The Conquest of Plassans (Les Rougon-Macquart Book 4) (4 page)

CHAPTER 1

D
ÉSIRÉE
clapped her hands. She was a girl of fourteen, big for her age, with a laugh like a five-year-old.

‘Maman, Maman!’ she cried. ‘Look at my doll!’

She had got a piece of cloth from her mother and for the last quarter of an hour had been trying to make it into a doll, wrapping it round and round and tying the end tightly with a piece of thread. Marthe looked up from the stocking which she was darning with exquisite skill, as though embroidering. She smiled at Désirée.

‘That’s a little boy-doll!’ she said. ‘Why not make a girl-doll? You should give her a skirt, you know, like a lady.’

She gave her a scrap of printed calico she found in her work table; then she applied herself to her stocking again. The two of them were seated at one end of the narrow terrace, the daughter on a stool at her mother’s feet. The setting sun, a September sun, still warm, bathed them in a peaceful glow; the garden below, already in grey shadow, was making ready for the night. Not a sound came from elsewhere in this deserted corner of the town.

And so they went on working for a good ten minutes without speaking. Désirée took infinite pains with the skirt for her doll. Now and again Marthe looked at the child, tenderly and a little sadly. Since she could see that she was struggling, she said:

‘Wait. Let me do her arms.’

She took the doll just as two big lads of seventeen and eighteen descended the steps. They came over and gave Marthe a kiss.

‘Don’t scold us, Maman,’ said the cheerful Octave. ‘I took Serge to hear the band… There was a crowd on the Cours Sauvaire!’
*

‘I thought you’d been kept behind at school,’ his mother answered quietly, ‘or I should have been very worried.’

But Désirée, with no more thought for the doll, had flung herself at Serge, crying:

‘One of my birds, the blue one, has flown away, the one you gave me for a present.’

She was on the verge of tears. Her mother, who had supposed this woe forgotten, tried unsuccessfully to draw her attention back to the
doll. She clung to her brother’s arm and, leading him into the garden, urged over and over again:

‘Come and see.’

The gentle, sympathetic Serge followed, trying to console her. She took him to a little glasshouse, with a cage placed on a stand in front of it. There she explained that the bird had escaped just as she had opened the cage door to stop him fighting another bird.

‘Heavens above, it’s no wonder,’ said Octave, sitting on the balustrade of the terrace. ‘She’s always there handling them and examining them to see what they have in their throats that makes them sing. The other day she carried them around in her pockets for the whole afternoon, to keep them nice and warm.’

‘Octave!…,’ Marthe said reproachfully, ‘don’t torment the poor girl.’

But Désirée wasn’t listening. She was telling Serge in great detail how it was that the bird had escaped.

‘He slipped out like this, you see, and went and perched next door on Monsieur Rastoil’s big pear tree. He hopped from there on to the plum tree at the bottom. Then he flew back over my head and into the tall trees in the gardens of the sub-prefecture,
*
and I couldn’t see him any more, not anywhere.’

Tears welled up in her eyes.

‘Maybe he’ll come back,’ Serge risked.

‘Do you think so?… I’d like to put the others in a box and leave the cage open all night.’

Octave couldn’t help laughing; but Marthe called Désirée back to her.

‘Come and see, come and see this!’

And she presented her with the doll. She was splendid. She had a stiff skirt, a head made out of a ball of cloth and arms that were sewn on to the shoulders from material from the selvedge. Désirée’s face at once lit up with pleasure. She sat down on the stool again, forgetting all about the bird, planting kisses upon the doll, cradling her in her arms in a childish way.

Serge had come over and was leaning on the rail next to his brother. Marthe had taken up her stocking once more.

‘So,’ she asked, ‘did the band play?’

‘They play every Thursday,’ Octave replied. ‘You’re wrong not to come along, Maman. Everyone’s there, the Rastoil girls, Madame de
Condamin, Monsieur Paloque, the mayor’s wife and daughter… Why don’t you come?’

Marthe didn’t look up. She murmured, as she finished darning a hole:

‘Boys, you know very well I don’t like going out. I’m fine here. And someone has to stay with Désirée.’

Octave opened his mouth but then looked at his sister and shut it again. He remained there, whistling softly, looking up at the trees full of chattering sparrows going home to roost in the garden of the sub-prefecture. He gazed for a long time at Monsieur Rastoil’s pear trees with the sun setting behind them. Serge had taken a book out of his pocket and was immersed in his reading. There was an absorbed silence, warm with an unspoken tenderness in the pleasant golden glow of the sun that, little by little, was fading from the terrace. Marthe cast a loving look over all of her three children
*
in the calm of the evening, and plied her needle with long, regular strokes.

‘So everyone is late today then,’ she said after a little while. ‘It’s nearly ten and your father’s not home… I think he’s gone over to Les Tulettes.’
*

‘Oh well,’ said Octave, ‘then I’m not surprised… The farmers at Les Tulettes don’t let him go once they’ve got him… Has he gone to buy wine?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied Marthe. ‘You know he doesn’t care to discuss his business affairs.’

There was silence once more. In the dining room, its window wide open on to the terrace, old Rose had been laying the table for some little while, with an ill-tempered clatter of plates and silver. She seemed to be in a very bad mood, banging the furniture about, her words disjointed and grumbling. Then she went and stood at the door on to the street, craning her neck to look at the distant Place de la Préfecture. After standing there for a few minutes she came out on to the steps and shouted:

‘So is Monsieur Mouret coming home for supper or not?’

‘Yes, Rose, he is, just be patient,’ Marthe replied equably.

‘It’s all burnt. It’s not right. When Monsieur goes off like that he ought to let me know beforehand… Not that it’s any business of mine, when all’s said and done. But the supper won’t be edible.’

‘Is that so, Rose?’ said a quiet voice behind her. ‘All the same, we shall eat your supper.’

Mouret was home. Rose turned her head and looked straight at her master, as though ready to explode with rage. But faced with his level expression, which displayed just a hint of bourgeois mockery, she could think of nothing to say, and withdrew. Mouret went down on to the terrace, where, instead of sitting down, he walked back and forth. He did no more than lightly touch Désirée’s cheek with his fingertips, and she smiled up at him. Marthe raised her eyes. Then, after a glance at her husband, she started to put her work away in her table.

‘Aren’t you tired?’ Octave asked, looking at his father’s shoes, which were white with dust.

‘A little,’ Mouret replied, saying no more about the long walk he had just had.

But then in the middle of the garden he spied a rake and a spade that had no doubt been left out by the children.

‘Why have the tools not been put away?’ he shouted. ‘I’ve said it a hundred times. If it were to rain they would all rust.’

Without another word he went down and tidied the tools away at the back of the small greenhouse. As he came back up the terrace he scanned every corner of the paths to check that everything was in the right place.

‘You doing your homework?’ he asked, as he passed Serge who was still reading his book.

‘No, father,’ his son answered. ‘It’s a book Abbé Bourrette
*
lent me,
The Missions to China
.’
*

Mouret stopped abruptly in front of his wife.

‘By the way,’ he said, ‘has anybody called?’

‘No, nobody, my dear,’ said Marthe, surprised.

He was about to say more, but appeared to think better of it. He walked around for another moment or two without saying anything, then, going towards the steps:

‘Well, Rose, where’s this supper that was burnt?’

From the end of the passage came the furious voice of the cook shouting:

‘My sakes, nothing’s ready any more now, it’s all gone cold. You’ll have to wait, Sir.’

Mouret laughed silently; with his left eye he winked at his wife and children. Rose’s anger seemed to amuse him a great deal. Then he became absorbed in his neighbour’s fruit trees.

‘It’s astonishing,’ he remarked softly, ‘Monsieur Rastoil has some magnificent pears this year.’

Marthe, who had suddenly become a little anxious, seemed about to ask him something. Summoning up her courage, she ventured:

‘Were you expecting someone today, my dear?’

‘Yes and no,’ he replied, beginning to walk up and down.

‘Have you perhaps rented out the second floor?’

‘I have indeed.’

And as there followed an embarrassed silence, he went on calmly:

‘This morning before I left for Les Tulettes I went up to Abbé Bourrette’s. He was very insistent and I’m afraid I agreed… I know you didn’t want me to. But, if you think about it, you are not being sensible, my dear. This second floor is no use to us. It’s in a state of disrepair. The fruit we’ve been keeping in the bedrooms has made it damp and caused the wallpaper to peel off… And while I think of it, don’t forget to move the fruit tomorrow: our tenant might arrive at any moment.’

‘But we were so happy on our own in the house!’ Marthe said in a small voice.

‘Nonsense!’ Mouret rejoined. ‘A priest won’t be in our way very much. He will live in his part of the house and we shall live in ours. Those hooded ravens always keep themselves to themselves, even if all they are drinking is a glass of water… You know there’s no love lost between them and me! Most of them are good-for-nothings… Well, what decided me to let it, is that I have indeed found a priest. We shan’t have to worry about the money where they are concerned, and we shan’t even hear him put his key in the lock.’

But Marthe was still very upset. She looked around at her happy household, the garden bathed in the light of the departing sun, the grey shadows darkening; she looked at her children, her sleepy contentment contained in this small corner of the earth.

‘And do you know who this priest is?’ she enquired.

‘No, but Abbé Bourrette has rented it in his name and that’s sufficient. Abbé Bourrette is a good fellow… I know that our tenant’s name is Faujas, Abbé Faujas, and that he comes from the diocese of Besançon.
*
He must have had some difference with his parish priest. They’ll have appointed him priest here in Saint-Saturnin.
*
Perhaps he knows our bishop, Monsignor Rousselot. Well anyway, that’s none of our business… I trust Abbé Bourrette in all this.’

Marthe, however, was not reassured. She held her ground against her husband, and that was a rare occurrence.

‘You are right,’ she said, after a short silence. ‘The abbé is a worthy man. But I remember that when he came to see the rooms he told me he didn’t know the person in whose name he was charged to find accommodation for rent. It’s one of those commissions that priests give one another, from one town to the next… I think you might have written to Besançon for more details to find out who it is you are intending to have in your house.’

Mouret refused to lose his temper; he laughed indulgently.

‘Well, I daresay it’s not the devil… Look at you trembling like that! I didn’t realize you were so superstitious. You surely don’t believe priests bring bad luck, as some say. It’s true they don’t bring good luck either. They are just the same as everyone else… Oh well, once the priest is here you’ll see whether I’m scared of his cassock or not!’

‘No, you know I’m not superstitious,’ Marthe replied softly. ‘But I’m very uneasy, that’s all.’

He stood facing her, interrupting her with a brusque gesture.

‘That’s enough, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘I’ve rented out the room, and let that be the end of it.’

And he added jokingly, in the tone of a bourgeois who believes he has clinched a good deal:

‘What’s certain is that I’ve let it for a hundred and fifty francs, and that’ll come into the household every year.’

Marthe had lowered her head, showing her displeasure only by a slight movement of the hands, and shutting her eyes very gently, as though to prevent the unshed tears from spilling over.

She cast a furtive look at her children who during the altercation she had just had with their father did not seem to be listening, no doubt because they were used to Mouret showing off his sardonic side in scenes like this.

‘You can come and eat now if you want to,’ grumbled Rose, going out on to the steps.

‘That’s good. Supper, children!’ Mouret cried gaily, apparently no longer in the slightest bad mood.

The family rose. But when Désirée, who had remained solemn until now, like the poor little innocent she was, saw the whole family get up, it seemed to rekindle her anxiety. She threw herself on her father, stammering:

‘Papa, one of my birds has flown away.’

‘A bird, my love? We’ll get it back.’

And he stroked her and became very affectionate with her. But she made him go and look at the cage as well. When he came back with his daughter, Marthe and his two sons were already in the dining room. The setting sun’s rays through the window showed off the pretty china plates, the children’s soup bowls, their tumblers, and the white tablecloth. The room was warm and quiet as the green hues in the garden faded into the darkness.

Marthe, comforted by this peaceful scene, was smilingly taking the lid off the soup tureen, when there was a noise in the hall. Rose, in a great state of agitation, ran in, stammering:

‘Abbé Faujas has arrived.’