The Works of Guy de Maupassant Volume V Part 27

"My poor mistress! Mam'zelle Jeanne, my poor mistress! Don't you know me?" she sobbed.

"Rosalie, my la.s.s!" cried Jeanne, throwing her arms round the woman's neck and kissing her; and, clasped in each other's arms they mingled their tears and sobs together.

Rosalie dried her eyes the first. "Come now," she said, "you must be good and not catch cold."

She picked up the clothes, tucked up the bed and put the pillow back under the head of her former mistress, who lay choking with emotion as the memories of days that were past and gone rushed back to her mind.

"How is it you have come back, my poor girl?" she asked.

"Do you think I was going to leave you to live all alone now?" answered Rosalie.

"Light a candle and let me look at you," went on Jeanne.

Rosalie placed a light on the table by the bedside, and for a long time they gazed at each other in silence.

"I should never have known you again," murmured Jeanne, holding out her hand to her old servant. "You have altered very much, though not so much as I have."

"Yes, you have changed, Madame Jeanne, and more than you ought to have done," answered Rosalie, as she looked at this thin, faded, white-haired woman, whom she had left young and beautiful; "but you must remember it's twenty-four years since we have seen one another."

"Well, have you been happy?" asked Jeanne after a long pause.

"Oh, yes--yes, madame. I haven't had much to grumble at; I've been happier than you--that's certain. The only thing that I've always regretted is that I didn't stop here--" She broke off abruptly, finding she had unthinkingly touched upon the very subject she wished to avoid.

"Well, you know, Rosalie, one cannot have everything one wants," replied Jeanne gently; "and now you too are a widow, are you not?" Then her voice trembled, as she went on, "Have you any--any other children?"

"No, madame."

"And what is your--your son? Are you satisfied with him?"

"Yes, madame; he's a good lad, and a hard-working one. He married about six months ago, and he is going to have the farm now I have come back to you."

"Then you will not leave me again?" murmured Jeanne.

"No fear, madame," answered Rosalie in a rough tone. "I've arranged all about that."

And for some time nothing more was said.

Jeanne could not help comparing Rosalie's life with her own, but she had become quite resigned to the cruelty and injustice of Fate, and she felt no bitterness as she thought of the difference between her maid's peaceful existence and her own.

"Was your husband kind to you?"

"Oh, yes, madame; he was a good, industrious fellow, and managed to put by a good deal. He died of consumption."

Jeanne sat up in bed. "Tell me all about your life, and everything that has happened to you," she said. "I feel as if it would do me good to hear it."

Rosalie drew up a chair, sat down, and began to talk about herself, her house, her friends, entering into all the little details in which country people delight, laughing sometimes over things which made her think of the happy times that were over, and gradually raising her voice as she went on, like a woman accustomed to command, she wound up by saying:

"Oh, I'm well off now; I needn't be afraid of anything. But I owe it all to you," she added in a lower, faltering voice; "and now I've come back I'm not going to take any wages. No! I won't! So, if you don't choose to have me on those terms, I shall go away again."

"But you do not mean to serve me for nothing?" said Jeanne.

"Yes, I do, madame. Money! You give me money! Why, I've almost as much as you have yourself. Do you know how much you will have after all these loans and mortgages have been cleared off, and you have paid all the interest you have let run on and increase? You don't know, do you? Well, then, let me tell you that you haven't ten thousand livres a year; not ten thousand. But I'm going to put everything straight, and pretty soon, too."

She had again raised her voice, for the thought of the ruin which hung over the house, and the way in which the interest money had been neglected and allowed to acc.u.mulate roused her anger and indignation. A faint, sad smile which pa.s.sed over her mistress's face angered her still more, and she cried:

"You ought not to laugh at it, madame. People are good for nothing without money."

Jeanne took both the servant's hands in hers.

"I have never had any luck," she said slowly, as if she could think of nothing else. "Everything has gone the wrong way with me. My whole life has been ruined by a cruel Fate."

"You must not talk like that, madame," said Rosalie, shaking her head.

"You made an unhappy marriage, that's all. But people oughtn't to marry before they know anything about their future husbands."

They went on talking about themselves and their past loves like two old friends, and when the day dawned they had not yet told all they had to say.

XII

In less than a week Rosalie had everything and everybody in the chateau under her control, and even Jeanne yielded a pa.s.sive obedience to the servant, who scolded her or soothed her as if she had been a sick child.

She was very weak now, and her legs dragged along as the baroness's used to do; the maid supported her when she went out and their conversation was always about bygone times, of which Jeanne talked with tears in her eyes, and Rosalie in the calm quiet way of an impa.s.sive peasant.

The old servant returned several times to the question of the interest that was owing, and demanded the papers which Jeanne, ignorant of all business matters, had hidden away that Rosalie might not know of Paul's misdoings. Next Rosalie went over to Fecamp each day for a week to get everything explained to her by a lawyer whom she knew; then one evening after she had put her mistress to bed she sat down beside her and said abruptly:

"Now you're in bed, madame, we will have a little talk."

She told Jeanne exactly how matters stood, and that when every claim had been settled she, Jeanne, would have about seven or eight thousand francs a year; not a penny more.

"Well, Rosalie," answered Jeanne, "I know I shall not live to be very old, and I shall have enough until I die."

"Very likely you will, madame," replied Rosalie, getting angry; "but how about M. Paul? Don't you mean to leave him anything?"

Jeanne shuddered. "Pray, don't ever speak to me about him; I cannot bear to think of him."

"Yes, but I want to talk to you about him, because you don't look at things in the right light, Madame Jeanne. He may be doing all sorts of foolish things now, but he won't always behave the same. He'll marry and then he'll want money to educate his children and to bring them up properly. Now listen to what I am going to say; you must sell Les Peuples--"

But Jeanne started up in bed.

"Sell Les Peuples! How can you think of such a thing? No! I will never sell the chateau!"

Rosalie was not in the least put out.

"But I say you will, madame, simply because you must."

Then she explained her plans and her calculations. She had already found a purchaser for Les Peuples and the two adjoining farms, and when they had been sold Jeanne would still have four farms at Saint Leonard, which, freed from the mortgages, would bring in about eight thousand three hundred francs a year. Out of this income thirteen hundred francs would have to go for the keeping up and repairing of the property; two thousand would be put by for unforeseen expenses, and Jeanne would have five thousand francs to live upon.

"Everything else is gone, so there's an end of it," said Rosalie. "But, in future, I shall keep the money and M. Paul sha'n't have another penny off you. He'd take your last farthing."