struck Genestas that her figure was very graceful.
"Well, my poor child, is your work going on
nicely?" said Benassis,
taking up the material intended for the shirts, and passing it through
his fingers.
La Fosseuse gave the doctor a timid and beseeching glance.
"Do not scold me, sir," she entreated; "I have not touched them to-
day, although they were ordered by you, and for people who need them
very badly. But the weather has been so fine! I wandered out and
picked a quantity of mushrooms and white truffles, and took them over
to Jacquotte; she was very pleased, for some people are coming to
dinner. I was so glad that I thought of it; something seemed to tell
me to go to look for them."
She began to ply her
needle again.
"You have a very pretty house here, mademoiselle," said Genestas,
addressing her.
"It is not mine at all, sir," she said, looking at the stranger, and
her eyes seemed to grow red and tearful; "it belongs to M. Benassis,"
and she turned towards the doctor with a gentle expression on her
face.
"You know quite well, my child, that you will never have to leave it,"
he said, as he took her hand in his.
La Fosseuse suddenly rose and left the room.
"Well," said the doctor, addressing the officer,"what do you think of
her?"
"There is something
strangelytouching about her," Genestas answered.
"How very
nicely you have fitted up this little nest of hers!"
"Bah! a wall-paper at fifteen or twenty sous; it was carefully chosen,
but that was all. The furniture is nothing very much either, my
basket-maker made it for me; he wanted to show his
gratitude; and La
Fosseuse made the curtains herself out of a few yards of
calico. This
little house of hers, and her simple furniture, seem pretty to you,
because you come upon them up here on a
hillside in a
forlorn part of
the world where you did not expect to find things clean and tidy. The
reason of the prettiness is a kind of
harmony between the little house
and its surroundings. Nature has set
picturesque groups of trees and
running streams about it, and has scattered her fairest flowers among
the grass, her sweet-scented wild
strawberry blossoms, and her lovely
violets. . . . Well, what is the matter?" asked Benassis, as La
Fosseuse came back to them.
"Oh! nothing, nothing," she answered. "I fancied that one of my
chickens was
missing, and had not been shut up."
Her remark was disingenuous, but this was only noticed by the doctor,
who said in her ear, "You have been crying!"
"Why do you say things like that to me before some one else?" she
asked in reply.
"Mademoiselle," said Genestas, "it is a great pity that you live here
all by yourself; you ought to have a mate in such a
charming cage as
this."
"That is true," she said, "but what would you have? I am poor, and I
am hard to please. I feel that it would not suit me at all to carry
the soup out into the fields, nor to push a hand-cart; to feel the
misery of those whom I should love, and have no power to put an end to
it; to carry my children in my arms all day, and patch and re-patch a
man's rags. The cure tells me that such thoughts as these are not very
Christian; I know that myself, but how can I help it? There are days
when I would rather eat a
morsel of dry bread than cook anything for
my dinner. Why would you have me worry some man's life out with my
failings? He would perhaps work himself to death to satisfy my whims,
and that would not be right. Pshaw! an
unlucky lot has fallen to me,
and I ought to bear it by myself."
"And besides, she is a born do-nothing," said Benassis. "We must take
my poor Fosseuse as we find her. But all that she has been
saying to
you simply means that she has never loved as yet," he added, smiling.
Then he rose and went out on to the lawn for a moment.
"You must be very fond of M. Benassis?" asked Genestas.
"Oh! yes, sir; and there are plenty of people hereabouts who feel as I
do--that they would be glad to do anything in the world for him. And
yet he who cures other people has some trouble of his own that nothing
can cure. You are his friend, perhaps you know what it is? Who could
have given pain to such a man, who is the very image of God on earth?
I know a great many who think that the corn grows faster if he has
passed by their field in the morning."
"And what do you think yourself?"
"I, sir? When I have seen him," she seemed to
hesitate, then she went
on, "I am happy all the rest of the day."
She bent her head over her work, and plied her
needle with unwonted
swiftness.
"Well, has the captain been telling you something about Napoleon?"
said the doctor, as he came in again.
"Have you seen the Emperor, sir?" cried La Fosseuse, gazing at the
officer's face with eager curiosity.
"PARBLEU!" said Genestas, "hundreds of times!"
"Oh! how I should like to know something about the army!"
"Perhaps we will come to take a cup of coffee with you to-morrow, and
you shall hear 'something about the army,' dear child," said Benassis,
who laid his hand on her shoulder and kissed her brow. "She is my
daughter, you see!" he added, turning to the commandant; "there is
something
wanting in the day, somehow, when I have not kissed her
forehead."
La Fosseuse held Benassis' hand in a tight clasp as she murmured, "Oh!
you are very kind!"
They left the house; but she came after them to see them mount. She
waited till Genestas was in the
saddle, and then whispered in
Benassis' ear, "Tell me who that gentleman is?"
"Aha!" said the doctor, putting a foot in the
stirrup, "a husband for
you, perhaps."
She stood on the spot where they left her, absorbed in watching their
progress down the steep path; and when they came past the end of the
garden, they saw her already perched on a little heap of stones, so
that she might still keep them in view and give them a last nod of
farewell.
"There is something very
unusual about that girl, sir," Genestas said
to the doctor when they had left the house far behind.
"There is, is there not?" he answered. "Many a time I have said to
myself that she will make a
charming wife, but I can only love her as
a sister or a daughter, and in no other way; my heart is dead."
"Has she any relations?" asked Genestas. "What did her father and
mother do?"
"Oh, it is quite a long story," answered Benassis. "Neither her father
nor mother nor any of her relations are living. Everything about her
down to her name interested me. La Fosseuse was born here in the town.
Her father, a
laborer from Saint Laurent du Pont, was nicknamed Le
Fosseur, which is no doubt a
contraction of fossoyeur, for the office
of sexton had been in his family time out of mind. All the sad
associations of the graveyard hang about the name. Here as in some
other parts of France, there is an old custom, dating from the times
of the Latin
civilization, in
virtue of which a woman takes her
husband's name, with the
addition of a
femininetermination, and this
girl has been called La Fosseuse, after her father.
"The
laborer had married the waiting-woman of some
countess or other
who owns an
estate at a distance of a few leagues. It was a love-
match. Here, as in all country districts, love is a very small element
in a marriage. The
peasant, as a rule, wants a wife who will bear him
children, a
housewife who will make good soup and take it out to him
in the fields, who will spin and make his shirts and mend his clothes.
Such a thing had not happened for a long while in a district where a
young man not unfrequently leaves his betrothed for another girl who
is richer by three or four acres of land. The fate of Le Fosseur and
his wife was scarcely happy enough to induce our Dauphinois to forsake
their calculating habits and practical way of
regarding things. La
Fosseuse, who was a very pretty woman, died when her daughter was
born, and her husband's grief for his loss was so great that he
followed her within the year, leaving nothing in the world to this
little one except an
existence whose
continuance was very doubtful--a
mere
feebleflicker of a life. A
charitable neighbor took the care of
the baby upon herself, and brought her up till she was nine years old.
Then the burden of supporting La Fosseuse became too heavy for the
good woman; so at the time of year when travelers are passing along
the roads, she sent her
charge to beg for her living upon the
highways.
"One day the little
orphan asked for bread at the
countess' chateau,
and they kept the child for her mother's sake. She was to be
waiting-maid some day to the daughter of the house, and was brought up
to this end. Her young
mistress was married five years later; but
meanwhile the poor little thing was the
victim of all the caprices of
wealthy people, whose beneficence for the most part is not to be
depended upon even while it lasts. They are
generous by fits and
starts--sometimes patrons, sometimes friends, sometimes masters, in
this way they falsify the already false position of the poor children
in whom they interest themselves, and
trifle with the hearts, the
lives, and futures of their protegees, whom they regard very lightly.
From the first La Fosseuse became almost a
companion to the young
heiress; she was taught to read and write, and her future
mistresssometimes amused herself by giving her music lessons. She was treated
sometimes as a lady's
companion, sometimes as a waiting-maid, and in
this way they made an
incomplete being of her. She acquired a taste
for
luxury and for dress, together with manners ill-suited to her real
position. She has been
roughly schooled by
misfortune since then, but
the vague feeling that she is destined for a higher lot has not been
effaced in her.
"A day came at last, however, a fateful day for the poor girl, when
the young
countess (who was married by this time) discovered La
Fosseuse arrayed in one of her ball dresses, and dancing before a
mirror. La Fosseuse was no longer anything but a waiting-maid, and the
orphan girl, then sixteen years of age, was dismissed without pity.
Her idle ways plunged her once more into
poverty; she wandered about
begging by the
roadside, and
working at times as I have told you.
Sometimes she thought of drowning herself, sometimes also of giving
herself to the first comer; she spent most of her time thinking dark
thoughts, lying by the side of a wall in the sun, with her face buried
in the grass, and passers-by would sometimes throw a few halfpence to
her, simply because she asked them for nothing. One whole year she
spent in a hospital at Annecy after heavy toil in the
harvest field;
she had only undertaken the work in the hope that it would kill her,
and that so she might die. You should hear her herself when she speaks
of her feelings and ideas during this time of her life; her simple
confidences are often very curious.
"She came back to the little town at last, just about the time when I
decided to take up my abode in it. I wanted to understand the minds of
the people beneath my rule; her
character struck me, and I made a
study of it; then when I became aware of her
physical infirmities, I
determined to watch over her. Perhaps in time she may grow accustomed
to work with her
needle, but,
whatever happens, I have secured her
future."
"She is quite alone up there!" said Genestas.
"No. One of my herdswomen sleeps in the house," the doctor answered.
"You did not see my farm buildings which lie behind the house. They
are
hidden by the pine-trees. Oh! she is quite safe. Moreover, there
are no mauvais sujets here in the
valley; if any come among us by any
chance, I send them into the army, where they make excellent solders."
"Poor girl!" said Genestas.
"Oh! the folk round about do not pity her at all," said Benassis; "on
the other hand, they think her very lucky; but there is this
difference between her and the other women: God has given strength to
them and
weakness to her, and they do not see that."
The moment that the two horsemen came out upon the road to Grenoble,
Benassis stopped with an air of
satisfaction; a different view had
suddenly opened out before them; he foresaw its effect upon Genestas,
and wished to enjoy his surprise. As far as the eye could see, two
green walls sixty feet high rose above a road which was rounded like a
garden path. The trees had not been cut or trimmed, each one preserved