Vinet fixed his eye on his wife, with that terrible cold, fixed stare that belongs to those who rule despotically. The poor lonely woman, unceasingly punished for not having the one thing required of her—namely, a fortune—took up her cards again.
“What has she done?” cried Sylvie, raising her head with a jerk so sudden, that the yellow wallflowers in her cap were shaken. “She does not know what to do next to annoy us. She opened my watch to examine the works, and touched the wheel, and broke the mainspring. Madam listens to nothing. All day long I am telling her to take care what she is about, and I might as well talk to the lamp.”
Pierrette, ashamed of being reprimanded in the presence of strangers, went out of the room very gently.
“I cannot think how to quell that child’s turbulence,” said Rogron.
“Why, she is old enough to go to school,” said Madame Vinet.
Another look from Vinet silenced his wife, to whom he had been careful not to confide his plans and the Colonel’s with regard to the bachelor couple.
“That is what comes of taking charge of other people’s children,” cried Gouraud. “You might have some of your own yet, you or your brother; why do you not both marry?”
Sylvie looked very sweetly at the Colonel; for the first time in her life she beheld a man to whom the idea that she might marry did not seem absurd.
“Madame Vinet is right!” cried Rogron, “that would keep Pierrette quiet. A master would not cost much.”
The Colonel’s speech so entirely occupied Sylvie that she did not answer her brother.
“If only you would stand the money for the Opposition paper we were talking about, you might find a tutor for your little cousin in the responsible editor. We could get that poor schoolmaster who was victimized by the encroachments of the priests. My wife is right; Pierrette is a rough diamond that needs polishing,” said Vinet to Rogron.
“I fancied that you were a Baron,” said Sylvie to the Colonel, after a long pause, while each player seemed meditative.
“Yes. But having won the title in 1814, after the battle of Nangis, where my regiment did wonders, how could I find the money or the assistance needed to get it duly registered? The barony, like the rank of general, which I won in 1815, must wait for a revolution to secure them to me.”
“If you could give a mortgage as your guarantee for the money,” said Rogron presently, “I could do it.”
“That could be arranged with Cournant,” replied Vinet. “The newspaper would lead to the Colonel’s triumph, and make your drawing-room more powerful than those of Tiphaine and Co.”
“How is that?” asked Sylvie.
At this moment, while Madame Vinet was dealing, and the lawyer explaining all the importance that the publication of an independent paper for the district of Provins must confer on Rogron, the Colonel, and himself, Pierrette was bathed in tears. Her heart and brain were agreed; she thought Sylvie far more to blame than herself. The little Bretonne instinctively perceived how unfailing charity and benevolence should be. She hated her fine frocks and all that was done for her. She paid too dear for these benefits. She cried with rage at having given her cousins a hold over her, and determined to behave in such a way as to reduce them to silence, poor child! Then she saw how noble Brigaut had been to give her his savings. She thought her woes had reached a climax, not knowing that at that moment new misfortunes were being plotted in the drawing-room.
A few days later Pierrette had a writing-master. She was to learn to read, write, and do sums. Pierrette’s education involved the house of Rogron in fearful disaster. There was ink on the tables, on the furniture, and on her clothes; writing-books and pens strewn everywhere, powder on the upholstery, books torn and dog-eared while she was learning her lessons. They already spoke to her—and in what a way!—of the necessity for earning her living and being a burden on no one. As she heard these dreadful warnings, Pierrette felt a burning in her throat; she was choking, her heart beat painfully fast. She was obliged to swallow down her tears; for each one was reckoned with as an offence against her magnanimous relations. Rogron had found the occupation that suited him. He scolded Pierrette as he had formerly scolded his shopmen; he would fetch her in from the midst of her play to compel her to study; he heard her repeat her lessons; he was the poor child’s fierce tutor. Sylvie, on her part, thought it her duty to teach Pierrette the little she knew of womanly accomplishments.
Neither Rogron nor his sister had any gentleness of nature. These narrow souls, finding a real pleasure in bullying the poor little thing, changed unconsciously from mildness to the greatest severity. This severity was, they said, the consequence of the child’s obstinacy; she had begun too late to learn, and was dull of apprehension. Her teachers did not understand the art of giving lessons in a form suited to the pupil’s intelligence, which is what should distinguish private from public education. The fault lay far less with Pierrette than with her cousins. It took her an immensely long time to learn the beginnings. For the merest trifle she was called stupid and silly, foolish and awkward. Incessantly ill-used by hard words, Pierrette never met any but cold looks from the two old people. She fell into the stolid dullness of a sheep; she dared do nothing when she found her actions misjudged, misunderstood, misinterpreted. In everything she awaited Sylvie’s orders, and the expression of her cousin’s will, keeping her thoughts to herself and shutting herself up in passive obedience. Her bright color began to fade. Sometimes she complained of aches and pains. When Sylvie asked her, Where? the poor child, who felt generally ailing, replied, “All
