Part 23
So saying, she adorned her cap and the front of her dress with Huriel's flowers, and took the rest into her room; then, returning, she was about to throw the lilies into the old moat which separated the courtyard from the park, when Huriel, unwilling that such an insult should be offered to his rival, stopped her hand. At this moment the sound of a bagpipe came from the shrubbery which closed the little court in front of us, and some one, who had been near enough to hear every word that had passed, played Père Bastien's air of the "Three Woodsmen."
He played it first as we knew it, next a little differently, in a softer and sadder way, then changing it throughout, varying the keys, adding music of his own, which was not less beautiful, and even seemed to sigh and to entreat in so tender a manner that we who heard it could hardly help being touched with compassion. At last the player took a stronger and louder tone,--as though it were a song of reproach and authority, and Brulette, who had gone to the edge of the moat intending to ding away the lilies, drew back as if terrified by the anger which was expressed in the sounds. Then Joseph, shoving aside the bushes with his feet and shoulders, appeared on the other side of the moat, still piping, his eyes blazing, and seeming, both by his looks and by his music, to threaten Brulette with some great disaster if she did not desist from the insult she was about to offer him.
TWENTY-SEVENTH EVENING.
"Noble music and a fine player," cried Père Bastien, clapping his hands when the sounds ceased. "That is both good and beautiful, Joseph; it is easy to console yourself for everything when you have the ball at your feet in that way. Come over here, and let us compliment you."
"Nothing consoles for an insult, master," replied Joseph; "and for the rest of my days there will be a ditch full of thorns between Brulette and me if she throws my offering into that moat."
"Heaven forbid," cried Brulette, "that I should make such an ill return for the beautiful nosegay. Come over here, José; there need be no thorns between us but those you plant yourself."
Joseph sprang into the courtyard, bursting like a wild boar through the line of thick-set brambles which divided him from the moat, and darting across the green slime which filled the bottom of it; then snatching the flowers from Brulette's hand, he pulled out several, which he tried to fasten on her head beside Huriel's pink and white hawthorn-blossoms. He did it with an air of authority, as though he had a right to exercise his will. But Brulette stopped him, saying:--
"One moment, Joseph; I have an idea of my own, and you must submit to it. You will soon be received into the bagpipers' guild; now God has given me a sense of music, enough to let me understand something of it without ever having learned. I've a fancy to have a competition here, and to reward the one who plays best. Give your bagpipe to Huriel, and let him make his trial just as you have now made yours."
"Yes, yes, I agree to that entirely," cried Joseph, whose face shone with defiance. "It is your turn, Huriel; make the buck-skin warble like the throat of a nightingale, if you can!"
"That was not in our agreement, Joseph," answered Huriel. "You agreed that I should speak, and I have spoken. I agreed to leave music, in which you excel me, to you. Take back your bagpipe, and speak again in your own language; no one here will weary of hearing you."
"As you own yourself vanquished," returned Joseph, "I shall play no more, unless Brulette requests it."
"Play," she said; and while he played in a marvellous way, she wove a garland of white lilies and tied it with the silver ribbon that bound the bunch. When the music ended she went up to Joseph and twisted the wreath about the pipe of his instrument, saying,--
"José, noblest piper, I receive thee into the guild, and give thee the prize. May this wreath bring thee happiness and glory, and prove to thee the high esteem in which I hold thy great talents."
"Yes, that's all very well," said Joseph. "Thank you, my Brulette; now complete my happiness and make me prouder still by wearing one of the flowers you give me. Select the finest and put it next your heart, if you will not wear it on your head."
Brulette smiled and blushed, beautiful as an angel; then she looked at Huriel, who turned pale, thinking it was all over with him.
"Joseph," she answered, "I have granted you the first of all triumphs, that of music. You must be satisfied, and cease to ask for that of love, which is not won by strength or knowledge, but by the will of the good God."
Huriel's face lighted, Joseph's darkened.
"Brulette," he cried, "God's will must be as my will!"
"Gently," she said, "He alone is master; and here is one of his little angels, who must not hear words against our holy religion."
As she spoke she took Charlot, who came bounding after her like a lamb to its mother, into her arms. Thérence, who returned to her room while Joseph was playing, had just taken him up, and the child, without letting himself be dressed, had run out half-naked to kiss his darling, as he called Brulette, with a jealous and masterful air which contrasted amusingly with that of the lovers.
Joseph, who had forgotten his suspicions, concluding he was duped by young Carnat's letter, drew back on seeing Charlot as though the child were a snake; and as he watched him kissing Brulette eagerly and calling her "mamma" and "Charlot's darling," a mist came over his eyes and he well-nigh swooned away; but almost immediately he sprang in a burst of anger toward the child, and clutching him brutally, cried out in a choking voice: "Here's the truth at last! This is the trick that has been played upon me, and the mastery of love that has defeated me!"
Brulette, frightened by Joseph's violence and Charlot's cries, tried to rescue the child; but Joseph, quite beside himself, pulled him away, laughing savagely and saying he wanted to look at him with all his eyes and see the resemblance; so doing he nearly choked the child, without meaning it, to Brulette's horror, and she, not daring to add to the boy's danger by attempting to rescue him, turned back to Huriel, crying,--
"My child, my child! he is killing my poor child!"
Huriel made but one stride; catching Joseph by the nape of the neck, he held him so tightly and firmly that his arms relaxed and I caught Charlot from him and gave the half unconscious child back to Brulette.
Joseph nearly fainted too, as much from the violence of his anger as from the way in which Huriel had handled him. A fight would certainly have followed (and the Head-Woodsman had already flung himself between them) if Joseph had understood what was happening; but he was unable to consider anything except that Brulette was a mother, and that both she and we had deceived him.
"You no longer hide it?" he said to her, in a choking voice.
"What are you saying to me?" asked Brulette, who was sitting on the grass, all in tears, and trying to ease the bruises on Charlot's arms; "you are a wicked madman, I know that. Don't come near me, and never harm this child again or God will curse you."
"One word, Brulette," said Joseph; "if you are his mother, confess it. I will pity and forgive you; in fact, I will even defend you, if necessary. But if you can only deny it by a lie--I shall despise you, and forget you."
"His mother? I, his mother?" cried Brulette, springing up as if to cast off Charlot. "You think I am his mother?" she said again, taking back the poor child, the cause of all the trouble, and pressing him to her heart. Then she looked about her with a bewildered air, and her eyes sought Huriel. "Can it be possible," she cried, "that any one could think such a thing of me?"
"The proof that no one thinks it," cried Huriel, going up to her and kissing Charlot, "is that we love the child whom you love."
"Say something better than that, brother," cried Thérence, eagerly. "Say what you said to me yesterday: 'Whether the child is hers or not, he shall be mine, if she will be mine.'"
Brulette flung both arms round Huriel's neck and hung there like a vine to an oak.
"Be my master, then," she said; "I never had, and I never will have another than you."
Joseph watched this sudden understanding, of which he was the cause, with an anguish and regret that were terrible to see. The cry of truth in Brulette's words had convinced him, and he fancied he had dreamed the wrong he had just done her. He felt that all was over between them, and without a word he picked up his bagpipe and fled away.
Père Bastien ran after him and brought him back, saying:--
"No, no, that is not the way to part after a lifelong friendship. Bring down your pride, Joseph, and ask pardon of this honest girl. She is my daughter, their word is now pledged, and I am glad of it; but she must remain your sister. A woman forgives a brother for what she could never pardon in a lover."
"She may pardon me if she can and if she will," said Joseph; "but if I am guilty, I can receive no absolution but my own. Hate me, Brulette; that may be best for me. I see I have done the one thing that was needed to lose your regard. I can never get it back; but if you pity me, don't tell me so. I ask nothing further of you."
"All this would not have happened," said Brulette, "if you had done your duty, which was to go and see your mother. Go now, Joseph; but, above all, don't tell her what you have accused me of. She would die of grief."
"My dear daughter," said the Head-Woodsman, still detaining Joseph, "I think we do better not to scold children until their minds are quiet. Otherwise, they take things crookedly and do not profit by rebuke. To my thinking Joseph has times of aberration; and if he does not make honorable amends as readily as others do, it is perhaps because he feels his wrong-doing and suffers more from his own self-blame than from the blame of others. Set him an example of good sense and kindness. It is not difficult to forgive when we are happy, and you ought to be content to be loved as you are here. More love you could not have; for I now know things of you which make me hold you in such esteem that here are a pair of hands that will wring the neck of whoever insults you deliberately. But that was not the nature of Joseph's insult, which came from excitement, not reflection, and shame followed so swiftly that his heart is now making you full reparation. Come, Joseph, add your word to mine; I ask no more than that of you; and Brulette too, will be satisfied, will you not, my daughter?"
"You don't know him, father, if you think he will say that word," replied Brulette; "but I won't exact it, because I want, above all things, to satisfy you. And so, Joseph, I forgive you, though you don't care much about that. Stay and breakfast with us, and talk about something else; what has happened is forgotten."
Joseph said not a word, but he took off his hat and laid down his stick as if meaning to stay. The two girls re-entered the house to prepare the meal, and Huriel, who took great care of his horse, began to groom and currycomb him. I looked after Charlot, whom Brulette handed over to my keeping; and the Head-Woodsman, wishing to divert Joseph's mind, talked music, and praised the variations he had given to his song.
"Never speak to me of that song again," said Joseph; "it can only remind me of painful things, and I wish to forget it."
"Well then," said Père Bastien, "play me something of your own composition, here and now, just as the thought comes to you."
Joseph led the way into the park, and we heard him in the distance playing such sad and plaintive airs that his soul seemed really prostrate with contrition and repentance.
"Do you hear him?" I said to Brulette; "that is certainly his way of confessing, and if sorrow is a reparation, he gives you of his best."
"I don't think there is a very tender heart beneath that rough pride of his," replied Brulette. "I feel, just now, like Thérence; a little tenderness is more attractive to me than much talent. But I forgive him; and if my pity is not as great as Joseph wants to make it by his music, it is because I know he has a consolation of which my indifference cannot deprive him,--I mean the admiration which he and others feel for his talents. If Joseph did not care for that more than for love or friendship, his tongue would not now be dumb and his eye dry to the reproof of friendship. He is quite capable of asking for what he wants."
"Well," said the Head-Woodsman, returning alone from the park, "did you hear him, my children? He said all he could and would say, and, satisfied to have drawn tears from my old eyes, he has gone away tranquillized."
"But you could not keep him to breakfast," said Thérence, smiling.
"No," answered her father; "he played too well not to be three parts comforted; and he prefers to go away in that mood, rather than after some folly he might be led into saying or doing at table."
TWENTY-EIGHTH EVENING.
We ate our meal in peace, feeling relieved of the apprehensions of the night before as to the quarrel between Joseph and Huriel: and, as Thérence plainly showed, both in Joseph's presence and in his absence, that she had no feeling, good or ill, about the past, I indulged, as did Huriel and Fere Bastien, in tranquil and joyous thoughts. Charlot, finding that everybody petted him, began to forget the man who had frightened and bruised him. Every now and then he would start and look behind him at some trifling noise, but Thérence laughingly assured him the man was safely gone and would not return. We seemed like a family party, and I thought to myself, while courting Thérence with the utmost deference, that I would make my love less imperious and more patient than Joseph's.
Brulette seemed anxious and overcome, as though cut to the heart by a foul blow. Huriel was uneasy about her, but the Head-Woodsman, who knew the human soul in all its windings, and who was so good that his face and his words poured balm into every wound, took her little hands in his and drew her pretty head to his breast, saying, at the end of the meal:--
"Brulette, we have one thing to ask of you, and though you look so sad and distressed, my son and I will venture to make our request now. Won't you give us a smile of encouragement?"
"Tell me what it is, father, and I will obey you," answered Brulette.
"Well, my daughter, it is that you will present us to-morrow to your grandfather, so that he may be asked to accept Huriel as a grandson."
"Oh, it is too soon, father," cried Brulette, shedding a few more tears, "or rather, it is too late; if you had told me to do so an hour ago, before Joseph uttered those words, I would gladly have consented. But now, I confess, I should be ashamed to accept so readily the love of an honest man, when I find I am no longer supposed to be an honest girl. I knew I had been blamed for coquetry. Your son himself twitted me about it a year ago. Thérence blamed me,--though, for all that, she gave me her friendship. So, seeing that Huriel had the courage to leave me without asking for anything, I made a great many reflections in my own mind. The good God helped me by sending me this child, whom I did not like at first and might possibly have rejected, if my sense of duty had not been mixed with a sort of idea that I should be better worthy of being loved through a little suffering and self-denial than for my chatter and my pretty clothes. I thought I could atone for my thoughtless years and trample my love for my own little person underfoot. I knew that I was criticised and neglected, but I consoled myself with the thought: 'If he comes back to me he will know that I do not deserve to be blamed for getting serious and sensible.' But now I have heard something very different, partly through Joseph's conduct, partly by Thérence's remark. It was not Joseph only who thought I had gone astray, but Huriel also, or his great heart and his strong love would have had no need to say to his sister yesterday: 'Guilty or not guilty, I love her, and will take her as she is.' Ah, Huriel! I thank you; but I will not let you marry me till you know me. I should suffer too much to see you blamed, as you doubtless would be, on my account. I respect you too much to let it be said that you take upon yourself the paternity of a foundling. I must indeed have been light in my behavior, or such an accusation could never have been made against me! Well, I wish you to judge me now by my every-day conduct; I want you to be sure that I am not only a gay dancer at a wedding but the good guardian of my duty in my home. We will come and live here, as you desire it; and in a year from now, if I am not able to prove to you that my care of Charlot need not cause me to blush, I shall at least have given you by my actions a proof that I am reasonable in mind and sound in conscience."
Huriel snatched Brulette from his father's arms, and reverently kissed the tears that were flowing from her beautiful eyes; then he gave her back to Père Bastien, saying:--
"Bless her, my father; for you can now judge if I told you false when I said she was worthy of your blessing. The dear golden tongue has spoken well, and there is no answer to make to it, unless it be that we want neither year nor day of trial, but desire to go this very evening and ask her of her grandfather; for to pass another night still doubtful of his consent is more than I can bear, and to get it is all I need to make me sovereign of the world."
"See what has happened to you by asking for a respite," said Père Bastien to Brulette. "Instead of asking your grandfather to-morrow, it seems it must be to-night. Come, my child, you must submit; it is the punishment of your naughty conduct in times gone by."
Contentment overspread her sweet face, and the hurt she had received from Joseph was forgotten. However, just as we left the table, another hesitation seized her. Charlot, hearing Huriel address the Head-Woodsman as father, called him so himself, and was kissed and fondled for it, but Brulette was a trifle vexed.
"Wouldn't it be best," she said, "to take the trouble to invent parents for the poor child; every time he calls me mother it seems like a stab to those I love."
We were beginning to reassure her on this point when Thérence said: "Speak low; some one is listening to us;" and following her glance toward the porch, we saw the end of a stick resting on the ground, and the bulging side of a full sack, showing that a beggar was there, waiting till some one took notice of him, and hearing things that he ought not to hear.
I went up to the intruder and recognized Brother Nicolas, who came forward at once and admitted without hesitation that he had been listening for the last quarter of an hour, and had been very well pleased with what he had heard.
"I thought I knew Huriel's voice," he said, "but I so little expected to find him on my rounds that I should not have been certain, my dear friends, that it was he, but for some things which you have been saying, in which, as Brulette knows, I have a right to intrude."
"We know it too," said Huriel.
"Do you?" exclaimed the monk. "Well, that's as it should be."
"And the reason is," said Huriel to Brulette, "that your aunt told me everything last night. So you see, dearest, I don't deserve all the credit you give me."
"Yes," said Brulette, much comforted, "but yesterday morning! Well, since everything is known," she added, turning to the monk, "what do you advise me to do, Brother Nicolas? You have been employed on Charlot's account; can't you find some story to spread about to cover the secret of his parentage and repair the harm done to my reputation?"
"Story?" said the friar. "I, advise and abet a lie? I am not one of those who damn their souls for the love of the young girls, my little one. I should gain nothing by it. You must be helped some other way; and I have already been working at it more than you think. Have patience; all will come out right, as it did in another matter, where, as Maître Huriel knows, I have not been a bad friend to him."
"I know that I owe you the peace and safety of my life," said Huriel. "People may say what they like of monks, I know one, at least, for whom I would be drawn and quartered. Sit down, Brother, and spend the day with us. What is ours is yours, and the house we are in is yours too."
Thérence and the Head-Woodsman were showing their hospitality to the good friar, when my aunt Marghitonne came hurrying up, and would not let us stay anywhere but with her. She said the wedding party were going to perform the "cabbage ceremony;" which is an old-fashioned foolery practised the day after the marriage; the procession, she said, was already forming and was coming round our way. The company drank, and sang, and danced at each stopping-place. It was impossible for Thérence now to keep aloof, and she accepted my arm to go and meet the crowd, while Huriel escorted Brulette. My aunt took charge of the little one, and the Head-Woodsman marched off with the monk, who was easily persuaded into joining a jovial company.
The fellow who played the part of gardener, or as we still say among us, the pagan, seated on a hand-barrow, was decorated in a style that astonished everybody. He had picked up near the park a beautiful garland of waterlilies tied with a silver ribbon, which he had bound about his flaxen poll. It didn't take us much time to recognize Joseph's bunch, which he had dropped or thrown away on leaving us. The ribbons were the envy of all the girls of the party, who deliberated how to get possession of them unspoiled; at last, flinging themselves on the pagan, they snatched them away from him and divided the booty, though in defending himself he managed to kiss more than one with a mouth that was covered with foam. So scraps of Joseph's ribbon glittered all day in the caps of the prettiest girls in the neighborhood, and came to a much better end than their owner thought for when he left his bunch in the dust of the road.
This farce, played from door to door through the village, was as crazy as usual, ending with a fine repast and dancing till twilight. After which, we all took leave, Brulette and I, the Head-Woodsman, Thérence, and Huriel, and started for Nohant, with the monk at our head, leading the _clairin_, on which Charlot was perched, tipsy with excitement at what he had seen, laughing like a monkey, and trying to sing as he had heard others do all that day.
Though the young people of the present age have degenerated wofully, you must often have seen girls in their teens tramping fifteen miles in the morning and as much more in the evening in the hottest weather, for a day's dancing, and so you can easily believe that we arrived at home without fatigue. Indeed, we danced part of the way along the road, we four; the Head-Woodsman playing his bagpipe, and the friar declaring we were crazy, but clapping his hands to excite us on.
We reached Brulette's door about ten at night, and found Père Brulet sound asleep in his bed. As he was quite deaf and slept hard, Brulette put the baby to bed, served us a little collation, and consulted with us whether to wake him before he had finished his first nap. However, turning over on his side, he saw the light, recognized his granddaughter and me, seemed surprised at the others, and sitting up in bed as sober as a judge, listened to a statement the Head-Woodsman made to him in a few words, spoken rather loud but very civilly. The monk, in whom Père Brulet had the utmost confidence, followed in praise of the Huriel family, and Huriel himself declared his wishes and all his good intentions both present and to come.