walked slowly to the door. Then once more he stopped, and lifting one of his hairy fingers added: ‘Beware of your devotion to the Virgin.’
XIII
On entering the church Abbe Mouret found nine or ten big girls awaiting him with boughs of ivy, laurel, and rosemary. Few garden flowers grew on the rocks of Les Artaud, so the custom was to decorate the Lady altar with a greenery which might last throughout the month of May. Thereto La Teuse would add a few wallflowers whose stems were thrust into old decanters.
‘Will you let me do it, Monsieur le Cure?’ she asked. ‘You are not used to it – Come, stand there in front of the altar. You can tell me if the decorations please you.’
He consented, and it was she who really directed the arrangements. Having climbed upon a pair of steps she bullied the girls as they came up to her in turn with their leafy contributions.
‘Not so fast, now! You must give me time to fix the boughs. We can’t have all these bundles coming down on his reverence’s head – Come on, Babet, it’s your turn. What’s the good of staring at me like that with your big eyes? Fine rosemary yours is, my word! as yellow as a thistle. You next, La Rousse. Ah, well, that is splendid laurel! You got that out of your field at Croix-Verte, I know.’
The big girls laid their branches on the altar, which they kissed; and there they lingered for a while, handing up the greenery to La Teuse. The sly look of devotion they had assumed on stepping on to the altar steps was quickly set aside, and soon they were laughing, digging each other with their knees, swaying their hips against the altar’s edge, and thrusting their bosoms against the tabernacle itself. Over them the tall Virgin in gilded plaster bent her tinted face, and smiled with her rosy lips upon the naked Jesus she bore upon her left arm.
‘That’s it, Lisa!’ cried La Teuse; ‘why don’t you sit on the altar while you’re about it? Just pull your petticoats straight, will you? Aren’t you ashamed of behaving like that? – If any one of you lolls about I’ll lay her boughs across her face. – Can’t you hand me the things quietly?’
Then turning round, she asked:
‘Do you like it, sir? Do you think it will do?’
She had converted the space behind the Virgin’s statue into a verdant niche, whence leafy sprays projected on either side, forming a bower, and drooping over in front like palm leaves. The priest expressed his approval, but ventured to remark: ‘I think there ought to be a cluster of more delicate foliage up above.’
‘No doubt,’ grumbled La Teuse. ‘But they only bring me laurel and rosemary – I should like to know who has brought an olive branch. Not one, you bet! They are afraid of losing a single olive, the heathens!’
At this, however, Catherine came up laden with an enormous olive bough which completely hid her.
‘Oh, you’ve got some, you minx!’ continued the old servant.
‘Of course,’ one of the other girls exclaimed, ‘she stole it. I saw Vincent breaking it off while she kept a look-out.’
But Catherine flew into a rage and swore it was not true. She turned, and thrusting her auburn head through the greenery, which she still tightly held, she started lying with marvellous assurance, inventing quite a long story to prove that the olive bough was really hers.
‘Besides,’ she added, ‘all the trees belong to the Blessed Virgin.’
Abbe Mouret was about to intervene, but La Teuse sharply inquired if they wanted to make game of her and keep her arms up there all night. At last she proceeded to fasten the olive bough firmly, while Catherine, holding on to the steps behind her, mimicked the clumsy manner in which she turned her huge person about with the help of her sound leg. Even the priest could not forbear to smile.
‘There,’ said La Teuse, as she came down and stood beside him to get a good view of her work, ‘there’s the top done. Now we will put some clumps between the candlesticks, unless you would prefer a garland all along the altar shelf.’
The priest decided in favour of some big clumps.
‘Very good; come on, then,’ continued the old servant, once more clambering up the steps. ‘We can’t go to bed here. Just kiss the altar, will you, Miette? Do you fancy you are in your stable? Monsieur le Cure, do just see what they are up to over there! I can hear them laughing like lunatics.’
On raising one of the two lamps the dark end of the church was lit up and three of the girls were discovered romping about under the gallery; one of them had stumbled and pitched head foremost into the holy water stoup, which mishap had so tickled the others that they were rolling on the ground to laugh at their ease. They all came back, however, looking at the priest sheepishly, with lowered eyelids, but with their hands swinging against their hips as if a scolding rather pleased them than otherwise.
However, the measure of La Teuse’s wrath was filled when she suddenly perceived Rosalie coming up to the altar like the others with a bundle of boughs in her arms.
‘Get down, will you?’ she cried to her. ‘You are a cool one, and no mistake, my lass! – Hurry up, off you go with your bundle.’
‘What for, I’d like to know?’ said Rosalie boldly. ‘You can’t say I have stolen it.’
The other girls drew closer, feigning innocence and exchanging sparkling glances.
‘Clear out,’ repeated La Teuse, ‘you have no business here, do you hear?’
Then, quite losing her scanty patience, she gave vent to a very coarse epithet, which provoked a titter of delight among the peasant girls.
‘Well, what next?’ said Rosalie. ‘Mind your own business. Is it any concern of yours?’
Then she burst into a fit of sobbing and threw down her boughs, but let the Abbe lead her aside and give her a severe lecture. He had already tried to silence La Teuse; for he was beginning to feel uneasy amidst the big shameless hussies who filled the church with their armfuls of foliage. They were pushing right up to the altar step, enclosing him with a belt of woodland, wafting in his face a rank perfume of aromatic shoots.
‘Let us make haste, be quick!’ he exclaimed, clapping his hands lightly.
‘Goodness knows I would rather be in my bed,’ grumbled La Teuse. ‘It’s not so easy as you think to fasten all these bits of stuff.’
Finally, however, she succeeded in setting some lofty plumes of foliage between the candlesticks. Next she folded the steps, which were laid behind the high altar by Catherine. And then she only had to arrange two clumps of greenery at the sides of the altar table. The last boughs sufficed for this, and indeed there were some left which the girls strewed over the sanctuary floor up to the wooden rails. The Lady altar now looked like a grove, a shrubbery with a verdant lawn before it.
At present La Teuse was willing to make way for Abbe Mouret, who ascended the altar steps, and, again lightly clapping his hands, exclaimed: ‘Young ladies, to-morrow we will continue the devotions of the month of Mary. Those who may be unable to come ought at least to say their Rosary at home.’
He knelt, and the peasant girls, with a mighty rustle of skirts, sank down and settled themselves on their heels. They followed his prayer with a confused muttering, through which burst here and there a giggle. One of them, on being pinched from behind, burst into a scream, which she attempted to stifle
