hands. “You must not talk of marriage to me. I shall remain unwed until my task is finished. I have vowed it to ‘My Voices.’”
“Pouf, child! A home of your own, and a husband to look after will soon make you forget such notions, and so I told Jacques. Come now, be reasonable! I know some one who would gladly provide such a home. Let––”
“While France writhes in agony under the heel of the invader there shall be no
marriage for me,” spoke Jeanne firmly, turning to leave the room.
“Nathless, whether you like it or not, you shall be married,” cried Isabeau, nettled by the girl’s words. “Your father has determined on it. Your plighted husband comes this evening to see you.”
Jeanne stood aghast. She had not dreamed that her parents would go so far. She
stood for a moment without speaking, then she said quietly:
“My faith is plighted to none but my Lord. No man has it, nor shall have it until Messire’s mission is completed. ’Tis useless to speak of it.” Again she started to leave the room.
“Nathless, Colin de Greux will be here this evening,” exclaimed Isabeau thoroughly out of patience.
Colin? The merry nature that lay under Jeanne’s gravity surged upward, and a twinkle came into her eyes. All at once she laughed outright. Her mother glanced at her quickly, surprised and relieved.
“There! That’s better,” she said. “He will be here after supper, Jeanne.”
“It matters not, mother.”
Isabeau’s relief changed to perplexity at the words. There was something in the tone that did not satisfy her, but as it was nearer to an affirmative than she had hoped for she was fain to make the best of the matter; so made no further remark.
Colin de Greux came with the evening. He had grown tall with the years, and was not ill looking. He was still the same easy-going, lumbering, dull sort of fellow whose good opinion of himself rendered him impervious to rebuffs or coldness. He was not the youth that ordinarily Isabeau would have chosen for her child, but Jeanne had never encouraged attentions from the village lads, who now fought shy of her because of her extreme piety. Desperate diseases require
desperate remedies. Jacques and Isabeau judged that marriage even with Colin was better than the fancies that filled their daughter’s mind. Beside, where another might be easily repulsed Colin could be induced to continue his wooing.
Jeanne saw through this reasoning. She determined to make short shrift of Colin.
117
When the evening came, therefore, she took a hoe and went into the garden.
Colin found her there industriously at work among the artichokes.
“How do you do, Jeanne?” he said sheepishly.
“Very well indeed, Colin.” Jeanne wielded the hoe vigorously, and gave no indication of quitting her seemingly absorbing task.
There came a silence. Had they been with the sheep on the uplands Colin would
have been thoroughly at ease. As it was there was something about the maiden’s
manner that disturbed his assurance. He had not been wont to feel so in her presence.
“It’s warm out here,” he ventured presently.
“Perchance you will find it cooler in the house,” intimated the girl sweetly.
“The family will be there,” he objected, looking suggestively at a bench under an apple tree. The youths and the maidens of Domremy always sat together when the suitor was approved by the parents. Jeanne’s cool, steadfast gaze disconcerted him.
“Why, yes, Colin, they will be there. You will find them all, I think. Jean and Pierre are with mother. Did you wish to see them?”
This roused Colin.
“No; I don’t wish to see them,” he said angrily. “I wish to talk to you, Jeanne D’Arc.”
“I am listening, Colin.” Jeanne quietly finished the hill which she was hoeing, then began on the next row, which was further removed from the youth, the tall
heads of the artichokes nodding stiffly between them.
“But I can’t talk while you are hoeing,” he exclaimed. “And your father told 1m 18 e
that I might talk to you.”
Jeanne laid down the hoe, and confronted him.
“Colin,” she said gravely, “mother told me that you would come, and why; but it is of no use. There are other girls in the village who would gladly marry you. I am resolved not to wed.”
“I don’t want any other girl for a wife but you, Jeanne. I have always liked you, and you know it. Besides, your father––”
“You cannot wed a girl against her will, Colin, and I shall not marry you. I am
talking plainly, so that you will understand, and not waste your time.”
“But you shall,” muttered the boy wrathfully. “Your father tells me that you shall.”
