Germinal - Emile Zola [121]
Two years had elapsed. One night M. Hennebeau heard someone brush past his door, evidently barefoot, and he began to have suspicions. But the thought of this new romance disgusted him: here, in his own home, when they were virtually mother and son! However, the very next day his wife told him that she had chosen Cécile Grégoire as a suitable match for their nephew, and she had since been devoting herself to the prospect of this marriage with such zeal that he blushed to have imagined such a monstrous thing. Now he was simply grateful to the young man that since his arrival the house had become less gloomy.
On coming down from his wife’s dressing-room, M. Hennebeau met Paul, who had just returned. He seemed to find the whole business of a strike hugely entertaining.
‘Well?’ his uncle inquired.
‘Well, I’ve been round the villages, and they all seem to be on their best behaviour…Only I think they’re sending a deputation to see you.’
But at that moment Mme Hennebeau could be heard calling from the landing.
‘Is that you, Paul?…Come up and tell me the news! What silly people they are, being naughty like this when they’re all perfectly happy really!’
Since his wife had now stolen his messenger, the manager was obliged to abandon hope of obtaining further information. He returned to his study and sat down at a desk piled high with a fresh batch of telegrams.
When the Grégoires arrived at eleven, they were astonished to find the Hennebeaus’ servant, Hippolyte, mounting guard and glancing anxiously up and down the road before he bundled them inside. The drawing-room curtains were drawn and they were ushered directly into the study, where M. Hennebeau apologized for receiving them like this; but the drawing-room gave on to the road, and there was no point in appearing to provoke people.
‘What? Haven’t you heard?’ he continued, on seeing their surprise.
When M. Grégoire learned that the strike had finally begun, he gave a placid shrug. Pah! It wouldn’t come to much, those miners were decent people. Mme Grégoire nodded approvingly at her husband’s confidence in the colliers’ traditional quiescence; while Cécile, who was in high spirits that day and looking a picture of health in her nasturtium-coloured dress, smiled at the mention of a strike, which brought back memories of visiting the villages and distributing alms.
But then Mme Hennebeau appeared in the doorway, dressed entirely in black silk, and followed by Négrel.
‘It really is very tiresome, isn’t it?’ she said loudly. ‘I mean, they could at least have waited!…And now Paul is refusing to take us to see Saint-Thomas.’
‘Then we shall stay here,’ M. Grégoire said obligingly. ‘I’m sure everything will be just as delightful.’
Paul had merely bowed to Cécile and her mother. Put out by his lack of enthusiasm, his aunt at once dispatched him to the girl’s side with a look; and when subsequently she heard them laughing together, she wrapped them in a maternal gaze.
Meanwhile M. Hennebeau finished reading his telegrams and drafted some replies. The conversation continued around him as his wife explained how she had not concerned herself with redecorating the study: it retained the same faded red wallpaper as before, as well as its heavy mahogany furniture and its cardboard filing-boxes that were scuffed with use. Three quarters of an hour went by, and they were just about to sit down to lunch when Hippolyte announced M. Deneulin, who came in looking very agitated and bowed to Mme Hennebeau.
‘Oh goodness, it’s you,’ he said, catching sight of the Grégoires.
And he turned animatedly towards M. Hennebeau:
‘So it’s begun, then? My engineer’s just told me…My men all went down as normal this morning. But the strike may spread…I’m worried