The dowager and the aunt must have heard of the proposed Christmas-tree, but they said nothing concerning it Jacquetta had intended to ask them to help her in making clothing for the poor children, but her courage failed, she dreaded a rebuff. They, on their side, were piqued because not associated in the preparations, and failed to see that their own repellent behaviour took from Jacquetta the courage to ask them to unite with her. The Christmas-tree, instead of proving a means of drawing them into fellowship and goodwill, was made a grievance. The young wife was trying to bribe the parishoners to think more of her than of the dowager and Mdlle. de Pleurans. Of course with money a great deal can be done. If folks have the bad taste and bad feeling to use their money for this purpose they will always get a following, always obtain popularity; but what is a purchased popularity worth? How M. le curé could lend himself to advance the crafty designs of the young baroness passed the comprehension of the two ladies. No doubt the Pain-au-lait had been asked to contribute. She was to be allowed to have a finger in the matter. The plot was clear as daylight. Jacquetta and the Pain-au-lait desired to dethrone the ladies who had previously been looked up to as the benefactresses of the parish second only to the Holy Virgin.
The old ladies became more stiff than before. They talked to one another at table, or when they were in the parlour with Jacquetta, about affairs that interested them and made oblique stabs at her. She, poor girl, was a complete stranger in her husband’s house. She had only the coachman’s wife about her, to talk to concerning England. But Jacquetta was not so foolish as to make a confidante of a lady’s maid. Sometimes she took up her pen resolved to tell her mother plainly how wretched she was. ‘They think me happy,’ she said. ‘I shall only make them miserable, and they can alter nothing,’ So she tore up her letter. To Aunt Betsy she said a little, but very little. Aunt Betsy was an excellent old woman, but not much of a standby. She had small judgment, and was incapable of offering advice. When Alphonse came in from the farm, or from shooting and hunting, both which amusements he had taken up, he was very kind to her; but he was tired out, he went to sleep in his arm chair or on the sofa till supper. When he talked to his wife it was about his pursuits. Jacquetta did not complain to him, and he asked no questions. He preferred not to enquire into the situation as he was incapable of altering it.
At last winter set in with severity. One morning the landscape was covered with snow. Alphonse was unable to go out. Jacquetta was glad to keep him at home that she might have some one to talk to; but he was dull and impatient at the weather. He had difficulty to stifle his yawns in her face. The clays seemed interminable. Jacquetta read to him and sent him to sleep; talked to him but without enlivening him; played to him, but he had no genuine love of music. He said that all English music was alike—songs, hymns, dance-music—it was the same tune; German music was heavy, intricate, unintelligible. Finding at last that she was unable to amuse him, she abandoned the task as beyond her powers.
Now the real goodness of the dowager came out. She was indefatigable in supplying the necessities of the poor. She had soups and simple puddings made for them, and they were allowed to come into the kitchen of the chateau as much as they liked to warm themselves at the great fire. This somewhat interfered with the work of the house, but it was all the more charitable, because it gave real inconvenience to the household. The dowager trudged about in the snow visiting the sick, and carrying food to the infirm unable to come for it themselves. To some extent, no doubt, the old lady was actuated by a spirit of rivalry. She would not be outdone by her daughter-in-law. But it was not so altogether. She always had been charitable; the poor had always looked up to her for assistance; and on her very limited means she had assisted them. Now every thing in the castle was on a more liberal scale, and the dowager baroness was not in the least ashamed to give in greater profusion out of what was purchased with Jacquetta’s money. The poor overwhelmed her with thanks which she accepted as her due; though the good bouilli and bouillon which were substitutes this winter for the bread soup of last, were paid for by the disliked and much-abused daughter-in law.
Jacquetta had acted very differently about the Christmas-tree. She had requested the curé’s sister to manage that, lest invidious comparisons should be made between herself and her mother-in-law, in her own favour.
One day the baron drove into Nantes and returned with Asheton. He was unable to endure the dulness of the winter days alone longer, and had gone for his friend, had insisted on his packing his portmanteau, and coming to stay with him at Plaissac.
Jacquetta was surprised, and not particularly pleased; but this feeling of annoyance rapidly wore off, for the young man was pleasant, Alphonse brightened when he had a male companion with whom he could play billiards and smoke and talk about shooting and other sports. The old ladies, moreover, put on a semblance of amiability whilst a stranger was present, which they thought unnecessary at other times. Young Asheton talked English with his countrywoman, and it was a joy to her to be able again to speak with an educated person in her own tongue about the literature of her own land. Without a muscle twitching in his face, Asheton asked after her mother, and spoke of the pleasant drive from St. Malo, of the old lady’s surprise at the novelties she had seen. Was Mrs Fairbrother well? When had she last written? Was she coming out to Nantes in the summer? He had been once or twice to call on Miss Pengelly since the breach with Jacquetta. This had pleased Jacquetta, and he was able to talk about her aunt and Champclair, with happy ignorance or indifference to the fact that Champclair was, with tacit consent, not spoken of in Plaissac, before the old ladies. Then it came out that Asheton knew a girl who had been a schoolfellow of Jacquetta’s at Cheltenham, and had heard her stories of the comical old Misses Woodenhead, the spinster proprietresses of the establishment for young ladies. Asheton knew intimately the brother of this girl. He had visited him at his home in Sussex; Jacquetta was eager to hear all about this home. Her bosom friend had often described it to her, and now here in her exile she met an acquaintance who had been there. The world is not very large—England certainly is not—and we are always jostling against those who have jostled our friends.
Poor Jacquetta had been without English books. She had not seen the last novels, James Asheton had them—his sister had received a box of books from England. He would walk into Nantes and fetch them. When Alphonse was present he also talked English, though usually with his wife he spoke French. He had insisted on this, as it was good for her to become fluent in the tongue; he did not consider what a strain this was to her, and how she pined to speak her own language. Now that Asheton and she were rattling along about persons and things that did not particularly interest him, he left them together, that he might give orders on the farm, or look at his horses, or clean his gun. He saw that it gave Jacquetta pleasure, and he was glad at no effort to himself to give her pleasure.
When her husband and Asheton were out or playing billiards—the poor little wife sat by the fire in a dream, or with the bellows puffing at the logs to make them burn, and puff away her own troublesome thoughts. French houses are not, or were not, built with much consideration for comfort in the winter. The rooms are large, the doors and windows fit badly, and the open hearths do not throw out much heat. There was about Nantes little or no oak, and oak is the only really excellent fuel for dogs or a brick hearth. Next to oak comes beech, and there was as little beech available. Pinewood there was, but that burns badly unless very dry, and worst of all was that which was most abundant, poplar which will not burn at all unless constantly impelled to do so by the bellows.
The weather was very cold. Jacquetta suffered greatly, the draughts, the wretched fires, the absence of the thousand and one little comforts that render a room cosy in winter, made her feel unhappy, and drew from her many a sigh. She sat with the bellows on her knee as close into the hearth as she could draw, and looked into the dull, red ashes; she thought of the fireside at home, of the circle there, of the tea-table—Oh, for an English tea-table again! Then she began to wonder whether she had not made a mistake in marrying out of her own country, out of her own class, anyhow, one who did not understand English ways and thoughts, and requirements.
The Ashetons had got grates in their fireplaces, and burnt coals. They had furnished their rooms like those of an English house, with thick rugs, and a Chinese gilt leather screen which cut off draughts, and had plugged the windows with wadding, and had sandbags to the doors. She had been to their house at tea, and seen a kettle with a spirit lamp, and heard they had an urn, a copper urn, brought in at breakfast. Oh, she would so like to hear the singing of an urn again! Also the parlour-table was covered with English cloth-backed books. She was weary of the sight of the yellow paper-backed French volumes that fell to pieces and looked ragged whilst in process of being read.
Alphonse was a dear, good fellow, but he was very absurd in some things. He was exaggerated in his sentiments, and—she could not help admitting it—rather niggling in his mind. He lacked the breadth and solidity she had found in Englishmen. She would never quite understand him, never know exactly what he would be at.
She had made acquaintance with most of the French nobility around, and had been received with kindness and an eagerness of hospitality which touched her, but she had made no friends among them; acquaintances in plenty, but she felt that they were acquaintances who would never be dearer to her, because they would not understand her thoughts, nor she theirs. They belonged to different orders of mind. The education she had received had been at all points so opposite to that received by French girls that they lacked the community of ideas and sympathy which are necessary for the growth of friendship. So Jacquetta was lonely, utterly lonely, and likely to remain lonely. She sighed. Had she made a grievous mistake? Would she not have done much better to have married an Englishman—a plain merchant, instead of a French noble? She began blowing vigorously with the bellows.
All at once she started up. The two old ladies, who had been talking to each other in a low tone without noticing her, were surprised, and asked what was the matter.
‘Nothing. I am going to the presbytère, to see Mdlle. Gracieuse.’
‘But it rains.’
‘In my own country we think nothing of rain.’
No further objection was raised. She put on her hat and cloak, and took her umbrella and trudged forth. The poor deformed woman was pleased always to see her, she was just then specially pleased, because she was suffering. Cold and wet always gave her rheumatic pains in her body. The room in which she sat was much more draughty and bare than that at the chateau. Gracieuse was not very warmly clad.
Jacquetta told her how grieved she was to find her so ill, and suggested various comforts.
‘Oh, I am right as I am,’ said the deformed woman. ‘I was thinking as you came in how happy the children were at your Christmas tree, I was repicturing to myself their look of astonishment and delight. Ah! madame, that was a beautiful idea of yours!’
‘But you are suffering, mademoiselle. See, I have this thick knitted jacket. Oh, be kind, and do let me take it off and put it on you.’
‘No, no!’ the poor creature raised both her hands. ‘Not for the world.’
‘What, not to give me a great happiness?’
Then Gracieuse tried to shuffle to her and kiss her hands, crying, ‘Mon Dieu! what have I done to deserve such goodness, to be shown such kindness. Oh, madame, God has been good to me! I have so many dear friends, I have everything I can desire, more, a thousand times, than I can deserve.’ She considered, and said, half to herself and half to the young baroness, ‘What a happy, happy life mine has been, what then is a little rheumatism when the rain comes! ’
Jacquetta sat some time with the cripple. Her society did her good. It calmed her troubled mind. Gracieuse had received very little education. She had read few books. Quintus Curtius even, the one volume of light reading on her brother’s shelves, was a sealed book to her. As for a novel, she had never read one in her life. Her ideas were very narrow. Her interests very few. She and Jacquetta had little to link them to each other. She was the daughter of a poor peasant, and Jacquetta was rich and the wife of a baron. Yet there was one tie that united them, a tie unacknowledged yet existing, the tie of sorrow. Poor Gracieuse, however cheerful she might be, had lived a life of pain, and Jacquetta’s spirit was suffering. The curé came in.
‘Madame, you are not well.’
‘M. le curé, I have nothing the matter with me.’
‘You have tears in your eyes.’
‘I am pitying your sister.’
‘Ah, bah!’ Just then, in came the baron and Asheton. They had heard that the baroness had gone to the parsonage in the rain, and were shocked and had come to fetch her.
‘Hold, M. le baron!’ said the curé. ‘Will you do me the honour to step into my little room. I have there a Quintus Curtius, a most interesting book, giving the history of Alexander the Great. What a pity that the first two books are lost! The style is so fine! Will you come in and see it? I will lend it you. It will serve to make pass the time of rain.’
When the baron was with him, ‘Mon ami,’ he said, ‘it is not my place to interfere, but—but I cannot help. Mdme. your wife does not look well, or happy. She is growing paler every clay. The life at the chateau does not suit her.’
‘She makes no complaint,’ said the baron.
‘No, certainly,’ answered the curé. ‘But for all that I can see that she is not happy. She is like a fish on land. Your mother and aunt do not behave properly to her.’
‘But, my dear curé, what can I do?’
‘Do, sir! devote yourself more to your wife than to Guernsey cows and foreign sheep. She is more precious than they. It would have been better had you not married her. I said so, your mother said so. But you made your choice and you have taken her, taken her away from her own country and home and plunged her in uncongenial surroundings. She is in a new and strange world here, and she cannot accommodate herself to it. You must be more with her. You must lay yourself out to interest her, and brighten her life. She is good-hearted as an angel. That is well for you, for mischief comes of it when a woman is left alone too much by the companion God has given her.’
‘I will think of what you have said.’
‘Act on it. Act on it.’ The curé held out his big hand and shook that of the baron.
On their way back to the chateau the baron said, ‘My dear Jacquetta! What do you say, shall we make an excursion in the spring, after Easter, to England, and see your dear father and mother again?’
She flushed with pleasure, then turned pale; she put her little hand to his and pressed it.
‘You have not answered me,’ he said.
‘We will talk it over together when we get home. It is a surprise. You are very kind, Alphonse.’
He felt her trembling at his side.
When they were together in their room, and he was helping to take off her wet things, ‘Well, Jacquetta, what do you say? Shall we go over that same pleasant route again, and pass another honeymoon in the Channel Islands, and then on to Plymouth and spend some time with your dear parents? You are not looking well, little woman.’
‘Oh, Alphonse!’ she burst into tears and clasped his neck, ‘it cannot be just when you offer—for—I expect I shall—sometime be a mother.’