Chapter IX

THE waif never told Madeleine what Sévère had given him to understand; he would not have dared, and indeed dared not even think of it himself. I cannot say that I should have behaved as discreetly as he in such an adventure; but a little discretion never does any harm, and then I am telling things as they happened. This boy was as refined as a well-brought-up girl.

As Madame Sévère thought over the matter at night, she became incensed against him, and perceived that he had scorned her and was not the fool she had taken him for. Chafing at this thought, her spleen rose, and great projects of revenge passed through her head.

So much so that when Cadet Blanchet, still half drunk, returned to her next morning, she gave him to understand that his mill-boy was a little upstart, whom she had been obliged to hold in check and cuff in the face, because he had taken it into his head to make love to her and kiss her as they came home together through the wood at night.

This was more than enough to disorder Blanchet's wits; but she was not yet satisfied, and jeered at him for leaving at home with his wife a fellow who would be inclined by his age and character to beguile the dullness of her life.

In the twinkling of an eye, Blanchet was jealous both of his mistress and his wife. He seized his heavy stick, pulled his hat down over his eyes, like an extinguisher on a candle, and rushed off to the mill, without stopping for breath.

Fortunately, the waif was not there. He had gone away to fell and saw up a tree that Blanchet had bought from Blanchard of Guérin, and was not to return till evening. Blanchet would have gone to find him at his work, but he shrank from showing his fury before the young millers of Guérin, lest they should make sport of him for his jealousy, which was unreasonable after his long neglect and contempt of his wife.

He would have stayed to wait for his return, but he thought it too wearisome to stay all day at home, and he knew that the quarrel which he wished to pick with his wife could not last long enough to occupy him till evening. It is impossible to be angry very long when the ill-temper is all on one side.

In spite of this, however, he could have endured all the derision and the tedium for the pleasure of belaboring the poor waif; but as his walk had cooled him to some degree, he reflected that this cursed waif was no longer a child, and that if he were old enough to think of making love, he was also old enough to defend himself with blows, if provoked. So he tried to gather his wits together, drinking glass after glass in silence, revolving in his brain what he was going to say to his wife, but did not know how to begin.

He had said roughly, on entering, that he wished her to listen to something; so she sat near him, as usual sad, silent, and with a tinge of pride in her manner.

"Madame Blanchet," said he at last, "I have a command to give you, but if you were the woman you pretend to be, and that you have the reputation of being, you would not wait to be told."

There he halted as if to take breath, but the fact is that he was almost ashamed of what he was going to say, for virtue was written on his wife's face as plainly as a prayer in a missal.

Madeleine would not help him to explain himself. She did not breathe a word, but waited for him to go on, expecting him to find fault with her for some expenditure, for she had no suspicion of what he was meditating.

"You behave as if you did not understand me, Madame Blanchet," continued the miller, "and yet my meaning is clear. You must throw that rubbish out of doors, the sooner the better, for I have had enough and too much of all this sort of thing."

"Throw what?" asked Madeleine, in amazement.

"Throw what! Then you do not dare to say throw _whom_?"

"Good God! no; I know nothing about it," said she. "Speak, if you want me to understand you."

"You will make me lose my temper," cried Cadet Blanchet, bellowing like a bull. "I tell you that waif is not wanted in my house, and if he is still here by to-morrow morning, I shall turn him out of doors by main force, unless he prefer to take a turn under my mill-wheel."

"Your words are cruel, and your purpose is very foolish, Master Blanchet," said Madeleine, who could not help turning as white as her cap. "You will ruin your business if you send the boy away; for you will never find another who will work so well, and be satisfied with such small wages. What has the poor child done to make you want to drive him away so cruelly?"

"He makes a fool of me, I tell you, Madame Wife, and I do not intend to be the laughing-stock of the country. He has made himself master of my house, and deserves to be paid with a cudgel for what he has done."

It was some time before Madeleine could understand what her husband meant. She had not the slightest conception of it, and brought forward all the reasons she could think of to appease him and prevent his persisting in his caprice.

It was all labor lost, for he only grew the more furious; and when he saw how grieved she was to lose her good servant François, he had a fresh access of jealousy, and spoke so brutally that his meaning dawned on her at last, and she began to cry from mortification, injured pride, and bitter sorrow.

This did not mend matters; Blanchet swore that she was in love with this bundle of goods from the asylum, that he blushed for her, and that if she did not turn the waif out of doors without delay, he would kill him and grind him to powder.

Thereupon she answered more haughtily than was her wont, that he had the right to send away whom he chose from his house, but not to wound and insult his faithful wife, and that she would complain to God and all the saints of Heaven of his cruel and intolerable injustice. Thus, in spite of herself, she came gradually to reproach him with his evil behavior, and confronted him with the plain feet that if a man is dissatisfied with his own cap, he tries to throw his neighbor's into the mud.

It went from bad to worse, and when Blanchet finally perceived that he was in the wrong, anger was his only resource. He threatened to shut Madeleine's mouth with a blow, and would have done so, if Jeannie had not heard the noise and come running in between them, without understanding what the matter was, but quite pale and discomfited by so much wrangling. When Blanchet ordered him away, the child cried, and his father took occasion to say that he was ill-brought-up, a cry-baby, and a coward, and that his mother would never be able to make anything out of him. Then Blanchet plucked up courage, and rose, brandishing his stick, and swearing that he would kill the waif.

When Madeleine saw that he was mad with passion, she threw herself boldly in front of him, and he, disconcerted and taken by surprise, allowed her her way. She snatched his stick out of his hands and threw it far off into the river, and then, standing her ground, she said:

"You shall not ruin yourself by obeying this wicked impulse. Reflect that calamity is swift to follow a man who loses his self-control, and if you have no feeling for others, think of yourself and the probable consequences of a single bad action. For a long time you have been guiding your life amiss, my husband, and now you are hastening faster and faster along a dangerous road. I shall prevent you, at least for to-day, from committing a worse crime, which would bring its punishment both in this world and the next. You shall not kill; return to where you came from, rather than persevere in trying to revenge yourself for an affront which was not offered. Go away; I command you to do so in your own interest, and this is the first time in my life that I have ever commanded you to do anything. You will obey me, because you will see that I still observe the deference I owe you. I swear to you on my word and honor that the waif shall not be here to-morrow, and that you may come back without any fear of meeting him."

Having said this, Madeleine opened the door of the house for her husband, and Cadet Blanchet, baffled by the novelty of her manner, and pleased in the main to receive her submission without danger to his person, clapped his hat upon his head, and without another word, returned to Sévère. He did not fail to boast to her and to others that he had administered a sound thrashing to his wife and to the waif; but as this was not true, Sévère's pleasure evaporated in smoke.

When Madeleine Blanchet was alone again, she sent Jeannie to drive the sheep and the goat to pasture, and went off to a little lonely nook beside the mill-dam, where the earth was much eaten away by the force of the current, and the place so crowded with a fresh growth of branches above the old tree-stumps that you could not see two steps away from you. She was in the habit of going there to pray, for nobody could interrupt her, and she could be as entirely concealed behind the tall weeds as a water-hen in its nest of green leaves.

As soon as she reached there, she sank on her knees to seek in prayer the relief she so needed. But though she hoped this would bring great comfort, she could think of nothing but the poor waif, who was to be sent sway, and who loved her so that he would die of grief. So nothing came to her lips, except that she was most unhappy to lose her only support and separate herself from the child of her heart. Then she cried so long and so bitterly that she was suffocated, and, falling full length along the grass, lay unconscious for more than an hour, and it is a miracle that she ever came to herself.

At nightfall she made an effort to collect her powers; and when she heard Jeannie come home singing with the flock, she rose with difficulty and set about preparing supper. Shortly afterward, she heard the noise of the return of the oxen, who were drawing home the oak-tree that Blanchet had bought, and Jeannie ran joyfully to meet his friend François, whose presence he had missed all day. Poor little Jeannie had been grieved for a moment by his father's cruel behaviour to his dear mother, and he had run off to cry in the fields, without knowing what the quarrel could be. But a child's sorrow lasts no longer than the dew of the morning, and he had already forgotten his trouble. He took François by the hand, and skipping as gaily as a little partridge, brought him to Madeleine.

There was no need for the waif to look twice to see that her eyes were reddened and her face blanched.

"Good God," thought he, "some misfortune has happened." Then he turned pale too, and trembled, fixing his eyes on Madeleine, and expecting her to speak to him. She made him sit down, and set his meal before him in silence, but he could not swallow a mouthful. Jeannie eat and prattled on by himself; he felt no uneasiness, for his mother kissed him from time to time and encouraged him to make a good supper.

When he had gone to bed, and the servant was putting the room in order, Madeleine went out, and beckoned François to follow her. She walked through the meadow as far as the fountain, and then calling all her courage to her aid, she said:

"My child, misfortune has fallen upon you and me, and God strikes us both a heavy blow. You see how much I suffer, and out of love for me, try to strengthen your own heart, for if you do not uphold me, I cannot tell what will become of me."

François guessed nothing, although he at once supposed that the trouble came from Monsieur Blanchet.

"What are you saying?" said he to Madeleine, kissing her hands as if she were his mother. "How can you think that I shall not have courage to comfort and sustain you? Am not I your servant for as long as I have to stay upon the earth? Am not I your child, who will work for you, and is now strong enough to keep you from want. Leave Monsieur Blanchet alone, let him squander his money, since it is his choice. I shall feed and clothe both you and our Jeannie. If I must leave you for a time, I shall go and hire myself out, though not far from here, so that I can see you every day, and come and spend Sundays with you. I am strong enough now to work and earn all the money you need. You are so careful and live on so little. Now you will not be able to deny yourself so many things for others, and you will be the better for it. Come, Madame Blanchet, my dear mother, calm yourself and do not cry, or I think I shall die of grief."

When Madeleine saw that he had not understood, and that she must tell him everything, she commended her soul to God, and made up her mind to inflict this great pain upon him.