Thérèse walked back towards the house. The tenants greeted her from a distance, though the children stared at her and said nothing. It was that hour of the evening when the sheep stand scattered under the oak trees, and then rush together into a huddled mass when they hear the shepherd’s cry. Her Aunt was looking out for her on the doorstep, and, as deaf people will, talked incessantly, so as to prevent Thérèse saying anything to her. What was this despair in her heart? She did not want to read; she did not want to do anything, and wandered out of doors once more....
“Don’t go far away,” said the Aunt; “dinner will soon be ready.”
She went back to the edge of the road, there was not a soul in sight, as far as the eye could reach. Some one rang the bell for her at the kitchen door. Perhaps the lamp would have to be lit that evening, she thought. Indeed, this rather haggard-looking girl felt she was living in as deep a silence as her deaf companion, who sat motionless with her hands crossed before her on the table-cloth.
But what would Bernard make of this vague world, Bernard who belonged to the blind and ruthless race of men who know their own minds? As soon as she began, Thérèse thought, he would break in with: “Well, why did you marry me, then? I wasn’t running after you.” It was certainly true that he had shown no signs of impatience. Thérèse remembered that Bernard’s mother, Madame Victor de la Trave, used to unburden herself to the casual visitor somewhat as follows:
“He was quite ready to wait, but she would have him. No, she’s not quite all we could wish, I’m sorry to say: for instance, she smokes far too much,—just a pose, of course. But she’s a good girl and absolutely straightforward: and we shall soon put a few wholesome ideas into her head. Of course, there are disadvantages about the marriage. Yes, her grandmother Bellade,—I know all about it, but that’s all forgotten now, isn’t it? Indeed it wasn’t really a scandal, it was so carefully hushed up. Do you believe in heredity? The father has no religion, of course, but he has always set her an excellent example: a saint in a tweed suit, so it seems. Besides, he’s a most influential person and one needs all the help one can get in these days. There’s always something one has to ignore. And—strange as it may seem—she is richer than we are! And she worships Bernard, which is all to the good.”
It was true,—she had worshipped Bernard: no attitude called for less effort on her part. As they sat in the drawing-room at Argelouse, or lay under the oak trees, she had only to look up at him with eyes that she knew so well how to fill with amorous innocence. Such a victim at his feet flattered the young gentleman but did not surprise him. “Don’t play with her,” his mother would say to him, “she’s eating her heart out.”
“I married him because....”
Thérèse, with bent brows and her hand over her eyes, tried to remember. There was the childish joy of becoming Anne’s sister-in-law. But it was Anne who was especially delighted with the idea: such a bond meant little to Thérèse. There was indeed another motive,—and why should she blush for it? She was far from indifferent to Bernard’s five thousand acres. It was always said of her that “property was in her blood.” At the end of interminable dinners, when the liqueurs were put on the table, Thérèse often stayed behind with the men, absorbed in their talk about tenants, pit props, resin and turpentine. Valuations and estimates roused her to enthusiasm. The lordship over so vast a stretch of forest had certainly dazzled her. Besides, she thought, he, too, had fallen in love with her pines. But perhaps Thérèse had been influenced by a deeper feeling which she now tried to bring to light: in this marriage she had possibly looked less for power and possessions than safety. Surely it was something like panic that had hurried her into it. She had shown the practical instincts of a housewife from her earliest childhood, and she was impatient to occupy her proper place in life and society, once and for all. She wanted to be protected against she knew not what. She had never seemed so sensible as at the time of her betrothal: she was becoming part of the family unit, part of the social scheme: she was entering an Order. She was flying for safety.