“If Mademoiselle were a mother she would know that is enough,” she said, reproachfully.
Thérèse could not understand her. Afterwards she found out by some chance that Mère Belot was one of those incapable women who are always taken care of, and toiled for, and shielded. There are poor queen bees as well as rich ones, and her sister brought her as much honey as she could scrape together, and pinched, and struggled, and fought for the children, while Mère Belot sat in the street outside the house and spun a little cotton yarn between her intervals of gossip, and accepted her good things placidly. They came to her quite as a matter of course; and, though it be but a poor little hive, it makes a great difference whether you are the queen or the working bee.
Nannon had taken all the children into her faithful heart, but, perhaps, she loved Jean-Marie the best. He had been a trouble ever since he was born. He had been twice as long as the others in cutting his teeth, had frightened them all out of their wits with croup and small-pox and fevers, had broken his leg, and set the house on fire, and was for ever being dragged out of scrapes by Nannon. So many things happened to him that I believe she looked upon him as a hero at last. He was always making fresh starts on the road to fortune, and trailing back again before a week was over. This last start at Gohon’s farm had carried him quite a long way. He had been there more than a month: Nannon’s pride was excessive; she used to walk out through the waving cornfields, and watch the farm for an hour for the happiness of seeing Jean-Marie bring out the horses or fetch the cows. It was an innocent little triumph very dear to her; and, perhaps, it was no wonder that she felt it hard when M. Deshoulières brought to light that misdemeanour with the Cottereaus and Michault, which threatened to put an end to all her triumphs. She did not know that it was M. Deshoulières also who had gone out to the farm the next day, and asked that the boy might have a longer trial; she accused the doctor of having almost deprived Jean-Marie of his situation; and Thérèse had all her baseless prejudices against him confirmed by the old woman. It was very unfortunate, because she might have escaped from the Roulleau tyranny if Nannon had counselled her to appeal to M. Deshoulières; but since his decision against her boy, there was no harshness of which Nannon did not believe him guilty.
So these two used to sit and talk on the hot, dry evenings, when Thérèse could get away from her labour in the stifling little house. Nannon and she would wander through the quaint old town, down the steep streets, and so to the quiet river, whose murmur fell on her ears like the sound of a comforting voice before she reached it.
She liked those evenings best when the sky was tender primrose colour, and the dusky trees stood up against it in soft, shady, mysterious masses, with strangely bright bars of colour gleaming through them. There were disused fortifications, an old gateway, and a bridge; above these houses jumbled oddly together clambering up the side of the hill. She liked to watch the water slip calmly by, the leaves floating on its surface, the long grasses under the bank breaking it into little brown eddies. There were quiet shadows, shadows always comprehensible, never terrible; shadows which stole gently down to the roots of the willows, by which the river rolled along, catching their reflection on its surface, and then suddenly lit up with a sheet of tremulous golden light. A little rough causeway ran by the waterside, here and there a stunted sapling thrust itself out as though to kiss the stream that moved on regardless; here and there were little wooden standing-places—lavatoires—for the washerwomen, who all day long thumped and gesticulated and chattered shrilly, but in the evening left the river to its own unceasing songs.
It was a very quiet, out-of-the-way little corner. The cornfields stretched far away—great flat plains; a bird might cry in the distance, the church bells clang, a peasant in his blouse go by and wish them good evening; except these signs of life there was very little to disturb them. Nannon thought it triste; but it seemed to bring refreshment to Thérèse, who never before had liked silence and solitude. She was ill at this time, I think; feverish, restless, and sick with hope deferred. She had been waiting for two years, at her age a lifetime. Separation had not before been so cruel as it was now that the great bar between her and Fabien was gone, and only his presence was needed. Perhaps her hopefulness would have sunk altogether under the strain if it had not been for the river and Nannon.
Sitting on a stone by its bank one evening, as I have described their doing, they were startled by seeing a figure coming along the narrow causeway towards them. The sun had set behind the upper town; they were too much under the hill to see the houses or the Cathedral spires, but the rich autumnal sunset lingered in the sky, crimson patches and dark purples on a background of tawny gold; there was a soft, breezy rustle in the air. The figure came out of dusky shadows along the causeway, and it startled Thérèse, because she saw at once it was not one of the blue-shirted labourers, who, at rare intervals, came back into the town by that path. When it drew nearer she recognised M. Deshoulières. He had been detained at a village, which lay not far from Charville, where a little child had been ill. That afternoon it had died, and M. Deshoulières, who loved little children, was coming home touched and softened. He had chosen this path, perhaps, because, although he did not think about it in his heart, the river and the long grasses, and the tremulous golden light, had their attractions also for him. He was looking at the water, and when he suddenly came upon these two figures sitting quietly there in the midst of the solitude, he could not refrain from an exclamation of surprise.
“Mademoiselle Veuillot!” he said.
Thérèse did not know what to answer. Neither of them had expected to meet the other here. She was half angry, half-frightened, lest this innocent little enjoyment of hers should also be pronounced unfitting. Both she and Nannon had risen, Nannon standing with her arms crossed defiantly.
“We came here because it is so cool and so pleasant,” said Thérèse, looking beseechingly at her enemy. Surely the river might be spared to her! “Is it late?” she said, suddenly conscious of the depth of the shadows.