Nêne

Front matter

ANNE DILLON -1922-

THE ] [BRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

Chapter I

THE air was alive and young; the earth steamed. Behind the plough a thousand little vapours rose, individual, separate, feathery; they seemed to be trying to rise high above the earth, as if glad to escape from the weight of the clods. Then they floated down again and settled at last, like drowsy plumes. The slanting breath of the oxen kept ahead of the team and, rising, covered the six animals with a whiter vapour, through which danced whirls of flies.

Wag-tails were fluttering from furrow to furrow; those nearest looking like fussy, coquettish little ladies, the others being nothing more than drifting flakes of mist. You could hardly make them out singly, but you were aware of great crowds of them, all busily hunting for the slow-moving, awkward grubs, bewildered at being turned up to the light of day. At the upper end of the field a magpie stood

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out clear, stiff and self-important as a dapper constable.

Above the mist the golden wonder of the sunlight held sway. The upper mould-board of the heavy plough gleamed bright and the colter, as it caught the glint of the sun, looked like the stubby sword of a dwarf knight, stocky and slow.

Two men were at work in the field; the younger, a lad of seventeen or eighteen, with limbs still loosejointed and enormous hands, was spreading manure. He sang as he worked. The immature voice exploded in heavy gusts of song which, for all that, rang out, so resonant was the air.

The man at the plough did not sing, but like nis companion, he felt the joy of the moment. He had had a Sunday's rest and as he began the week, his implement felt light to his hand. He was tall and straight, with a finely chiseled head and rather long legs. His round hat, stuck on the back of his head, left uncovered his lean, brown, clean-shaven face. His black eyes were quick and roving.

He drove his animals with a skilled hand, without any shouting. Yet, he was breaking in two young bullocks, but he had placed them in the middle of the team and immediately worked them so hard that they were soon under control, panting and submissive. Even at the headland the bullocks meekly followed their leaders. All the ploughman had to do was to quietly lift his plough and turn it

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back, without fear that his team would drag him beyond the starting point of the new furrow.

He had expected to find the soil too dry and so had harnessed three yoke for a deep ploughing. It was well that he had.

He had placed his regulator at the last notch and the sock bit in easily and deeply. The "heel" of the plough left on the headland a trail of fresh earth and the moist clods crumbled and fell apart of themselves in the sun; a light harrowing, and the soil would be ready, as fine as dust.

The eyes of the ploughman twinkled, because all his thought was on his work and it was the sort of work he liked.

As he came within ten paces of the hedge, a voice asked,

"How goes the work?"

"Mighty well," he answered.

"Grand weather!" said the other.

"It's a blessing!"

He eased his plough and stopped the oxen. Between two hazel branches appeared the big blond head of a giant of a man.

"Good morning, Trooper," said the farmer. "It's you ! I didn't know your voice."

"It's me. Hello, Corbier! You have a strong team there, and a fine plough."

"I've no fault to find with them," said the ploughman with a touch of pride. They were silent for a

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moment, smiling at the work done, and their eyes caressed the six shiny, well muscled backs and the new plough lying flat on the earth, like a strong, lean bird.

Then Corbier lifted his Eead and asked,

"What news?"

"Nothing you don't know. I just took my sister to your house. You hired her from to-day, didn't you? You don't mean to say you'd forgotten?"

"Not at all ! Only, I wasn't thinking of you in that connection. It wasn't you I hired; your hands are a bit large for a servant girl's."

The big fellow broke into a slow laugh that showed his white teeth; and the farmer went on:

"You aren't — maybe — stretching out Sunday a little, Trooper?"

The laugh was cut short.

"I'm not one of your town boys. A bit of a spree doesn't drive me to bed, nor upset my work days. And don't you forget it, Corbier!"

"No offence, I hope "

"Oh, not much — I usually work on Monday. But to-day is my day off. I kept out four days in the year like that, for my mother, in my bargain with the boss. One when it's getting on to winter, to 'tend to the firewood; two for the garden; and the fourth for things unforeseen — odd jobs, as you might say."

"I know," said Corbier.

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The other, once started, ran on.

"This morning, I've been digging since dawn. I wasn't playing at it, either — though the soil was easy. I've spaded the whole patch and spaded it deep. There won't be much weeding needed, after me."

Corbier nodded approval and the big fellow continued :

"It was like this. Madeleine came out to where I was in the garden patch and said, 'You come and help me/ so I carried her bundles for her and took her along the road within sight of the Moulinettes. Then I came back by the short cut, because I don't like folks to see me on the highways on working days."

"Right!" said Corbier.

"It was just to please her that I went along with her. Madeleine didn't really need me to help her. I don't want to boast about her, Corbier, but speaking of a woman's strength, there aren't many stronger than her in these parts. Now I'm off. — You've got a fine piece of land there ! — Good-bye !"

As the man disappeared, Corbier righted his plough and started on a new furrow. But he was unable to keep his thoughts on his animals and his work. Instead, they now strayed toward things disturbing and sad. This meeting had stirred him as his plough stirred the soil. A mist settled over his heart, a heavy mist through which the sun did not

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shine and where no birds fluttered. Not that there had ever been between him and that big fellow whom he had called Trooper anything but the ordinary exchange of good will; and as for this Madeleine who was to be his servant now, he hardly knew her.

No, these people had nothing to do with his sorrow; but they brought home to him the burden he had to bear.

A widower at thirty, he found himself alone with a farm to manage and two babies on his hands. Of course, he still had his father with him, but the old man was so often crippled with rheumatism that he was rather a drag than a help. There was no one to lend a hand, little ready money, and no one to run the house.

His worries began eleven months ago: to him it seemed eleven years. At first he had hired an elderly woman to keep house for him. She was very good and gentle with the babies, but untidy and absolutely incapable of running the house. Then came his sister-in-law, efficient enough, but frivolous, hard and, worst of all, obviously and boldly intent on catching him. She had to go, after an unpleasant scene.

Now his father had hired this Madeleine Clarandeau.

Corbier knew the family. The mother, a widow on the threshold of old age, worked out by the day.

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The children, three girls and a boy, were hired by the year on farms round about, and helped her with a little money. The boy was said to be one of the best farm hands, though rather too fond of drink and, when under its influence, a dangerous chap to quarrel with. The girls of the family he knew less about. Least of all the eldest, Madeleine, who had been working away from home, in the Vendee, for several years.

Now this unknown woman was to keep house for him ! A big, strong girl, her brother had said. He hadn't bargained for so much physical strength. Clumsy fingers were not fit to care for Lalie and little Georges. A hulky person, probably, — exuberantly merry and insolently healthy. He had agreed to pay her high wages, too; altogether, he felt irritated over the whole situation.

The young bullocks, no longer feeling his eye on them, suddenly drew wide. He beat them back mercilessly. The young farm hand paused in his work near by, a song on his lips. Corbier yelled at him:

"Use your muscle, damn it! Much good your fiddle-faddle's doing!"

The boy was silent for a moment, then, insolently, began a loud whistling of the same tune and resumed his work, — as leisurely and gawky as ever.

Corbier felt lonely and weak, without the support of human sympathy. Why had Marguerite

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had to die *? He found himself mumbling words that only accentuated the sadness of his mood.

"Marguerite, why did you leave me so soon"? Why did you leave my house for God's house? Why are you no longer on the threshold when I come home from the fields'? . . . Marguerite, your children are neglected by strangers. My eyes find no light in the sunshine, my heart no joy under Heaven."

He had come upon a stiff piece of soil, where the oxen needed urging.

"Come on, Galant! Vermeil! Up, lads!" His voice died away in a quaver. He drew himself up, threw back his head in defiance. "Chatain ! Lamoureux! Up there! Don't let it beat you!" But the words stuck in his throat. Then, beaten, he drew his hat down over his eyes and let the tears flow.

Chapter II

MADELEINE was nearing the Corbier farm known as the "Moulinettes" — the "Little Mills." She had never been there before, but her brother had pointed out the way and besides she could see the new roof of the farmhouse, bright red through the trees. She stopped a moment to look. From a distance the place seemed comfortable and cheerful. Nevertheless she was afraid she might not get to feel at home there. Until now she had been only on large farms where the work was hard but simple and enjoyable. She was given her orders and did as she was told, with no care but to do her task well. She was told to wash, and she washed for twelve hours at a stretch, ate her soup and went to bed. In summer she was told to go harvesting, and she took her sickle and followed the men. It was hard work every day, especially as she had to do her woman's work as well, while the men took their mid-day nap.

But no one had ever told her: "Buy and sell: weigh the butter, give the thread to the weaver." Above all, no one had ever ordered her to take up the baby and change his diapers; to comfort him when he cried; to soothe and chide and cuddle him.

She had never managed anything or any one and whenever children were being discussed in her hearing, she said :

"I don't like them hanging around my skirts; they keep me from doing my work."

When old man Corbier had come to hire her, she had refused, with not a moment's hesitation. But he had insisted, making much of the advantages of the position offered: she'd be, in a way, the mistress of the house, instead of having to obey others; and she'd be only a couple of miles from her mother's. Besides, he himself, whose rheumatic legs kept him so much indoors, would help her in little ways and look after the children. Finally he offered her particularly good wages. So, at last, she gave in, really flattered in her self-esteem as a good and capable woman.

Now that she was drawing near the place, her fears returned. Yet, she walked on briskly. The little creatures in the hedges scattered as she passed ; the lizards, hunting among the primroses and wild pansies, drew back swiftly and silently. The titmice and bulfmches rose from their nests and skipped to the upper branches; the blackbirds flew away suddenly with a great rustle of leaves. But none of the birds went far. She felt that they remained hidden there among the willows and holly bushes, and that they were peering out at her anxiously.

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"What is this stranger up to, with her bundles and her noisy heels?"

But as she went straight on, they grew confident again and picked up the thread of their song.

Madeleine lifted her head to the tree-tops alive with birds, and she thought :

"Birds of my new home, I know you are welcoming me. Thank you, little dears !"

Her blue eyes lighted up her sunburned face.

"Little songsters of Paradise, are you making music for my wedding? Amen! But I am an old maid and I have no lover. . . . What fine little fiddlers you'd make and how gladly everybody would join in the procession behind you !"

A start interrupted her musings.

"Bad luck!"

Before her, ten steps away, a squirrel was calmly crossing the road. It was an evil omen. It took her breath away. She passed on quickly, turning back to look at the little animal that skipped away now with diabolical agility.

She reasoned with herself. Squirrels were plentiful in this country-side, so full of hazel and chestnuts; they must be crossing everybody's path. It was just old-fashioned superstition to be afraid.

She shrugged her shoulders and forced herself to smile. But it seemed to her that the sparrows fell silent, hiding away under the bushes. In the very

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middle of the road a strange shadow was wavering. Madeleine looked up and saw a bird of prey planing high up in the air; and in the sunlight its great russet wings seemed quite black.

Chapter III

THE woman who had come in by the day had gone. Madeleine was alone in the house with the children. Ten o'clock struck. It was time to think of getting dinner. She lighted the fire and hung up the kettle.

The little girl, Lalie, seated in a corner near the table, eyed her curiously.

"What is your name?" asked Madeleine.

"Lalie," answered the little one.

She was about four years old ; a pretty child, with black eyes and curly locks, but dirty and dressed like a little old woman in a tight waist and a wide gathered skirt.

"Will you give me a kiss, Lalie?"

The child began to twist her skirt and looked down, smiling.

"Won't you give me a kiss? You needn't be afraid. Do you like sugar almonds, Lalie?"

Madeleine drew a small paper bag out of her pocket.

"Take it! It's for you."

The child kept on twisting her skirt.

"Take it, Lalie, take it! — Why, dear, here it is, just waiting for you to take ! Come on !"

Lalie burst into sobs.

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"There, now," thought Madeleine. "Isn't she shy, though ! It is because I don't know what to say to her. What can I say to the poor little thing ?"

She emptied out the almonds on the table within reach of the child and turned away puzzled.

Then she went to the cradle. Drawing back the curtain, she saw a little round head, two plump cheeks. This one, surely, was as beautiful as an Infant Jesus. On the coverlet his little hand lay half curled, white on the back and rosy inside.

Madeleine bent over him and with her workhardened finger touched the delicate palm that reminded her of a very fine onion skin. There ! The tiny hand closed tight. And he held on, the little fellow ! He squeezed, he pulled ! — How ever could he squeeze as hard as that"?

Madeleine tried to free her finger, but no use! Well, — there she was, caught; what was she to do*? If she pulled away brusquely, he would wake up.

She waited, schemed, tried to slip away slyly, little by little. Ah, you would, would you? An upheaval under the bed clothes, a kick. The small fist was like a closed trap. You'll stay right here !

Madeleine dared not stir. She waited awhile, feeling very foolish. Her cheeks burned, her legs shook. If anybody should come, he'd ask her what she was doing there, leaning over the cradle. Time passed; was she going to make the men wait for their dinner, the very first day?

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No! . . . The baby waked up and immediately began to cry. She picked him up quickly.

He looked at her for a minute, ran his hands over her unfamiliar face, and then, reassured, began to babble and play. He pinched Madeleine's nose, jabbed at her eyes, pulled her hair. He arched his little body, threw himself forward, and plump! — bumped his head against her, with his baby mouth agape.

Eleven o'clock ! It couldn't be so late !

Quickly Madeleine sat the baby on a folded blanket on the floor and ran to her work.

When Corbier came in with the farm hands, an hour later, he found the two children in a happy mood and the table nicely set.

Madeleine, who was kneeling beside Jo, rose to her feet and stood up straight before the farmer, a little flushed, and astonished to find him so young.

He spoke a few words of welcome to her and sat down at the table. He thought her plain, but straightforward and gentle.

"Maybe," he thought, "this one will lend her arms to my house and her heart to my children."

The mere thought of it comforted him ; and, helping himself to a plateful of soup, he ate it with great relish.

Chapter IV

THEY were of the same race, these two: Michael Corbier and Madeleine Clarandeau: an odd race, living in a little known corner of France.

At the time of the Revolution, when the King was guillotined, all the people hereabout — the Corbiers, the Clarandeaus, the Fantous and the others, — no longer all in the same politico-religious camp now — followed the lead of their beloved priests and rose for the King, in their ignorance and loyalty.

Though victorious in their first forward thrust, they soon came to grips with men of their own mettle. On both sides, under the leadership of gentle-eyed youths or stern-souled veterans, the struggle had been desperate.

To the Royalists' battle-cry or the strains of the Marseillaise, every town and village had been taken, re-taken, sacked and burned. There had been fighting in every sunken lane, in every patch of broom, in every clearing. There was not a parish even now, after more than a century, that did not have its "battle mound," its "grave of the Blue Coats" or its "Calvary of the Chouans."

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In the end the peasants had been crushed. Other governments had come and conciliated the priests, pacified them so far that many of them had accepted the new state of affairs and taken oath of allegiance to the Republic.

Only the most bitter, the least politic among them had kept on the war in their hearts, and their flocks had followed them into their fierce isolation, into their disdainful disregard of threats and excommunications. But little by little these priests had died off and their flocks had been dispersed.

Now, after 120 years, there were few of these rebels, these Dissenters, left, except in the lowlands of the Vendee, where they had gathered in tiny communities— buffeted, crumbling away, but still not submerged by the flood tide of Catholicism.

Saint-Ambroise was the most important, compact and sturdy of these. It boasted 1,500 Dissenters. They had held their own, because they were a crowd living close together, and because they had the backing of the Protestants.

There was another hardy and vigorous sect, these Protestants. They had come from the country around Fontenay, where their ancestors had been among the first to accept Calvin's message. In those far-off days they had been numerous; sometimes a band of ruffians, and then again a meek and humble flock.

They had been ill treated under the kings, and

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the Vendean Royalists had harried them too. They had hidden, scattered; yet here they were again, now hardly more than a thousand strong, settled partly at Saint-Ambroise, partly at Chantepie and Chateau-Blanc.

Now that they were no longer persecuted, they took to bickering among themselves. Eager for knowledge, they discussed the latest ideas and their own beliefs; following and outstripping their most advanced pastors, many of them drifted gradually toward irreligion. Some of them, however, from time to time, impelled by a wave of mysticism, reached toward primitive narrowness, toward anathemas, mortification of the flesh and the minatory texts of the Bible.

It was a strange countryside, with its two rival Protestant churches and its Dissenters' chapel, hemmed in by the arrogant chimes of the Catholic churches. All kinds of ancient traditions clashed here, and, although the years had mellowed many hard feelings, at times hate shot forth again into flame. The manner of speech varied from one household to another, as did the manner of dress, of food and of household arrangements, the games, the songs and amusements of the young. The Dissenters excited the liveliest curiosity; but they felt their souls were apart from the others, and, being afraid they might be laughed at, they kept much to themselves.

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One time some gentlemen had come from town, — perhaps from Paris itself — who had cleverly overcome their reticence. Soon after, they had been written up in a newspaper. Their chapel was described as a big barn of a building, full of tin Saints and plaster Virgins. The writer had spoken not unpleasantly, but without due reverence, of their holy-water basin and their "museum," — two things the Dissenters held very dear. Their holy-water basin was like all those that one sees in the Catholic churches, but with this difference, that it was never emptied. The water had been blessed by their last priest and that had been a long time ago. Since then, every day, a few drops of plain water were added, so that it should remain at the same level.

As for their "museum," it was a collection of little white animals, carved out of meat bones with a pocket knife by an old peasant who was famed for his piety. Granted, they were not as beautiful as the great statues they had in the city churches; still, they had "nothing like them in the churches of Saint Ambroise or Chantepie; and the very people who made fun of them would have been incapable of fashioning anything like them. Anyway, when you are invited into a house and made welcome there, you don't say, on leaving, that the fire smoked and the seats are rickety.

After this experience the chapel was closed to strangers. The Dissenters bent all their energies

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against being swamped by the Catholics. The last of their priests had gone and they scorned new priests as they would scorn traitors; so they conducted their services themselves. Perhaps from pride, or from a dim fear of erring on the wrong side, they accentuated their piety, kept all the Saints' days, doubled their days of fasting, observed Lent inexorably. And thus, forgotten heresies, and even ancient superstitions from the buried past, flourished on this rigid Christian faith as wall-flowers and St. John's wart sprout from the sides of an old wall. The women conducted the prayers, the young girls teaching the catechising. Faith in the healing power of mistletoe was revived and trees and springs were revered again.

The Dissenters rarely married outside their own group. They did not care to win over a Catholic by marriage, as such mixed marriages would only produce religious bastards, ready to betray them. But when one of themselves was baptised in the Catholic church, they mourned for him in their hearts.

It rarely happened that a girl thus renounced her faith, but there were always a number of lovestruck young men who allowed themselves to slip into the Catholic tide which never gave them up again. There had been such conversions in the Corbier family — a proud and rugged clan, in truth, but easily ruled by their passions. In the Clarandeau

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family, such a thing had never yet happened, but there was danger of it now. The son, the big chap who from childhood had been nicknamed Trooper because of his size and strength, was madly in love with a young dressmaker of Chantepie, one of the standard bearers of the "Children of Mary." True, he had promised his mother and Madeleine never to "change himself," but still they were not easy in their minds, knowing men to be weak and easily swayed.

Chapter V

IT was the season when the days are longest. The men rushed from one task to another: the beets had to be planted, the hay taken in, the fields prepared for the winter cabbage. They would never be done with all this in time for the harvest. The oat fields were ripening fast, too fast,-r-fairly roasted by a hot week in June.

For the women, it was the season for looking after the young poultry with particular vigilance; the critical period when the year's first broods of chicks and goslings were making up their minds whether to drop out or grow up. Things must be made ready, too, for the late broods, and the little pigs born in the spring had to be weaned — all of which demanded care and attention. Especially for the cooks was this a dreaded time, preparing four meals a day, four copious meals on account of the hard out-door work, with nothing but a few vegetables and a little salt pork.

Madeleine got up early. On the stroke of three her wooden shoes began to clatter about on the brick floor of the kitchen: click-clack! Time to get up! Quickly she lighted the fire, picked the vegetables, hurried to the pork barrel. Four o'clock: prayers,

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which Madeleine conducted, with old man Corbier giving the responses and the others listening, even the farm hands, one of whom was a Catholic and the other a Protestant.

Half-past four: the table has to be set, the cows milked, the cream separated, the dishes washed — the chicks, the ducklings, the babies — a thousand things !

By nine o'clock at night she was done, sometimes not till ten, when the men were fast asleep.

She knew everything that ought to be done in a house for the comfort of man and beast, but she lacked the experience for proper co-ordination.

Nor was she particularly quick and clever about doing things. For instance, she didn't know how to make the goslings eat from her hand, coax them to swallow their feed prepared of bran and chopped nettles. When showers threatened she ran to the threshing floor to call in her chickens, waving her handkerchief in one hand and her apron in the other :

"Come in out of the rain, little chicks!"

But she went after them too directly and too fast. The chicks gave frightened peeps and scattered around the haystacks; the mother hens puffed out their feathers angrily. Madeleine grew angry, too, and then the rain was on them.

Just then Lalie appeared in the doorway.

"Jo is crying!" Madeleine wouldn't listen.

"Jo is crying, so there ! Lalie didn't hit him !"

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Madeleine thought: "You just wait!" And she said: "Let him cry, it's good for his voice." The little girl went back into the house, but in a minute she reappeared.

"Jo is crying, there's a pin sticking in his tummy." Madeleine came back quickly, abandoning her chickens. She knew well enough that Jo had no pin sticking in his tummy, but this familiar complaint always quite upset her.

One evening, while hurriedly changing the baby, she had pricked him with her clumsy fingers. Not seriously, but enough to draw the smallest bead of blood. The child had uttered a quick cry, quite different from his cries of temper, and Madeleine had started, gasping- — truly shaken to the depths of her being. For nearly an hour she had rocked the little fellow in her arms. Gladly would she have inflicted some torture on herself, in expiation. When night came, she had taken the baby with her to the bed she shared with Lalie, and held him close, close.

"Jo has a pin sticking in his tummy !" Ten times a day, since then, Lalie made cold shivers run down her back.

Already she had begun to love the children. They occupied her thoughts more than anything else. They made more work for her, too. Lalie poked her little fingers into everything, and Jo wanted to fol*

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low her example. He was beginning to walk and took a tumble every few minutes. Being quick tempered, he yelled and stamped his foot all day long.