cross old maid too?" And then the pale, stricken girl holds up her thin hand and sighs: "I shall not be old: I shall die soon. Poor mother! she will forgive Nicolas when I am gone away."
There is a bustle in the shop, but Marie does not heed it. She smiles when Thérèse comes in, but she is too weak to talk—too weak to make any objection when she hears that a farmer who lives some miles beyond St. Gertrude has undertaken to convey her in his huge green-hooded wagon as far as the cross-road.
Thérèse stands over her while she eats a piece of bread and drinks a glass of wine, and then the farmer, a stout old Norman in a gray blouse, helps her into the back of the wagon, and makes a resting-place for her on some of the hay still left unsold, under the lofty arched roof.