eyes and fell to, while the woman stood by, her hands on her well-draped hips.
“It is all kinds of an affair, this getting married,” she said as she watched the children. “Don’t overlook the custard—it is my specialty. And by and by you will appreciate all that your parents have done for you. And meanwhile what peace there is and what friendship in the village of Artigues! You are a pretty little girl, Madame, a little thin, perhaps, but with the years the limbs grow rounder. A little more flesh and you will be altogether charming. And you have a fine, bright color in your cheeks. Look at her, Martin. She is even prettier now than she was at the church, when she was so pale with emotion.”
Bertrande ate gravely, licking the yellow custard from the large silver spoon. This was more attention than she had received all day, and, moreover, it was the sort of attention that she could understand. The woman continued in a rich, comfortable voice:
“Take Martin now. He will not be a pretty man, but he will be very distinguished, like his father. There is a kind of ugliness which is very fine in a man. For the rest, I doubt not but that he will be capable of all that is required of a man.”
She smiled upon them with no intention of hurrying them, and continued:
“Also, Martin, look at your wife—she has the lucky eyes, the two-colored eyes, brown and green, and the lucky people bring luck to those they love.”
They finished everything upon the tray, even dividing amicably the last bit of pastry between them, and the servant departed with a final word of commendation. Madame Martin Guerre, born Bertrande de Rols, comforted by the inward presence of pastry and custard and by the wholesome unconcern of her husband, fell into a deep untroubled slumber. In the morning she returned to the house of her parents, there to await an age when she should be more fitted to assume her married responsibilities.
So began for the wife of Martin Guerre the estate which was to bring her so much joy and also such strange and unpredictable suffering.
For the present, life went on as usual. She had not gained in personal importance or in liberty by becoming the wife of Martin Guerre; indeed she had not expected to do so. Advantages there were, certainly, from the marriage, but for the present they were all for the two families of Guerre and de Rols; later, Martin and Bertrande would profit from the increased dual prosperity. The solemn ceremony in the church, the recollection of awakening at night to be served royally with delicacies shining on the family plate of les Guerre, receded, overshadowed by the multiplicity of the daily tasks that were her education.
The union of the house of de Rols and that of Guerre had long been considered. It had appeared to three generations as almost inevitable, so many were the advantages for both families to be expected from such an alliance. Three generations ago the matter had been practically settled, until a remark by the great-grandfather of Bertrande de Rols upset the plans of the great-grandfather of Martin Guerre.
“I have a nice little granddaughter whom I’m keeping for you,” said the ancestor of Martin to old de Rols, affably, at the close of a conversation which had covered the extent of the mutual benefits which might result from a union between the two families.
“If you wish to keep her well,” said the great-grandfather of Bertrande, humorously, “if you wish to keep her very well, my friend, you have only to salt her.”
The great-grandfather of Martin regarded de Rols for a moment without speaking, but he was no longer affable.
“You wish to imply then, that she will be easy to keep. You imply that the suitors will not be many. You imply that I may salt her and cover her with oil, like the carcase of a chicken, and she well keep, eh, she will keep indefinitely!”
“My friend, I imply nothing of the sort,” said the other old man, patiently. “I only like to have my little joke.”
“Your joke,” replied Martin’s great-grandfather, “your joke is an insult.” And he spat in the face of Bertrande de Rols’ ancestor.
The negotiations for the marriage were discontinued, and not only that, but great-grandfather Guerre and all his mesnie, that is to say, his sons and daughters and their families, his uncles and aunts and their families, and all the servants whose families had been accustomed to serve these families of the house of Guerre, conceived and maintained an intense hatred of the mesnie of the house of de Rols, which was continued until the birth of Bertrande. Then, since the house of Guerre had rejoiced in the birth of a son but a short time previous, it occurred to the descendants of the jesting and offended great-grandfathers that the best and only way to end a feud of such long standing was to affiance the infants in their cradles. This was accordingly done, and peace was restored.
One should not judge too harshly the pride of the grandfather who was insulted by so mild a jest. As head of his family, the cap d’hostal, he carried great responsibilities; the safety and prosperity of all his household depended largely upon the strict obedience and reverence which he could demand from his children, his wife and his servants. From great responsibility arose great pride. No one questioned his right to be offended and no one hesitated to follow his example in hating the offender—offenders, one should say, because the deed of one man became immediately the deed of his family. It is perhaps surprising, however, that the feudal structure should have been maintained so strictly and upon so large a scale by these peasants of Artigues, for these peasants were closer to the seigneur campagnard whom the close of the sixteenth century saw coming into prominence than they were to the average peasant of the lowlands, whose families were sprung from the emancipated serfs of the middle ages. The crags and valleys of the Pyrenees were the cause of their prosperity and of their pride.
The hot mineral baths in the valley of Luchon, it is true, were on one of the direct routes from Spain into France, and it is said that the soldiers of Caesar stopped there to soak their battle-weary limbs in the muddy sulphur pools, but the court of Navarre neglected Luchon. The Marguerite of Princesses took her entourage to Cauterets, nearer Pau. Neither was Artigues upon the direct way through the valley of Luchon to the valley of the Garonne. It stood nearer to a small tributary to the Neste in a higher fold of the mountains. It was on the way to no other village. No one visited Artigues who had not business there. And so from generation to generation, while the lowland villages were plundered and burned and their fields laid waste by the religious wars which swept southern France through the thirteenth century and down to the middle of the sixteenth, Artigues enjoyed its isolation and its lack of fame, and actual gold accumulated in the coffers of its more prosperous families. The feudal feeling maintained its value also, as strong as in the earlier centuries, although Francis the First had been for twenty-one years upon the throne of France and although Languedoc had belonged to the French crown almost three hundred years.
When she was fourteen years of age, perhaps a little earlier than might have been the case had it not been for the death of her own mother, Bertrande de Rols went to live finally with the house of Guerre. One deceptively warm autumn forenoon, attended by the servant who had brought the réveillon to the young bridal couple, she crossed the courtyard, barefoot, dressed quite simply in her usual workaday clothes, and found herself on the threshold of the big kitchen. Her mother-in-law kissed her on both cheeks, and led her to the hearth. The wooden coffers which contained her personal effects and the linen and silver of her dowry were carried in and set against the wall, her mother-in-law indicated to her the large bed with the curtains of yellow serge which was to be hers and Martin’s, and, without too great haste, she was set to grinding meal in a big stone mortar. Martin and his father were in the fields. Her own father had ridden off to oversee the vintaging. None of the field-workers returned until nightfall. But meanwhile she had time to become familiar with the kitchen, with Martin’s four sisters and the servants, with the dogs and cats and with the feathered inhabitants of the basse-cour. She had not visited the house since the day of her wedding, but the
