Frederic where I found him just now! I found him in the Messelons’ garden lying on a pile of grass with his arm round Marguerite Maloret’s neck!”
Ferdinand undid his collar in haste and murmured feebly:
“He shall copy out the whole of the Bucolics—the whole lot and go without everything!.
Then, with a voice suddenly restored by tribulation and wrath he cried:
“Wretched boy! The mistress of you-know-who!. . He kissed her—his mistress — he put his arms round her neck! When I think of all I have done for him, the sacrifices, the long hours of work-”
Honore, who was driving, reined in the horse in order to undertake Frederic’s defence.
“You’re making a lot of fuss about next to nothing. If all he did was to kiss her-”
“But how do we know he only kissed her? Frederic, you’re to give me your word of honour that you — that— well, anyway, you’re to give me your word of honour!” Frederic swore by his patron saint and upon the heads of his brothers and sisters and by the first-communion medal hanging round Lucienne’s neck that he had done no more than kiss her. Ferdinand was somewhat reassured.
“I hope you realise,” he said to Honore, “how tiresome this might be. As it happens, M. Valtier is coming to Claquebue on Thursday. And while I think of it, I have a favour to ask you. He wrote to me to say that he wants to see the girl.”
“Well, I’m not going to stop him.”
“No, but he can hardly visit her at her parents’ house. It might be misunderstood, and in any case he wouldn’t be able to — to talk to her as freely as he might wish. He asked me if he might meet her at your house.”
“What!” exclaimed Honore. “My house isn’t a-”
“No one need know. I would bring him in the gig at three o’clock on Thursday, and Juliette could go and fetch Marguerite, just as she might call on any girl to take her for a walk.”
“I should love to,” said Juliette softly. “We all have to help one another, don’t we?”
She was nudging her father to get him to agree, but Honore would not give way so easily.
“Why the devil can’t they go and mess about in the woods?”
“It may be raining,” said Ferdinand.
“Well, they can take umbrellas, can’t they? Anyway, that’s their look-out. I must say, this is a fine job you’re doing now!”
“Honore, you’re torturing me!. .You know how helpful Valtier can be to the children, and especially to Frederic.”
Honore amused himself by making a great show of reluctance, before finally, at the instance of his daughter, he agreed to play host to the Deputy’s amours. Juliette glanced in malicious triumph at her pretty-faced cousin, consumed with jealousy for the fortunate Valtier.
“You mustn’t punish poor Frederic,” she said gently. “He’s suffering quite enough already.”
“He shall copy out the whole of the Bucolicssaid Ferdinand firmly. “The boy has got to learn decent behaviour. On that point I am inflexible!”
Thirteen
Seeing that the time was half-past six, Adelaide went to wake Gustave and Clotilde, scolding them for their laziness as she made them jump out of bed. As if they couldn’t get up by themselves! As if she hadn’t enough to do, without having to be fussing over two great big children! While she scolded, Gustave pretended to whistle derisively, this being part of the game.
“Mummy, Gustave’s whistling!” said Clotilde.
“You wait till I catch him! He’s going to get such a smack!”
It was only at this hour that she could spare time to play with the children. She ran after Gustave, and holding Clotilde’s hand made a barrier to prevent him escaping through the door; and when he was caught they pretended to spank him and pull his ears. In the old days she had carried them into the kitchen, one on each arm, but now she said she could no longer manage it. They had grown so much that she couldn’t do it any more. She would have dearly loved to be still able to carry them, and even complained a little because they were so big (they really were big for their age). It would be the same with these as with the others. She had carried them as long as she could, until in the end they had grown too heavy for her. But since these were the last, and more likely than not there would be no more at her age, she still carried one, the one that seemed most to want to be carried, or else taking them in turn. And sometimes she still carried them both.
“You’re going to have breakfast and then you’re going off to watch over the cows. They’re your job now that Alexis has started to work with his father. We’re trusting them to you because we know you’re sensible children, and not naughty and silly like some.”
When breakfast was over Adelaide untied the cows and stood watching the children’s departure with the herd. The dog ran to and fro, maintaining order and heading them in the right direction, and its presence afforded her some reassurance. She was never quite easy in her mind at the thought of them, still so small, left to their own devices in the meadows and down by the river.
“Don’t have anything to do with Tintin Maloret. If he tries to talk to you keep close to Prosper iMesselon.”
“All right, Mummy.”
She called her last word to Gustave when they were almost out of earshot.
“Don’t forget you’re the biggest!”
She went back into the kitchen thinking that, since she had a little time to spare, she would clean out the diningroom. She set to work with a sudden anger at the thought that to-morrow the Deputy, Valtier, would be using the room for his assignation with Marguerite Maloret. After dusting the furniture she took the glass cover off the clock and polished its gilt with a rag, and saw as she did so that dust had somehow crept under the cover onto the pedestal. Someone must have removed the cover and then not put it back properly. She pushed her duster beneath the feet of the clock, into the gap between it and the pedestal, and brought it out with Ferdinand’s letter. Her first thought was that it must be a love-letter hidden there by Juliette or even by Alexis. With a little tremor of lighthearted inquisitiveness, she opened it and read aloud: “My dear Honore, — The black horse was taken with colic at the beginning of the week. . ”
She read with some difficulty, being little accustomed to reading, and was slow to grasp the meaning of what she read. It took her more than twenty minutes to get to the end. When at length she had done so she felt none of the relief which a sudden change in the situation as between the Haudouins and the Malorets might have been expected to afford her.
“After all, Honore is right,” she reflected, sighing a little. “He must deal with that affair. I don’t want to know what is going on.”
She slipped the letter back under the clock, gave a last touch to the figures of Agriculture and Industry, and replaced the cover, taking care to set it properly in its groove.
Zephe’s daughter, wearing a blue dress and a flowered apron, emerged from the woods an hour before midday, and Honore, who was working in the fields with Juliette and Alexis, watched her with interest. Walking with a light and airy step she went diagonally across the Champ-Brule, jumped the ditch and came out onto the road opposite the Haudouins’ house. Honore said to Juliette:
“It looks as though she was calling on us.”
“To arrange about meeting the Deputy, I suppose.”
“Well, you’d better go back. I don’t know how your mother will treat her. When one has arranged to receive people in one’s house one has to be civil to them. So try to be polite.”
“I’d do it for my own sake,” said Juliette. “I’m probably going to be her sister-in-law someday.”