Two Gentlemen of the Police Two Gentlemen of the Police“I WILL tell you something,” Zosine said to Lucan, “which you might have told yourself, if you have not become so absent-minded that you neither see nor hear what goes on round you. Young Monsieur Tinchebrai with the sweet pink and white face, whom we saw in Peyriac, is in love with you. You will surely remember how he stared at you on the Friday when we were in Peyriac to fetch the master’s mail, as if you had been an angel straight out of heaven. And also how, upon the next Friday, he took care to be outside that shabby little shop that deals out the mail, and to pick up your pocket-handkerchief when you happened to drop it.
“But what you do not know,” she went on, “is that he has come to Sainte-Barbe as well, and that he was walking slowly down the road past the house, staring up here, in the hope of getting a glimpse of you. I was in the garden with Baptistine to pick up chestnuts, and he could not see me from where he stood. You sat and sewed by the window, and did not look up at all. But he stood still outside the gate, like a really dainty wax figure, and three times slowly lifted his hand to his lips, as if he would blow you a kiss. It is three days ago today. Poor old Mr. Pennhallow himself was reading by the other window. He saw it all, and became quite petrified by the impudence of the young gentleman. I believe that he was really magnetized by it, for I swear that he quite slowly, as if under a spell, repeated Monsieur Tinchebrai’s movement three times. But he has got over it, as he gets over everything; he is as quiet and content as ever.
“But what do you think of Monsieur Emmanuel yourself?” she asked. “And now that he is going to propose to you, will you answer yes or no?”
The two girls sat together in the room next to the dining-room, and were busy making little smelling-cushions filled with the lavender that was spread all over the table. Lucan, from her old home, was used to making such pretty cushions or bottles from the lavender in the garden. Outside the wind was still blowing, but in here the air was sweet and summer-like with the scent of the dried flowers. The girls talked together softly, for the door to the dining-room was ajar. Mr. Pennhallow was working in there, and they must not disturb him.
“Take him!” Zosine exclaimed, without giving her friend time to answer. “Baptistine has told us that he is a young man who will get on in the world, and I should like to see you as Madame la Préfète of Lunel.”
“Why would you like that?” Lucan asked in surprise. Zosine left her own seat by the table to come and sit down on the arm of Lucan’s chair. “Now already a third of our year here has passed,” she said, “and when it is finished we shall never come back here. But if you were married to the Prefect of Lunel, I would visit you here, and see the country and everything again.”
“Would you be pleased to see the country again?” Lucan asked.
“Nay, but it is strange,” said Zosine, “to leave a place that one knows so well. Will not the road through the forest miss me, if I never again set my foot on it?”
For a moment it dawned on Lucan that Zosine might have had experiences of her own at Sainte-Barbe, while she herself had read aloud to the old clergyman and gone through the events of a moonlight night in her thoughts time after time. She put down her sewing.
“You surely are not in love with Monsieur Tinchebrai yourself?” she exclaimed. “Do you not remember what Baptistine told us about him?”
“It was no fault of his,” said Zosine and colored lightly. “It seems to me that it was all a kind of romance. I believe that every single person, when you really think about it, has got a romance in his life. And only fancy what it must be like not to know for certain whose blood it is that runs in our veins. He has gone through much, you may be sure. A small town like Lunel has got sharp, cruel eyes, and it must be hard to have them all turned upon you. Now he has seen you, and the real worth of a sweet, innocent girl has been revealed to him. He is dreaming of taking refuge from his hard fate in your long golden ringlets.” The unintentional parody of Noël’s words in the moonlight made Lucan silent.
“Yes,” Zosine continued thoughtfully. “I believe that even our old foster-parents have got a romance in their life, if only we knew about it. What is it that happened to them, once upon a time, I wonder, and now makes them sit here at Sainte-Barbe as quiet as a pair of mice? Is it something that they want to think of forever? Or is it something that they want to forget?”
She rose from the arm of the chair, went to the window, and looked up toward the sky and the drifting clouds. “Is it good, or is it intolerable,” she said, “that we cannot look into the future and know what is going to happen to us? Now if this was a book that told of you and me, the reader could skip a few pages, when it became too slow or too exciting, and would be diverted or set at rest. At times I feel it to be the same in life, only we do not understand how to skip the pages. My governess scolded me when I was too impatient to read my books of fairy tales page by page. If today we could skip two or three pages of our own life, would it not be pleasant? Should we not with content turn back to the page on which we now find ourselves and go on from there?”
While she spoke, they heard the din of a carriage on the road. They listened, and it came nearer. It was rare that a carriage passed Sainte-Barbe, and Zosine pressed her face to the window-pane to see who drove past the house.
“It stops here,” she cried out, surprised, and a moment after, “It is he!”
“He? Who?” Lucan exclaimed and rose.
“He of whom we were talking,” Zosine answered, delighted. “Monsieur Emmanuel. He is coming here in a fine carriage, together with a fine old gentleman. Now will you believe me another time? It is the judge of Lunel himself who will help him to apply for your hand with our master! Only, why have they not brought a bouquet for the occasion instead of their big portfolios?”
Lucan now went to the window herself, and really saw a fine, old-fashioned carriage outside the gate. A footman leaped from the box, helped the old and the young gentleman to descend, and thereupon pulled the bell. When Lucan recognized Monsieur Emmanuel Tinchebrai, she withdrew behind the curtain. She had indeed, although she did not want to own it to Zosine, observed his ardent admiration of her.
It took some time before Clon came from the garden to open the door, and when he caught sight of the footman outside it, he behaved in a very strange manner. He stopped short, and thereupon slowly drew back, like a rabbit which retires backwards into its hole. He vanished from the picture altogether, and did not show himself again.
After another minute or two, the old gentleman himself authoritatively gave the bell-rope another pull. This time the ring called Baptistine out of the house. She came down the garden path in her white cap and her apron, as solid and unaffected, Zosine whispered, as the stack of wood by the house, but all the same received the visitors with more politeness than she was wont to display.
“Now they first inquire if the Reverend Mr. Pennhallow is at home,” Zosine whispered, “and then they ask about you. Monsieur Emmanuel’s heart is beating strongly. His nice pink cheeks are almost pale today. It is not to be wondered at, when this conversation is to decide whether he is to live or die. You must take pity on him, for how would we look ourselves at this moment if this same conversation were to decide whether we should live or die? The old judge’s footman himself looks quite solemn. My God,” she suddenly interrupted herself, “it is not a footman. It is a gendarme.”
For a moment the two girls stared at each other in silence and amazement. Then Zosine pointed to the door of the dining-room, which was ajar, and laid her finger on her lip. They would be able to hear every word pronounced in the adjoining room.
In there Mr. Pennhallow rose, and immediately afterwards the door to the corridor was opened. The visitors had come into the room. A few seconds went with slight scraping of feet in formal mutual greeting. Then the old gentleman from the carriage spoke.
“I take the liberty,” he said, expressing himself slowly and precisely, as in the feeling of his own importance, “to introduce myself as Monsieur Belabres, Judge of Lunel, and my companion as my inspector, Monsieur Emmanuel Tinchebrai. I am not wrong in presuming that I speak to the Reverend Mr. Pennhallow, from England?”
“No, you are quite right, Monsieur le Préfèt,” said Mr. Pennhallow. He too, according to his habit, spoke slowly and softly, but in contrast to the Frenchman’s pretentious voice, his own voice was meek and complaisant. By the sound of it the girls almost guessed a little mild smile at the solemnity of the high official. “You are welcome under my roof, gentlemen. Be seated, if you please. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”
Zosine could no longer remain in her chair by the table. She got up from it without a sound, slipped to the door and peeped in.