by Linda Urbach
She continued to take small items from the pantry, one or two at a time. Renard accepted them willingly. She felt certain he enjoyed the idea that they were putting one over on her grand-mère even more than the treats. But one day Grand-mère Bovary grabbed Berthe as she was going out to the barn to do her morning milking. She reached into Berthe’s apron pocket and pulled out a piece of pâté wrapped in cloth.
“Where are you taking this?” she demanded.
“It’s for my lunch, Grand-mère.”
“Pâté for your lunch? Who do you think you are, Marie Antoinette? Stealing food right under my nose. I should have known. A thief! Like mother like daughter. If your mother could have taken the food from your poor father’s mouth, I have no doubt she would have. Oh, there was no end to that woman’s avarice. She stole everything from him. His pride, his ambition, his reputation. Yes, even his life. Thank heavens, he had no gold teeth, she would have yanked them out of his head.” She dragged Berthe by the arm into the pantry. “Everything that you see here I have saved and scrimped and worked for.” She slammed the wrapped pâté down on the shelf. “You think pâté and cornichons and fresh eggs grow on trees? You think you are entitled to more, more, more?”
Berthe shook her head, clutching her apron tightly.
“Are you your mother’s daughter? Are you?” Berthe didn’t know how to answer the question. She nodded. “No, you are not. Not anymore. From now on you are your grand-mère’s charge and you will act accordingly.”
“Yes, Grand-mère.” Berthe felt tears well up in her eyes.
“Your mother’s father spoiled her terribly. I have no doubt that was where she learned her wastrel ways. I only pray to God that it’s not too late for you.
“My son Charles just wanted to be a good doctor and lead a simple life. He spent so much money on your mother that first year. Moving from one town to another because she was bored. Buying new curtains and furniture when there was perfectly good furniture in the house already. And the hats and dresses. And the gloves. How many pairs of gloves does one woman need? Oh, it makes me want to cry when I think of the waste,” she said.
Berthe realized her grand-mère was right. She remembered all the expensive things her mother had purchased from Monsieur Lheureux when they could barely pay the mortgage. And her poor father. How hard he had tried to provide for his beautiful wife. The long hours he worked, the many miles he traveled, and for what? The few francs he managed to scrape together were nothing compared to the enormous debt his wife had incurred.
And then the awful day when the men came to collect the furniture. Berthe had been awakened by the sound of a crowd in the square. She looked out the window. A group of people had gathered around a large yellow notice nailed on to one of the posts. She saw Félicité rip the notice off the post, stuff it in her bodice, and run back toward the house. Berthe hurried down into the kitchen, where she found Félicité in tears. Her mother sat in a chair, staring at the notice. Berthe had learned to read at a young age, looking over her mother’s shoulder as she read aloud from her books, and so she, too, could read the damning words:
“… Within twenty-four hours, at the latest, to pay the sum of eight thousand francs. Or, she will be constrained thereto by every form of law, and notably by a writ of distrait on her furniture and effects.”
“Oh, madame, it’s an outrage!” Félicité cried.
Berthe could see her mother struggling for composure. Emma Bovary put on her best black dress, donned the cape with the glittering jet beads, and tied a bonnet around her head. She looked as if she were dressed for a funeral. Her own funeral.
She glanced at Berthe as if seeing her for the first time.
“What are you waiting for?” she said. “Go on and get ready. Put on your good pinafore.” Berthe had no idea where her mother was taking her. “Don’t dawdle. We have a very important errand to attend to.”
It was a cloudy spring morning. The air was heavy with moisture and Berthe knew it would soon rain. She worried that they didn’t have an umbrella, especially since her mother was wearing her good cape. The rain would spot the silk. Her mother pulled her along the street and through the village, until they came to a large house on the outskirts of town. It belonged to Monsieur Guillaumin, the notary and the second-richest man in Yonville. He could, if he chose, save her from complete ruin.
“You will be my trump card,” she said to Berthe. “Can you look the waif?” She lifted her daughter’s chin and stared at her. Berthe made a sad face. “That will do.” She bade Berthe to sit on a garden bench by the side of the house.
“Wait here until I call you,” she said. As soon as she left, Berthe got up and peered into the nearest window. She looked in on a huge dining room. The walls of the room were paneled in mahogany. The table was set for breakfast with two silver chafing dishes, silver candelabras, and a snowy white tablecloth. In the corner a large porcelain stove crackled with a fire.
Monsieur Guillaumin entered the room, followed by Emma Bovary. He was an enormously fat man with full red cheeks and wispy blond hair escaping from his velvet skullcap. He pulled his embroidered dressing gown around his large belly, then indicated a parlor chair next to the stove; Berthe’s mother took a seat. Berthe watched as he helped himself to eggs and sausages from the covered dishes. Her mouth watered. All she had had for breakfast that morning was a piece of yesterday’s bread with no butter and tea without sugar. She could practically taste the food as he filled his plate.
When he had finished eating he wiped his mouth with a large white linen napkin. Then he leaned over and placed his hand on her mother’s shoulder. Berthe watched as he ran his fat ringed fingers up and down her arm. Emma Bovary pulled back. And then Berthe saw him suddenly fall to his knees. She thought for a moment he had been taken ill. He pulled at her mother’s skirt with his big hands. Her mother jumped up, her face red and angry, and rushed out of the room. Berthe quickly returned to the bench. Before she knew it her mother was at her side. She grabbed Berthe’s hand, crushing it in her grasp, and pulled her along the street.
“Scoundrel. Beast. Wretch,” Madame Bovary muttered. “I should never have gone there. What was I thinking?”
“Maman, stop, you’re going too fast,” Berthe said. But her mother paid no heed. She rushed down the street with her young daughter in tow, Berthe’s feet barely touching the cobblestones.
When they got home Félicité was waiting for them at the door.
“Well?” Félicité asked, her brow rippled with lines of worry.
“No!” said her mother. “But I have one last hope. I am going to beg at the door of Monsieur Boulanger.”
“Oh, madame, please no, don’t!” Félicité cried.
“Quiet,” said her mother.
Berthe could see the fear in both of their faces and it terrified her. She ran to hide in her room. She was afraid her mother would want her to go with her to beg Monsieur Boulanger for money. He had been so kind to her mother before, giving her a horse to ride, sending her a beautiful basket of apricots. Perhaps he would help her. Perhaps Monsieur Lheureux wouldn’t take their furniture after all. And then there was her father. Was it possible he could find a way to get them out of this terrible mess?
Berthe watched from the window as her mother returned from Monsieur Boulanger’s house an hour later. She could tell by the way her normally straight back was bent that she had failed. Rodolphe Boulanger, with all his great wealth, his mansion and many horses, had denied her request.
The elder Madame Bovary’s best and, in fact, only friend was Madame Leaumont, a widow who lived in a small house a few miles away. She was as cheery as Berthe’s grand-mère was dour. Her face had been ravaged by the pox, but she had beautiful brown eyes and a smile so easy and warm that one soon forgot her terrible scars. Berthe liked her very much and was always glad when she dropped by for a visit.
“Will she be going to school, your granddaughter?” Madame Leaumont asked one morning in August.
�
�She already knows how to read and write,” Berthe’s grand-mère answered.
Berthe was churning butter. She felt her grand-mère’s eyes on her.
“Not that she’s going to need reading and writing for anything,” the old woman added. “Berthe, fetch more cake for Madame Leaumont.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Madame Leaumont demurred, holding out her plate to Berthe and smiling. “She is already growing into quite a pretty thing,” she commented, as if Berthe were not there.
“Pretty is as pretty does,” Grand-mère Bovary shot back.
“You are very hard on her, chère amie,” said Madame Leaumont.
“I am only getting her ready for the life she has in store: no money, no family, no property. This farm, thanks to her father and spendthrift mother, is mortgaged beyond what I can ever hope to repay. When I go, it goes, too. And I won’t live forever,” she said with the confidence of someone who actually thinks she might.
Berthe felt a sudden, cold panic. This was the first she had heard of the farm going when her grand-mère was gone. Was she going to lose her home yet again?
“What about marriage?” said Madame Leaumont. At least Madame Leaumont seems to care about my future, Berthe thought. You’ll see. I’ll make something of myself. I’ll be rich and have the most beautiful château in all of France. And you, you wicked old woman, will be begging at the gate. And I’ll let you in and I’ll serve you tea from a silver pot in a gold-rimmed cup and when you ask for cream, I’ll say, Cream? Oh, no, we have no cream. Do you think cream grows on trees?
“People around here know all about her mother,” her grand-mère said. “What guarantee is there that the apple does not fall far from the tree?”
Berthe couldn’t keep still any longer.
“At least my mother didn’t hide me up in a dusty attic and make me wear painful, ugly shoes all day.”
“Berthe!” The old woman stood up. “How dare you criticize me in front of Madame Leaumont!”
Madame Leaumont put her hand on Madame Bovary’s arm in an effort to calm her, but Berthe’s grand-mère shook her off. “Do you see what I have to put up with? She is a devil, that girl. I give her a home and she treats me with such disrespect. What have I done to deserve this?” She turned to Berthe. “Where is my broom? Where have you hidden it?”
Berthe picked up the broom that was leaning by the door and calmly handed it to her. Her grand-mère pulled her outside and began thumping her on the legs and backside with the wooden handle. Berthe kept her head turned and stared out at the fields as if this wasn’t happening to her. She wanted to cry but refused to let the tears come. She wanted to push her grand-mère away, but kept her arms frozen at her sides. When the old woman had finally exhausted her rage Berthe stumbled toward the barn. As soon as she was inside the barn, she laid her head against Céleste’s warm flank and let the tears fall. She didn’t notice Renard standing under the hayloft.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, setting his pitchfork against the siding.
She shook her head, embarrassed by her tears. “Nothing. Just my grand-mère trying to beat manners into me.”
Renard took her hand and made her sit beside him on the big pile of hay. He put his arm around her shoulders.
“I’m all right,” she said, angrily wiping her face with her apron. “She didn’t really hurt me. She’s not that strong.”
“Do you want me to teach your grand-mère a lesson? I will.” He pointed to the pile of manure in the corner of the barn. “I’ll take all of that manure over there and dump it on her kitchen floor. And I’ll tell her the next time she decides to beat you she will have me to deal with.”
Berthe laughed. “She would just make me clean it up, you fool.”
“You’re right. I know. I’ll just go in and explain to her that she should never hit you because you are far too pretty to beat.” He picked up her braid and held it between his fingers as if it were some rare and wondrous thing. “Mademoiselle of the Copper Hair.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. She laughed again, brushed her face with her hand, and slowly stood. He looked up at her and grinned.
“What are you afraid of? I won’t bite.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said, feeling a hot blush spread to the roots of her hair. “Besides, I would just bite you back.” She turned away from him, lowered her sore bottom to the stool, and began milking Céleste. She was glad of the cow’s haunch so she could hide her red face. After a few moments Renard left the barn.
When Berthe finished the milking she wandered out to the small orchard in the field behind the barn. A dozen apple trees were laden with fruit. She picked up one of the golden apples that lay on the ground and took a bite. It was so bitter she immediately spit it out. She heard someone laugh. It was Renard. He was sitting on one of the lower branches of a nearby tree. He swung himself down to the ground.
“Those apples are not for eating,” he said. “They are for drinking.” He took a small jug out of his lunch basket and handed it to her. “My mother gives me this to ward off the cold.”
“But it’s summertime,” she said, taking the jug.
“I know.” He laughed again. “Go on, take a drink.”
Berthe tilted the jug and drank a small amount of the liquid. It was terrible. It made her eyes water and her throat burn. It tasted far worse than the apple she had bitten into. She began coughing and quickly handed the jug back to him.
“Take another sip. You’ll get used to it.”
“It tastes like poison.” As soon as she uttered the word she immediately thought of her mother and the deadly arsenic she had taken to end her life.
Renard held the jug out to her. “It won’t kill you, I promise,” he said, as if reading Berthe’s mind. After the second sip it didn’t taste as bad, and she understood why Renard’s mother said it would keep him warm. She felt as if the sun were shining inside of her as well as outside. For the first time in months, she felt almost happy.
“Did you know my mother took poison and it killed her?” she asked.
“I heard the story,” he said. Berthe was not surprised. Word traveled quickly from town to town. Especially tales about the disreputable woman married to the only doctor in the region.
“It’s not a story. It’s true,” she said, drinking again from the jug. “She was very unhappy.”
“It’s a sin. She’s probably in hell,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Don’t say that,” she replied angrily. She tipped the jug and took another long drink.
“They say your mother was in love with love.”
“Who said that?” She was beginning to feel dizzy.
“Everybody. Your mother was much talked about in these parts. Are you like your mother?”
“No, I’m not. Not even a little.”
“Give me a kiss. Let’s see if you have a taste for love.” He reached for her but she pulled out of his grasp.
“Go kiss a cow.” She twirled away, but he reached around and yanked the jug out of her hands.
“That’s enough. Pretty soon you’ll be reeling all over the farmyard and your grand-mère will sack me for getting you drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” she protested. “What is this called?” she asked, pointing to the jug.
“It’s called drinking too early in the day.” He grinned, taking a big swig for himself. Swallowing, he said, “Calvados. It’s the only thing those sour apples are good for. It is drunk during the meal to help with digestion.”
“I thought your mother gave it to you to ward off the chill.”
“I lied,” he said. “I stole it from the pantry before my father could finish it off.”
Berthe laughed. Renard was a kindred spirit. He lay down on the ground, folded his arms behind his head, and stared up at her through half-closed eyes. She had a tremendous urge to crawl into his arms. He was older and stronger and seemed ever so much wiser. She felt a wave of gratitude for the fact she had found him in the middle of the lonely c
ountryside. It suddenly didn’t matter that her grand-mère hated her. She had Renard and he would be her friend. And that made her feel warm all over.
CHAPTER 4
The Artist’s Model
IT WAS A STEAMY HOT DAY WHEN BERTHE TOOK CÉLESTE FOR A cool drink by the small river behind her grand-mère’s house. As Céleste drank her fill, Berthe dipped her feet into the stream. The cold water felt wonderful on her hot, blistered feet. She hitched up her skirt and tied it with her apron strings so that she could get her legs completely wet.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” a voice said. She looked up, startled. A huge man with a thick beard and long, dark curling hair leaned against an oak tree several feet from where she sat. He was about thirty-five or forty years of age and his beard and mustache were so thick she could not see his mouth. He had strong, stern brows and intense gray eyes above a prominent nose. He wore a blue tunic and a floppy straw hat, and carried a canvas bag over one shoulder. Suddenly, he smiled and his whole face changed. His mustache turned upward, his beard quivered, and his eyes gleamed warmly.
“Bonjour, monsieur,” she said.
“The water feels fine?” he asked, staring at her bare feet and legs. She suddenly felt very self-conscious but struggled to conceal it.
“Oui, monsieur, it is very refreshing.”
“Do you live nearby, mademoiselle?”
She hesitated. “Yes, I live with my grand-mère over there.” She pointed to the house through the trees.
“Perhaps you will take me to see her.” He put down his bag and, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket, he removed his straw hat and wiped his brow. He must have seen the question in her eyes. “I would like to ask her permission to draw you,” he explained.
“To draw me?” she asked, pulling her feet out of the water and quickly yanking down her skirt so that it covered her wet legs.
“You and your beautiful cow. What is her name?”
“Her name is Céleste.” For some reason the fact that he wanted to draw Céleste as well as her made her laugh. She liked that he thought Céleste was beautiful.