Then, by degrees, she almost monopolized the work, and persuaded him to get rid of one servant girl, who had become useless since she had taken to working like two; she saved money on the bread, oil and candles, on the corn, which they gave to the fowls too extravagantly, and on the fodder for the horses and cattle, which was rather wasted. She was as miserly about her master’s money, as if it had been her own, and by dint of making good bargains, of getting high prices for all their produce, and by baffling the peasants’ tricks when they offered anything for sale, he at last entrusted her with buying and selling everything, with the direction of all the labourers, and with the quantity of provisions necessary for the household, so that in a short time she became indispensable to him. She kept such a strict eye on everything about her, that under her direction the farm prospered wonderfully, and for five miles round people talked of “Master Vallin’s servant,” and the farmer himself said everywhere: “That girl is worth more than her weight in gold.”
But time passed by, and her wages remained the same. Her hard work was accepted as something that was due from every good servant, and as a mere token of her goodwill; and she began to think rather bitterly, that if the farmer could put fifty or a hundred crowns extra into the bank every month, thanks to her, she was still only earning her two hundred and forty francs a year, neither more nor less, and so she made up her mind to ask for an increase of wages. She went to see the master three times about it, but when she saw him, she spoke about something else. She felt a kind of modesty in asking for money, as if it were something disgraceful; but at last, one day, when the farmer was having breakfast by himself in the kitchen, she said to him, with some embarrassment, that she wished to speak to him particularly. He raised his head in surprise, with both his hands on the table, holding his knife, with its point in the air, in one, and a piece of bread in the other, and he looked fixedly at the girl, who felt uncomfortable under his gaze, but asked for a week’s holiday, so that she might get away, as she was not very well. He acceded to her request immediately, and then added, in some embarrassment himself:
“When you come back, I shall have something to say to you, myself.”
Part III
The child was nearly eight months old, and she did not know it again. It had grown rosy and chubby all over like a little bundle of living fat. She threw herself on it as if it had been some prey, and kissed it so violently that it began to scream with terror, and then she began to cry herself, because it did not know her, and stretched out its arms to its nurse, as soon as it saw her. But the next day, it began to get used to her, and laughed when it saw her, and she took it into the fields and ran about excitedly with it, and sat down under the shade of the trees, and then, for the first time in her life, she opened her heart to somebody, and told him her troubles, how hard her work was, her anxieties and her hopes, and she quite tired the child with the violence of her caresses.
She took the greatest pleasure in handling it, in washing and dressing it, for it seemed to her that all this was the confirmation of her maternity, and she would look at it, almost feeling surprised that it was hers, and she used to say to herself in a low voice, as she danced it in her arms: “It is my baby, it is my baby.”
She cried all the way home as she returned to the farm, and had scarcely got in, before her master called her into his room, and she went, feeling astonished and nervous, without knowing why.
“Sit down there,” he said. She sat down, and for some moments they remained side by side, in some embarrassment, with their arms hanging at their sides, as if they did not know what to do with them, and looking each other in the face, after the manner of peasants.
The farmer, a stout, jovial, obstinate man of forty-five, who had lost two wives, evidently felt embarrassed, which was very unusual with him, but at last he made up his mind, and began to speak vaguely, hesitating a little, and looking out of the window as he talked.
“Rose,” he said, “have you never thought of settling down?” She grew as pale as death, and, seeing that she gave him no answer, he went on: “You are a good, steady, active and economical girl, and a wife like you would make a man’s fortune.”
She did not move, but looked frightened; she did not even try to comprehend his meaning, for her thoughts were in a whirl, as if at the approach of some great danger; so after waiting for a few seconds, he went on: “You see, a farm without a mistress can never succeed, even with such a servant as you.” Then he stopped, for he did not know what else to say, and Rose looked at him with the air of a person who thinks that he is face to face with a murderer, and ready to flee at the slightest movement he may make; but after waiting for about five minutes, he asked her: “Well, will it suit you?” “Will what suit me, master?” And he said, quickly: “Why, to marry me, by Jove!”
She jumped up, but fell back on to
