"What is it? What is the matter?" he asked, in a voice which trembled in spite of his efforts to make it sound calm.
The baron, who had been so violent just before, dared say nothing after the cure"s argument, in case his son-in-law should quote his own example; the baroness only wept more bitterly than before, and Jeanne raised herself on her hands and looked steadily at this man who was causing her so much sorrow. Her breath came and went quickly, but she managed to answer:
"The matter is that we know all about your shameful conduct ever since--ever since the day you first came here; we know that--that--Rosalie"s child is yours--like--like mine, and that they will be--brothers."
Her grief became so poignant at this thought that she hid herself under the bedclothes and sobbed bitterly. Julien stood open-mouthed, not knowing what to say or do. The cure again interposed.
"Come, come, my dear young lady," he said, "you mustn"t give way like that. See now, be reasonable."
He rose, went to the bedside, and laid his cool hand on this despairing woman"s forehead. His simple touch seemed to soothe her wonderfully; she felt calmer at once, as if the large hand of this country priest, accustomed to gestures of absolution and sympathy, had borne with it some strange, peace-giving power.
"Madame, we must always forgive," said the good-natured priest. "You are borne down by a great grief, but G.o.d, in His mercy, has also sent you a great joy, since He has permitted you to have hopes of becoming a mother. This child will console you for all your trouble and it is in its name that I implore, that I adjure, you to forgive M. Julien. It will be a fresh tie between you, a pledge of your husband"s future fidelity. Can you steel your heart against the father of your unborn child?"
Too weak to feel either anger or resentment, and only conscious of a crushed, aching, exhausted sensation, she made no answer. Her nerves were thoroughly unstrung, and she clung to life but by a very slender thread.
The baroness, to whom resentment seemed utterly impossible and whose mind was simply incapable of bearing any prolonged strain, said in a low tone:
"Come, Jeanne!"
The cure drew Julien close to the bed and placed his hand in his wife"s, giving it a little tap as if to make the union more complete. Then, dropping his professional pulpit tone, he said, with a satisfied air:
"There! that"s done. Believe me, it is better so."
The two hands, united thus for an instant, loosed their clasp directly.
Julien, not daring to embrace Jeanne, kissed his mother-in-law, then turned on his heel, took the baron (who, in his heart, was not sorry that everything had finished so quietly) by the arm, and drew him from the room to go and smoke a cigar.
Then the tired invalid went to sleep and the baroness and the priest began to chat in low tones. The abbe talked of what had just occurred and proceeded to explain his ideas on the subject, while the baroness a.s.sented to everything he said with a nod.
"Very well, then, it"s understood," he said, in conclusion. "You give the girl the farm at Barville and I will undertake to find her a good, honest husband. Oh, you may be sure that with twenty thousand francs we shall not want candidates for her hand. We shall have an _embarras de choix_."
The baroness was smiling happily now, though two tears still lingered on her cheeks.
"Barville is worth twenty thousand francs, at the very least," she said; "and you understand that it is to be settled on the child though the parents will have it as long as they live."
Then the cure shook hands with the baroness, and rose to go.
"Don"t get up, Madame la baronne, don"t get up," he exclaimed. "I know the value of a step too well myself."
As he went out he met Aunt Lison coming to see her patient. She did not notice that anything extraordinary had happened. No one had told her anything, and, as usual, she had not the slightest idea of what was going on.
VIII
Rosalie had left the house and the time of Jeanne"s confinement was drawing near. The sorrow she had gone through had taken away all pleasure from the thought of becoming a mother, and she waited for the child"s birth without any impatience or curiosity, her mind entirely filled with her presentiment of coming evils.
Spring was close at hand. The bare trees still trembled in the cold wind, but, in the damp ditches, the yellow primroses were already blossoming among the decaying autumn leaves. The rain-soaked fields, the farm-yards and the commons exhaled a damp odor, as of fermenting liquor, and little green leaves peeped out of the brown earth and glistened in the sun.
A big, strongly-built woman had been engaged in Rosalie"s place, and she now supported the baroness in her dreary walks along the avenue, where the track made by her foot was always damp and muddy.
Jeanne, low-spirited and in constant pain, leant on her father"s arm when she went out, while on her other side walked Aunt Lison, holding her niece"s hand, and thinking nervously, of this mysterious suffering that she would never know. They would all three walk for hours without speaking a word, and, while they were out, Julien went all over the country on horseback, for he had suddenly become very fond of riding.
The baron, his wife, and the vicomte, paid a visit to the Fourvilles (whom Julien seemed to know very well, though no one at the chateau knew exactly how the acquaintance had begun), and another duty call was paid to the Brisevilles, and those two visits were the only break in their dull, monotonous life.
One afternoon, about four o"clock, two people on horseback trotted up to the chateau. Julien rushed into his wife"s room in great excitement:
"Make haste and go down," he exclaimed. "Here are the Fourvilles. They have come simply to make a neighborly call as they know the condition you are in. Say I am out but that I shall be in soon. I am just going to change my coat."
Jeanne went downstairs and found in the drawing-room a gigantic man with big, red moustaches, and a pale, pretty woman with a sad-looking face, sentimental eyes and hair of a dead gold that looked as if the sun had never caressed it. When the fair-haired woman had introduced the big man as her husband, she said:
"M. de Lamare, whom we have met several times, has told us how unwell you are, so we thought we would not put off coming to see you any longer. You see we have come on horseback, so you must look upon this simply as a neighborly call; besides, I have already had the pleasure of receiving a visit from your mother and the baron."
She spoke easily in a refined, familiar way, and Jeanne fell in love with her at once. "In her I might, indeed, find a friend," she thought.
The Comte de Fourville, unlike his wife, seemed as much out of place in a drawing-room as a bull in a china shop. When he sat down he put his hat on a chair close by him, and then the problem of what he should do with his hands presented itself to him. First he rested them on his knees, then on the arms of his chair, and finally joined them as if in prayer.
Julien came in so changed in appearance that Jeanne stared at him in mute surprise. He had shaved himself and looked as handsome and charming as when he was wooing her. His hair, just now so coa.r.s.e and dull, had been brushed and sprinkled with perfumed oil till it had recovered its soft shining waves, and his large eyes, which seemed made to express nothing but love, had their old winning look in them. He made himself as amiable and fascinating as he had been before his marriage. He pressed the hairy paw of the comte, who seemed much relieved by his presence, and kissed the hand of the comtesse, whose ivory cheek became just tinged with pink.
When the Fourvilles were going away the comtesse said:
"Will you come for a ride on Thursday, vicomte?" And as Julien bowed and replied, "I shall be very pleased, madame," she turned and took Jeanne"s hand, saying to her, affectionately:
"When you are well again we must all three go for long rides together.
We could make such delightful excursions if you would."
Then she gracefully caught up the skirt of her riding-habit and sprang into the saddle as lightly as a bird, and her husband, after awkwardly raising his hat, leapt on his huge horse, feeling and looking at his ease as soon as he was mounted.
"What charming people!" cried Julien, as soon as they were out of sight.
"We may, indeed, think ourselves lucky to have made their acquaintance."
"The little comtesse is delightful," answered Jeanne, feeling pleased herself though she hardly knew why. "I am sure I shall like her; but the husband seems a bear. How did you get to know them?"
"I met them one day at the Brisevilles," he replied, rubbing his hands together cheerfully. "The husband certainly is a little rough, but he is a true gentleman. He is pa.s.sionately fond of shooting."
Nothing else happened until the end of July. Then, one Tuesday evening, as they were all sitting under the plane-tree beside a little table, on which stood two liqueur gla.s.ses and a decanter of brandy, Jeanne suddenly turned very white and put both her hands to her side with a cry. A sharp pain had shot through her and at once died away. In about ten minutes came another one, hardly so severe but of longer duration than the first. Her father and husband almost carried her indoors, for the short distance between the plane-tree and her room seemed miles to her; she could not stifle her moans, and, overpowered by an intolerable sense of heaviness and weight, she implored them to let her sit down and rest.
The child was not expected until September but, in case of accident, a horse was harnessed and old Simon galloped off after the doctor. He came about midnight and at once recognized the signs of a premature confinement. The actual pain had a little diminished, but Jeanne felt an awful deathly faintness, and she thought she was going to die, for Death is sometimes so close that his icy breath can almost be felt.
The room was full of people. The baroness lay back in an armchair gasping for breath; the baron ran hither and thither, bringing all manner of things and completely losing his head; Julien walked up and down looking very troubled, but really feeling quite calm, and the Widow Dentu, whom nothing could surprise or startle, stood at the foot of the bed with an expression suited to the occasion on her face.
Nurse, mid-wife and watcher of the dead, equally ready to welcome the new-born infant, to receive its first cry, to immerse it in its first bath and to wrap it in its first covering, or to hear the last word, the last death-rattle, the last moan of the dying, to clothe them in their last garment, to sponge their wasted bodies, to draw the sheet about their still faces, the Widow Dentu had become utterly indifferent to any of the chances accompanying a birth or a death.
Every now and then Jeanne gave a low moan. For two hours it seemed as if the child would not be born yet, after all; but about daybreak the pains recommenced and soon became almost intolerable. As the involuntary cries of anguish burst through her clenched teeth, Jeanne thought of Rosalie who had hardly even moaned, and whose b.a.s.t.a.r.d child had been born without any of the torture such as she was suffering. In her wretched, troubled mind she drew comparisons between her maid and herself, and she cursed G.o.d Whom, until now, she had believed just. She thought in angry astonishment of how fate favors the wicked, and of the unpardonable lies of those who hold forth inducements to be upright and good.
Sometimes the agony was so great that she could think of nothing else, her suffering absorbing all her strength, her reason, her consciousness.
In the intervals of relief her eyes were fixed on Julien, and then she was filled with a mental anguish as she thought of the day her maid had fallen at the foot of this very bed with her new-born child--the brother of the infant that was now causing her such terrible pain. She remembered perfectly every gesture, every look, every word of her husband as he stood beside the maid, and now she could see in his movements the same _ennui_, the same indifference for her suffering as he had felt for Rosalie"s; it was the selfish carelessness of a man whom the idea of paternity irritates.
She was seized by an excruciating pain, a spasm so agonizing that she thought, "I am going to die! I am dying!" And her soul was filled with a furious hatred; she felt she must curse this man who was the cause of all her agony, and this child which was killing her. She strained every muscle in a supreme effort to rid herself of this awful burden, and then it felt as if her whole inside were pouring away from her, and her suffering suddenly became less.