PART SECOND
THE SACRIFICES OF
BLANDINE
I.
The next day but one after the housewarming the Dykgrave paid a visit to the farm, "Les Pèlerins." He arrived there on horseback, preceded by three dusty, barking, Gordon setters. The farmer, who was turning over a break in a neighbouring field, threw aside his spade, and had barely time to slip on his vest over his red flannel shirt; while his daughter did not take the trouble to pull down her sleeves over her arms, which were plump and red. Both ran, in a breathless state, to meet the distinguished visitor, and after a warm welcome, they set to work to do the honours of the farm.
Michael Govaertz had not unduly boasted. The whole establishment, from the dwellinghouse itself down to the smallest outhouses, the stables, stalls, cellars, barn and poultry-yard displayed order, opulence, and a rough sort of comfort.
Henry again showed himself very attentive towards Claudie, taking an interest in the management of the farm, getting explanations from the farmer's daughter, stopping with complacence and without showing the least signs of boredom, before the stores of potatoes, beetroot, beans or grain, which were shown to him in heated granaries or dark, moist outhouses. He lingered behind more than once to gaze at certain labours of the farm-hands, much admiring, for example, the action of two ploughboys, the one standing up on a cartload of clover, the other stationed at the entrance of a barn and receiving on his fork the bundles of red flowers which his companion threw to him. Of brown complexion, eyes of crockery blue, a childish smile on their thick lips displaying a sound row of teeth, they worked with a swagger, and Claudie having hailed them in a bold, guttural voice, they redoubled their sculpturesque and somewhat suggestive exertions. She encouraged them pretty much as she would have done painstaking beasts of burden.
Kehlmark inquired after the young Guidon, but in an indifferent manner, and as it were through simple politeness to the family. The scapegrace must be over there, somewhere about Klaarvatsch. Claudie pointed to the horizon at the other end of the island with a gesture of boredom, and shrugging her shoulders, hastened to change the subject.
Claudie monopolised the visitor and he seemed to have no attention but for her, no look except for what she pointed out to him. Encouraged by her example, he stroked the shining backs of the cows; she made him taste the foaming milk with which the sturdy milkmaids were filling brown earthenware jars. In a neighbouring apartment other amazons were churning butter. The insipid savour disgusted Henry, who preferred to breathe the strong-smelling atmosphere of the stable, where his horse was engaged in chewing fresh clover, in company with the robust palfreys of the farm. In the garden she gathered for him a bouquet of lilacs and pinks, which she herself placed, not without handling him somewhat, in the opening of his waistcoat. "You must come again in the strawberry season," she said, stooping down, on the pretext of showing him some ripening berries, but in reality to inflame him by the enticing contour and flexions of her full-fleshed frame.
"Already noon!" exclaimed Kehlmark, drawing out his watch as the hour sounded from the steeple of the Zoudbertinge church.
The farmer invited him, with a laugh, to share their country soup, but without venturing to hope that he would accept.
"Willingly," he said, "but on condition of eating at the servants' table, and even of dipping in the dish like them."
"What an idea!" exclaimed Claudie, flattered however, by this want of ceremony. This condescension even seemed to her of a nature to reduce the distance between this very urbane gentleman and a simple daughter of the soil.
"All these people here burst with health!" declared Kehlmark, including the whole table in one look around. "They are as nice as what they are devouring, and their appetising air adds to the flavour of the dish."
Following the country custom, the women served the men and did not eat till the latter had finished. They provided a sort of pottage of bacon and vegetables into which Henry was the first to dip his tin spoon. His two neighbours, the labourers who had been warehousing the clover, followed his example with alacrity.
"And does not your son return to dinner?" inquired Kehlmark of the burgomaster.
"Oh, as for him, he takes his bread and meat with him every morning," was the reply of Claudie.
After dinner, Henry seemed in no hurry to go; Claudie, convinced that this was owing to her charms, still walked him up and down the Govaertz lands. She cleverly enlightened him as to their fortune. Their fields extended so far, in that direction, beyond the windmill. "There, where you see that white birch." She gave the Dykgrave to understand that they were very rich already, quite apart from their expectations. Michael's two sisters, the two old bigots, although they had quarrelled with the Burgomaster, had promised to leave their fortune to his children.
Kehlmark had allowed time to drag on so that it was evening when it occurred to him to call for his horse. The Count was hoping to see the little bugler again, and at the moment of making up his mind to depart, he made another inquiry after him. "Often he does not return till night," said Claudie, scowling at the mere mention of the despised urchin. "He sometimes even sleeps outside. His vagabond ways no longer trouble my father or me. Besides, we are not surprised."
With a contraction at the heart the Count thought of the poor lad, benighted in a disreputable district.
"By-the-bye, Burgomaster," he said just as the farmer brought him his horse, "I wish to be one of your Musical Society."
"Do better, Count, be our president and protector."
"Agreed, I accept."
Thinking of Guidon, the Count had remembered the serenade of the night before last, and said to himself that it would be sweet to hear often that simple, melancholy air which the young shepherd played so well.
With one foot in the stirrup another idea occurred to him; something stuck in his heart. Was he to go away without approaching the real object of his visit?
"It is possible," he decided to say timidly to the farmer, "that your son has serious inclinations for music and drawing. Send him to me. Perhaps there may be a means of making something of him. I will try to civilise the little savage."
"Monsieur is too good," stammered Govaertz, "but frankly I am afraid you will lose your pains. The scapegrace will do you no credit."
"On the contrary, Monsieur," added the lad's sister, "he will only be an occasion to you of annoyance. He does not care for anybody or anything; or rather, he has eccentric tastes and proclivities, thinking black when honest people think white."
"Never mind, I will try the experiment," resumed the Count of Kehlmark, striking the dust off his boots with his whip, and putting as little expression as possible into his voice. "I confess I have a liking for difficult tasks, for those that require perseverance and even some courage. Thus, I have tamed and brought into good order restive horses. I even admit, and this is not to my credit, that it sometimes suffices to induce me to undertake a task if you defy me to do it. Difficulty excites and danger intoxicates me. I have the gambler's mania. By entrusting to me this wrongheaded, undisciplined youth, you would oblige me. Let me see! It is possible," he added, "I may go and take up the young fellow to-morrow, as I shall be riding in the neighbourhood of Klaarvatsch. I will talk with him and take his measure."
"As you will, Count," said Claudie. "In any case it is doing us much honour. We shall even be grateful to you on his account. But do not blame us if the ne'er-do-well does not improve under your care and advice."
The next day the Dykgrave rode as far as the Klaarvatsch heaths. He soon noticed the little chap in the midst of a group of ragged urchins, squatting around a fire of twigs and roots, upon which they were frying potatoes. At the approach of the horseman they all stood up, and with the exception of Guidon, ran away scared, to hide in the bushes. The young Govaertz, making a visor of his hand, looked boldly at the Count of Kehlmark.
"Ah, it is thee, boy," said Kehlmark, "Come here, wilt thou, and hold my horse a moment, while I arrange my stirrups."
The young fellow approached with confidence and took the reins. All the time he was shortening the straps, an operation which served Henry merely as a pretext, to gain time to put a face upon the matter, he observed him from the corner of his eye, not knowing how to commence the conversation, while the youngster on his side did not lose one of his movements, and felt himself strangely troubled, at once dreading and wishing for what was about to pass between them. Their eyes met and seemed to put to one another a poignant and subtle question. Then Kehlmark, in order to finish the matter, went up to the boy, took him by the hand, and gazing into the depth of his eyes, repeated to him, not without hesitation, the offer which he had made the night before to the boy's family.
"Thou understandest! Thou'lt come every day to the chateau. I will teach thee myself to read and write, to draw and to paint, to make fine, big pictures such as those thou didst admire the other evening. And we will also go in for music, plenty of music! Thou wilt see! We shall not tire one another."
The boy listened to him without saying a word, so dazed that he had a stupefied air, with disparted lips, his eyes wide open and staring, looked almost haggard. The Count stopped short, taken aback, thinking he must have adopted the wrong way, but continued to search his face. All at once, Guidon changed colour, his visage contracted, and he broke into a nervous laugh. At the same time, to the profound emotion of Kehlmark, he drew back, and attempted to withdraw his hand from the Count's; one would have thought he was resisting and wished to rejoin his young companions who were much amused at this scene. The Count, discouraged, let him go.
The little savage darted towards the other cowboys, but then stopped short, ceased laughing, put both his hands before his eyes, and let himself fall down on the grass where he wallowed, his body shaken by sobs, biting at the heather and knocking his naked feet together.
The Count, more and more discomposed, ran to pick him up:
"For heaven's sake, dear boy, calm thyself! Thou hast not understood me. Thou'rt wrong to be alarmed. I will never forgive myself for having hurt thee. On the contrary, I wish to do thee good. I flattered myself to deserve thy confidence, to become thy great friend. And thou gettest into this painful state! Let us suppose I have said nothing. Be at ease! I will not take thee away against thy will. Farewell!"
And the Count was about to leap into his saddle. But the young Govaertz half stood up, dragged himself on his knees to the Count, seized his hands, embraced them, bedewed them with his tears, and at last burst out, relieving himself of a torrent of exclamatory words, as though, held in check for so long, he had at last succeeded in bursting free:—
"Oh, Monsieur, pardon! I am mad! I do not know what happens to me, what is going on within me; I have the appearance of being sad, but I am too happy; I seemed to die of joy in hearing you! If I weep it is because you are too good. And then at first, I could scarcely believe. You are not making a jest, are you ? It is really true you will take me to your house?"
The Dykgrave, attracted as he was by this impressionable little peasant, had never expected to encounter such an affectionate nature. He gently familiarised him with the idea of the happiness, which was in store for him, and ended by leaving him in a state of rapture, his face illuminated with joy, after having appointed a meeting for the very next day at Escal-Vigor.