The picture was so pretty that the countess stopped short and pointed it out to Blondet and the abbe; for they could see Madame Michaud from where they stood, without her seeing them.
"I always come this way when I walk in the park," said the countess, softly."I delight in looking at the pavilion and its two turtle-
doves, as much as I delight in a fine view."
She leaned significantly on Blondet's arm, as if to make him share sentiments too delicate for words but which all women feel.
"I wish I were a gate-keeper at Les Aigues," said Blondet, smiling.
"Why! what troubles you?" he added, noticing an expression of sadness on the countess's face.
"Nothing," she replied.
Women are always hiding some important thought when they say, hypocritically, "It is nothing."
"A woman may be the victim of ideas which would seem very flimsy to you," she added, "but which, to us, are terrible.As for me, I envy Olympe's lot."
"God hears you," said the abbe, smiling as though to soften the sternness of his remark.
Madame de Montcornet grew seriously uneasy when she noticed an expression of fear and anxiety in Olympe's face and attitude.By the way a woman draws out her needle or sets her stitches another woman understands her thoughts.In fact, though wearing a rose-colored dress, with her hair carefully braided about her head, the bailiff's wife was thinking of matters that were out of keeping with her pretty dress, the glorious day, and the work her hands were engaged on.Her beautiful brow, and the glance she turned sometimes on the ground at her feet, sometimes on the foliage around, evidently seeing nothing, betrayed some deep anxiety,--all the more unconsciously because she supposed herself alone.
"Just as I was envying her! What can have saddened her?" whispered the countess to the abbe.
"Madame," he replied in the same tone, "tell me why man is often seized with vague and unaccountable presentiments of evil in the very midst of some perfect happiness?"
"Abbe!" said Blondet, smiling, "you talk like a bishop.Napoleon said, 'Nothing is stolen, all is bought!'"
"Such a maxim, uttered by those imperial lips, takes the proportions of society itself," replied the priest.
"Well, Olympe, my dear girl, what is the matter?" said the countess going up to her former maid."You seem sad and thoughtful; is it a lover's quarrel?"
Madame Michaud's face, as she rose, changed completely.
"My dear," said Emile Blondet, in a fatherly tone, "I should like to know what clouds that brow of yours, in this pavilion where you are almost as well lodged as the Comte d'Artois at the Tuileries.It is like a nest of nightingales in a grove! And what a husband we have!--
the bravest fellow of the young garde, and a handsome one, who loves us to distraction! If I had known the advantages Montcornet has given you here I should have left my diatribing business and made myself a bailiff."
"It is not the place for a man of your talent, monsieur," replied Olympe, smiling at Blondet as an old acquaintance.
"But what troubles you, dear?" said the countess.
"Madame, I'm afraid--"
"Afraid! of what?" said the countess, eagerly; for the word reminded her of Mouche and Fourchon.
"Afraid of the wolves, is that it?" said Emile, making Madame Michaud a sign, which she did not understand.
"No, monsieur,--afraid of the peasants.I was born in Le Perche, where of course there are some bad people, but I had no idea how wicked people could be until I came here.I try not to meddle in Michaud's affairs, but I do know that he distrusts the peasants so much that he goes armed, even in broad daylight, when he enters the forest.He warns his men to be always on the alert.Every now and then things happen about here that bode no good.The other day I was walking along the wall, near the source of that little sandy rivulet which comes from the forest and enters the park through a culvert about five hundred feet from here,--you know it, madame? it is called Silver Spring, because of the star-flowers Bouret is said to have sown there.
Well, I overheard the talk of two women who were washing their linen just where the path to Conches crosses the brook; they did not know I was there.Our house can be seen from that point, and one old woman pointed it out to the other, saying: 'See what a lot of money they have spent on the man who turned out Courtecuisse.' 'They ought to pay a man well when they set him to harass poor people as that man does,'
answered the other.'Well, it won't be for long,' said the first one;
'the thing is going to end soon.We have a right to our wood.The late Madame allowed us to take it.That's thirty years ago, so the right is ours.' 'We'll see what we shall see next winter,' replied the second.
'My man has sworn the great oath that all the gendarmerie in the world sha'n't keep us from getting our wood; he says he means to get it himself, and if the worst happens so much the worse for them!' 'Good God!' cried the other; 'we can't die of cold, and we must bake bread to eat! They want for nothing, THOSE OTHERS! the wife of that scoundrel of a Michaud will be taken care of, I warrant you!' And then, Madame, they said such horrible things of me and of you and of Monsieur le comte; and they finally declared that the farms would all be burned, and then the chateau."
"Bah!" said Emile, "idle talk! They have been robbing the general, and they will not be allowed to rob him any longer.These people are furious, that's the whole of it.You must remember that the law and the government are always strongest everywhere, even in Burgundy.In case of an outbreak the general could bring a regiment of cavalry here, if necessary."
The abbe made a sign to Madame Michaud from behind the countess, telling her to say no more about her fears, which were doubtless the effect of that second sight which true passion bestows.The soul, dwelling exclusively on one only being, grasps in the end the moral elements that surround it, and sees in them the makings of the future.