After that evening walk from the river Thérèse told Nannon she thought that M. Deshoulières was kinder than she had fancied. Nannon, whose prejudices were invincible, shook her head.
“He may be kind when he pleases, I do not deny it, but he is as hard as a stone.”
“Every one is hard, I think,” said Thérèse, sadly.
Her bright hopefulness was leaving her; there was so much irritation and fret in her daily life, so much contact with low, mean natures, that it had not power to hold its own. That future to which she looked forward was not one which strengthened her to bear the present; it rather added to the fever of impatience which consumed her. We want something stronger than props of our own rearing when the dark days come with their storms. Poor child, it appeared to herself as if she was for ever stretching out her hands and groping vainly in the darkness for something by which to hold. There was one figure among those which for ages had stood outside the great Cathedral and called to the passers-by, that she had grown almost to identify with herself—a woman who seemed half in supplication, half in fear. It is probable that no one else had seen that expression in the attitude. Those beautiful grave statues at Charville are able to adapt themselves, with something of the power of the Psalms, to the wants and wishes of those who love them. All around are the great flat corn plains; every thing is made to speak of crops and gains, getting and selling, buying of farms, proving of oxen. But in the midst there rises, like an eternal protest, this glorious Cathedral, with spires always pointing heavenwards, always typifying what man’s life may be amid all the world’s care and turmoil. Life in the world, not of it. Thérèse, who did not recognise this, who perhaps had not lived long enough to search for types and shadows in the things about her, was yet conscious of an increasing delight in wandering round the old Cathedral. She fancied she was losing her props when, after all, she was being trained to hold by those that would never fail her.
Madame Roulleau, in spite of her cleverness, almost endangered her prospects by her treatment of Thérèse just now. Even her covetousness was not so strong as her love of oppression, and her pleasure in humiliating the girl by all possible means. Thérèse was made almost a drudge in the household. Pride prevented her from complaining, but she felt fierce and bitter against her oppressors. She might have appealed to M. Deshoulières, of whom she stood less in awe than before their last conversation, had she seen him, but for a month or two they did not meet. He came two or three times to Rue St. Servan, but Mme. Roulleau held there might be dangers in interviews, and contrived that he should never see Thérèse. As it happened, also, they never encountered one another elsewhere. Every one knows how in a large place you may be months without once crossing the track of your nearest neighbour, and so it was with Thérèse and M. Deshoulières. Had he been resolute, of course he could have effected it without difficulty, but, in truth, he was not decided what to do. Deep in his heart that little vision of Thérèse in his home, loved and cared for, had never stirred from its place. If during the day, with its ceaseless toil and battling, there was a veil drawn across the sweet, homely picture, he suffered his thoughts to dwell upon it with an ever-deepening tenderness when the quiet hours came. What held him back was the dread lest he might take an unfair advantage of the girl’s present loneliness. He knew nothing of all that made it most bitter, of the weariness of her waiting, of the physical hardship of her lot, but he knew from her own words that a sense of her desolation was strong upon her, and he feared lest it might lead her to accept another lot, afterwards to prove more unendurable. He thought hardly of himself, he was so much older, so grave, so occupied, that he dreaded hurrying her into a mistake. He longed to see her, but with the determination which he exercised over longings, he accepted the separation, believing that each day she might become more reconciled to her position, or better acquainted with the depths of her own feelings.
It was a noble, unselfish heart in which the unconscious Thérèse was set as in a little shrine.
Does it make life sadder or brighter to think how much of this unknown treasuring there is in the world around us? People who fancy themselves least cared for sometimes have a wealth of affection poured out upon them, of which they may never dream until the day when every thing is made plain. One does not know whether it is comforting or saddening to recollect this,—comforting, one hopes, because it is very sure that such love cannot be wasted, whether it seems so in our eyes or not.
November came. It was not foggy, but there was a good deal of rain, and the air was damp and chilly. The vines that had been so fresh and blithe through the summer now disconsolately waved their straggling helpless branches to and fro from the little balconies. The great plains, in which lay hid the promise of next year’s abundance, looked brown and dreary without their wealth of golden corn. Thérèse used to escape to her own room when the teaching was over, and shiver there rather than sit with Madame Roulleau in the little ugly room with its great stove filling up one corner. Her walks with Nannon were necessarily fewer and interrupted, owing to the shortening days and the rain, and she suffered for want of them. She grew pale and thin, her step lost its elasticity, her mouth its smile. Was she never to escape from this life, this weary, hateful treadmill? When depression seizes on one point it assails us on all; those cruel words of Fabien’s became much more terrible to her than ever they had seemed before. She was among those he had renounced; what was her love that it should hold him through those years, across unknown distances? And then she would determine that he was dead.
One day—while it was quite early, and Thérèse was working away at the children, with a dreary sense of drudgery, which did them and herself no good—Mme. Roulleau, who had gone to her bedroom to hunt for something in a great press, was startled by her husband coming in upon her with a white scared face.