The short twilight spread its grey mantle over the valley and the mountain-side; the tiny clouds were now of a uniform grey: grey were the crags and the boulders, the tree-tops and the roof of the distant mas. Only the dark cypresses stood out like long, inky blotches against that translucent grey. And from the valley there rose that intoxicating fragrance of the blossom-laden orange trees. Way down on the road below a cart rattled by, the harness jingling, the axles groaning, the driver, with a maiden beside him, singing a song of Provence. For a few minutes these sounds filled the air with their insistence on life, movement, toil, their testimony to the wheels of destiny that never cease to grind. Then all was still again, and the short twilight faded into evening.
And as Nicolette deliberately turned from the road into the wood, a nightingale began to sing. The soft little trills went rolling and echoing through the woods like a call from heaven itself to partake of the joy, the beauty, the fulness of the earth and all its loveliness. And suddenly, as Nicolette worked her way down the terraced gradients, she spied, standing upon a grass-covered knoll, two forms interlaced: Bertrand had his arms around Rixende, his face was buried in the wealth of her golden curls, and she lay quite passive, upon his breast.
Nicolette dared not move, for fear she should be seen, for fear, too, that she should break upon this, surely the happiest hour in Tan-tan’s life. They paid no heed of what went on around them: Bertrand held his beloved in his arms with an embrace that was both passionate and yearning, whilst overhead the nightingale trilled its sweet, sad melody. Nicolette stood quite still, dry-eyed and numb. Awhile ago she had been sure that if only she could think that Tan-tan was happy, she could go through life with a lighter heart. Well! she had her wish! there was happiness, absolute, radiant happiness expressed in that embrace. Tan-tan was happy, and his loved one lay passive in his arms, whilst the song of the nightingale spoke unto his soul promises of greater happiness still. And Nicolette closed her eyes, because the picture before her seemed to sear her very heart-strings and wrench them out of her breast. She stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, because a desperate cry of pain had risen to her throat. Then, turning suddenly, she ran and ran down the slope, away, away as far away as she could from that haunting picture of Tan-tan and his happiness.
CHAPTER VIII
CHRISTMAS EVE
It was a very rare thing indeed for discord to hold sway at the mas. Perfect harmony reigned habitually between Jaume Deydier, his daughter and the old servant who had loved and cared for her ever since Nicolette had been a tiny baby, laid in Margaï’s loving arms by the hands of the dying mother.
Jaume Deydier was, of course, master in his own house. In Provence, old traditions still prevail, and the principles of independence and equality bred by the Revolution had never penetrated into these mountain fastnesses, where primitive and patriarchal modes of life gave all the happiness and content that the women of the old country desired. That Nicolette had been indulged and petted both by her father and her old nurse, was only natural. The child was pretty, loving, lovable and motherless; the latter being the greater claim on her father’s indulgence. As for Margaï, she was Nicolette’s slave, even though she grumbled and scolded and imagined that she ruled the household and ordered the servants about at the mas, in exactly the same manner as old Madame ordered hers over at the château.
From which it may be gathered that on the whole it was Nicolette who usually had her way in the house. But for the last two days she had been going about with a listless, dispirited air, whilst Jaume Deydier did nothing but frown, and Margaï’s mutterings were as incessant as they were for the most part unintelligible.
“I cannot understand you, Mossou Deydier,” she said more than once to her master, “one would think you wanted to be rid of the child.”
“Don’t be a fool, Margaï,” was Deydier’s tart response. But Margaï was not to be silenced quite so readily. She had been fifty years in the service of the Deydiers, and had—as she oft and picturesquely put it—turned down Mossou Jaume’s breeches many a time when he sneaked into her larder and stole the jam she had just boiled, or the honey she had recently gathered from the hives. Oh, no! she was not going to be silenced—not like that.
“If the child loved him,” she went on arguing, “I would not say another word. But she has told you once and for all that she does not care for young Barnadou, and does not wish to marry.”