“Hurry up! We’ll talk — about that some other time.”
Honore’s misgivings were not groundless. Adelaide, who was busy in the garden, observed the girl’s approach with a malicious satisfaction. She finished filling her basket with beans, taking her time over it, and then went into the yard. Marguerite came towards her with a demure smile of greeting.
“I thought I’d call, Adelaide. I can see you’re well.”
Adelaide stood contemplating the dress and the flowered apron with an exaggerated air of admiration.
“How pretty you are, my dear! You must have found a good job in Paris.”
Marguerite, still smiling and with no sign of embarrassment, turned on her heels so that the dress might be fully seen and said:
“I think you know the business I’ve come about.”
Adelaide knew perfectly, but hoping to disconcert her said:
“Business? What business? Do tell me.”
“I’m meeting M. Valtier here to-morrow afternoon. But perhaps I shouldn’t have told you, if Honore has said nothing.”
“Oh, of course, the Deputy has sent for you! It had quite slipped my mind. Well, you’ve only got to come and wait for him in the dining-room, and if he feels like amusing himself Alexis can spread some clean straw in the cowshed. We wouldn’t want to stop you earning your living, as I’m sure you realise.”
Marguerite flushed, still struggling for self-control, but her anger was too much for her.
“That’s very kind of you, Adelaide, but I’m not asking you to lend us your bed!”
The conversation then warmed up. By the time Juliette arrived her mother was exhorting Marguerite to make the most of her silks and satins while she had them, because she would certainly end in the gutter where she belonged, and Marguerite was saying that when it came to risking ending up in the gutter or living one’s whole life on top of the midden until one came to look like part of it she was quite ready to take her chance. Juliette interposed herself between the two women, kissed Marguerite and said tranquilly:
“I think I arrived just in time. You’d have been quarrelling in another minute!”
“It was partly my fault,” said Marguerite, who had recovered her self-possession. “Perhaps I didn’t explain properly.”
A meaningful look from her daughter gave Adelaide the strength to proceed with more diplomacy.
“This is a bad place to be talking anyway, with the sun so hot. . ”
“Yes,” said Juliette. “Come indoors for a minute, Marguerite.”
“I’ll leave you, then,” said Adelaide. “You’d better go into the dining-room. The fire’s been going under the copper all the morning, and it’s nearly as hot in the kitchen as it is out here.”
Zephe’s daughter gazed with a respectful interest round the dining-room, where no member of the Maloret family had ever before penetrated. While she explained the purpose of her visit she was admiring the sideboard, the round table, the carved chairs and the gilt clock, with no thought of comparison between these and the elegant furniture Valtier had bought her. Pointing to the two portraits hanging over the chimney-piece she said:
“They’re famous men, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” said Juliette. “The one on the right is Jules Grevy, and the one on the left is Gambetta.”
“And where’s the picture of the Green Mare?”
“It used to be between them, but now it’s at Saint-Margelon, in Uncle Ferdinand’s apartment. If you’d like to see a photograph.
Juliette got out the album, and laying it on the table turned over the pages. Marguerite caught sight of the picture of a sharpshooter in a flat cap, leaning in a dashing attitude on his rifle.
“Isn’t that Honore?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see. He was good-looking, wasn’t he? He hasn’t changed much.”
“And yet that was taken over fifteen years ago. But it’s true — he hasn’t changed much.”
Marguerite was sorry she had not come an hour earlier, she would have enjoyed lingering over the pages of the album. She wandered round the room, determined to miss nothing, and said as she paused in front of the chimney-piece:
“The clock’s stopped.”
Juliette glanced at it, her heart beating a little faster at the thought of the letter. Marguerite touched the glass cover wih her finger-tips, itching to wind the clock up but not liking to say so.
“And so,” said Juliette, “Monsieur Valtier will be here at half-past one to-morrow?”
“No, at three. He’s not likely to be earlier. He’s coming from Saint-Margelon after lunch with your uncle.”
“All the same, it is half-past one,” said Juliette, flushing slightly. “Uncle Ferdinand said so in the letter we had yesterday. If you like I’ll come and fetch you at one o’clock.”
Marguerite smiled and put her arm round Juliette’s waist.
“It’ll be the first time you’ve ever come to fetch me. When we went to school I used to wait for you at the end of our lane, and if you’d gone on you used to leave a stone at the foot of the first apple-tree. You were never the one who waited!”
Her voice was soft and Juliette allowed herself to be drawn against the flowered apron, entrapped, as she met the gaze of the smiling eyes, into a momentary tenderness.
“Sometimes we’d come back from school by ourselves,” murmured Marguerite, “and we’d go along the path between the hedges, do you remember. .?”
Her cheek touched Juliette, and with an abrupt movement she raised her arms to lay them round the girl’s neck. Juliette, scarlet-cheeked, was on the verge of yielding; but then she pushed her back, holding her at the full extent of her brown arms.
“It’s nearly twelve. You’ll be late home.”
Marguerite, her eyelids fluttering, sought to blink back the tears that had dismayingly arisen. She murmured: “Well, then, you’ll come to fetch me. At least you’ll have a chance of seeing Noel. Are you in love with him?” Juliette let her arms fall and made as if to turn away. “You can tell me,” said Marguerite. “You are in love with him, aren’t you?”
“Are you in love with Valtier?”
Marguerite laughed.
“Oh, me — that’s quite different! You know what I am, and just now your mother made no bones about saying it!” Picking up her skirts she displayed the open-work stockings, the lace-trimmed drawers, laughed on a higher note and said:
“You needn’t think I’m grumbling!”
Juliette and her mother were watching her vanish round the corner of the road when Honore entered the yard.
Alexis was helping Gustave and Clotilde to drive the cows into the cowshed. Juliette, with calculation, gave her father an account of Marguerite’s visit.
“I’ve never known a girl so barefaced!” commented Adelaide. “You should have heard the high-and-mighty way she talked to me, lording it over us all! The truth is, they think they can do just what they like, now they’ve got that letter of Ferdinand’s.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t know about it,” said Honore. “It wouldn’t be like Zephe to have told her, he’s too cautious.” “Well, I think she does know! You’ve only got to ask Juliette the way she talked to me.”
“Of course she knows,” said Juliette. “And the proof is that she asked me what I was going to do about Noel as though she were giving me orders. It’s no good pretending. They’ve got the letter, and they’re making use of it!” Honore tugged furiously at his moustache, uttering dark threats. Clotilde and her brothers had drawn near and were following the conversation with a passionate interest.
“They’re taking advantage now Ernest isn’t here,” said Alexis treacherously. “Now there’s no one to get back on them.”
His father gave him a look so menacing that it caused him to retreat, but Clotilde said calmly: