Александр Дюма
The Last Vendée
XXXIII.
IN WHICH MAÎTRE LORIOT'S CURIOSITY IS NOT EXACTLY SATISFIED
Maître Loriot profited, as we have said, by the example of the young ladies, and left the marquis and his guests to evoke at ease their memories of the "war of giants." He rose from table and followed the Demoiselles de Souday into the salon. There he advanced toward them, bending almost double, and rubbing his hands.
"Ah!" said Bertha; "you seem to be pleased about something, Monsieur le notaire."
"Mesdemoiselles," replied Maître Loriot, in a low voice, "I have done my best to second your father's trick. I hope that if need be you will not refuse to certify to the coolness and self-possession I have shown under the circumstances."
"What trick do you mean, dear Monsieur Loriot," said Mary, laughing. "Neither Bertha nor I know what you mean."
"Good heavens!" said the notary; "I don't know any more than you know, but it seems to me that Monsieur le marquis must have some serious and powerful reasons to treat as old friends, and even better than some old friends are treated, those hateful bullies whom he has admitted to his table. The attentions he is paying to those hirelings of the usurper strike me as very strange, and I fancy they have a purpose."
"What purpose?" asked Bertha.
"Well, that of filling those fellows' minds with such a sense of security that they will neglect to look after their own safety, and then-taking advantage of their carelessness, to make them share the fate-"
"The fate?"
"The fate of-" repeated the notary.
"The fate of whom?"
The notary passed his hand across his throat.
"Holofernes, perhaps?" cried Bertha, laughing.
"Exactly," said Maître Loriot.
Mary joined her sister in the peals of laughter this assurance called forth. The little notary's supposition delighted the sisters beyond measure.
"So you assign us the part of Judith!" cried Bertha, endeavoring to check her laughter.
"But, mesdemoiselles-"
"If my father were here, Monsieur Loriot, he might be angry that you suppose him capable of such proceedings, which would be in my opinion, a little too Biblical. But don't be uneasy; we will tell neither papa nor the general, who certainly would not be flattered at the meaning you put upon our attentions."
"Young ladies," entreated Loriot, "forgive me if my political fervor, my horror for all the partisans of the present unfortunate doctrines, carried me rather too far."
"I forgive you, Monsieur Loriot," replied Bertha, who, having been, in consequence of her frank, decided nature, the most suspicious, felt that she had the most to pardon, – "I forgive you; and in order that you may not make such mistakes in future I shall give you the key-note of the situation. You must know that General Dermoncourt, whom you regard as Antichrist, has merely come to Souday to make exactly the same search that is made in all the neighboring châteaus."
"If that's the case," said the little notary, who was getting himself deeper and deeper into trouble, "why treat him with, – yes, I will say the word, – with such luxury and splendor? The law is precise."
"The law! How so?"
"Yes; it forbids all magistrates and civil and military officers charged with the execution of judicial authority to seize, carry away, or appropriate any articles other than those named in the warrant. What are these men now doing with the viands and wines of all sorts which are on the table of the Marquis de Souday? They are ap-pro-pri-ating them!"
"It seems to me, my dear Monsieur Loriot," said Mary, "that my father has the right to invite whom he chooses to his table."
"Even those who come to execute-to bring into his home-an odious and tyrannical power? Certainly he has the right, mademoiselle; but you will allow me to regard it as a most unnatural thing, and to suppose it has some secret cause or object."
"In other words, Monsieur Loriot, you see a secret which you want to penetrate."
"Oh, mademoiselle-"
"Well, I'll confide it to you, as well as I can, my dear Monsieur Loriot. I am willing to trust you, if you, on your side, will tell me how it happened that having to look for Monsieur Michel de la Logerie, you came straight to the château de Souday."
Bertha said the words in a firm, incisive way, and the notary, to whom they were addressed, heard them with more embarrassment than was felt by the lady who uttered them.
As for Mary, she came up to her sister, slipped her arm within Bertha's, and resting her head upon the latter's shoulder, awaited, with a curiosity she did not seek to disguise, the answer of Maître Loriot.
"Well, if you really wish to know why, young ladies-"
The notary made a pause, as though expecting to be encouraged; and Bertha did encourage him with a nod.
"I came," continued Maître Loriot, "because Madame la Baronne de la Logerie informed me that the château de Souday was probably the place to which her son went on taking flight from his home."
"And on what did Madame la Baronne de la Logerie base that supposition?" asked Bertha, with the same questioning look and the same firm, incisive voice.
"Mademoiselle," replied the notary, more and more embarrassed, "after what I said to your father, really I do not know whether, in spite of the reward you promise to my frankness, I have the courage to say more."
"Why not?" said Bertha, with the same coolness. "Shall I help you? It is because she thinks, I believe you said, that the object of Monsieur Michel's love is at Souday."
"Yes, mademoiselle, that is just it."
"Very good; but what I desire to know, and what I shall insist on knowing, is Madame de la Logerie's opinion of that love."
"Her opinion is not exactly favorable, mademoiselle," returned the notary; "that I must admit."
"That's a point on which my father and the baroness will agree," said Bertha, laughing.
"But," continued the notary, pointedly, "Monsieur Michel will be of age in a few months, – consequently, free as to his actions, and the master of an immense fortune."
"As to his actions," said Bertha, "so much the better for him."
"In what way, mademoiselle?" asked the notary, maliciously.
"Why to rehabilitate the name he bears and efface the evil memories his father left behind him. As to the fortune, if I were the woman Monsieur Michel honored with his affection, I should advise him to make such use of it that there would soon be no name in the whole province more honored than his."
"What use would you advise him to make of it?" exclaimed the notary, much astonished.
"To return that money to those from whom they say his father got it, and to make restitution to the former proprietors of the national domain which M. Michel bought."
"But in that case, mademoiselle, you would ruin the man who had the honor to be in love with you," said the little notary, quite bewildered.
"What would that matter if he obtained the respect of all, and the regard of her who advised the sacrifice?"
Just then Rosine appeared at the door of the salon.
"Mademoiselle," she said, not addressing herself particularly to either Mary or Bertha, "will you please come here?"
Bertha wanted to continue her conversation with the notary. She was eager for information as to the feelings Madame de la Logerie had against her; and, moreover, she enjoyed talking, however vaguely, of projects which for some time past had been the theme of her meditations. So she told Mary to go and see what was wanted.
But Mary, on her side, was rather unwilling to leave the salon. She was frightened to see to what lengths Bertha's love had developed within the last few days; every word her sister said echoed painfully in her soul. She felt sure that Michel's love was wholly her own, and she thought with actual terror of Bertha's despair when she should discover how strangely she had deceived herself. Besides, in spite of Mary's immense affection for her sister, love had already poured into her heart the little dose of selfishness which always accompanies that emotion, and she was quite joyful, from another point of view, at what she was now hearing. The part which Bertha was tracing out for the wife of Michel she felt should be her own. So it happened that Bertha was obliged to ask her for the second time to see what Rosine wanted.
"Go, dearest," she said, kissing Mary's forehead, "go; and while you are there please give orders about preparing Monsieur Loriot's room; for I fear, in all this turmoil, it has been forgotten."
Mary was accustomed to obey, and she obeyed. Of the two sisters, she was by far the most docile and gentle. She found Rosine at the door.
"What do you want of us?" she asked.
Rosine did not reply. Then, as if she feared to be overheard from the dining-room, where the marquis was narrating the last day of Charette's life, she took Mary by the arm and drew her under the staircase at the farther end of the vestibule.
"Mademoiselle," she said, "he is hungry."
"He is hungry?" repeated Mary.
"Yes; he has just told me so."
"Who is it you are talking of? Who is hungry?"
"He, the poor lad."
"Who is he?"
"Why, Monsieur Michel."
"Monsieur Michel here!"
"Didn't you know it?"
"No."
"Two hours ago-after Mademoiselle Bertha returned from the chapel, just before the soldiers arrived-he came to the kitchen."
"Didn't he go away with Petit-Pierre?"
"No."
"And you say he went to the kitchen?"
"Yes; and he was so tired, it was quite pitiful. 'Monsieur Michel,' I said like that, 'why don't you go into the salon?' 'My dear Rosine,' said he, in his gentle way, 'they didn't ask me.' Then he wanted to go and sleep at Machecoul, for he said he wouldn't go back to La Logerie for all the world. It seems his mother meant to take him to Paris. So I wouldn't let him leave the house."
"You did quite right, Rosine. Where is he now?"
"I put him in the tower chamber; but as the soldiers have taken the ground-floor, we can't get in there now except through the passage at the end of the hay-loft, and I came to ask you for the key."
Mary's first thought (it was her good thought) was to tell her sister; but a second thought succeeded the first, and that, it must be owned, was less generous. It was no other than to see Michel first and alone. Rosine gave her the opportunity.
"I'll tell you where the key is," said Mary.
"Oh, mademoiselle," replied Rosine, "do come with me. There are so many men about that I don't like to be alone, and I should die of fright to go up there by myself; whereas if you, the marquis's daughter, were with me they would all respect us."
"But the provisions?"
"Here they are."
"Where?"
"In this basket."
"Oh, very good; then come."
And Mary sprang up the stairs with the agility of the kids she sometimes hunted among the rocks in the forest of Machecoul.
XXXIV.
THE TOWER CHAMBER
When Mary reached the second floor she stopped before the room occupied by Jean Oullier. The key she wanted was kept in that room.
Then she opened a door which gave entrance from this floor on a winding stairway which led to the upper portion of the tower, where, preceding Rosine whose basket hindered her, she continued her ascension, which was somewhat dangerous, for the stairs of the half-abandoned tower had fallen into a state of dilapidation and decay. It was at the top of this tower, in a little chamber under the roof, that Rosine and the cook, forming themselves into a committee of deliberation, had shut up the young Baron Michel de la Logerie.
The intention of these honest girls was excellent; the result was in no sense equal to their good-will. It would be impossible to imagine a more miserable refuge, or one where it would be less possible to obtain even a slight repose. The room was, in fact, used by Jean Oullier to store the seeds, tools, and other necessary articles for his various avocations as Jack-at-all-trades. The walls were literally palisaded with branches of beans, cabbages, lettuce, onions, of diverse varieties, all gone to seed and exposed to the air for the purpose of ripening and drying them. Unfortunately, these botanic specimens had acquired such a coating of dust, while awaiting the period of their return to earth, that the least movement made in the narrow chamber sent up a cloud of leguminous atoms which affected the atmosphere disagreeably.
The sole furniture of this room was a wooden bench, which was not a very comfortable seat, certainly; and Michel, unable to endure it, had betaken himself to a pile of oats of a rare species, which obtained, on account of their rarity, a place in this collection of precious germs. He seated himself in the midst of the mound, and there, in spite of some inconveniencies, he found enough elasticity to rest his limbs, which were cramped with fatigue.
But after a time Michel grew weary of lying on this movable and prickly sofa. When Guérin threw him down into the brook a goodly quantity of mud became attached to his garments, and the dampness soon penetrated to his skin. His stay before the kitchen fire had been short, so short that the dampness now returned, more penetrating than ever. He began, therefore, to walk up and down in the turret-room, cursing the foolish timidity to which he owed not only the cold, stiffness, and hunger he began to feel, but also-more dismal still-the loss of Mary's presence. He scolded himself for not securing his own profit out of the valiant enterprise he had undertaken, and for losing courage to end successfully an affair he had so well begun.
Let us hasten to say here, in order that we may not misrepresent our hero's character, that the consciousness of his mistake did not make him a whit more courageous, and it never for an instant occurred to him to go frankly to the marquis and ask for hospitality, – a desire for which had been one of the determining motives of his flight.
Meantime the soldiers had arrived, and Michel, attracted by the noise to the narrow casement of his turret-chamber, saw the Demoiselles de Souday, their father, the general, and his officers, passing and repassing before the brilliantly lighted windows of the main building. It was then that, seeing Rosine in the courtyard beneath, he asked, with all the modesty of his character, for a bit of bread, and declared himself hungry.
Hearing, soon after, a light step apparently approaching his room, he began to feel a lively satisfaction under two heads: first, he was likely to get something to eat; and next, he should probably hear news of Mary.
"Is that you, Rosine?" he asked, when he heard a hand endeavoring to open the door.
"No, it is not Rosine; it is I, Monsieur Michel," said a voice.
Michel recognized it as Mary's voice; but he could not believe his ears. The voice continued: -
"Yes, I, – I, who am very angry with you!"
As the tone of the voice was not in keeping with the words, Michel was less alarmed than he might have been.
"Mademoiselle Mary!" he cried; "Mademoiselle Mary! Good heavens!"
He leaned against the wall to keep himself from falling. Meanwhile the young girl had opened the door.
"You!" cried Michel, – "you, Mademoiselle Mary! Oh, how happy I am!"
"Not so happy as you say."
"Why not?"
"Because, as you must admit, in the midst of your happiness you are dying of hunger."
"Ah, mademoiselle! who told you that?" stammered Michel, coloring to the whites of his eyes.
"Rosine. Come, Rosine, quick!" continued Mary. "Here, put your lantern on this bench, and open the basket at once; don't you see that Monsieur Michel is devouring it with his eyes?"
These laughing words made the young baron rather ashamed of the vulgar need of food he had expressed to his foster-sister. It came into his head that to seize the basket, fling it out of the window, at the risk of braining a soldier, fall upon his knees, and say to the young girl pathetically, with both hands pressed to his heart, "Can I think of my stomach when my heart is satisfied?" would be a rather gallant declaration to make. But Michel might have had such ideas in his head for a number of consecutive years without ever bringing himself to act in so cavalier a manner. He therefore allowed Mary to treat him exactly like a foster-brother. At her invitation he went back to his seat on the oats, and found it a very enjoyable thing to eat the food cut for him by the delicate hand of the young girl.
"Oh, what a child you are!" said Mary. "Why, after doing so gallant an act and rendering us a service of such importance, at the risk, too, of breaking your neck, – why didn't you come to my father, and say to him, as it was so natural to do, 'Monsieur, I cannot go home to my mother to-night; will you keep me till to-morrow morning?'"
"Oh, I never should have dared!" cried Michel, letting his arms drop on each side of him, like a man to whom an impossible proposal was made.
"Why not?" asked Mary.
"Because your father awes me."
"My father! Why, he is the kindest man in the world. Besides, are you not our friend?"
"Oh, how good of you, mademoiselle, to give me that title." Then, venturing to go a step farther, he added. "Have I really won it?"
Mary colored slightly. A few days earlier she would not have hesitated to reply that Michel was indeed her friend, and that she was constantly thinking of him. But during those few days Love had strangely modified her feelings and produced an instinctive reticence which she was far from comprehending. The more she was revealed to herself as a woman, by sensations hitherto unknown to her, the more she perceived that the manners, habits, and language resulting from the education she had received were unusual; and with that faculty of intuition peculiar to women she saw what she lacked on the score of reserve, and she resolved to acquire it for the sake of the emotion that filled her soul and made her feel the necessity of dignity.
Consequently, Mary, who up to this time had never concealed a single thought, began to see that a young girl must sometimes, if not lie, at least evade the truth; and she now put in practice this new discovery in her answer to Michel's question.
"I think," she replied, "that you have done quite enough to earn the name of friend." Then without giving him time to return to a subject on hazardous ground, she continued, "Come, give me proof of the appetite you were boasting of just now by eating this other wing of the chicken."
"Oh, mademoiselle, no!" said Michel, artlessly, "I am choking as it is."
"Then you must be a very poor eater. Come, obey; if not, as I am only here to serve you, I shall go."
"Mademoiselle," said Michel, stretching out both his hands, in one of which was a fork, in the other a piece of bread, – "mademoiselle, you cannot be so cruel. Oh! if you only knew how sad and dismal I have been here for the last two hours in this utter solitude-"
"You were hungry; that explains it," said Mary, laughing.
"No, no, no; that was not it! I could see you from here, going and coming with all those officers."
"That was your own fault. Instead of taking refuge like an owl in this old turret, you ought to have come into the salon and gone with us to the dining-room and eaten your supper sitting, like a Christian, on a proper chair. You would have heard my father and General Dermoncourt relating adventures to make your flesh creep, and you would have seen the old weasel Loriot-as my father calls him-eating his supper, which was scarcely less alarming."
"Good God!" cried Michel.
"What?" asked Mary, surprised by the sudden exclamation.
"Maître Loriot, of Machecoul?"
"Maître Loriot, of Machecoul," repeated Mary.
"My mother's notary?"
"Ah, yes, that's true; so he is!" said Mary.
"Is he here?" asked Michel.
"Yes, of course he is here; and what do you think he came for?" continued Mary, laughing.
"What?"
"To look for you."
"For me?"
"Exactly; sent by the baroness."
"But, mademoiselle," cried Michel, much alarmed, "I don't wish to go back to La Logerie."
"Why not?"
"Because, – well, because they lock me up, they detain me; they want to keep me at a distance from-from my friends."
"Nonsense! La Logerie is not so very far from Souday."
"No; but Paris is far from Souday, and the baroness wants to take me to Paris. Did you tell that notary I was here?"
"No, indeed."
"Oh! I thank you, mademoiselle."
"You need not thank me, for I did not know it myself."
"But now that you do know it-"
Michel hesitated.
"Well, what?"
"You must not tell him, Mademoiselle Mary," said Michel, ashamed of his weakness.
"Upon my word, Monsieur Michel," replied Mary, "you must allow me to say one thing."
"Say it, mademoiselle; say it!"
"Well, it seems to me if I were a man Maître Loriot should not disturb me under any circumstances."
Michel seemed to gather all his strength in order to take a resolution.
"You are right," he said; "and I will go and tell him that I will not return to La Logerie."
At this moment they were startled by loud cries from the cook, calling to Rosine.
"Good heavens!" they both cried, one as frightened as the other.
"Do you hear that, mademoiselle?" said Rosine.
"Yes."
"They want me."
"Oh!" said Mary, rising, and all ready to flee away, "can they know we are here?"
"Suppose they do," said Rosine; "what does it matter?"
"Nothing," said Mary; "but-"
"Listen!" exclaimed Rosine.
They were silent, and the cook was heard to go away. Presently her voice was heard in the garden.
"Dear me!" said Rosine; "there she is, calling me outside."
And Rosine was for running down at once.
"Heavens!" cried Mary; "don't leave me here alone."
"Why, you are not alone," said Rosine, naïvely. "Monsieur Michel is here."
"Yes, but to get back to the house," stammered Mary.
"Why, mademoiselle," cried Rosine, astonished, "have you suddenly turned coward, – you so brave, who are in the woods by night as much as by day! It isn't a bit like you."
"Never mind; stay, Rosine."
"Well, for all the help I have been to you for the last half-hour I might as well go."
"Very true; but that's not what I want of you."
"What do you want?"
"Well, don't you see?"
"What?"
"Why, that this unfortunate boy can't pass the night here, in this room."
"Then where can he pass it?" asked Rosine.
"I don't know; but we must find him another room."
"Without telling the marquis?"
"Oh, true! my father doesn't know he is here. Good heavens! what's to be done? Ah, Monsieur Michel, it is all your fault!"
"Mademoiselle, I am ready to leave the house if you demand it."
"What makes you say that?" cried Mary, quickly. "No; on the contrary, stay."
"Mademoiselle Mary, an idea!" interrupted Rosine.
"What is it?"
"Suppose I go and ask Mademoiselle Bertha what we had better do?"
"No," replied Mary, with an eagerness which surprised herself; "no, that's useless! I will ask her myself presently when I go down, after Monsieur Michel has finished his wretched little supper."
"Very good; then I'll go now," said Rosine.
Mary dared not keep her longer. Rosine disappeared, leaving the two young people entirely alone.
