My grandfather said to himself that such a complete separation from my father and grandmother would put my brain “out to grass,” as he expressed it, and would do me immense good. He induced grandmother to write to her friend that she would send me at that time to visit my great-aunts.
The prospect did not please me at first. I was so weary, so weak, that I asked only to be allowed to dream, lying in the large drawing-room beside grandmother, who read or embroidered without speaking to me.
My brain was hard at work during my convalescence. It appeared to me that I was making a great journey in life, and that I discovered many new and serious things every day.
I had taken no interest in money affairs until then, except for the purchase of my sugar-plums. But was it not money which had been the cause of the great quarrel on my return from Blérancourt? Was money, therefore, a very great, very important thing? And now, again, I heard it spoken of apropos of these aunts for whom my grandparents cared so little, and of whom they thought so ill.
This money, which had made my mother so cruel to me, was now going to make my grandparents more kind to my great-aunts.
I discussed these questions very naïvely with myself, although my mind was wide awake with regard to other things; but there was never any question of money affairs between my grandfather and grandmother. My grandfather kept his own accounts with his patients; my grandmother took care of her own fortune.
I questioned grandmother about the necessity of my being my aunts’ heiress, asking her why she considered it so important that I should have money.
“It is not for the money itself,” grandmother answered, “that your grandfather and I desire that you should be your aunts’ heiress, but for a certain satisfaction it would give us, and because it would be creditable to them. You know, for I have told you so several times, that my father kept my mother’s dot, and that he was obstinate in making the keeping of it a condition of my marriage. If my half-sisters desire to repair the wrong they have done me, I approve their conduct; if my stepmother, now very old, wishes to die without remorse, I understand it. That is why I desire that you should play a part in this scheme of reconciliation, more worthy of our family than the unworthy machinations of former times. It is not a question of money, but of a triumph for your grandfather and myself, should your aunts make you their heiress. You see, Juliette, there is nothing more noble than to repair one’s wrong by a righteous act. Try to help in bringing it about.”
I had a mission. I was going to aid in the triumph of justice, and in that of my grandparents. I was still very weak, incapable of any great effort, for a fever brought on by growing pains hindered the progress of my convalescence; but the great rôle of ambassadress extraordinary—“something like a diplomatic work of Monsieur de Talleyrand,” said grandfather, not mockingly, but solemnly—that was worth thinking of.
I had, besides, some experience to guide me. How many times had I not reconciled my grandfather and grandmother, as well as my parents at Blérancourt, or all of them together? While still very small, I had often played the part of arbiter. I gave my personal opinion on all matters and in all discussions.