She thanked him with a knowing wink; then for the first time seemed to be aware of the presence of Mathurin, who was looking at her with an air of mingled pa.s.sion and grief.

A look of pity and embarra.s.sment, not altogether feigned, came into her face as she said:

"You understand, Mathurin, what I say to one I say to all in your house.... If it were not too fatiguing for you?... I was glad to see you at ma.s.s again this morning ... it shows that you are feeling better...."

The cripple, only able to express himself clearly when he had time to think over his words, stammered out:

"Thank you, Felicite ... you are very kind, Felicite," and he uttered her name with a kind of adoration that seemed to touch two or three of the conscripts, stupefied as they were.

"What was your regiment, Mathurin?" asked the standard-bearer.

"The third Cuira.s.siers."

"Bugler, a _fanfare_ of the Cuira.s.siers in honour of Mathurin Lumineau! Forward, march!"

The three girls, the bugler, the standard-bearer, and the five young men bringing up the rear, left the shade of the elms, and went on their way towards Quatre-Moulins, raising clouds of dust crossed by the slanting rays of the sun. The _fanfare_ shook the walls of the old farmhouse.

When the last lace coif had disappeared among the furze-bushes and willows that bordered the road, Mathurin said to his brother, who had taken up the paper again and was absently reading:

"Would you believe it, Driot, this is the first time for six years that she has been here!"

Andre replied, too abruptly:

"She did for you once, old man. Better take care that she does not do it a second time."

With muttered words of anger Mathurin Lumineau picked up his crutches, and moving away to a little distance, leant up against a tree. The two brothers spoke no more to each other; both were absently gazing out over the marshland, where the daylight was dying away. The sun was rapidly sinking in the lowland, only a red crescent broken by shadows remained of the fiery globe, against which some dark object in the horizon, a willow, or a group of rushes, stood out like a crown of thorns. It faded away; a fresh breeze rose on the hills; the sounds of the bugle and of voices were no longer heard. Profound silence was over the country, here and there in the grey distance was the glimmer of a fire. Peace had returned; sorrows, one by one, were ending in sleep or in prayer.

Old Lumineau coming back from the town saw his two sons standing motionless among the trees wrapt in contemplation of the quiet scene, and not knowing their thoughts, said brightly:

"A fine sight, our Marais, eh, boys? Now let us go in together; supper will be waiting." Then as, in the darkness, Andre came first, he added:

"How glad I am to have you home again from the regiment, my Driot!"

CHAPTER X.

THE UPROOTED VINEYARD.

Winter had come. La Fromentiere seemed peaceful and happy. Anyone going over the fields and watching the men at work, would have had no fear for the future of the farmstead. The new farm-hand did not excite himself, as Toussaint Lumineau said, that is to say, he worked his fourteen hours a day regularly, without uttering fourteen words. As for Andre, he was the joy and pride of his father, who, on his part, did not spare himself. Good labourer, good sower, an early riser, careful of the animals and of everything else that came to his hand, the young man seemed to prove that he had found his vocation, and was determined to remain a farmer all his life.

And yet at the bottom of his affectionate, restless heart, there was a growing sore. Andre could not accustom himself to Francois' absence.

He missed the friend of his young life, the companion without whom La Fromentiere had never presented itself to his mind.

The week after his return home, Andre had gone to see Francois and Eleonore at La Roche-sur-Yon. He had found them settled in a house in the outskirts, already somewhat discontented: one inveighing against the hardness of his employers; the other that customers did not come; without any regrets, however, for what they had done, and quite decided as to the advantages of living in a town, and being their own masters. He had gone back without the least wish to follow their example--more severe even than before against the renegades from the old home life; but possessed of a fixed idea, he sought Francois in everything. La Fromentiere that knew Francois no longer was to him empty and void. It became a thing of which he could not shake himself free; a suffering of which he never spoke, but that everyone unwittingly renewed.

The farmer, whose anger had abated, more particularly since he knew that the position of his two absent children at La Roche was none too brilliant, began voluntarily to speak of Francois as if to secretly encourage the others to remember him, and to do their best to bring him home again. It would be: "To-day we will sow La Cailleterie, where Francois ploughed the first two furrows," or, "let us have some chestnuts roasted in the embers to-night, Rousille, Francois used to like them." He thought to do well by so speaking, to re-unite, as it were, in some degree those whom misfortune had parted. And Rousille did the same. Still oftener did everyday objects speak of, and recall the absent one. Now it was a fork he had been wont to use; a basket woven by him; the rope twisted round a rafter of the stables by a hand no longer there; or even a nook or corner of a road or field to which some memory clung; the stump of a tree; a furze-bush; in fact, the whole Marais, where for years two boys of almost the same age, brothers inseparable, had driven the cows, jumped d.y.k.es, and gone birds'-nesting together.

Poor Francois, lazy, spendthrift, pleasure-loving as he was in reality, legendary virtues were already gathering round him at La Fromentiere. His place in the diminished family was reserved to him with tender, affectionate regret, a regret that even magnified what had been his place there. Andre, disheartened, and disappointed in the joy of home coming, had not the same love for the new La Fromentiere that he had had for the old one. It was all so changed! He had known it bright with the noise and bustle of a large, united family under the control of a man who, despite his years, was cheery and vigorous, and with more willing hands than were needed to get through the day's work--a home as pa.s.sionately loved and defended as any nest from which the fledgelings have not yet flown. He found it unrecognisable. Two had gone, leaving the house desolate, the old father inconsolable, the work too heavy for those left behind. Rousille was wearing herself out. Andre saw clearly that he alone would not suffice to keep La Fromentiere in a state of good cultivation, certainly not to improve it, as he had so often meditated through the hot, sleepless nights in Africa, thinking of the elm-trees at home. For this two strong young pair of arms were needed, without counting the help of a farm-servant: Francois should have been there with Andre! He struggled against the discouragement that oppressed him, for he was a brave lad. Every morning he went out into the fields with the determination to work so hard that there should be no room for thought; and he worked and ploughed, sowed seed or dug ditches, planted apple-trees with all zest and energy, not taking a moment's rest. But the recollection of Francois followed him everywhere; in everything he saw the decline of the farmstead. Working alone made the days long; longer still were they in the company of the new farm-hand, who went about his work stolidly, interested neither in the projects nor regrets of the farmer's son.

In the evening when Andre returned from work in whom should he confide, or who was there to comfort him? His mother was dead; his father had need of all his own hope and buoyancy of spirit that he might not break down himself; Mathurin was so uncertain and so soured that pity might well go out to him, but not real brotherly love. There remained Rousille, possibly. But Rousille was seventeen when Andre had left home, and he continued to treat her as a child, and told her nothing. Besides she was scarcely ever to be seen, poor girl, always on the run and hurried. The house was dull, and the young man felt it the more that regimental life, hard enough in all conscience, was yet full of go and movement.

Weeks went by, and there was no break in the sadness. Weary of being thus thrown upon himself, little by little Andre suffered his thoughts to go out from the mournful surroundings amid which he, in vain, tried to recognise the home of his youth. Like all peasants of the coast, he was one of those taciturn labourers who look over the sand-hills towards the sea, and who dream dreams when the wind blows. Sad and dejected he fell back upon the fatal knowledge he had acquired in absence: that life was possible in other places than at La Fromentiere on the borders of the Marais of La Vendee.

The temptation grew stronger. Two months after having re-taken possession of the room that the two brothers had formerly shared together, one night, when the other inmates of the farm were sound asleep, Andre began a letter to a comrade in the foreign legion, whom he had known in Africa. "I find it too dull here. My brother and sister have left home. If you happen to know of any good investment in land in Algiers, or elsewhere, let me know. I have not come to any decision, but I am thinking of going away. I am, as it were, alone here." And answers soon came. To the great astonishment of Toussaint Lumineau the postman began bringing pamphlets, papers, and prospectuses to La Fromentiere, over which Andre did not make merry as did Rousille and Mathurin. Laughingly his father, who had no suspicion of Andre, said:

"There has never been such a supply of paper at La Fromentiere, Driot, as in the few weeks since you have been home. I don't grudge it you, reading is such a hobby of yours! As for me, I should be tired to death with all the printed stuff."

Only on Sundays the old father suffered a little from his son's pa.s.sion for reading and writing. On that day after vespers it was his habit to bring back some old friend, either Le Glorieux de la Terre-Aymont, or Pipet de la Pinconniere to pay a visit of inspection round the farm fields. Up hill and down dale they would go in single file, examining everything, expressing approval or disapproval by uplifted eye or shrug of the shoulder, exchanging an occasional word that had always the same object: the harvest, present or future, good or indifferent, threatened or gathered in. In this winter season it was the fields, the young wheat, and patches of lucerne that were under consideration; and Toussaint Lumineau, who had not succeeded in getting Andre to accompany them, would confide to his neighbour of La Terre-Aymont, or La Pinconniere as they stopped where the slanting rays of the sun fell on the corner of a field:

"My son Andre is quite different from anyone I have ever known, and not a bit like we used to be. Not that he despises the land, on the contrary, he loves it, and I have no fault to find with his work all the week. But since he came home from the regiment, his one idea on Sunday is reading."

Rousille, too, was sometimes surprised. She had too much to do indoors to occupy herself with the work or amus.e.m.e.nts of the others. Busy with housekeeping, and the thousand and one duties of the farmyard, she never saw Andre save at meal-times, and in presence of the others. At those times, whether by an effort of will, or that youth obtained the mastery over depression, Andre was usually in gay and careless spirits, bantering Rousille and trying to make her laugh. But as a woman and one who had suffered, Rousille had learned to discern the sorrows of others; and from many a little sign, eyes fixed on the upper window, words dropped that might bear some other meaning, her loving heart had divined that Andre was not altogether happy; without knowing more, she felt sorry for him. But even she was far from guessing the crisis through which her brother was pa.s.sing, or the project he was meditating.

One solitary member of the family had penetrated the designs of Andre, and that was Mathurin. He had observed his brother's increasing sadness; the useless efforts he was making to regain his former equability of temper; his calm fort.i.tude in daily labour. Sometimes he would follow him into the fields, then watch for the arrival of the postman and take charge of the letters and papers addressed to Andre.

The smallest details remained engraven on his brooding memory; and one day, under the guise of indifference, with a skilfully put question his brooding took shape. He was aware that the greater number of the letters received by Andre bore the stamp either of Algiers or Antwerp, and the latter place conveying nothing to Mathurin, Andre had explained:

"It is a large port in Belgium, larger than Nantes that you once pa.s.sed through."

"How do you come to know anyone living so far from here and far from Algiers?"

"It's very simple," replied his brother. "My best friend in Algiers is a Belgian in the foreign legion, whose family live in Antwerp.

Sometimes I hear from Demolder, sometimes from his people, who write to give me the information I want."

"News of old comrades, then?"

"No, things that interest me in the matter of voyages, other countries.... One of the sons has settled across the sea, in America.

He has a farm as large as this whole parish."

"Was he rich?"

"No. He is now."

Mathurin did not further press the subject, but he continued to observe, to add indication on indication. If Andre chanced to leave a pamphlet on emigration lying about, or an advertis.e.m.e.nt of land to be let or sold, taking it up Mathurin would seek to discover the places over which his brother's brows had met in a frown, or where something like a smile, a wish, a desire had lighted up his eyes.

By proof on proof he had arrived at the conviction that Driot was thinking of leaving La Fromentiere. When? For what remote land where money was easily made? Those were the problems. Thus in the month of December, when opportunities for confidential chat are more frequent by reason of days of snow and rain and squall, when alone with Andre in the stables or the house, he would say treacherously:

"Tell me about Africa, Driot. Tell me some yarns of men who have made money out there. I like to hear such things." Or at other times he would say: "La Fromentiere must seem small and insignificant to a fellow like you who read so much. It certainly is not as productive as it used to be."

Mathurin had settled coming events in his mind, while Driot was still in doubt.

So the year drew to a close, and the new year began. It was a wet winter, with hard frost at nights; every morning spiders' webs covered with frozen mist would wave in the breeze like white wings, the damp earth would steam in the mid-day sun, and the white wings turn grey.

The main work of the fields was suspended; the owners of land on high ground felled trees, or re-made fences; those on the Marais were perforce reduced to idleness; it was holiday-time with them; d.y.k.es and ditches were overflowing. The greater number of the farms surrounded by water, and, as it were, floating above it, were cut off from all communication with the neighbouring towns or each other save by boats steered over the inundated meadows. It was the time for dancing and shooting.

The ground, however, was not too hard to work upon, and, following Mathurin's advice, Toussaint Lumineau resolved to dig up his vineyard attacked by phylloxera.