The Bagpipers

by George Sand

We turned back and sat down near Charlot, Thérence asking, with that grand, simple manner of hers, whether he was mine. "Not unless I have been married a long time," I answered, "which is not so."

"True," she said, looking closely at the child, "he is already a little man; but you might have been married before you came to us."

Then she added, laughing, that she knew little about the growth of babies, never seeing any in the woods where she always lived, and where few parents ever reared their children. "You will find me as much of a savage as ever," she continued, "but a good deal less irritable, and I hope my dear Brulette will have no cause to complain of my ill-temper."

"I do think," said Brulette, "that you seem gayer, and better in health,—and so much handsomer that it dazzles my eyes to look at you."

The same thought had struck my mind on seeing Thérence. She had laid in a stock of health and fresh clear color in her cheeks which made her another woman. If her eyes were still too deep sunken, the black brows no longer lowered over them and hid their fire; and though her smile was still proud, there was a charming gayety in it at times, which made her teeth gleam like dewdrops on a flower. The pallor of fever had left her face, which the May sun had rather burned during her journey, though it had made the roses bloom; and there was something, I scarcely know what, so youthful, so strong, so valiant in her face, that my heart jumped with an idea that came to me, heaven knows how, as I looked to see if the velvety black mark at the corner of her mouth was still in the same place.

"Friends," she said, wiping her beautiful hair, which curled naturally and which the heat had glued to her forehead, "as we have a little time to talk before my brother joins us, I want to tell you my story, without any false shame or pretences; for several other stories hang upon it. Only, before I begin, tell me, Brulette, if Tiennet, whom you used to think so much of, is, as I think he is, still the same, so that I can take up the conversation where we left it—a year ago come next harvest."

"Yes, dear Thérence, that you may," answered my cousin, pleased at her friend's tone.

"Well, then, Tiennet," continued Thérence, with a valiant sincerity all her own, which made the difference between her and the reserved and timid Brulette, "I reveal nothing you did not know in telling you that before your visit to us last year I attached myself to a poor fellow, sick and sad in mind and body, very much as a mother is attached to her child. I did not then know he loved another girl, and he, seeing my regard for him, which I did not hide, had not the courage to tell me it was not returned. Why Joseph—for I can name him, and you see, dear friends, that I don't change color in doing so—why Joseph, whom I had so often entreated to tell me the causes of his grief, should have sworn to me it was nothing more than a longing for his mother and his own country, I do not know. He must have thought me base, and he did me great injustice; for, had he told me the truth, I myself would have gone to fetch Brulette without a murmur, and without making the great mistake of forming a low opinion of her which I did, and which I now confess, and ask her to pardon."

"You did that long ago, Thérence, and there is nothing to pardon where friendship is."

"Yes, dear," replied Thérence, "but the wrong which you forget, I remember, and I would have given the world to repair it by taking good care of Joseph, and showing him friendship and good-nature after you left us. Remember, friends, that I had never said or done a false thing; so that in my childhood, my father, who is a good judge, used to call me Thérence the Sincere. When I last saw you, on the banks of your own Indre, half-way to your village, I spoke privately with Joseph for a moment, begging him to return to us and promising there should be no change in my interest and care for his health and well-being. Why, then, did he disbelieve me in his heart; and why, promising with his lips to return (a lie of which I was not the dupe),—why did he contemptuously leave me forever, as though I were a shameless girl who would torment him with love-sick folly?"