Madame Alphonse"s mother was called Madame Deslois, but when the ploughmen talked about her they always said "the good woman of the castle." She had only been to Villevieille once. She had come close up to me and looked at me with her eyes half shut. She was a big woman who walked bent double as if she were looking for something on the ground. She lived in a big house called the Lost Ford.
Madame Alphonse took me along by a path near a little river. It was the end of March, and the meadows were already in flower. Madame Alphonse walked straight along the path, but I got a lot of pleasure out of walking in the soft gra.s.s.
We soon came to the wood where the wolf had taken my lamb. I had always had a mysterious fear of this wood, and when we left the path by the river to go through it I shook with fear. And yet the road was a broad one. It must even have been a carriage road, for there were deep ruts in it.
Above our heads heaps of pine needles tickled one another and rustled.
They made a gentle noise, not a bit like the whispering, with silences in between, which I used to hear in the forest when the snow was on it.
But in spite of all I could not help looking behind me. We didn"t walk very far through the wood. The road turned to the left and we got to the courtyard of the Lost Ford immediately. The little river ran behind the stables as it did at Villevieille, but here the meadows were quite close together, and the buildings looked as though they were trying to hide among the sapling pines. The living house didn"t look anything like the farms thereabouts. The ground floor was built of very thick old walls, and the first floor looked as though it had been put on top of them as a makeshift. The house did not look a bit like a castle to me. It made me think of an old tree trunk out of which a baby tree had sprouted, and sprouted badly.
Madame Deslois came to the door when she heard us arrive. She winked her little eyes as she looked at me and said at once in a loud voice that she had dropped a halfpenny in the straw, and that it was very funny that n.o.body had found it, as it had been lost for a week. While she spoke she moved her foot about and stirred the straw which was in front of the door. Madame Alphonse cannot have heard her. Her big eyes were staring into the house, and she was almost excited when she said why we had come. Madame Deslois said that she would take me to the linen-room herself. She put the keys into the locks of the cupboards, and after having told me to be very careful, and to disarrange nothing, she left me alone.
It didn"t take me long to open and close the great shining cupboards.
I should have liked to go away at once. This big cold linen-room frightened me like a prison. My feet sounded on the tiles as though there were deep vaults underneath them. All of a sudden it seemed to me that I should never get out of this linen-room again. I listened to see whether I could hear any animals stirring, but I only heard Madame Deslois" voice. It was a rough, strong voice which went right through the walls, and could be heard everywhere. I was going to the window so as to feel a little less lonely, when a door which I had not noticed suddenly opened behind me. I turned round and saw a young man come in.
He wore a long white smock and a grey cap. He stood standing as though he were surprised to see anybody there, and I went on looking at him without being able to take my eyes away. He walked right across the linen-room, and he and I stared and stared at one another. Then he went out, banging himself against the woodwork of the door. A moment afterwards he pa.s.sed by the window and our eyes met again. I felt quite uncomfortable, and without knowing why, I went and shut the doors which he had left open.
Presently Madame Alphonse came and fetched me, and I went back to Villevieille with her.
Since M. Alphonse had taken Pauline"s place I had got into the habit of going and sitting in a bush which had grown into the shape of a chair.
It was in the middle of a shrubbery not far from the farm. Now that spring was beginning I used to go and sit there when the ploughmen were smoking their pipes at the stable doors. I used to sit there listening to the little noises of the evening, and I longed to be like the trees.
That evening I thought of the man I had seen at Lost Ford. But every time I tried to remember the exact colour of his eyes they pierced into my own eyes so that they seemed to be lighting me all up inside.
The next Sunday was Easter Sunday. Adele had gone to ma.s.s in M.
Alphonse"s cart. I remained alone, with one of the ploughmen, to look after the farm. After luncheon the ploughman went to sleep on a heap of straw in front of the door, and I went to my shrubbery to spend the afternoon. I tried to hear the bells ringing, but the farm was too far from the villages round, and I could hear none of them.
I began to think about Sister Marie-Aimee, and my thoughts went back to Sophie, who used to come and wake me up every year so that I should hear all the bells ringing in Easter together. One year she didn"t wake up. She was so upset at that, that next year she put a big stone in her mouth to keep herself from sleeping. Every time she nodded off her teeth met on the stone, and she woke up.
I sat and thought about High Ma.s.s where Colette used to sing in her beautiful voice, and I could see our afternoon on the lawn, and Sister Marie-Aimee busy with the special dinner which they gave us on feast days. And that evening when dinner-time came I should see, instead of sister Marie-Aimee"s sweet loving face, Madame Alphonse"s hard face and her husband"s glittering eyes, which frightened me so. And as I sat and thought how long I should still have to stay on the farm I felt deeply discouraged.
When I was tired of crying I saw with astonishment that the sun was quite low. Through the branches of my shrubbery I watched the long thin shadows of the poplar trees growing longer than ever on the gra.s.s, and quite close to me I saw a long shadow which was moving. It came forward, then stopped, and then came forward again. I understood at once that somebody was going to pa.s.s my hiding-place, and almost immediately the man in the white smock walked into the shrubbery, stooping to get out of the way of the branches. I felt cold all over.
I soon got control of myself, but I could not help trembling nervously.
He remained standing in front of me without saying a word. I sat and looked at his eyes, which were very gentle, and I began to feel warm again. I noticed that, as Eugene used to, he wore a coloured shirt and a cravat tied under the collar, and when he spoke it seemed to me that I had known his voice for a long time. He leaned against a big branch opposite me, and asked me if I had no relations. I said "No." His eye ran along the branch covered with young shoots, and without looking at me he said again, "Then you are all alone in the world." I answered quickly, "Oh no, I have Sister Marie-Aimee!" And without leaving him time to ask any more questions I told him how I had longed for her, and how impatiently I was waiting and hoping to see her again. Talking about her made me so happy that I could not stop talking. I told him of her beauty and of her intelligence, which seemed to me to be above everything in the world. I told him, too, how sorry she had been when I went away, and of the joy that I knew she would feel when she saw me come back.
While I talked his eyes were fixed on my face, but they seemed to look much further. After a silence he asked again, "Have you no friends here?" "No," I said; "all those whom I loved have gone;" and I added rather angrily, "They have even turned out Jean le Rouge." "And yet,"
he said, "Madame Alphonse is not unkind?" I told him that she was neither unkind, nor kind, and that I should leave her without any regret.
Then we heard the sound of M. Alphonse"s cart-wheels, and I got up to go. He stood aside a little to let me pa.s.s him, and I left him alone in the shrubbery.
That evening I took advantage of the unusually good humour of Adele to ask her if she knew any of the ploughmen at the Lost Ford. She said she only knew some of the old ones, for since Madame Deslois had been a widow the new ones never stayed with her. A sort of fear which I could not have explained kept me from mentioning the young man in the white smock, and Adele added with a wag of her chin: "Fortunately her eldest son has come back from Paris. The farm hands will be happier."
Next day, while Madame Alphonse was working at her lace, I sewed and thought about the ploughman in the white smock. I could not in my mind help comparing him to Eugene. He spoke like Eugene did, and they seemed like one another somehow.
That evening I thought I saw him near the stables, and a moment later he came into the linen-room. His eyes just glanced at me and then he looked straight at Madame Alphonse. He held his head high and the left side of his mouth drooped a little. Madame Alphonse said, in a happy voice, when she saw him, "Why, there"s Henri!" and she let him kiss her on both cheeks, and told him to bring a chair up next to her. But he sat sideways on the table, pushing the linen to one side. Adele came into the room, and Madame Alphonse said, "If you see my husband, tell him that my brother is here."
It was some minutes before I understood. Then I realized suddenly that the young man in the white smock was Madame Deslois"s eldest son. A sense of shame which I had never felt before made me blush fiercely, and I was ever so sorry that I had spoken about Sister Marie-Aimee. I felt that I had thrown the thing that I loved best to the winds, and do what I could, I could not keep back two big tears which tickled the corners of my mouth and then fell on the linen napkin I was hemming.
Henri Deslois remained sitting on the corner of the table for a long time. I could feel that he was looking at me, and his eyes were like a heavy weight which prevented me from lifting up my head.
Two days afterwards I found him in the shrubbery. When I saw him sitting there my legs felt weak under me, and I stood still. He got up at once so that I should sit down; but I remained standing and looking at him. He had the same gentleness in his eyes that I had noticed the first time, and, as if he expected me to tell him another story, "Have you nothing to tell me this evening?" he asked. Words danced across my brain, but they did not seem to be worth speaking, and I shook my head to say no. He said, "I was your friend the other day." Recollection of what I had said the other day made me feel worse than ever, and I only said, "You are Madame Alphonse"s brother." I left him and did not dare to go back to the shrubbery again. He often came back to Villevieille. I never used to look at him, but his voice always made me feel very uncomfortable.
Since Jean le Rouge had gone I had never known what to do with my time after ma.s.s. Every Sunday I used to pa.s.s the house on the hill.
Sometimes I would look in through the gaps in the shutters, and when, as I sometimes did, I b.u.mped my head, the noise it made used to frighten me. One Sunday I noticed that there was no lock on the door.
I put my finger on the latch and the door fell open with a loud noise.
I had not expected it to open so quickly, and I stood there longing to shut it and go away. Then as there was no more noise, and as the sun had streamed into the house making a big square of light, I made up my mind to go in, and went in, leaving the door open. The big fireplace was empty. There was no hook, there was no pot, and the big andirons had gone. The only things left in the room were the logs of wood which Jean le Rouge"s children used to use as stools. The bark was worn off them, and the tops of them were polished, as if with wax, from the children sitting on them.
The second room was quite empty. There were no tiles on the floor, and the feet of the beds had made little holes in the beaten earth. There was no lock to the other door either, and I went out into the garden.
There were a few winter vegetables in the beds still, and the fruit trees were all in flower. Most of them were very old. Some of them looked like hunchbacks, and their branches bent towards the ground, as though they found that even the flowers were too heavy for them to carry. At the bottom of the garden the hill ran down to an immense plain where the cattle used to graze, and right at the end a row of poplars made a sort of barrier which kept the sky out of the meadow land. Little by little I recognized one place after another. There was a little river at the bottom of the hill. I could not see the water, but the willows looked as though they were standing on one side to let it pa.s.s. The river disappeared behind the buildings of Villevieille farm. There the roofs were of the same colour as the chestnut trees, and the river went on on the other side of them. Here and there I could see it shining between the poplar trees. Then it plunged into the great pine wood, which looked quite black, in which the Lost Ford was hidden. That was the road I had taken with Madame Alphonse, when we went to her mother"s house. Her brother must have come that way that day when he found me in the shrubbery. There was n.o.body on the road today. Everything was tender green, and I could see no white smock among the clumps of trees. I tried to see the shrubbery but the farm hid it. Henri Deslois had been in the shrubbery several times since Easter. I could not have told how I knew that he was there, but on those days I could never prevent myself from walking round that way.
Yesterday Henri Deslois had come into the linen-room while I was there alone. He had opened his mouth as though he were going to talk to me.
I had looked at him as I had done the first time, and he went away without saying anything. And now that I was in the open garden surrounded by broom in flower I longed to be able to live there always.
There was a big apple tree leaning over me, dipping the end of its branches in the spring. The spring came out of the hollow trunk of a tree, and the overflow trickled in little brooks over the beds. This garden of flowers and clear water seemed to me to be the most beautiful garden in the world. And when I turned my head towards the house, which stood open to the sunshine, I seemed to expect extraordinary people to come out of it. The house seemed full of mystery to me.
Queer little sounds came out of it, and a few moments ago I thought that I had heard the same sound that Henri Deslois"s feet made when he stepped into the linen-room at Villevieille.
I had been listening as though I expected to see him coming, but I had not heard his footstep again, and presently I noticed that the broom and the trees were making all kinds of mysterious sounds. I began to imagine that I was a little tree, and that the wind stirred me as it liked. The same fresh breeze which made the broom rock pa.s.sed over my head and tangled my hair, and so as to do like the other trees did I stooped down and dipped my fingers in the clear waters of the spring.
Another sound made me look at the house again, and I was not in the least surprised when I saw Henri Deslois standing framed in the doorway. His head was bare, and his arms were swinging. He stepped out into the garden and looked far off into the plain. His hair was parted on the side, and was a little thin at the temples. He remained perfectly still for a long minute, then he turned to me. There were only two trees between us. He took a step forward, took hold of the young tree in front of him with one hand, and the branches in flower made a bouquet over his head. It grew so light that I thought the bark of the trees was glittering, and every flower was shining. And in Henri Deslois"s eyes there was so deep a gentleness that I went to him without any shame. He didn"t move when I stopped in front of him. His face became whiter than his smock, and his lips quivered. He took my two hands and pressed them hard against his temples. Then he said very low, "I am like a miser who has found his treasure again." At that moment the bell of Sainte Montagne Church began to ring. The sound of the bell ran up the hillsides, and after resting over our heads for a moment ran on and died away in the distance.
The hours pa.s.sed, the day grew older, and the cattle disappeared from the plain. A white mist rose from the little river, then a stone slipped behind the barrier of poplar trees, and the broom flowers began to grow darker. Henri Deslois went back towards the farm with me. He walked in front of me on the narrow path, and when he left me just before we came to the avenue of chestnut trees I knew that I loved him even more than Sister Marie-Aimee.
The house on the hill became our house. Every Sunday I found Henri Deslois waiting there, and as I used to do when Jean le Rouge lived there, I took my blessed bread to the house on the hill after ma.s.s and we used to laugh as we divided it.
We both had the same kind of feeling of liberty which made us run races round the garden and wet our shoes in the brooklets from the spring.
Henri Deslois used to say, "On Sundays I, too, am seventeen years old."
Sometimes we would go for long walks in the woods which skirted the hill. Henri Deslois was never tired of hearing me talk about my childhood, and Sister Marie-Aimee. Sometimes we talked about Eugene, whom he knew. He used to say that he was one of those men whom one liked to have for a friend. I told him what a bad shepherdess I had been, and although I felt sure he would laugh at me, I told him the story of the sheep which was all swollen up. He didn"t laugh. He put a finger on my forehead and said, "Love is the only thing that will cure that."
One day we stopped near an immense field of corn. It was so big that we could not see the end of it. Thousands of white b.u.t.terflies were floating about over the corn ears. Henri Deslois didn"t speak, and I watched the ears of corn which were stooping and stretching as though they were getting ready to fly. It looked as though the b.u.t.terflies were bringing them wings to help them, but it was no good for the corn ears to get excited. They could not get away from the ground. I told my idea to Henri Deslois, who looked at the corn for a long time, and then, as though he were speaking to himself, and dragging the words out, he said, "It is much the same kind of thing with a man. Sometimes a woman comes to him. She looks like the white b.u.t.terflies of the plain. He doesn"t know whether she comes up from the earth or whether she comes down from the sky. He feels that with her he could live on the wind which pa.s.ses, and the fresh young flowers. But like the root which holds the corn to earth a mysterious bond holds him to his duty, which is as strong as the earth." I thought that his voice had an accent of suffering, and that the corners of his mouth drooped more than usual. But almost immediately his eyes looked into mine, and he said in a stronger voice, "We must have confidence in ourselves."
Summer pa.s.sed and the autumn, and in spite of the bad weather of December we could not make up our minds to leave the house on the hill.
Henri Deslois used to bring books with him which we would read, sitting on the logs of wood in the back room which looked into the garden. I went back to the farm at nightfall, and Adele, who thought I was spending my time dancing in the village, was always surprised that I looked so sad.
Almost every day Henri Deslois came to Villevieille. I could hear him from a long way off. He rode a great white mare which trotted heavily, and he rode her without saddle or bridle. She was a patient and a gentle brute. Her master used to let her run loose in the yard while he went in to say "good day," to Madame Alphonse. As soon as M.
Alphonse heard him he would come into the linen-room. The two of them would speak of improvements on the farm or about people whom they knew.
But there was always a word or a sentence in their conversation which came straight to me from Henri Deslois. I often used to catch M.