by George Sand
Joseph had undoubtedly woven a very cunning fable to explain his appearance at the farm without frightening anyone. He had in his bag many Scapin-like tricks to play upon the simplicity of the natives; but, unfortunately, the first person he met, about a hundred yards from the house, was Bénédict, a much more suspicious and shrewder man than he. The young man instantly remembered that he had seen him some time before, at another village fête, where, although he wore his black coat with apparent ease, although he affected a superior manner with the farmers who were drinking with him, he had been ridiculed and humiliated like the lackey he was. Bénédict realized at once that he must drive that dangerous witness away from the farm, and, taking possession of him with ironical assiduity, he forced him to go with him to pay a visit to a vineyard some little distance away. He pretended to believe his statement that he was the man of business and steward of the family at the château, and affected a strong inclination to gossip. Joseph very soon abused the opportunity, and in ten minutes his plans and his purpose became as clear as daylight to Bénédict. Thereupon, he stood on his guard and disabused him of his suspicions concerning Louise with an air of candor by which Joseph was completely taken in. However, Bénédict realized that that was not enough, that he must put an end once for all to that spy’s malevolent schemes ; and he suddenly remembered something which seemed to promise a means of controlling him.
“Parbleu! Monsieur Joseph,” he said, “I am very glad that I met you. I have something to say to you that will interest you deeply.”
Joseph opened his great ears, genuine lackey’s ears, deep and restless, quick to hear, careful to retain ; ears in which nothing is lost, in which everything can always be found on occasion.
“Monsieur le Chevalier de Trigaud,” continued Bénédict, “the country gentleman who lives two or three leagues from here, and who slaughters hares and partridges in such multitudes that it is impossible to find any of either where he has been, told me the day before yesterday—we had just killed ten or twelve brace of young quail in the underbrush, for the excellent chevalier is a poacher as well as a gamekeeper—as I was saying, he told me the day before yesterday that he would be very glad to have such an intelligent fellow as you in his service.”
“Monsieur le Chevalier de Trigaud said that ?” exclaimed his astonished auditor.
“To be sure. He’s a rich man, liberal and easy-going, meddles with nobody’s business, cares for nothing but hunting and the table, is harsh to his dogs but mild to his servants, hates domestic troubles, has been robbed ever since he came into the world, and is a subject for plunder if ever there was one. A man like you, who has had some education and could keep his accounts, reform the abuses in his household, and who would keep from annoying him just after dinner, might easily obtain anything from his easy-going disposition, reign in his house like a prince, and earn four times as much as in the service of Madame la Comtesse de Raimbault. Now, all these advantages are at your disposal, Monsieur Joseph, if you choose to go at once and offer the chevalier your services.”
“I will go as fast as I can !” cried Joseph, who knew all about the place, and that it was a desirable one.
“One moment!” interposed Bénédict. “You must remember that, thanks to my taste for hunting and the well-known moral integrity of my family, the excellent chevalier has a really extraordinary affection for us all, and whoever should be so unfortunate as to offend me or to do any of my people a disservice, would not be likely to rot in his employment.”
The tone in which these words were uttered made them perfectly intelligible to Joseph. He returned to the château, set the countess’s mind at rest, was shrewd enough to obtain the hundred francs as a reward for his zeal and trouble, and saved Valentine from the terrible examination to which her mother had proposed to subject her. A week later he entered the service of the Chevalier de Trigaud, whom he did not rob—he was too bright for that, and his master was so stupid that it was not worth the trouble—but whom he pillaged like a conquered province.
In his desire not to miss such a valuable windfall, he had carried his cunning and his devotion to Bénédict so far as to give the countess false information concerning Louise’s place of abode. In three days he invented a story of a journey, which deceived Madame de Raimbault completely. He succeeded in retaining her confidence when he left her service. She had made no objection to his change of masters, and she soon ceased to think of him and his revelations. The marchioness, who loved Louise perhaps more than she had ever loved anyone, questioned Valentine. But she was too well acquainted with her grandmother’s weak and fickle character to trust her powerless affection with a secret of such momentous importance. Monsieur de Lansac had gone, and the three women were settled at Raimbault, where the marriage was to take place in a month. Louise, who probably had less confidence than Valentine in Monsieur de Lansac’s good intentions, determined to make the most of that time, when her sister was almost free, to see her often ; and, three days after May first, Bénédict appeared at the château with a letter.
In his pride and self-consciousness, he had never been willing to go there on any business for his uncle ; but for Louise, for Valentine, for those two women to whom he did not know what place to assign in his affections, he gloried in the opportunity to brave the countess’s disdainful glances and the insolent affability of the marchioness. He took advantage of a hot day, which was likely to keep Valentine in-doors, and, having armed himself with a game-bag well filled with game, he set out in the costume of a village sportsman—blouse, straw hat and gaiters—certain that it would offend the countess’s eyes less than a more pretentious exterior would do.
Valentine was writing in her chamber. An indefinable vague anticipation made her hand tremble; as her pen formed the words addressed to her sister, it seemed to her that the messenger who was to take charge of them could not be far away. The faintest sound out-of-doors, the trot of a horse, the bark of a dog, made her start. She kept rising and running to the window, calling in her heart to Louise and Bénédict; for in her eyes—at all events so she thought—Bénédict was only a part of her sister, detached and sent to her.
As she was beginning to be exhausted by involuntary emotion, and sought to turn her mind to other things, that beautiful, pure voice, Bénédict’s voice, which she had heard at night on the banks of the Indre, charmed her ear once more. The pen fell from her fingers. She listened, enchanted, to the artless, simple ballad which had such extraordinary influence over her nerves. Bénédict’s voice came from a path which skirted the park on quite a steep hillside. The singer, being higher than the garden, was able to make these lines of his village ballad distinctly audible within the château ; perhaps they were intended as a notice to Valentine :
“ Bergère Solange, écoutez,
“ L’alouette aux champs vous appelle.”*
Valentine was not unromantic ; she thought that she was, because her virgin heart had never yet conceived the idea of love. But, while she believed that she could abandon herself unreservedly to a pure and virtuous sentiment, her youthful brain did not forbear to love whatever resembled an adventure. Brought up under such unbending glances, in an atmosphere of such strait-laced and repellent customs, she had had so little chance to enjoy the bloom and poetry of her youth !
Gluing her face to her blind, she soon saw Bénédict coming down the path. Bénédict was not handsome, but his figure was remarkably graceful. His rustic costume, which he wore with a somewhat theatrical air, his light, sure step along the edge of the ravine, his great spotted dog which ran before him, and, above all, his song, which was melodious and potent enough to take the place of beauty of feature—that apparition in a country landscape which, by the intervention of art, that despoiler of nature, was not unlike the scenery of an opera, was enough to excite a youthful brain and to add an indefinable element of coquetry to the value of the message he bore.
Valentine was sorely tempted to rush out into the park, open a little gate by which the
path ran, and hold out a greedy hand for the letter which she fancied that she could already see in Bénédict’s. That would be decidedly imprudent. But a more praiseworthy motive than the danger detained her—the fear of disobeying twice over by going to meet an adventure which she could not avoid.
So she determined to await a second signal before going down, and soon a great uproar of dogs barking savagely at one another awoke all the echoes of the courtyard. Bénédict had set his dog on those belonging to the château, in order to make known his arrival in the noisiest possible way.
Valentine went down at once. Her instinct led her to divine that Bénédict would preferably pay his respects to the marchioness, as being more approachable. So she joined her grandmother, who was accustomed to take her siesta on the couch in the salon, and, having gently awakened her, made some excuse for sitting with her.
A few minutes later, a servant entered and announced that Monsieur Lhéry’s nephew desired to present his respects and his game to the marchioness.
“I can do very well without his respects,” the marchioness replied, “ but his game is welcome. Show him in.”
* Shepherdess Solange, list ye, The lark in the fields is calling.
X
At sight of that young man, whose accomplice she knew herself to be, and whom she was about to assist to deliver a secret message to her under her grandmother’s eyes, Valentine had a pang of remorse. She felt that she was blushing, and the crimson of her cheeks was reflected on Bénédict’s.
“Ah ! so it’s you, my boy,” said the marchioness, displaying her short, plump leg on the sofa, with the charming manners of the time of Louis XV. “Glad to see you. How is everybody at the farm ? Good Mère Lhéry, and the pretty little cousin, and everybody?”
Then, paying no heed to the reply, she plunged her hand in the game-bag which Gabriel removed from his shoulder.
“Ah ! this is really a fine lot of game ! Did you kill it ? They say that you let Trigaud poach a little on our land. But this is enough to absolve you.”
“This,” said Bénédict, taking from his bosom a little live titmouse, “I caught in the net, by chance. As it’s a rare species, I thought that mademoiselle, being interested in natural history, might like to add it to her collection.”
As he passed the little creature to Valentine, he pretended to have much difficulty in putting it into her fingers without allowing it to escape. He took advantage of that moment to hand her the letter. Valentine went to a window, as if to examine the bird more closely, and hid the paper in her pocket.
“You must be very warm, my dear fellow ?” said the marchioness. “Pray go to the servants’ quarters and get something to drink.”
Valentine saw the disdainful smile that curled Bénédict’s lip.
“Perhaps monsieur would prefer a glass of pomegranate water ?” she said hastily.
And she took up the carafe, which was on a small table behind her grandmother and herself, and poured out the water for her guest. Bénédict thanked her with a glance, and, passing behind the sofa, took it from her overjoyed to be allowed to touch the glass which Valentine’s white hand offered him.
The marchioness had a slight attack of coughing, during which he said rapidly to Valentine :
“What answer shall I carry back to the request contained in this letter ?”
“Whatever it may be, the answer is yes,” said Valentine, terrified by such audacity.
Bénédict glanced gravely about that sumptuous and spacious salon, at the limpid mirrors, the polished floor, the thousand and one refinements of luxury, even the uses of which were still unknown at the farm. This was not the first time that he had entered the homes of the wealthy, and his heart was very far from being filled with envious longing for all those baubles of fortune, as Athénaïs’s would have been. But he could not help noticing one thing which had never before made such a profound impression on him ; that is, that society had placed tremendous obstacles between Mademoiselle de Raimbault and himself.
“Luckily,” he thought, “I can take the risk of seeing her without having to suffer for it. I shall never fall in love with her.”
“Well, my dear, won’t you go to the piano and continue the song you began for me just now ?”
That was an ingenious falsehood on the old marchioness’s part, intended as a hint to Bénédict that it was time for him to retire to the servants’ quarters.
“You know, grandmamma, I hardly ever sing,” Valentine replied; “ but as you are so fond of good music, if you want to give yourself a very great pleasure, ask monsieur to sing.”
“Do you mean it ? But what do you know about it, my child ?” queried the marchioness.
“Athénaïs told me,” replied Valentine, lowering her eyes.
“Very well, if it’s true, my boy, give me that pleasure,” said the marchioness. “Regale me with some little village ballad; it will give me a rest from Rossini, whom I don’t understand in the least.”
“I shall accompany you if you wish,” said Valentine shyly to the young man.
Bénédict was more than a little perturbed at the thought that his voice might attract the overbearing countess to the salon. But he was even more moved by Valentine’s efforts to detain him and to make him sit down; for the marchioness, despite her affectation of popular manners, had not been able to make up her mind to offer her farmer’s nephew a chair.
The piano was open. Valentine seated herself at it, after drawing another chair beside her own. Bénédict, to show that he had not noticed the affront he had received, preferred to sing standing.
At the first notes Valentine flushed, then turned pale, tears came to her eyes; gradually she became calm, her fingers followed the singing, and her ear drank it in with zest.
The marchioness listened with pleasure at first. Then, as she was always restless, and could not remain in one place, she left the room, returned, and went out again.
“This tune,” said Valentine, when she and Bénédict were alone for a moment, “is the one my sister used to like best to sing to me when I was a child and made her sit down on top of the hill to hear the echoes repeat it. I have never forgotten it, and I almost cried just now when you began it.”
“I sang it purposely,” said Bénédict; “it was as if I were speaking to you in the name of Louise.”
The countess entered the room as that name died on Bénédict’s lips. At sight of her daughter’s têite-à-tête with a strange man, she glared at them with gleaming, wonderstruck eyes. At first she did not recognize Bénédict, at whom she had hardly glanced at the fête, and her surprise petrified her where she stood. Then, when she remembered the impudent rascal who had dared to put his lips to her daughter’s cheeks, she stepped forward, pale and trembling, trying to speak, but prevented by a sudden choking sensation in her throat. Luckily, a laughable incident preserved Bénédict from the explosion. The countess’s beautiful greyhound had superciliously walked up to Bénédict’s hunting dog, who had unceremoniously thrown himself on the floor under the piano, all covered with dust, and panting. Perdreau, a sensible and patient beast, allowed himself to be sniffed at from head to foot, and contented himself by replying to his host’s disdainful advances by the silent display of a long row of white teeth. But when the greyhound, domineering and discourteous, became actually insulting, Perdreau, who had never put up with an affront, and who had held his own against three bulldogs a moment before, stood erect, and threw his slender adversary to the floor with a blow of his head. The greyhound took refuge at his mistress’s feet, uttering shrill cries. That was an opportunity for Bénédict, who saw that the countess was fairly beside herself, to rush out of the room, making a pretence of taking Perdreau away and whipping him, whereas in his heart he was sincerely grateful to him for his disregard of the proprieties.
As he went out, escorted by the yelping of the greyhound, the growling of his own dog, and the countess’s frantic exclamations, he met the marchioness, who, astonished by the uproar, ask
ed him what it meant.
“My dog has strangled madame’s,” he replied, with a piteous expression, as he hurried away.
He returned to the farm with an abundant store of contempt and hatred for the nobility, and indulging in a titter at the thought of his adventure. But he was ashamed of himself when he remembered how much more bitter affronts he had anticipated, and how he had plumed himself upon his ironical sangfroid when he left Louise a few hours before. Gradually all the absurdity of the scene seemed to centre about the countess, and he arrived at the farm in high spirits. His story made Athénaïs laugh till she cried. Louise wept when she learned how Valentine had received her message and that she had recognized the ballad Bénédict sang. But Bénédict did not talk about his visit to the château before Père Lhéry. His uncle was not the man to be amused by a joke which might cause the loss of three thousand francs profit every year.
“What does all this mean ?” queried the marchioness as she entered the salon.
“I trust, madame, that you will explain it to me,” repeated the countess. “Weren’t you here when that man came in ?”
“What man?” said the marchioness.
“Monsieur Bénédict,” interposed Valentine, sorely embarrassed, but trying to appear self-possessed. “He brought you some game, mamma; grandmamma asked him to sing, and I played the accompaniment.”
“So he was singing for you, madame ?” said the countess to her mother-in-law. “You were listening to him at a considerable distance, I should say.”
“In the first place,” retorted the old woman, “it wasn’t I who asked him to sing, it was Valentine.”
“This is very strange,” cried the countess, with a piercing glance at her daughter.
“I will explain it to you, mamma,” said Valentine, blushing. “My piano is horribly out of tune, as you know; we have no tuner in the neighborhood. This young man is a musician ; he is also a very good piano tuner. I know it from Athénaïs, who has a piano at home, and often has recourse to her cousin’s skill.”