Autumn Glory Part 20

Tired and crimsoned from his exertions, affected by the hot air of the room, but proud of the stupefaction he was causing, Mathurin stood erect on his crutches, and, laughing in his tawny beard, called out in a stentorian voice:

"How do you do, all of you!"

Then, addressing the group of girls who were retreating to the other end of the room:

"Who will dance a round with me, my beauties? Why do you look at me like that? I am not a ghost. I have brought my brother, handsome Driot, to dance _vis-a-vis_ with me." And they saw him approach, followed by the youngest son of La Fromentiere, tall and slim, his hand at his forehead in military salute. Then the room resounded with merry laughter, questions, and greetings; the girls ran towards them as precipitately as they had before retreated; men's hands were extended on all sides. Old Gauvrit's loud voice drowned all others, as, already somewhat heated with wine, he called out from an inner room:

"The handsomest girl to dance with Mathurin! the handsomest! Let her show herself!"

It was not in obedience to her father that Felicite Gauvrit came forward. But, though for an instant disconcerted by this abrupt entry before all these men and women, she realised that she must put a bold face on it, and going up to Mathurin Lumineau, her black eyes looking into his, she threw her arms round his neck and embraced him.

"I embrace him," she said, "because he has more courage than most of the lads in the parish. It was I who invited him!"

Stupefied, intoxicated by the memories awakened in him, Mathurin once more shrank away. They saw him grow livid, and, turning on his crutches, force a path through the group of men on his left, with:

"Make way, make way, lads. I want to sit down!"

He found a place in the second room, beside some of the elder men, old Gauvrit among them; who rising, poured him out a b.u.mper of the white wine of Sallertaine, in token of welcome. Still quite pale, Mathurin lifted the gla.s.s with the customary formula, "I drink to you all with cordiality and love!"

Soon he appeared to be forgotten, and dancing was resumed.

The farmstead where the gathering was held was a fairly modern building, the usual large house-place being divided into two rooms of unequal size. In the smaller of these the elder men, with the master of the house, were drinking and playing luette. In the larger, that by which the two Lumineaus had entered, dancing was going on. The tables had been pushed along the walls beside the beds, the curtains of which had been spread over the counterpanes to save them from being torn.

Some half-dozen matrons, who had accompanied their daughters, had collected round the hearth before a fire of dried cow-dung, the fuel of that treeless district, each having on the mantel-piece her cup of coffee, with a dash of brandy in it, from which she took an occasional sip.

Petroleum lamps placed along the wall lighted the narrow s.p.a.ce reserved for dancing. A smoky, heated, vinous atmosphere pervaded the house. The icy air from without drew in under the door, sometimes making the young Maraichines, despite their stout woollen gowns, s.h.i.+ver with cold. But no one minded. The room was filled with laughter, chatter, and movement. Youths and maidens from isolated farmhouses, cut off from one another by periodical inundations, they were tired of solitude and repose. Escaped from their tedium and restored for a brief s.p.a.ce of social intercourse, they seemed possessed by feverish excitement. Soon all the gay dancers would be dispersed again over the mute, trembling sheet of water. They knew it; and made the most of the short reprieve.

So dancing recommenced.

First the Maraichine, a dance for four, a kind of ancient _bourree_, which the lookers-on accompanied by a rhythmic humming; then _rondes_ sung by a male or female voice, taken up by the others in chorus to the accompaniment of an accordeon played by a sickly, deformed boy of twelve; or there were modern dances, polkas and quadrilles, danced to one and the same tune, the time only made to vary. The girls, for the most part, danced well, some with a keen sense of rhythm and grace.

Round their waists the most dainty had knotted a white handkerchief, to preserve their dresses when, after each refrain, their partner seized his lady round the waist and jumped her as high as possible, to demonstrate the lightness of the Maraichines and the strength of the Maraichins. Known to each other, these young people from the same parish, often neighbours, resumed the flirtations of the preceding winter; they made love; appointed meetings at Chalons fair, or at some coming dance at another farm; new-comers were gladly welcomed.

Among these latter Andre Lumineau was the most sought after, the most cheery, most fertile at inventing nonsense and talking it.

Time pa.s.sed. Twice Pere Gauvrit had gone through the two rooms, opened the house door, and said:

"The moon is rising and will soon be visible; the wind is getting up and it freezes hard," then had gone back to resume his place at the card-table where the players awaited him. Mathurin Lumineau had taken a hand, but was playing absently, attending far less to his cards than to every movement, look, and word of Felicite. Already the artful beauty had several times contrived to bring her partner to a halt in the inner room, that she might exchange a few words with Mathurin. She was radiant with pride; on the bold, regular features that towered above the greater number of tulle coifs could be read triumphant joy, that after six whole years, the mad love she had inspired still endured, and had brought back to her the young men of La Fromentiere.

It was ten o'clock. A little Maraichine, her complexion russet as a thrush, started the first notes of a _ronde_:

"When as a little child I played, Light-hearted, never dull; Down to the spring one day I strayed The cresses fresh to cull."

Twenty lads and as many girls took up the chorus:

"The ducks, the ducks, the ducklings, oh!

To the Marais forth they go!"

And the _ronde_ invaded both rooms. At the same time Felicite Gauvrit, who had refused to take her place in the chain of dancers, drew near the table where Mathurin was sitting. He at once rose, throwing down his cards to the man sitting next him.

"Stay where you are, Mathurin," she exclaimed. "Do not trouble about me. I have come to watch the dancers."

But she drew a chair into a corner of the room, a.s.sisted Mathurin to it, and then sat down beside him. Neither spoke. They were sitting in the half shade of a projecting piece of furniture; the cripple was not looking at Felicite, nor she at him. Side by side they sat in the shade of the cherry wood wardrobe, apparently engrossed in watching the dancers as they pa.s.sed in and out of the room. But what they really saw was something very different; one saw the past love meetings, the plighted troth, the return that night in the waggon, the awful suffering stretching out through years, the desertion--now at this very moment--at an end. The other saw the possible, perhaps, near future; the farmstead of La Fromentiere where she would reign; the bench in church where she would sit; the greetings that would be hers from the proudest girls round about; and the husband she would have--Andre Lumineau--who was now dancing the _ronde_ with the little girl of fifteen, the singer of the couplets.

Mathurin began speaking in a low voice, words broken by long periods of silence; he was very pale and in fear that this brief happiness would too soon come to an end.

Grave and reserved, her hands crossed upon her ap.r.o.n, the daughter of La Seuliere spoke without haste words heard by none but themselves.

Many eyes were turned upon this strange pair of once betrothed lovers.

The dance went on, the refrain echoed from the walls.

The clear, laughing voice of the little Maraichine sang:

"The spring was deep, alas, alas, Therein I needs must fall.

Along the road just then did pa.s.s Three barons valiant all.

"'What will you give us, maiden fair, If to your help we press?'

'An' you do that,' I did declare, 'My gift you'll never guess.'

"Now when the little maid was freed And home again that day, Straight to the window she did speed And sang a merry lay.

"'Not that we ask, oh, maiden fair, 'Tis hard to treat us so, But tresses of your golden hair, Or tokens ere we go.'"

The dance grew faster and more furious. The big Maraichins seized their partners and sprang them so high that their muslin coifs touched the ceiling. The mothers drank a final cup of coffee. The card-players watched the _sarabande_ through the dusty atmosphere by the uneven light of the smoking lamps. Mathurin and Felicite, sitting closer together, still talked on. But the daughter of La Seuliere had suffered one of her hands to be taken between those of the cripple, and it was the huge hairy hands that trembled, and the little white hand that seemed not to understand, or to be unwilling to respond.

The _ronde_ came to an end:

"'Ah, tokens give I none,' said she, 'To barons gay like you, For chosen I am proud to be By Pierre, who serves us true.'"

For the first time Felicite, looking at Mathurin said confidentially, with a laugh:

"That song is Rousille's story."

"Do you know what she wanted?" returned Mathurin hotly, "to marry our farm-servant; to become mistress of La Fromentiere! But I was on the watch. I had that fellow Jean Nesmy turned out, and I swear to you it will be long before he dare show his face there again. And now...."

Here he lowered his voice and bent forward until the tawny hair touched the outer rim of the muslin coif, which did not draw back--"And now, if you will still have me, Felicite, it is you who shall be the mistress of La Fromentiere." She had not time to answer.

She had risen, the last refrain of the _ronde_ had ended in a murmur of surprise. A man, whose white head towered above those of the a.s.sembled guests, had abruptly entered and advanced into the middle of the first room, without removing the hat he wore on his entrance, or making any salutation. His clothes were coated with ice; on his left arm he carried an old brown cloak that swept the ground as he walked.

Severe of countenance, with eyes half closed from coming suddenly into the glare of light, he was evidently seeking someone.

All made way for the farmer of La Fromentiere, "Are my lads here?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," returned a voice behind him. "Here I am, father."

"That's right, Driot," said the old man without looking back, "I am not afraid for you, though this is not the place for my sons. But it is freezing so hard that it seems likely that the whole Marais will be frozen before sunrise; and it may be the death of Mathurin, crippled as he is. Why did you bring him?"

In the general silence the farmer's eyes swept the larger room; a movement of some of those present showed him Mathurin sitting in the inner one; and the father saw his crippled son, and beside him the girl who had been the cause of so much suffering and sorrow.

"That girl!" he muttered, "lying in wait for him again!" With imperious gesture he forced a pa.s.sage through the dancers, shouldering them to right and left. "Gauvrit," he exclaimed, nodding to the host, who had risen and was staggering towards him, "Gauvrit, I have no wish to offend you; but I must take away my lads. The Marais is a deathtrap in weather such as this."

"I couldn't prevent your sons coming," stammered Gauvrit. "I a.s.sure you, Toussaint Lumineau...."

Without heeding him, the farmer raised his voice: