Then came the crash, and her hero went away, more of a hero than ever. In her thoughts Thérèse set a crown on his head, and turned him into one of the old champions. Fabien, who was thoroughly nineteenth-century, would have been utterly puzzled what to do with himself if her ideas had come true. And then, with her boundless store of hopefulness, of expectation, she did not find the waiting so weary as it looked. Every now and then, to be sure, there would surge up in her heart a wild longing, a yearning such as had broken out when M. Deshoulières spoke, the days would seem interminable, the distance from Fabien infinite. Such pangs came more acutely after M. Moreau had one day called her into his room.
“So you are still thinking of that ungrateful?” said the old man mockingly. “In that case you shall receive his latest news.”
And then he showed her Fabien’s lines of renunciation.
All the girl’s fear of her uncle vanished: she lifted her head proudly. “When Fabien writes those words to me, I will believe them,” she said, and went away, leaving old Moreau speechless at her presumption. It was her greatest victory among their encounters, but it was one of those victories which cost more than defeats. Not all her buoyancy could rise against the weight which the words left in her heart. How could he write them? How could he? She used to put the question passionately, and then answer it with a hundred fond excuses. All must be right some day,—that was the creed to which she clung; could she only keep free from the convent walls, all must be right. When her aunt died, and she lost the one slender link to her uncle’s affection, her dread of them increased; afterwards, through all the terrible time at the Cygne, she could not altogether repress the sense of liberty which came with the lifting from her the weight of that indomitable will. Whatever happened, she thought she must breathe more freely. She was not at all prepared to find M. Moreau’s intentions echoed back by her new guardian. Madame Roulleau had taken care to impress her with an idea of his inflexible nature, and she began, in her ignorance, to dread that he might have the power to compel her to submit. Any fate seemed preferable, and Madame Roulleau was well aware that in taking her into her house, she might impose what terms she pleased.
At first there was not much laid upon her. She had a miserable little room, it is true, bare and dreary, but what then? “If mademoiselle expects another Château Ardron, she must not come to Rue St. Servan,” said Madame, with her disagreeable smile. Thérèse hastened to explain that no such discontented comparison had entered her head. She was in fact too young to care much for the want of comfort round her; she pulled the things about and spread out her little possessions, and wasted no repinings for the blue silk curtains, and the gilding, and the ormolu at Château Ardron. Out of her window, beyond the roofs, she could see one of the Cathedral spires, with its delicate stone fretwork; a great expanse of sky over the flat country round; the very roofs were too crooked, too full, of quaint character, to be commonplace. She could make histories out of them, weave romances about the people who lived beneath them—romances into which her own story and Fabien’s stole in some irrepressible way. It seemed like a little time of rest after all the harshness and unkind words of the last years. Surely some intuitive instinct would tell Fabien that she was alone in the world, and that no one need come between them now.
But in a little while she found she had no time for dreaming. Things seemed to fell upon her as a matter of course. Mme. Roulleau would come in with a great heap of clothes in her arms, her own, Adolphe’s, Octavie’s, for mademoiselle to exercise her powers of reparation upon. It was often very difficult to make out of them what madame expected; only Aladdin’s magician with his new lamps for old could have satisfied her, and poor Thérèse darned and turned and patched, and patched and turned and darned, in despair: more than once before she had learned her lesson of economy, she cut up her own things in a vain attempt to perform the impossible. If she could only have pleased by her efforts she would not have disliked the work; she was active-minded, glad to be of use, there would have been a certain enjoyment in her own ingenuity. And if Mme. Roulleau was capable of being touched she must have been conscious of the sweetness with which Thérèse took her rebuffs, the patience with which she tried to follow out her directions. They were the only weapons the girl brought forward at this time. But to certain natures there is nothing so dear as the power of petty tyranny, and neither the money paid by M. Deshoulières, nor the work she extracted from her, were so delightful to Madame Roulleau as the infliction of daily snubs upon Thérèse. Skilfully drawing out her desire to remain free and lead a secular life, skilfully playing upon her fears of a convent, imperceptibly strengthening her dread of M. Deshoulières’ decisions, far more swift than he to fathom the secret of the girl’s heart and to turn it to their purpose, she did her best to make Thérèse’s life a burden.
And yet for a time, as I have said, Thérèse bore it all not only with patience but with cheerfulness. She hoped bravely, and this was the elixir which prevented her feeling madame’s sting. It was not pleasant to be found fault with, but she said to herself that it all came from her own stupidity, her want of knowledge about useful things. After all, they were useful, and it was very good for her to be forced into them. She preached vigorous little lectures over her own reluctance and want of gratitude. Monsieur and madame were not charming, certainly, but they had been very generous and only demanded a return. In those days her step was buoyant, her colour bright, her grey eyes sparkling. Madame Roulleau used to look at her and say crossly to her husband,—
“She has had some news of that vaurien.”
The little notary used to get into a fever of alarm. “Zénobie,” he would say, with his shrill voice quavering, “if he comes back we are ruined.”
“He must not come back,” said madame, quietly.