The Village Rector

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The engineer, encouraged by so much success, now conceived a scheme of
a nature to render Madame Graslin's fortune colossal,--she herself
having by this time recovered possession of the income which had been
mortgaged for the repayment of the loan. Gerard's new scheme was to
make a canal of the little river, and turn into it the superabundant
waters of the Gabou. This canal, which he intended to carry into the
Vienne, would form a waterway by which to send down timber from the
twenty thousand acres of forest land belonging to Madame Graslin in
Montegnac, now admirably managed by Colorat, but which, for want of
transportation, returned no profit. A thousand acres could be cut over
each year without detriment to the forest, and if sent in this way to
Limoges, would find a ready market for building purposes.

This was the original plan of Monsieur Graslin himself, who had paid
very little attention to the rector's scheme relating to the plain,
being much more attracted by that of turning the little river into a
canal.



XIX

A DEATH BLOW

At the beginning of the following year, in spite of Madame Graslin's
assumption of strength, her friends began to notice symptoms which
foreshadowed her coming death. To all the doctor's remarks, and to the
inquiries of the most clear-sighted of her friends, Veronique made the
invariable answer that she was perfectly well. But when the spring
opened she went round to visit her forests, farms, and beautiful
meadows with a childlike joy and delight which betrayed to those who
knew her best a sad foreboding.

Finding himself obliged to build a small cemented wall between the dam
of the Gabou and the park of Montegnac along the base of the hill
called especially La Correze, Gerard took up the idea of enclosing the
whole forest and thus uniting it with the park. Madame Graslin agreed
to this, and appointed thirty thousand francs a year to this work,
which would take seven years to accomplish and would then withdraw
that fine forest from the rights exercised by government over the
non-enclosed forests of private individuals. The three ponds of the
Gabou would thus become a part of the park. These ponds, ambitiously
called lakes, had each its island.

This year, Gerard had prepared, in collusion with Grossetete, a
surprise for Madame Graslin's birthday. He had built a little
hermitage on the largest of the islands, rustic on the outside and
elegantly arranged within. The old banker took part in the conspiracy,
in which Farrabesche, Fresquin, Clousier's nephew, and nearly all the
well-to-do people in Montegnac co-operated. Grossetete sent down some
beautiful furniture. The clock tower, copied from that at Vevay, made
a charming effect in the landscape. Six boats, two for each pond, were
secretly built, painted, and rigged during the winter by Farrabesche
and Guepin, assisted by the carpenter of Montegnac.

When the day arrived (about the middle of May) after a breakfast
Madame Graslin gave to her friends, she was taken by them across the
park--which was finely laid out by Gerard, who, for the last five
years, had improved it like a landscape architect and naturalist--to
the pretty meadow of the valley of the Gabou, where, at the shore of
the first lake, two of the boats were floating. This meadow, watered
by several clear streamlets, lay at the foot of the fine ampitheatre
where the valley of the Gabou begins. The woods, cleared in a
scientific manner, so as to produce noble masses and vistas that were
charming to the eye, enclosed the meadow and gave it a solitude that
was grateful to the soul. Gerard had reproduced on an eminence that
chalet in the valley of Sion above the road to Brieg which travellers
admire so much; here were to be the dairy and the cow-sheds of the
chateau. From its gallery the eye roved over the landscape created by
the engineer which the three lakes made worthy of comparison with the
beauties of Switzerland.

The day was beautiful. In the blue sky, not a cloud; on earth, all the
charming, graceful things the soil offers in the month of May. The
trees planted ten years earlier on the banks--weeping willows, osier,
alder, ash, the aspen of Holland, the poplars of Italy and Virginia,
hawthorns and roses, acacias, birches, all choice growths arranged as
their nature and the lay of the land made suitable--held amid their
foliage a few fleecy vapors, born of the waters, which rose like a
slender smoke. The surface of the lakelet, clear as a mirror and calm
as the sky, reflected the tall green masses of the forest, the tops of
which, distinctly defined in the limpid atmosphere, contrasted with
the groves below wrapped in their pretty veils. The lakes, separated
by broad causeways, were three mirrors showing different reflections,
the waters of which flowed from one to another in melodious cascades.
These causeways were used to go from lake to lake without passing
round the shores. From the chalet could be seen, through a vista among
the trees, the thankless waste of the chalk commons, resembling an
open sea and contrasting with the fresh beauty of the lakes and their
verdure.

When Veronique saw the joyousness of her friends as they held out
their hands to help her into the largest of the boats, tears came into
her eyes and she kept silence till they touched the bank of the first
causeway. As she stepped into the second boat she saw the hermitage
with Grossetete sitting on a bench before it with all his family.

"Do they wish to make me regret dying?" she said to the rector.

"We wish to prevent you from dying," replied Clousier.

"You cannot make the dead live," she answered.

Monsieur Bonnet gave her a stern look which recalled her to herself.

"Let me take care of your health," said Roubaud, in a gentle,
persuasive voice. "I am sure I can save to this region its living
glory, and to all our friends their common tie."

Veronique bowed her head, and Gerard rowed slowly toward the island in
the middle of the lake, the largest of the three, into which the
overflowing water of the first was rippling with a sound that gave a
voice to that delightful landscape.

"You have done well to make me bid farewell to this ravishing nature
on such a day," she said, looking at the beauty of the trees, all so
full of foliage that they hid the shore. The only disapprobation her
friends allowed themselves was to show a gloomy silence; and
Veronique, receiving another glance from Monsieur Bonnet, sprang
lightly ashore, assuming a lively air, which she did not relinquish.
Once more the hostess, she was charming, and the Grossetete family
felt she was again the beautiful Madame Graslin of former days.

"Indeed, you can still live, if you choose!" said her mother in a
whisper.

At this gay festival, amid these glorious creations produced by the
resources of nature only, nothing seemed likely to wound Veronique,
and yet it was here and now that she received her death-blow.

The party were to return about nine o'clock by way of the meadows, the
road through which, as lovely as an English or an Italian road, was
the pride of its engineer. The abundance of small stones, laid aside
when the plain was cleared, enabled him to keep it in good order; in
fact, for the last five years it was, in a way, macadamized. Carriages
were awaiting the company at the opening of the last valley toward the
plain, almost at the base of the Roche-Vive. The horses, raised at
Montegnac, were among the first that were ready for the market. The
manager of the stud had selected a dozen for the stables of the
chateau, and their present fine appearance was part of the programme
of the fete. Madame Graslin's own carriage, a gift from Grossetete,
was drawn by four of the finest animals, plainly harnessed.

After dinner the happy party went to take coffee in a little wooden
kiosk, made like those on the Bosphorus, and placed on a point of the
island from which the eye could reach to the farther lake beyond. From
this spot Madame Graslin thought she saw her son Francis near the
nursery-ground formerly planted by Farrabesche. She looked again, but
did not see him; and Monsieur Ruffin pointed him out to her, playing
on the bank with Grossetete's children. Veronique became alarmed lest
he should meet with some accident. Not listening to remonstrance, she
ran down from the kiosk, and jumping into a boat, began to row toward
her son. This little incident caused a general departure. Monsieur
Grossetete proposed that they should all follow her and walk on the
beautiful shore of the lake, along the curves of the mountainous
bluffs. On landing there Madame Graslin saw her son in the arms of a
woman in deep mourning. Judging by the shape of her bonnet and the
style of her clothes, the woman was a foreigner. Veronique was
startled, and called to her son, who presently came toward her.

"Who is that woman?" she asked the children round about her; "and why
did Francis leave you to go to her?"

"The lady called him by name," said a little girl.

At that instant Madame Sauviat and Gerard, who had outstripped the
rest of the company, came up.

"Who is that woman, my dear child?" asked Madame Graslin as soon as
Francis reached her.

"I don't know," he answered; "but she kissed me as you and grandmamma
kissed me--she cried," whispered Francis in his mother's ear.

"Shall I go after her?" asked Gerard.

"No!" said Madame Graslin, with an abruptness that was not usual in
her.

With a delicacy for which Veronique was grateful, Gerard led away the
children and went back to detain the rest of the party, leaving Madame
Sauviat, Madame Graslin, and Francis alone.

"What did she say to you?" asked Madame Sauviat of her grandson.

"I don't know; she did not speak French."

"Couldn't you understand anything she said?" asked Veronique.

"No; but she kept saying over and over,--and that's why I remember it,
--_My dear brother_!"

Veronique took her mother's arm and led her son by the hand, but she
had scarcely gone a dozen steps before her strength gave way.

"What is the matter? what has happened?" said the others, who now came
up, to Madame Sauviat.

"Oh! my daughter is in danger!" said the old woman, in guttural tones.

It was necessary to carry Madame Graslin to her carriage. She signed
to Aline to get into it with Francis, and also Gerard.

"You have been in England," she said to the latter as soon as she
recovered herself, "and therefore no doubt you speak English; tell me
the meaning of the words, _my dear brother_."

On being told, Veronique exchanged a look with Aline and her mother
which made them shudder; but they restrained their feelings.

The shouts and joyous cries of those who were assisting in the
departure of the carriages, the splendor of the setting sun as it lay
upon the meadows, the perfect gait of the beautiful horses, the
laughter of her friends as they followed her on horseback at a gallop,
--none of these things roused Madame Graslin from her torpor. Her
mother ordered the coachman to hasten his horses, and their carriage
reached the chateau some time before the others. When the company were
again assembled, they were told that Veronique had gone to her rooms
and was unable to see any one.

"I fear," said Gerard to his friends, "that Madame Graslin has had
some fatal shock."

"Where? how?" they asked.

"To her heart," he answered.

The following day Roubaud started for Paris. He had seen Madame
Graslin, and found her so seriously ill that he wished for the
assistance and advice of the ablest physician of the day. But
Veronique had only received Roubaud to put a stop to her mother and
Aline's entreaties that she would do something to benefit her; she
herself knew that death had stricken her. She refused to see Monsieur
Bonnet, sending word to him that the time had not yet come. Though all
her friends who had come from Limoges to celebrate her birthday wished
to be with her, she begged them to excuse her from fulfilling the
duties of hospitality, saying that she desired to remain in the
deepest solitude. After Roubaud's departure the other guests returned
to Limoges, less disappointed than distressed; for all those whom
Grossetete had brought with him adored Veronique. They were lost in
conjecture as to what might have caused this mysterious disaster.

One evening, two days after the departure of the company, Aline
brought Catherine to Madame Graslin's apartment. La Farrabesche
stopped short, horrified at the change so suddenly wrought in her
mistress, whose face seemed to her almost distorted.

"Good God, madame!" she cried, "what harm that girl has done! If we
had only foreseen it, Farrabesche and I, we would never have taken her
in. She has just heard that madame is ill, and sends me to tell Madame
Sauviat she wants to speak to her."

"Here!" cried Veronique. "Where is she?"

"My husband took her to the chalet."

"Very good," said Madame Graslin; "tell Farrabesche to go elsewhere.
Inform that lady that my mother will go to her; tell her to expect the
visit."

As soon as it was dark Veronique, leaning on her mother's arm, walked
slowly through the park to the chalet. The moon was shining with all
its brilliancy, the air was soft, and the two women, visibly affected,
found encouragement, of a sort, in the things of nature. The mother
stopped now and then, to rest her daughter, whose sufferings were
poignant, so that it was well-nigh midnight before they reached the
path that goes down from the woods to the sloping meadow where the
silvery roof of the chalet shone. The moonlight gave to the surface of
the quiet water, the tint of pearls. The little noises of the night,
echoing in the silence, made softest harmony. Veronique sat down on
the bench of the chalet, amid this beauteous scene of the starry
night. The murmur of two voices and the footfall of two persons still
at a distance on the sandy shore were brought by the water, which
sometimes, when all is still, reproduces sounds as faithfully as it
reflects objects on the surface. Veronique recognized at once the
exquisite voice of the rector, and the rustle of his cassock, also the
movement of some silken stuff that was probably the material of a
woman's gown.

"Let us go in," she said to her mother.

Madame Sauviat and her daughter sat down on a crib in the lower room,
which was intended for a stable.

"My child," they heard the rector saying, "I do not blame you,--you
are quite excusable; but your return may be the cause of irreparable
evil; she is the soul of this region."

"Ah! monsieur, then I had better go away to-night," replied the
stranger. "Though--I must tell you--to leave my country once more is
death to me. If I had stayed a day longer in that horrible New York,
where there is neither hope, nor faith, nor charity, I should have
died without being ill. The air I breathed oppressed my chest, food
did not nourish me, I was dying while full of life and vigor. My
sufferings ceased the moment I set foot upon the vessel to return. I
seemed to be already in France. Oh! monsieur, I saw my mother and one
of my sisters-in-law die of grief. My grandfather and grandmother
Tascheron are dead; dead, my dear Monsieur Bonnet, in spite of the
prosperity of Tascheronville,--for my father founded a village in Ohio
and gave it that name. That village is now almost a town, and a third
of all the land is cultivated by members of our family, whom God has
constantly protected. Our tillage succeeded, our crops have been
enormous, and we are rich. The town is Catholic, and we have managed
to build a Catholic church; we do not allow any other form of worship,
and we hope to convert by our example the many sects which surround
us. True religion is in a minority in that land of money and selfish
interests, where the soul is cold. Nevertheless, I will return to die
there, sooner than do harm or cause distress to the mother of our
Francis. Only, Monsieur Bonnet, take me to-night to the parsonage that
I may pray upon _his_ tomb, the thought of which has brought me here;
the nearer I have come to where _he_ is, the more I felt myself
another being. No, I never expected to feel so happy again as I do
here."

"Well, then," said the rector, "come with me now. If there should come
a time when you might return without doing injury, I will write to
you, Denise; but perhaps this visit to your birthplace will stop the
homesickness, and enable you to live over there without suffering--"

"Oh! to leave this country, now so beautiful! What wonders Madame
Graslin has done for it!" she exclaimed, pointing to the lake as it
lay in the moonlight. "All this fine domain will belong to our dear
Francis."

"You shall not go away, Denise," said Madame Graslin, who was standing
at the stable door.

Jean-Francois Tascheron's sister clasped her hands on seeing the
spectre which addressed her. At that moment the pale Veronique,
standing in the moonlight, was like a shade defined upon the darkness
of the open door-way. Her eyes alone shone like stars.

"No, my child, you shall not leave the country you have come so far to
see again; you shall be happy here, or God will refuse to help me; it
is He, no doubt, who has brought you back."

She took the astonished Denise by the hand, and led her away by a path
toward the other shore of the lake, leaving her mother and the rector,
who seated themselves on the bench.

"Let her do as she wishes," said Madame Sauviat.

A few moments later Veronique returned alone, and was taken back to
the chateau by her mother and Monsieur Bonnet. Doubtless she had
formed some plan which required secrecy, for no one in the
neighborhood either saw Denise or heard any mention of her.

Madame Graslin took to her bed that day and never but once left it
again; she went from bad to worse daily, and seemed annoyed and
thwarted that she could not rise,--trying to do so on several
occasions, and expressing a desire to walk out into the park. A few
days, however, after the scene we have just related, about the
beginning of June, she made a violent effort, rose, dressed as if for
a gala day, and begged Gerard to give her his arm, declaring that she
was resolved to take a walk. She gathered up all her strength and
expended it on this expedition, accomplishing her intention in a
paroxysm of will which had, necessarily, a fatal reaction.

"Take me to the chalet, and alone," she said to Gerard in a soft
voice, looking at him with a sort of coquetry. "This is my last
excursion; I dreamed last night the doctors arrived and captured me."

"Do you want to see your woods?" asked Gerard.

"For the last time, yes," she answered. "But what I really want," she
added, in a coaxing voice, "is to make you a singular proposition."

She asked Gerard to embark with her in one of the boats on the second
lake, to which she went on foot. When the young man, surprised at her
intention, began to move the oars, she pointed to the hermitage as the
object of her coming.

"My friend," she said, after a long pause, during which she had been
contemplating the sky and water, the hills and shores, "I have a
strange request to make of you; but I think you are a man who would
obey my wishes--"

"In all things, sure that you can wish only what is good."

"I wish to marry you," she answered; "if you consent you will
accomplish the wish of a dying woman, which is certain to secure your
happiness."

"I am too ugly," said the engineer.

"The person to whom I refer is pretty; she is young, and wishes to
live at Montegnac. If you will marry her you will help to soften my
last hours. I will not dwell upon her virtues now; I only say her
nature is a rare one; in the matter of grace and youth and beauty, one
look will suffice; you are now about to see her at the hermitage. As
we return home you must give me a serious yes or no."

Hearing this confidence, Gerard unconsciously quickened his oars,
which made Madame Graslin smile. Denise, who was living alone, away
from all eyes, at the hermitage, recognized Madame Graslin and
immediately opened the door. Veronique and Gerard entered. The poor
girl could not help a blush as she met the eyes of the young man, who
was greatly surprised at her beauty.

"I hope Madame Farrabesche has not let you want for anything?" said
Veronique.

"Oh no! madame, see!" and she pointed to her breakfast.

"This is Monsieur Gerard, of whom I spoke to you," went on Veronique.
"He is to be my son's guardian, and after my death you shall live
together at the chateau until his majority."

"Oh! madame, do not talk in that way!"

"My dear child, look at me!" replied Veronique, addressing Denise, in
whose eyes the tears rose instantly. "She has just arrived from New
York," she added, by way of introduction to Gerard.

The engineer put several questions about the new world to the young
woman, while Veronique, leaving them alone, went to look at the third
and more distant lake of the Gabou. It was six o'clock as Veronique
and Gerard returned in the boat toward the chalet.

"Well?" she said, looking at him.

"You have my promise."

"Though you are, I know, without prejudices," she went on, "I must not
leave you ignorant of the reason why that poor girl, brought back here
by homesickness, left the place originally."

"A false step?"

"Oh, no!" said Veronique. "Should I offer her to you if that were so?
She is the sister of a workman who died on the scaffold--"

"Ah! Tascheron," he said, "the murderer of old Pingret."

"Yes, she is the sister of a murderer," said Madame Graslin, in a
bitter tone; "you are at liberty to take back your promise and--"

She did not finish, and Gerard was obliged to carry her to the bench
before the chalet, where she remained unconscious for some little
time. When she opened her eyes Gerard was on his knees before her and
he said instantly:--

"I will marry Denise."

Madame Graslin took his head in both hands and kissed him on the
forehead; then, seeing his surprise at so much gratitude, she pressed
his hand and said:

"Before long you will know the secret of all this. Let us go back to
the terrace, for it is late; I am very tired, but I must look my last
on that dear plain."

Though the day had been insupportably hot, the storms which during
this year devastated parts of Europe and of France but respected the
Limousin, had run their course in the basin of the Loire, and the
atmosphere was singularly clear. The sky was so pure that the eye
could seize the slightest details on the horizon. What language can
render the delightful concert of busy sounds produced in the village
by the return of the workers from the fields? Such a scene, to be
rightly given, needs a great landscape artist and also a great painter
of the human face. Is there not, by the bye, in the lassitude of
Nature and that of man a curious affinity which is difficult to grasp?
The depressing heat of a dog-day and the rarification of the air give
to the least sound made by human beings all its signification. The
women seated on their doorsteps and waiting for their husbands (who
often bring back the children) gossip with each other while still at
work. The roofs are casting up the lines of smoke which tell of the
evening meal, the gayest among the peasantry; after which, they sleep.
All actions express the tranquil cheerful thoughts of those whose
day's work is over. Songs are heard very different in character from
those of the morning; in this the peasants imitate the birds, whose
warbling at night is totally unlike their notes at dawn. All nature
sings a hymn to rest, as it sang a hymn of joy to the coming sun. The
slightest movements of living beings seem tinted then with the soft,
harmonious colors of the sunset cast upon the landscape and lending
even to the dusty roadways a placid air. If any dared deny the
influence of this hour, the loveliest of the day, the flowers would
protest and intoxicate his senses with their penetrating perfumes,
which then exhale and mingle with the tender hum of insects and the
amorous note of birds.

The brooks which threaded the plain beyond the village were veiled in
fleecy vapor. In the great meadows through which the high-road ran,
--bordered with poplars, acacias, and ailanthus, wisely intermingled and
already giving shade,--enormous and justly celebrated herds of cattle
were scattered here and there, some still grazing, others ruminating.
Men, women, and children were ending their day's work in the hay-field,
the most picturesque of all the country toils. The night air, freshened
by distant storms, brought on its wings the satisfying odors of the
newly cut grass or the finished hay. Every feature of this beautiful
panorama could be seen perfectly; those who feared a coming storm were
finishing in haste the hay-stacks, while others followed with their
pitchforks to fill the carts as they were driven along the rows. Others
in the distance were still mowing, or turning the long lines of fallen
grass to dry it, or hastening to pile it into cocks. The joyous laugh
of the merry workers mingling with the shouts of the children tumbling
each other in the hay, rose on the air. The eye could distinguish the
pink, red, or blue petticoats, the kerchiefs, and the bare legs and
arms of the women, all wearing broad-brimmed hats of a coarse straw,
and the shirts and trousers of the men, the latter almost invariably
white. The last rays of the sun were filtering through the long lines
of poplars planted beside the trenches which divided the plain into
meadows of unequal size, and caressing the groups of horses and carts,
men, women, children, and cattle. The cattlemen and the shepherd-girls
were beginning to collect their flocks to the sound of rustic horns.