Madame Bovary's Daughter (5 page)

She would be in great demand; she would raise her prices,
and soon she would make lots of money. Then she could buy herself a beautiful house and hire her own maid to do this hideous work. But she would pay the maid handsomely and be sure to praise her. The harder Berthe toiled the more determined she became. Soon, she no longer even needed her grand-mère's acknowledgment or appreciation. The work was reward in itself.

Berthe was only twelve years old but she was tall for her age. Her mother had always suffered from poor health and a delicate constitution. When she wasn't actually sick in bed she was continually nursing a headache or recovering from a fainting spell. By contrast, Berthe prided herself on her physical strength. And since coming to her grand-mère's she seemed to be growing bigger every day.

One evening Grand-mère measured her against the wall.

“Unfortunately, it appears that you will take after your father when it comes to height. A pity. Big girls are not in great demand. Men want their wives to be petite,” she said, looking Berthe up and down as if she were a weed that needed to be pulled. “No one wants a giantess hanging on his arm. Let's just hope you stop growing at some point before you tower over your husband.”

“What husband?” Berthe asked, her heart quickening. Was her grand-mère already planning on marrying her off?

“Never you mind,” her grand-mère said, pursing her lips.

The next morning, she announced, “It's time for you to take on a few of the small farm chores. Renard, a boy from a neighboring farm, does most of the heavy work. He chops the wood, cuts the hay in the summer. He doesn't have time to do the milking and feed the chickens and pigs. We have to do that.”

As she followed her grand-mère into the barn, Berthe realized “we” meant her.

“This is my angel, Céleste,” her grand-mère said, indicating a small sturdy cow with a white head and brown patches around her eyes like spectacles. “She won't bite. She may kick, but she'll never bite.”

“I'm much relieved,” murmured Berthe, taking several steps back.

“You must milk her every day, twice a day, until she dries up.” Grand-mère emptied a small pail of grain into Céleste's bucket. Then the old woman set a small three-legged stool at a right angle to Céleste and sat down, resting her head against the cow's flank.

“Take the teat like this,” Grand-mère said, grasping one of Céleste's pale teats in the palm of her hand. “You squeeze it like this,” she added, curling her fingers around the teat, the milk coming out in a strong stream. “When one goes dry you do the same with the other three. She should give milk ten out of twelve months. Otherwise, she will be shipped off to the butcher.” She gave Céleste a smack on the rear. Berthe immediately identified with the cow.

“C'est tout,”
her grand-mère said, groaning as she lifted herself off the stool. “When you are done, pour the milk into this.” She held up a beautiful copper jug which had a long leather strap attached to it. Berthe had seen women on the road carrying these jugs on their shoulders. The leather strap was used to keep it steady as they walked along.

“Hurry up with the milking,” the old woman said as she left. “There's still much to do today.”

Berthe had never been so close to a cow, or asked to be on such intimate terms with one. She sat down and reached for the first teat with nervous fingers. She squeezed hard. Nothing happened. Céleste turned her head as much as the rope would allow and gave Berthe a look that seemed to say, “And what in heaven's name do you think you are doing?”

“Come on,” Berthe said, squeezing the teat even harder. She dropped one teat and quickly grabbed another as if she were ringing bells. Perspiration ran down her face. Her skin began to itch from the coarse muslin chemise. She squeezed and squeezed. Nothing happened. She did not want to report failure to her grand-mère. “Come on,” she said, gritting her teeth. Her shoulders were stiff with tension.

“Berthe,” her grand-mère called from the courtyard, “aren't you done yet? Milking doesn't take all morning, for goodness' sake.” Berthe bumped her head against Céleste's side in annoyance.

“Please, Céleste, please, let go of the milk.” She was ready to cry from frustration. The cow looked around at Berthe again. That sweet face that so enchanted her when she first saw it now enraged her. “You stupid, stupid cow,” she growled.

“That's no way to talk to her.” Berthe turned. A boy carrying a huge bundle of hay on his shoulder stood in the doorway. He had shaggy sandy-colored hair and almost painfully bright blue eyes. He was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen.

“She won't give me any of her cursed milk,” Berthe said. “I must be doing something wrong. Please, can you show me?”

The boy took her place on the stool. Stroking Céleste's flank, he began to talk to her in soft, soothing tones. “Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh,
ma jolie fille
. Do you have any milk for Renard?” After he had caressed and scratched her for a few minutes, he slowly, ever so slowly reached for her teat and the milk began to stream into the bucket.

“Now you try,” he said. “Just be gentle. She is like all women. You must treat her with kindness.”

“And what do you know of ‘all women'?” Berthe asked. He was just a boy. He couldn't have been more than fourteen or fifteen years old.

“I have sisters,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Come. Even my littlest sister can do this.” Berthe took a deep breath and sat down. She gave Céleste a look.
Don't you dare hold out on me again
. Then she followed Renard's example. The milk flowed out smoothly until the bucket was almost half full.

Forking hay into the hayloft, the boy looked down at Berthe and smiled. He had good teeth. Straight and white. She smiled back.

“My name is Renard Garnier. And yours?” he asked.

“Berthe Bovary,” she said. He rested his chin on the handle of his pitchfork. The way he looked at her made her feel shy.

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen,” she lied. “And you?”

“I will be sixteen on the last day of August,” he said, as if he expected her to mark it in her almanac.

“Good for you.” She turned her back to him.

“You're a sassy one.” He threw a handful of hay in her direction. “My sister Marie used to do the housework and make the cheese and butter, but Madame Bovary let her go. You are to take her place. Has she said how much she will pay you?” Berthe shook her head. “Of course not. You will do work out of love because you are her devoted granddaughter.” He laughed.

“And how much does she pay you to throw her hay around?” she retorted, pouring the milk into the copper jug.

“Don't let your grand-mère hear that you have a tongue on you,” he said. “Or you will be one sorry milkmaid.”

“I'm not a milkmaid.” She lifted the copper jug onto her shoulder and held it secure with the leather strap. Then holding both her head and the copper jug high, she turned and walked out of the barn, knowing that she must look every bit the milkmaid that Renard had declared her to be. The sound of his
laughter trailed after her. She made up her mind never to speak to him again.

Early one morning, hours before her grand-mère woke, Berthe stood in the doorway of the kitchen and watched as the sun came up. A mist lifted off the green fields. The geese emerged from the barn with an air of ownership. The chickens followed humbly behind, pecking at the ground in the unlikely event they would find leftover grain from the day before. From inside the barn she could hear Céleste mooing to be relieved of her burden of milk.

In many ways the country life suited her. The food was good and plentiful. The air was clean and sweet. And even though she labored to exhaustion from morning to evening, she did not shirk the work. She'd settled in to living here, and was determined to make her life as beautiful as possible. While her grand-mère slept she took the homespun dress and dipped it in beet juice; the result was a pleasing pale rose color. Then she took out a small case of embroidery silks that she'd saved from the house in Yonville and embroidered a design of blue and red fleurs-de-lis on the bib of her apron. She was very pleased with the result. The dress and apron were now almost pretty. It gave her a great feeling of satisfaction to be able to transform something ugly into something almost wearable.

When her grand-mère saw her she was indignant.

“What have you done to your good clothes? Well, you'll have to live with them. I have no money to waste on buying you new ones.”

Several months later Berthe awoke to find her nightgown and bedsheets stained with blood.
Am I dying? So young?
Then she realized
what it was. Her mother had called it the Curse without ever explaining it. Why had she called it that? Did it, as Berthe suspected at the time, have something to do with falling in love with the wrong man and having your heart broken? Whenever her mother was struck with the Curse she took to her bed for a week.

“What's wrong, Maman?” Berthe asked during one of these weeklong convalescences.

“Ask your father. He's the doctor,” her mother said, turning her back and pulling the duvet over her head.

When Berthe was finally able to get a few moments with her father he explained everything in his clinical way: “The Curse is another name for a woman's menses. It is the circulatory connection between a woman's body and mind. Thus, a woman must bleed freely once a month; failing to do so will create a form of mental disorder. Similarly, she must remain quiet and calm during this time. It's been scientifically proven that any strong emotion can cause menstrual obstruction, which can lead to insanity and death.”

“Every single month, Papa?”

“Every single month, child. That, you see, is the curse of being a woman.”

“Oh” was all she could think of to say. She had more questions, like what was the curse of being a man? But her father was busy and shooed her away.

Now, in her grand-mère's attic without a father to ask or a mother to guide her, she lay in her bed afraid to move. She tried to keep her mind calm and her anxiety at bay just in case what her father said was true. She didn't want to get her first Curse and go insane all on the same day.

Her grand-mère's head suddenly appeared in the open hatch of the attic floor.

“Perhaps you would like breakfast in bed. Or would you prefer to sleep until noon? Just let me know and I'll tell Cook to stop boiling your egg.”

“I'm sorry, Grand-mère.” Berthe sat up. She tried to conceal her nightgown and stained sheets. But it was too late.

“Oh, for heaven's sake,” her grand-mère snapped. “Go and soak everything in cold water.” Berthe slipped out of bed, keeping her back to the old woman.

“Of course I have no rags. Why would I ever think to keep rags? You'll have to tear up one of my nice old sheets. A perfectly good sheet, torn up …” She continued grumbling as she descended the ladder to the floor below.

Berthe took off her nightgown, wrapped it in the soiled sheet, and brought everything downstairs. Her grand-mère was at the stove boiling the morning coffee. She scowled at the bundle in Berthe's arms and Berthe ducked her head in embarrassment.

Her stomach hurt. It was a deep-down tender ache. For some reason it made her long for her mother. And that was the truly painful part. Because what would her mother have done if she were alive? She thought of Félicité, the maid, whom she ran to whenever she was hurt or upset. She realized now that Félicité had been paid to watch over her, to act as if she cared. She remembered once as a small child encountering Félicité in the small park in Yonville on the maid's day off. She was walking with a new beau. Berthe ran up to her and Félicité acted as if she didn't know her. Or didn't want to know her. Remembering this now, Berthe was filled with sadness. Had she really been so hard to love?

Outside, she plunged the sheet and gown into the water trough and then suddenly brought her hand down hard on the edge of the iron container. The pain caused her to cry out.
Damn. Damn. Damn
. She studied her palm. It was already bruised and bleeding. She brought the injured hand to her mouth as if kissing it would make the pain go away.

“Careful, mademoiselle, farmwork can be a dangerous thing.” She glanced up. Renard had seemingly come out of nowhere. He leaned over the trough studying the contents. She felt her face turn red as she plunged the wet laundry farther down into the water.

“Go away,” she said. “Can't you see I'm busy? You must have better things to do than hang over my shoulder all day.”

“Actually, no. I can't think of anything better.” He gave her a broad grin before turning and walking toward the fields. He must have known she was watching him because just as he got to the edge of the field where the hay had already been mowed, he turned and gave her a smart salute. She quickly bent her head so that he wouldn't see her smile.

The next evening after the milking she was washing herself outside by the pump. She had taken off her heavy muslin shirt and was wearing only a thin cotton camisole underneath. She looked down at herself. Water had soaked through the thin material and she could see pink nubs poking through. It was as if her breasts had begun to form almost overnight. Just at that moment Renard came around the corner of the barn. He smiled broadly as she quickly picked up her shirt to cover herself.

She had the beginnings of a woman's body and now the strange feelings that went along with it. Her grand-mère seemed to be all too aware of the change.

When she went inside for supper, the old woman grabbed her by her braid and pulled her around to face her.

“Don't think I'm not watching you, young lady. And I am warning you right now, stay away from that boy. He's up to no
good—and if you're anything like your mother, neither, I believe, are you.”