The Growth of an Idea.
In spite of M. Bourget’s assumption of indifference, he was secretly tormented by anxiety as to what was going on in Paris. Nathalie wrote to him every day, though seldom more than a few lines. He never answered her letters, but he devoured every word, and hungered for more. It was the same with, the newspapers. He would not have missed a line, notwithstanding the pang their comments, especially those of the radical press, caused him. If his self-consciousness could have permitted it he would have gone to Paris, not to have joined his daughter, but, unknown and in secret, to have haunted the courts, especially after the trial had begun; his restlessness longing to hear the evidence with his own ears, and to listen to the remarks with which he did not doubt all Paris rang. If France had been at this moment in the throes of a revolution, M. Bourget would have expected to find its interest second to that excited by seeing Baron Léon de Beaudrillart, of Poissy, on his trial for theft. But if all France were occupied in watching M. de Beaudrillart, Tours, he was equally persuaded, watched M. Bourget. For him to show himself at the railway station would be immediately to excite curiosity, for before an hour was over it would be known that his indifference had been only simulated, and that he was in his heart as anxious as Leroux represented him.
M. Georges, meanwhile, whose faithfulness was only strengthened by what he heard and saw, had gone to Poissy, and, established there, was bravely engaged in fighting the dreary hopelessness which weighed upon the château. His disbelief in anything which could touch the young baron’s honour was so sincere and enthusiastic that, had it been possible, it might have persuaded Claire. As it was, it soothed her. With M. Georges she was less sharp, less angular, more forgiving. He was the only person, except her mother and sister, to whom she would speak, for, strangely enough, the trouble produced the same effect of gloomy reticence in her and in the man with whom she would have vowed she had least in common—M. Bourget. Like him, she shrank from a touch on the wound; like him, she read pitying contempt in the faces she looked at; like him, she exaggerated trifles. But it was impossible to misjudge M. Georges. He was so confident that M. Léon was the victim of some monstrous fraud, so undoubting in his belief that it must, somehow, be cleared up, so unchanged in his respect, so unfailing in his hopefulness, that his talk was incapable of inflicting the smallest wound. Mme. de Beaudrillart he saw but seldom. Once or twice he fancied that she must have had some sort of seizure to account for the great alteration in her person and manner. She was thinner than ever, but no longer upright. Her speech was hesitating, and she looked at Claire before uttering an opinion. From the redness of her eyes it was evident that she wept a good deal, yet at times he fancied that she imagined her son to be in the house or out in the grounds, and that she listened anxiously.
As for Félicie, there was no doubt that his confidence had given her courage. Unlike her sister, she was always anxious to talk about her brother, and the prospects of his trial; and M. Georges’s fixed opinion ended in implanting in her the idea that Léon, suffering unjustly, might be regarded as a martyr, and therefore as a credit to the house. If the Abbé Nisard did not share her idea, he took care not to contradict what proved a fervent source of consolation. Félicie returned to her daily tasks, to her embroideries and reparations, and though she cried, her tears were not bitter, and perhaps were caused as often by her sister’s impatience as by Léon’s imprisonment.
Raoul attached himself, tyrannically, to M. Georges. The boy felt, without understanding, the cloud on the family; he missed his father, his mother, his lessons, his drives. M. Georges at once undertook his education, to the great relief of the others, for whom Raoul had succeeded in making it almost unendurable. But here, in his new tutor, he found a patience which it was so impossible to tire out that he gave up the task, and, in order to gain a fishing expedition, learned his lessons to perfection.
There came a day, however, when all M. Georges’s cheerfulness could not lighten the gloom. Nathalie’s letters had been intended to prepare them; but until the newspaper arrived, full of details, and commenting upon the attitude of the accused, they had tacitly refused to realise that the trial was to begin that very week. As it happened, Félicie had been the first to see it, or it would never have met her eyes, for when Claire came she seized the paper, carried it to her room, and when she had devoured every word, tore it into shreds. M. Georges, to his despair, had not a glimpse of it; but that afternoon, as he was going off with Raoul to the river, he met Mlle. Félicie on her way back from the church, armed with a feather brush, with which she had been dusting the altar ornaments. She greeted him with eagerness.
“Oh, Monsieur Georges, you did not see that dreadful newspaper?”
“No, mademoiselle, to my great regret, for I gathered that there was something fresh. But no doubt Mademoiselle Claire exercised a wise discretion in not allowing it to lie about. Perhaps—”
He lifted his eyebrows interrogatively, and she nodded.
“Yes, I can tell you every word, and I long for your opinion.”