Kitabı oku: «Autumn Glory; Or, The Toilers of the Field», sayfa 12

CHAPTER XIV.
DWELLERS IN TOWNS

The farmer soon recovered consciousness. Sitting up, he looked about him, and hearing Mathurin moaning and saying: "He is dead!" answered: "No, my boy, I am all right," then with the aid of the farm-servant he went back to his bed.

At dawn next morning, he started for a tour round the farms to try and learn particulars of his son. It seemed that neither Mathurin nor the man had had the least suspicion of André's flight; they had neither seen nor heard the slightest thing.

Thus Toussaint Lumineau went to make inquiries among the old and new friends frequented by André during the last few months, sons of farmers, gooseherds, or sailors. For three whole days he scoured the Marais from Saint Gervais to Fromentière, from Sallertaine to Saint Gilles. Those he asked knew but little, or were unwilling to betray confidence. All agreed in stating that André had often talked of making his fortune across the sea where the land was new and fertile. The best informed went on to say:

"Last Sunday he said good-bye to several of us, myself among the number. He told me he was off to South America, where, for a mere nothing, he would get a farm of seventy-four acres of virgin soil; but I do not remember the name of the place where he was going."

On the evening of the third day, when, having had this information, the farmer returned home, he found the cripple sitting by the fireside.

"Mathurin," he said, "you ought still to have some of those books where countries are sketched out, you know what I mean?"

"Geography books? Yes, there must be some left from old schooldays. Why?"

"I want to look at America," replied the old man. "It is there that your brother is going they all say."

Dragging himself to the chest, from under the clothes at the bottom the cripple brought forth a handful of school books, which had belonged to one or other of them as boys, and came back with a little elementary atlas, on the cover of which was written in a beginner's large handwriting: "This book belongs to Lumineau André, son of Lumineau Toussaint, of La Fromentière, Commune of Sallertaine, Vendée." The father stroked his hand over the writing, as if to caress it.

"It was his," he said.

Mathurin opened the atlas. It was all to pieces; the maps were rounded at the corners from wear, crumpled or torn, the edges frayed. The cripple's fingers turned the pages gingerly, and stopped at a map covered with ink-blots in which the two Americas, united by their isthmus, in deep orange colour, looked like a pair of huge spectacles. The two men bent over it. "This is South America," said Mathurin. "And here is the sea."

The farmer pondered for a considerable time over Mathurin's words, endeavouring to harmonise them with the inky map, then shook his head.

"I cannot picture to myself where he is," he said sadly, "but I see that there is sea, and that he is lost to us…"

Mathurin slowly shut his book and said:

"They were both bad sons; they have forsaken you."

The farmer did not seem to have heard him; turning to Rousille, he said gently, far more gently than was his wont: "Rousille, have a cup of coffee ready for me the first thing to-morrow morning. I will go and find out François." And accordingly at ten o'clock the next morning, the fourth day after Driot's departure, the farmer of La Fromentière alighted from the train at the station of La Roche-sur-Yon. The moment he set foot on the platform, he began looking for his son amongst the porters engaged in shutting the carriage doors, or taking the luggage from the van. Taller by a head than most of the passengers who were hurrying hither and thither, he would stop every ten paces to follow with his eyes some porter with young, full face like François. He wanted to see his son again, but was nervous at meeting him in so public a place. He, clad in his black cloth suit, with blue waistband, his new hat bound with velvet set well at the back of his head, free to come and go at his own time – he, the master of his working and leisure hours, felt a kind of shame at the thought that among that group of paid servants, hustled about by their superiors, clad in a uniform they had no right to exchange for ordinary clothes, was a Lumineau of La Fromentière.

Not finding François on the platform, he was proceeding to a part of the line where carriages were uncoupled, and was watching a gang of men push a loaded truck along with their shoulders, thinking the while, "Why, they are doing the work of our oxen at home," when a voice called out:

"Hey! Where are you going?"

"To find my boy."

"Who is he?"

"You may perhaps know him," replied the farmer, touching the brim of his hat. "He is employed on the line; his name is François Lumineau."

The inspector said carelessly:

"Lumineau? Ah, yes, one of the men on the line. Been here four months?"

"Five," returned the father.

"Maybe. A stout, red-faced fellow, somewhat lazy. Do you want to speak to him?"

"Yes."

"Very well. If you know where he lives, go to him there. You can do your business with him when he goes home to his dinner. Foot passengers are not allowed on the lines, my good man." And as he went away, the inspector grumbled: "These peasants think they have the right to go anywhere, as if they were in their own fields."

The farmer controlling himself on François' account, made no reply. He left the railway station and began wandering among the broad, deserted streets with their rows of low-built houses on either side; rain had been falling since early morning. The people he stopped to inquire of did not know Café la Faucille, the name of which he had learned from the Maraîchins who came to the fairs of La Roche. At length, by means of the sign-board, he found it out for himself, in the outskirts of the town. Like the others in the street it was a little one-storied house, with one window. Pushing open the door, Toussaint Lumineau found himself in a coffee shop, furnished with deal tables, cane stools, and a glass cupboard, wherein were displayed bottles of wine and spirits, and on a counter at the foot were a few plates of cold meat, between two boxes of sweet biscuits. Nobody was there. Lumineau took his stand in the middle of the shop; the bell, set ringing by the farmer's entrance, continued to sound more and more feebly. Before it had altogether ceased, an inner door opposite opened, emitting a whiff of cookery, and a woman, without cap, her hair very much dressed, came forward in a mincing manner.

Although he stood with his back to the light she at once recognised the new-comer, coloured vividly, let fall the corner of her apron she was holding in both hands, and stopped short.

"Oh," she said, "it is you, father! What a surprise! How long it is since we have seen you!"

"Yes, true. A very long time."

She hesitated, glad to see her father, and not daring to say so, not knowing his object in coming, and whether she ought to ask him to sit down, to kiss him, or to keep her distance as one who may not hope to be forgiven.

Her eyes were fixed on him. However, the words, not hard, the gentle tones and voice that trembled, reassured her; and she asked:

"May I kiss you, father, despite all?"

He suffered her embrace, but did not return the kiss. Then sitting on a stool, while Eléonore went to the other side of the table, he looked at his daughter with melancholy curiosity to see in what way she had changed. Eléonore, standing near the wall, embarrassed by the penetrating gaze, began fastening the collar of her grey woollen dress, drawing down the sleeves over her bare arms, then twisted a ring she was wearing on her right hand.

"I did not expect," she stammered, casting down her eyes… "It has quite startled me to see you again! François will be astonished too. He comes in at eleven every day, sometimes half-past. Father, you will have something to eat?"

He made a negative gesture.

"A glass of wine? You will not refuse that?"

For all answer, Toussaint Lumineau said:

"Do you know what has happened at home, Eléonore?"

Suddenly the slight amount of self-possession she had assumed left her. She drew back still further. Her light blue eyes assumed an expression of fear, while she glanced towards the street as if, perchance, the expected help were coming from that direction. Then, obliged to speak, leaning her head against the wall, with eyes downcast:

"Yes," she said. "He came to La Roche. He wanted to see François."

"What!" exclaimed Toussaint Lumineau, rising and pushing back the stool. "André? You have spoken to André?"

"Very early on Monday he came. His face had a look on it that is always coming back to me when I am alone. Oh! a look as of a world of sorrow. He pushed open the door, like you did, and said: 'François, I am going away from La Fromentière, because you are not there!' I am sure, father, it is a blow to you … but do not be angry, for we said nothing to induce him to go. We were even sorry on your account."

She had put out her hand as if to ward the old man off; but she saw at once that there was nothing to fear, and the outstretched hand fell beside the dingy plastered wall. For Toussaint Lumineau was crying as he looked at her. The tears were coursing down his face, wrinkled by suffering. He wanted to know everything, and asked:

"Did he speak of me?"

"No."

"Did he speak of La Fromentière?"

"No."

"Did he at last say where he was going?"

"He would neither sit down nor stay. He kissed us both; but words neither came to him nor to us. François asked him: 'Where are you going, Driot?' and he answered: 'To Buenos Ayres, in America. I mean to try and make money. When I am a rich man you shall all hear of me. Good-bye, Lionore. Good-bye, François,' and he was gone."

"Gone," repeated Lumineau; "my last one gone!"

Eléonore's feelings were touched in sympathy, the corners of her eyes grew moist; but they still turned towards the street, while her father shut his.

"Father," she said, "will you mind coming into the kitchen with me? François will soon be coming in, and if he does not find his dinner ready, you know what it will be! He is not always easy to get on with." She went into the inner room, followed by her father. It was but a shed built on, quite dark even in broad daylight, whose only window looked on to a narrow yard built up on all sides. An iron stove, at present alight, three chairs, and a table took up nearly all the space. The farmer, taking a chair, sat down between the window and the open door, that he might see François when he came in. Eléonore busied herself with cookery, laid the table for two, went backwards and forwards from one room to the other, always in a hurry, never getting on much with what she had in hand. Toussaint Lumineau was silent. She felt it necessary to sigh as she passed him, and say:

"Things have gone sadly against you. And how melancholy it must be at La Fromentière now! Poor father, I am sorry for you!"

He, listening, took her empty words as words of pity.

"Lionore," he said, after a while, as she stooping was cutting the bread for the soup, "Lionore, you have given up the coif of La Vendée?"

"Yes, they ironed them so badly here at La Roche, and it cost so much. Besides, no one wears caps here."

"Humph! Well, since you have given up dressing as did your mother and grandmother, and all the women of the family I have ever known, are you any the happier? Are you content in your new circumstances?"

She went on cutting the bread into thin slices, and answered:

"It is not the same kind of work, but I cannot say but that I have as much to do as I had at home. There are the rooms to keep in order, marketing to do, my stones to wash every other day when it rains, as to-day, or snows; cooking at all times of the day, and that for people who are not always very civil, I assure you. Sometimes there are complaints that there are so few customers, for there was too high a price paid for the café – much too high. And then when men passing come in for a drink, I am often afraid of them. Indeed, if I had not neighbours – "

"And your brother, is he content?" interrupted the farmer.

"Half and half. The pay is so poor, you see. Two francs at La Fromentière go farther than three here."

The father hesitated a little. Then asked, lowering his voice:

"Tell me, perhaps he regrets what he has done? I have no son with me now, Lionore; I am wretched. Do you think that François would come back to his home?"

He forgave all, forgot all; he craved help from the children who had wronged him.

Eléonore's face changed abruptly. Drying her eyes with a corner of her handkerchief, she shook her pointed chignon, and replied drily:

"I do not think so, father. I would rather tell you so out straight. You will be seeing my brother – will talk it over with him, but I do not think – " And as if deeply hurt she turned abruptly away to the store.

The half-hour had struck, the door of the café opened noisily, a man came in. Without looking up, or moving from her place, the girl said:

"Here he is."

Despite the railway uniform and cap he was wearing, the farmer, in the semi-darkness of the shop, had already recognised his son by the downcast head, slouching gait, and habit of holding his arms out from his body. Soon François stood before him in the doorway of the kitchen, and a glance revealed the same heavy features as of old – russet-red complexion, drooping moustache, and look of stolid indifference.

On seeing his father a shade of emotion passed over his face.

"Good day, father," said he, holding out his hand. "So things are not going well by what I see?"

The farmer made a sign of acquiescence.

"You are in trouble. Yes, I understand. So should I be if I were you. André ought not to have done it; he was the last, he ought to have stayed."

Toussaint Lumineau had seized François' hand, and was pressing it between both of his with a tenderness that spoke volumes, and his eyes, which sought the eyes of his son, uttered the same entreaty. In measure, however, that his father's mute pleading entered his soul, François quickly recovered from his surprise, hardening himself against the momentary feeling of compassion. Presently, drawing back his hand, he retreated a step, saying with the air of a man defiant and on the defensive.

"I understand. You are not wanting to engage another servant, but would rather have Lionore and me back at Sallertaine?"

"If you could, François. I have no one else to look to."

A half-satisfied smile at the correctness of his surmise passed over François' face as he rejoined:

"Yet you see that the other has gone too; and that there is nothing more to be done with the land."

"You are mistaken. He has gone to cultivate it elsewhere, in America! It was because he missed you so sorely, François, that he lost heart at home."

"Yes," said François, drawing up a chair for himself and sitting down to the table. "It seems to be a wonderful country, America! But here with us it's too hard."

The farmer did not take up the words which had angered him before.

"Well!" he said, "I will give you help. I have no other son now, for you know that Mathurin is of no account in the management of a farm. You will soon be the master; the next lease shall be drawn up in your name, and there will still be a Lumineau at La Fromentière. Will you come back?"

François made a gesture of annoyance and gave no reply.

"You are making nothing," resumed the farmer, "by what Eléonore tells me."

"No, the pay is poor enough."

"The café has not many customers?"

"No; but we paid too much for it. We are not sure that it will answer." He turned to his sister who was listening passive and tearful. "But we scrape along, eh, Lionore? In time I may get a rise, so the sub-inspector tells me. Then I shall be better off. I don't want more. We have got to know people already; on Sundays I have my half-day off."

"You had the whole day at La Fromentière!"

"I don't say that I hadn't. But what you ask, father, can't be done."

A man, whose entrance they had not perceived, now called out from the adjoining room:

"Is no one here? Is there no dinner to be had?"

Eléonore, glad of the interruption, passed between her brother and father, and they heard her laugh to appease the customer. François drew the soup-tureen towards him, and put in the ladle.

"You must not mind my helping myself," he said to his father, who remained sitting at the window behind him, "I have only got a quarter of an hour; it's a long way to the station. I shall be fined," and between the mouthfuls of soup he asked in a softened voice: "You have not given me news of Rousille. Is she quite well? And Mathurin, does he still imagine that he will be all right again? He who always was so keen on being master at La Fromentière did nothing to keep André back, I suppose?"

Toussaint Lumineau rose abruptly, unable longer to control his anger.

"You are a couple of ungrateful children, both of you!" he exclaimed in a loud voice. "Stay in your town!" and going out of the kitchen, he crossed the café before the eyes of the sickly-looking mechanic, and of Eléonore, who, terrified, leant forward:

"I told you so, poor father. I told you he would not! I knew it. Still, au revoir."

Then to François who was following him:

"You are going with him to the station."

He shook his head.

"Yes, go! It would look better; he would not then be able to say that we had not treated him kindly."

The farmer had opened the door into the street.

"I will go with you to the station, if you like," said François sheepishly.

"I did not ask you to go with me to the station, ungrateful son; I asked you to come back and save us all from ruin, and you have refused!" was the reply. They saw him stride down the street erect, his fine figure making two of the puny town mechanics, his silvery hair shining through the mist of rain. The door shut behind him.

"No easy customer, the old papa," said the man who was dining.

"Don't talk of it," exclaimed Eléonore; "I am quite ill."

"What was it he wanted?"

With a coarse laugh François said as he went back to the kitchen:

"Wanted me to go back and dig for him."

The mechanic, shrugging his shoulders, said with a self-satisfied air:

"A fine idea! The old gentleman was a bit unreasonable, I think."

CHAPTER XV.
THE EMIGRANT

It was late afternoon when Toussaint Lumineau returned to La Fromentière. It had rained heavily all day. On the hearth in the house-place the largest pot was boiling full of potatoes for the men's supper, and to give food for the pigs. Sitting by the fireside Mathurin and the farm-servant, kept indoors by the inclement weather, were warming themselves and waiting for news. The cripple who had been very gloomy, and in a state of nervous excitement since André's departure, had not spoken a word the whole afternoon. Rousille could be heard folding linen and arranging it in piles in the cupboard of the adjacent room.

The farmer ascended the house steps and opened the door. Simultaneously the thought came into the minds of the three awaiting him: "What did they say? Will they come back? Did they let you go away without even a promise to return?" But no one dared to ask him.

With a curt greeting to his household the farmer went straight to his bedside, and began silently changing his Sunday garb for his working clothes. The best coat, new hat, shoes, were all laid away. The answer must have been unsatisfactory. An awkward silence reigned in the room; as the minutes went on Mathurin's irritation increased. Bent almost double in the chimney-corner, his face drawn, he, the eldest son, felt hurt at being treated like a servant or a woman. Why not have taken him apart? A sign would have sufficed. Why not have given it him?

His ill temper broke forth when his father, having changed his clothes, said peremptorily:

"Rousille, you will come with me and the man into the barn to make baskets. You, Mathurin, for once will take your sister's place, and watch the pot."

"So you think me of no use at all?" said the cripple.

Contrary to his usual habit, which was to give reasons and modify orders, the farmer, raising his voice, made answer:

"I am sole master here. Come, Rousille!" Followed by his daughter and the man, he crossed the yard in the front of the house, went into the barn, and threw open the double doors that separated it from the cart shed. There was the wine press, the red tilbury; and ranged against the walls were wheelbarrows, hen-coops, ladders, rafters, and poles; in the middle of the circle formed by this medley was a sandy space, where the fowls came to scratch and cover themselves with sand. The farmer sat down upon a joist beside a vat in which a bundle of osiers were steeping, his face turned towards the farmhouse. Rousille kneeling close to him, her back to the light, drew the twigs from the water one by one, peeled them with her pocket-knife and handed them to her father. He, taking the white stems, twisted them round the already prepared framework of the baskets. In a corner the man was chopping poles of chestnut wood with a hedge-bill. The rain came down faster than ever, the air grew colder and more penetrating, spreading a veil of mist between the barn and the house. A fantastic twilight, coming from one knew not whither, uncertain as the rain and driven by the wind, cast a faint glimmer upon the workers. The ducks were quacking merrily in the Marais; sparrows were chirping in the gutters of the roof. Not a word passed between the father, his daughter, and the man. Toussaint Lumineau was looking at Rousille – looking at her more often and attentively than was his wont; his thought was: "She is all that is left to me." At times he stopped plaiting, the white osier remained motionless, and his hand sank nerveless to his side. Then it was that the remembrance of his other children was passing, like the rain, in a torrent over his soul. In the depths of his heart the father would cry, "François! André!" He tried to picture South America as he had seen it on map. Where was his youngest son now in the great wide world? Was he in a town, or wandering along unknown roads, or on the great ocean that sucks in so many victims? Toussaint Lumineau strove to get to him, but the effort was vain. All the scenes his imagination could picture were lost in the unknown.

At that same hour, far away, the heart of a young man was recalling with all the faithfulness of familiar scenes, La Fromentière and its elms, his father, Rousille, Mathurin, the meadows of the Marais and all the country round. It was the son of whom the old man was thinking with such poignant regret; he, whom all three in the barn were vainly trying to follow in their inexperience of travel.

Tired after a night passed in the train, and in going from one agent's office to the other, a stranger and unknown, André was sitting on a bundle of sheep-skins in the docks of a great seaport, awaiting the hour of embarkation in a steamer that was to bear him away to the new country. In front of him the waters of the River Scheldt dashed up against the quay; emerging from the fog on one side they formed a kind of half circle, to be lost in deeper fog on the other, their broad expanse covered with shipping. André's weary eyes followed the moving panorama of sailing vessels, steamers, coasting and fishing boats all standing out grey in the fog and the fading light of day, now massed together, now disentangling and gliding away each to its own destination.

More often he looked beyond to the low-lying land round which the river curved, meadows half under water, deserted, immeasurable, seeming to float on the pale waters. How they reminded him of the province he had left! How they spoke to him! Neither the rolling of trucks, nor the whistle of commanding officers, nor the voices of the thousands of men of all nations unloading their ships round about him could draw away his thoughts. Nor did he feel any interest in the great city that extended behind him, and whence at times, amid the noise and bustle of the quay, came the sound of peals of bells such as he had never yet heard. But the time was drawing near. He knew this by the increasing agitation within him. The tramp of an approaching body of people made him turn his head; they were emigrants coming out of the sheds where they had been penned in by the agents, forming a long grey stream, seen through the mist. They come nearer, the foremost making their way through the casks and piles of sacks heaped upon the quay, and crossing the muddy gangway, hasten to secure the best places between decks; others follow, a confused mass of men, women, and children. Young and old are hard to distinguish; like tears, all look alike; all have the same sad look in their eyes; all are wearing their oldest clothes for the voyage: shapeless coats, jerseys, old mantles, kerchiefs over the women's heads, patched petticoats, odd garments in which they have worked and toiled many a day. They rub against André Lumineau, sitting on the bundle of skins, and pay no heed to him. They do not speak to one another, but in their hurried progress families form into distinct groups; mothers holding their children by the hand and shielding them from the wind, fathers with elbows extended protecting them from the pressure. All are carrying something: a bundle of clothing, a loaf of bread, a handbag tied together with string. All have made the same pause at the same place. As they turn in from the streets through the dock gates, they straighten themselves and stretch out their necks to look across, ever in the same direction, to the plains of the Scheldt, where a golden shimmer through the fog denotes the quarter of the setting sun; and, as though it were their own, they gaze upon a solitary little clock tower which rises out of the misty distance. Then they turn into the docks, find which is their boat, the steam already up, the windlass at work, the bridge black with emigrants. And their courage fails, they are afraid; many among them would fain turn back. But for them there is no turning back, they must embark, their tickets tremble in their shaking hands. In spirit only they return to the old country, to the poverty they have anathematized and now regret; to the deserted rooms, the suburbs, the factories, the country sides where once was "home." Pale and nerveless the living stream suffers itself to be swept on, and embarks.

For a long time André Lumineau looked on without joining the crowd. He was seeking a fellow-countryman. Seeing none, he at last put himself in line with the others; he was wearing his military cloak, the buttons of which had been changed, and was carrying the black portmanteau that five days ago reposed in the hayloft of Fromentière. His neighbours glanced at him with indifference, accepting him without remark.

Among them he crossed the quay, mounted the gangway, and stepped on board, the ship already swaying with the motion of the river. Then while others in the throng who had friends or relations with them were walking the decks in groups, or examining the machinery, or inspecting the cabins, he leaned over the side of the boat at the stern trying to distinguish the river and the grey meadow land, for memories were rushing thickly upon him, and his courage was nigh to deserting him. But doubtless the fog had deepened, for he saw nothing.

Beside him, hunched up upon the seat, was an old woman with still fresh complexion, wrapped in a black cloak with a cape to it, her coif fastened with a pair of gold pins, and rocking a child in her arms.

André took no notice of her. But she, unable to fix her eyes anywhere in the bustle and confusion of a ship on the point of departure, raised them every now and then to the stranger standing beside her, who so surely was thinking of the home he was leaving. Perhaps she had a son of the same age. The feeling of pity grew in her and albeit, well knowing that her neighbour would not understand her language, the old woman said:

"U heeft pyn."

After she had repeated it several times he understood by the word "pain" and the intonation with which it was said, that the woman asked, "You are in sorrow?" and answered:

"Yes, madame."

The old mother took Driot's hand in her soft shrivelled one, all cold and damp with the fog, and stroked it tenderly, and the young Vendéen broke down utterly and wept, thinking of bygone caresses from his old mother, who, too, had worn a white coif and gold pins on grand occasions.

Mist and fog were sweeping over the Marais of La Vendée, as over the plains of the Scheldt, driven by gusts of wind.

At times an expression of anguish crossed the face of Toussaint Lumineau as he followed with his eyes the quivering points of the osiers Rousille held out to him, as though they had been the masts of ships labouring in the ocean. At other times he would look long and lingeringly at his one remaining child, and Rousille knew that she was fair to look upon. A violent squall struck the elm-trees, stripping them clear of leaves, and beating their branches against the roof of La Fromentière. The rainspouts, the tiles, the rafters and walls, the very lizards in the barn groaned and creaked together – and the storm-cry groaned, wildly and madly, over the Marais.

Three hundred leagues away the melancholy whistle of a sirene awoke the echoes, the screw of a huge steamer parted the waters of the river and drew away slowly from shore, as though yet half inert and drifting. No sooner did the emigrants, outcasts of the old world, poor and hopelessly miserable, feel themselves afloat, than they were terrified. The thoughts of all on board flew back to their deserted homes. It was in the darkness of night that André Lumineau went forth.

The farmer threw back a handful of osiers into the vat, saying:

"Let us go in. My old hands can work no longer."

But he did not stir. The man, alone, ceased chopping the poles of chestnut wood, and left the barn. Rousille, seeing that her father made no movement to rise, stayed where she was.