The worst of the great political storm
had not yet touched the outlying villages. The people, of course,
were desperately poor, for the year had been one of the hardest
the unfortunate country had ever known; a prolonged drought had
been followed by terrible hailstorms on the very eve of harvesting;
the price of corn was prohibitive, and the winter that ensued
was so severe that even forest trees suffered from the frost.
Poor? Of course they were poor! There was no such thing as a plump
girl to be seen in any village: children were emaciated, their
growth stunted, their future health hopelessly impaired. But life
had to go on just the same. There was marriage and giving away
in marriage; babies were born and old people died; and those that
were not old clung to life in spite of the fact that it promised
nothing but misery.
André Vallon's visits to Val-le-Roi were always something
of holiday for all. He was so gay, so light-hearted. the news
which he brought from Paris always seemed reassuring.
He would meet his friends around the bare tables of the village
inn where, over sips of thin, sour wine, he would try to put heart
into the men.
"It can't last, can it, André?" they would ask.
"Of course it can't. The darkest hour always comes before
the dawn. There are some good times head for all of us. You'll
see."
Then he would call to Suzette, mine host's pretty daughter, and
sit her on his knee.
"Come, Suzette," he would say gaily, "help us to
talk of something cheerful: of your pretty self, for instance,
and of Jerome, whom you met last night in the lane. You did...
don't tell me you did not... Give us a kiss, no, this instant,
or I'll tell your worthy papa just what I saw in the lane last
night."
And in the sunshine of his irrepressible gaiety some of them would
momentarily forget their troubles.
"There goes that madcap, André Vallon," the older
people would say when he went down the village street, singing
at the top of his voice; "he was always a good lad, but his
skin is too tight to hold him."
And they would tell each other tales of André's misdeeds
when he was a boy, and of the worry which he had been to his mother:
not a lad in the village whom he had not licked at some time or
another, not a girl from whom he had not snatched a kiss. Twice
he had been within an ace of being drowned; three times he had
nearly smashed himself to pieces by falling from a tree or a rocky
height; once he had tackled farmer Lombard's bull which was after
him, and with just his two hands he had squeezed the life out
of Bailiff Talon's savage dog."
"Such a beautiful boy, he was," the women said.
And the girls giggled as he went by, for those great dark eyes
of his would look them up and down with disturbing, provoking
glances. And some of them would pause and return the glance with
a look which was more than a hint, but André would only
smile, showing a gleam of white teeth. But ne'er a look of tenderness
did he cast in response, nor did the faintest whisper of love
ever cross his lips.
Love-making? Yes! Any amount of it. André's young arms
were forever reaching out for white shoulders or a slim waist;
his full laughter-loving mouth was always ready for a kiss, but
it remained at that: there was no girl for leagues around who
could boast that she had meant more to André Vallon than
the old mother whom he worshipped.
But the old mother knew - or rather guessed - that there was always
something behind her son's flippancy in the manner of women and
of love. She didn't know what it was, but there was no deceiving
her - there was something. And there came a time when she made
a pretty shrewd guess. She asked no questions, of course, but
whenever the subject of the Château de Marigny and its inmates
cropped up, a strange reserve seemed to tie the boy's tongue.
He would become moody and silent, and if Marianne then pursued
the subject, spoke of the hardships so bravely borne by Monseigneur,
or said something of Mademoiselle Aurore and her angelic patience
in all her misfortunes, André would suddenly jump to his
feet and cry out with extraordinary vehemence:
"Don't talk to me about those people, Mother. I hate them!"