Александр Дюма
The Last Vendée
XXII.
ON THE HIGHWAY
During all this time Mary had no news of Bertha. Since the evening on which the latter left the Jacquet mill, announcing her resolve to search for Michel, Mary knew nothing of Bertha's movements. Her mind was lost in conjecture. Had Michel spoken? Had Bertha, reduced to despair, done some fatal deed? Was he wounded? Was he killed? Had Bertha herself been shot in one of her adventurous undertakings? Such were the gloomy alternatives Mary feared for the two objects of her affections; both left her a prey to the keenest anxiety, the sharpest anguish.
In vain she told herself that the wandering life she now led with Petit-Pierre, forced each evening to leave the shelter of the night before, made it very difficult for Bertha to recover their traces. Making all such allowances it seemed to Mary that, unless some misfortune had happened to her, Bertha would surely have sent some news of her whereabouts through the channels of communication which the royalists possessed among the peasantry. Mary's courage was already weakened by the many shocks she had just endured; and she herself, unsupported, isolated, deprived of her lover's presence, which had secretly sustained her in the hour of struggle, now gave way to gloomy distress, and broke down utterly under her trouble. She spent her days, which she ought to have employed in resting after the fatigues of the night, in watching for Bertha or for some messenger who never came; for hours at a time she sat silently absorbed in her grief, speaking only when spoken to.
Mary certainly loved her sister; the immense sacrifice to which she had resigned herself for Bertha's sake abundantly proved it-and yet she blushed, owning to herself, honestly, that it was not Bertha's fate that chiefly filled her mind. However warm, however sincere was the affection Mary felt for her sister, another and more imperious emotion had glided into her soul, and fed on the pain it brought there. In spite of all the poor girl's efforts, the sacrifice of which we speak had never detached her from him who was the occasion of it. Now that Michel was separated from her, she fancied she could indulge without danger the thoughts she had struggled to put away from her; and little by little Michel's image had so gained possession of her heart that it no longer left it, even for a moment.
In the midst of the sufferings of her life, the pain these remembrances of her lover gave her seemed comforting; she flung herself into it with a sort of passion. Day by day he had an ever-increasing share in the tears and anxiety caused by the strange and long-protracted absence of her sister. After yielding, without reserve, to her despair, after exhausting every gloomy supposition, after evoking all the cruel alternatives of the uncertainty in which each passing hour left her, after anxiously counting all the minutes of those hours, little by little Mary fell into regret, – regret intermingled with self-reproach.
She went over in her memory the smallest incidents of her relation and that of her sister with Michel. She asked herself whether she were not doing wrong in breaking the heart of the poor lad while she broke her own; whether she had the right to force the disposal of his love; whether she were not responsible for the misery into which she was plunging Michel by compelling him to be a sharer in the immense sacrifice she was offering to her sister. Her thoughts returned, with irresistible inclination, to the night spent on the islet of Jonchère. She saw once more those reedy barriers; she fancied she heard that softly harmonious voice, which said: "I love thee!" She closed her eyes, and again she felt the young man's breath as it touched her hair, and his lips laying on her lips the first, the only, but ah! the ineffable kiss she had received from him.
Then the renunciation which her virtue, her tenderness for her sister urged upon her seemed greater than her strength could bear. She blamed herself for rashly attempting a superhuman task, and Love regained so vigorously a heart all love, that Mary, – ordinarily pious, submissive, accustomed to seek, in view of a future life, the path of patient courage, – Mary had no longer the strength to look to heaven only; she was crushed. In the anguish of her passion she gave herself up to impious despair, asking God if this fleeting memory of the touch of those lips was all she was to know of the happiness of being loved; and whether life were worth the pain of living thus disinherited of joy.
The Marquis de Souday at last perceived the great alteration produced on Mary's face by these grievous emotions; but he naturally attributed it to the great bodily fatigue the young girl was now enduring. He was himself much depressed in seeing all his fine dreams vanishing, and all the predictions made to him by the general realized. He saw with dread a return of his exiled days without even having seen, as it were, the dawn of a struggle. Still, he felt it his duty to force his courage and resolution to the level of the misfortune which overwhelmed him, and that duty the marquis would have died rather than not fulfil; for was it not a soldier's duty? Little as he cared for social duties and proprieties, the more he stickled for those which concerned his military honor. Therefore, notwithstanding his inward depression, he showed no outward sign of it, and even found in the vicissitudes of their adventurous life the text of many a joke with which he tried to distract the minds of his companions from the anxiety and disappointment consequent on the failure of the insurrection.
Mary had told her father of Bertha's departure; and the worthy old gentleman had intelligently guessed that the girl's anxiety about the conduct and fate of her betrothed was at the bottom of it. As eye-witnesses had already brought him word that Michel, far from failing in his duty, had heroically contributed to, the defence of La Pénissière, the marquis, – who supposed that Jean Oullier, on whose care and prudence he implicitly relied, was with his daughter and future son-in-law, – the marquis did not think it necessary to be more uneasy at Bertha's absence than a general might have been about an officer dispatched on an expedition. Nevertheless, the marquis could not explain to himself why Baron Michel had preferred to fight so well under Jean Oullier's orders rather than under his own, – and he was inclined to be annoyed at the preference.
Surrounded by Legitimist leaders, Petit-Pierre, on the very evening of the fight at Chêne, left the Jacquet mill, where the danger of a surprise was imminent. The main-road, which was not far distant, was covered at intervals by bodies of soldiers escorting prisoners. Petit-Pierre and her bodyguard started, therefore, as soon as it was dark.
Wishing to follow the highway as much as possible, the little troop encountered a detachment of the government troops, and was forced to crouch in a wayside ditch, which was filled with brambles, for over an hour, while the detachment filed by. The whole region was so patrolled by these movable columns that it was only by following the most impassable wood-paths that the fugitives could be sure of escaping their vigilance.
Petit-Pierre's uneasiness was extreme; her physical appearance betrayed her mental sufferings, but her words, her behavior, never! In the midst of this hazardous life, so disturbed and often so gloomy, the same bright gayety sparkled from her, and held its own with that the marquis was assuming. Pursued as they were, the fugitives never had a full night's rest; and no sooner had the daylight dawned than danger and fatigue awoke when they did. These terrible night marches were sometimes dangerous, and always horribly fatiguing to Petit-Pierre. Sometimes she went on horseback, oftener on foot, – through fields divided by hedges and embankments, which could only be crossed after darkness had fallen; through vineyards, which, in that region, trail their vines on the ground, where they catch the feet and threaten a fall at every moment; through cow-paths trampled into mud by the constant passage of the cattle, – mud which came to the knees of foot-passengers and horses.
Petit-Pierre's companions were now very anxious as to the results of this life of incessant emotion and bodily fatigue on the health of their precious charge. They deliberated on the best means of putting her, once for all, in safety. Opinions differed; some were for taking her to Paris, where she might be lost in the midst of a vast population; others proposed Nantes, where a safe concealment was already prepared; a third party counselled immediate embarkation, not thinking it possible to ensure her safety so long as she stayed in France, where search would be only the more active because the actual insurrection was at an end.
The Marquis de Souday was of the latter opinion; to which objection was made that a vigorous watch was kept along the coast, and that it would be absolutely impossible to embark from any port, however insignificant, without a passport.
Petit-Pierre cut short the discussion by declaring that she should go to Nantes, and would enter it on the morrow in full daylight, dressed as a peasant-woman. As the great change and depression visible in Mary's appearance had not, as may well be supposed, escaped her, and as she supposed, like the marquis, that they were due to the great fatigue the girl was enduring, – and as this fatigue would continue if she stayed with her father, – Petit-Pierre proposed to the marquis to take his daughter with her. The marquis accepted the offer gratefully.
Mary did not readily resign herself. Shut up in a town she was not so likely to obtain news of Bertha and Michel, which she was now awaiting from hour to hour with feverish anxiety. On the other hand, refusal was impossible, and she therefore yielded.
On the morrow, which was Saturday, and market-day, Petit-Pierre and Mary, dressed as peasant-women, started for the town at six in the morning; they had about ten miles to go. After walking for half an hour the wooden shoes, but, above all, the woollen socks, to which Petit-Pierre was not accustomed, hurt her feet. She tried to keep on; but knowing that if she blistered her feet she would be unable to continue the journey, she sat down by the wayside, took off her shoes and stockings, stuffed them into her capacious pockets, and started again barefooted.
Presently, however, she noticed, as other peasant-women passed her, that the whiteness and delicacy of her skin might betray her; she therefore turned off the road a little way, took some dark, peaty earth, and rubbed it on her feet and legs till they were stained with it, and then resumed her way.
They had just reached the top of the hill at Sorinières when they saw in front of a roadside tavern two gendarmes who were talking with a peasant like themselves, who was on horseback.
Mary and Bertha were at this moment in the midst of a group of five or six peasant-women, and the gendarmes paid no attention to any of them. But Mary, who watched every one she passed, thinking some information as to Bertha and Michel might chance to reach her, – Mary fancied that the mounted peasant looked at her with peculiar attention. A few moments later she turned her head and saw that the peasant had left the gendarmes, and was hurrying his pony as if to overtake the group of peasant-women.
"Take care of yourself," she whispered hastily to Petit-Pierre; "there's a man I don't know who just examined me with great attention and then started to follow us. Go on alone, and seem not to know me!"
"Very good; but suppose he joins you, Mary?"
"I can answer him; don't be afraid."
"In case we are forced to separate, shall you know where to find me?"
"Yes; but don't let us say another word to each other-he is coming."
The horse's hoofs were now ringing on the paved centre of the road. Without appearing to do so Mary lagged behind the group of peasant-women. She could not help quivering when she heard, as she expected, the voice of the man addressing her.
"So we are going to Nantes, my pretty girl?" he began, pulling in his horse when he reached Mary's side, and again looking at her attentively.
"So it appears," she said, seeming to take the matter gayly.
"Don't you want my company?" asked the rider.
"Oh, no, thank you," replied Mary, imitating the speech of the Vendéan peasant-women; "I'll keep on with the rest from our parts."
"The rest from your parts? You don't expect me to believe that all those girls before us are from your village?"
"Whether they are or not, what's that to you?" retorted Mary, evading a question which was evidently insidious.
The man saw through her purpose.
"I'll make you a proposal," he said.
"What sort of proposal?"
"Get up behind me."
"Yes, that's likely!" replied Mary; "a pretty sight it would be to see a poor girl like me holding on to a man who looks like a gentleman."
"Especially as you are not accustomed to hug those who look and are such."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Mary.
"I mean that you may pass for a peasant-girl in the eyes of gendarmes; but my eyes are another thing. You are not what you are trying to seem, Mademoiselle Mary de Souday."
"If you have no evil intentions toward me why do you say my name in a loud voice on the public highway?" asked the young girl, stopping short.
"What harm is there in that?" said the rider.
"Only that those women may have heard you; and if I wear these clothes you must know it is because my interests or my safety oblige me."
"Oh!" said the man, winking one eye and affecting a knowing air; "those women you pretend to be afraid of know all about you."
"No, they do not!"
"One of them does, any how."
Mary trembled in spite of herself; but summoning all her strength of will, she replied: -
"Neither one nor all. But may I ask why you are putting these questions to me?"
"Because, if you are really alone, as you say you are, I shall ask you to stop here for a few minutes."
"I?"
"Yes."
"For what purpose?"
"To save me a long search I should have made tomorrow if I had not met you now."
"Search for what?"
"Why, for you!"
"Do you mean that you are seeking me?"
"Not on my own account, you must understand."
"But who sent you on such an errand?"
"Those who love you." Then lowering his voice he added: "Mademoiselle Bertha and Monsieur Michel."
"Bertha? Michel?"
"Yes."
"Then he is not dead!" cried Mary. "Oh, tell me, tell me, monsieur, I implore you, what has become of them?"
The terrible anxiety betrayed by the tone in which Mary said the words, the agitation of her face as she awaited the answer, which seemed to be one of life or death to her, were noticed with curiosity by Courtin, on whose lips flickered a diabolical smile. He took pleasure in delaying his answer in order to prolong the young girl's anguish.
"No, no!" he said at last, "don't be uneasy; he'll get over it!"
"Get over it! is he wounded?" asked Mary, vehemently.
"Didn't you know it?"
"Oh, my God! my God! Wounded!" cried Mary, with her eyes full of tears.
"Pooh!" said Courtin, "his wound won't keep him long in bed or hinder his marriage!"
Mary felt that she turned pale in spite of herself. Courtin's words reminded her that she had not asked news of her sister.
"And Bertha?" she said, "you have told me nothing about her."
"Your sister? Ha! she's a dashing girl! When she hooks her arm into her husband's she may well say she has earned him."
"But she is not ill, she is not wounded, is she?"
"She is a trifle ill, but that's all."
"Poor Bertha!"
"She did too much. I tell you there's many a man would have died of the strain if he had done what she did."
"Good God!" cried Mary; "both ill, and both without care!"
"Oh, as for that, no; they are caring for one another. You ought to see how your sister, ill as she is, cossets the young baron. Some men have the luck of it, that's a fact; Monsieur Michel is just as much petted by his lady dove as he was by his mother. He'll have to love her well, if he doesn't want to be ungrateful."
Mary's agitation increased at these words, – a fact which did not escape the rider's notice, and he smiled.
"Shall I tell you something that I think I have discovered?" he said.
"What is it?"
"Why, that Monsieur le baron, in the matter of color, prefers fair hair to black."
"What do you mean?" asked Mary, quivering.
"If you wish me to explain, I'll tell something that you know as well as I do; and that is, that he loves you. And if Bertha is the name of his betrothed, Mary is the name of his heart's love."
"Oh!" cried Mary, "you are inventing all that; Monsieur de la Logerie never told you any such thing."
"No; but I have seen it for myself; and as I cherish him like my own flesh and blood, I want to see him happy, the dear lad! Therefore I said to myself yesterday, when your sister asked me to get word to you about her, that I'd clear my conscience of the matter and tell you what I think."
"You are mistaken in your thoughts, monsieur," replied Mary. "Monsieur Michel does not care for me; he is my sister's betrothed husband, and he loves her deeply; I can assure you of that."
"You are wrong not to trust me, Mademoiselle Mary. Do you know who I am? I am Courtin, Monsieur Michel's head farmer, and I may say, his confidential, man; and if you choose-"
"Monsieur Courtin, you will oblige me extremely," interrupted Mary, "if you would choose-"
"What?"
"To change the conversation."
"Very good; but allow me to renew my offer. Won't you ride behind me? – it would ease your journey. You are going to Nantes, I suppose?"
"Yes," replied Mary, who, little as she liked Courtin, thought she had better not conceal her destination from the Baron de la Logerie's confidential man.
"Well," continued Courtin, "as I am going there myself we had better go together, unless-If you are going to Nantes on an errand, and I could do it for you, I'd willingly undertake it, and save you the trouble."
Mary, in spite of her natural truthfulness, felt compelled to dissimulate; for it was all-important that no one should even guess at the cause of her journey.
"No," she replied; "it is impossible. I am on my way to join my father, who has taken refuge in Nantes, where he is now concealed."
"Dear, dear!" said Courtin, "Monsieur le marquis hiding in Nantes! that's a clever idea. They are looking for him the other way, and talk of turning the château de Souday inside out to its foundations."
"Who told you that?" asked Mary.
Courtin saw that he had made a blunder by seeming to know the plans of the government agents; he tried to repair it as best he could.
"It was chiefly to prevent you from going back there that Mademoiselle Bertha sent me in search of you," he said.
"Well, you see," said Mary, "that neither my father nor I are at Souday."
"Ah, that reminds me!" exclaimed Courtin, as if the thought had just come naturally into his head; "if Mademoiselle Bertha and Monsieur de la Logerie want to communicate with you, how are they to address you?"
"I don't know myself as yet," replied Mary. "I am to meet a man on the pont Bousseau who will take me to the house where my father is concealed. After I get there and have seen him I will write to my sister."
"Very good; if you have any communication to make, or if Monsieur le baron and your sister want to join you, and need a guide, I will undertake to manage it." Then, with a meaning smile, he added: "I'll answer for one thing; Monsieur Michel will be sending me more than once."
"Enough!" said Mary.
"Ah! excuse me. I didn't know it would make you angry."
"It does; your suppositions are offensive both to your master and to me."
"Pooh!" said Courtin, "all that is only talk. Monsieur le baron has a fine fortune, and there isn't a young lady the country round, whether she is an heiress or not, who would turn up her nose at it. Say the word, Mademoiselle Mary," continued the farmer, who believed that everybody worshipped money as he did; "only say the word and I'll do my best to make that fortune yours."
"Maître Courtin," said Mary, stopping short, and looking at the farmer with an expression in her eye he could not mistake; "it needs all my sense of your attachment to Monsieur de la Logerie to keep me from being seriously angry. I tell you again, and once for all, you are not to speak to me in that manner!"
Courtin expected a different reply, – his conception of a "she-wolf" not admitting of such delicacy. He was all the more surprised because he saw very plainly that the young girl shared the love his prying eyes had detected in the depths of the young baron's heart. For a moment he was disconcerted. Then he reflected that he might lose all by hurrying matters; better let the fish get thoroughly entangled in the net before he pulled it in.
The mysterious man at Aigrefeuille had told him it was probable that the leaders of the Legitimist insurrection would seek shelter in Nantes. Monsieur de Souday-Courtin believed this-was there already; Mary was on her way; Petit-Pierre would probably follow. Michel's love for the young girl might be used, like Ariadne's thread, to lead the way to her retreat, which would probably be that of Petit-Pierre; and the capture of Petit-Pierre was the real end and object of Courtin's ambitious hopes. If he persisted in accompanying Mary he would rouse her suspicions; and although he was most desirous to succeed that very day in his enterprise, prudence and strategy prevailed, and he resolved to give Mary some proof which might reassure her completely as to his intentions.
"Ah!" said he, "I see you despise my horse; but all the same it hurts me to see your little feet cut to pieces on those stones."
"Well, it can't be helped," replied Mary. "I shall be less noticed on foot than if I were mounted behind you; and, if I dared, I would ask you not to keep at my side. Anything that draws attention to me is dangerous. Let me walk alone and join those peasant-women just in front of us. I run less risk in their company."
"You are right," said Courtin; "and all the more because the gendarmes are behind and will overtake us soon."
Mary started; true enough, two gendarmes were really following them about a thousand feet back.
"Oh! you needn't be afraid," said Courtin; "I'll detain them at that tavern. Go on alone; but tell me, first, what I am to say to your sister?"
"Tell her that all my thoughts and prayers are for her welfare."
"Is that all?"
The girl hesitated; she looked at the farmer; doubtless the expression of his countenance betrayed his secret thoughts, for she lowered her head and answered: -
"Yes, that is all."
Courtin was well aware that although Mary did not utter Michel's name, he was the first and last thought of her heart.
The farmer stopped his horse. Mary, on the other hand, hastened her steps and joined the other peasant-women, who had gained some distance ahead while she talked with Courtin. As soon as she reached them she walked on by Petit-Pierre and told her what had happened, – suppressing, of course, that part of the conversation that related to the young baron.
Petit-Pierre thought it wise to evade the curiosity of the man; for his name recalled in a vague way some unpleasant memory. She therefore dropped behind the other women with Mary; and when they were fairly out of sight-thanks to a turn in the road-the two fugitives slipped into a wood at a short distance from the highway, from the edge of which they could see who passed it. After about fifteen minutes they saw Courtin hurrying, as best he could, his stubborn pony. Unfortunately, the farmer passed too far from the place where they were hidden to allow of Petit-Pierre's recognizing him as the man who had visited Pascal Picaut's house, and cut the girths of Michel's horse.
When he was out of sight Petit-Pierre and her companion returned to the high-road and continued their way to Nantes. The nearer they came to the town, where Petit-Pierre was promised a safe retreat, the more their fears diminished. She was now quite used to her costume, and the farmers who passed them did not seem to perceive that the little peasant-woman who tripped so lightly along the road was other than she seemed to be. It was surely a great thing to have deceived an instinct so penetrating as that of the country-folk, who have no masters, and perhaps no rivals, in this respect except soldiers.
At last they came in sight of Nantes. Petit-Pierre put on her shoes and stockings, preparatory to entering the town. One thing, however, made Mary uneasy. Courtin would doubtless be watching for her on the bridge; therefore, instead of entering by the pont Rousseau, the two women took advantage of a boat to cross the Loire to the other side of the town.
As they passed the Bouffai a hand was laid on Petit-Pierre's shoulder. She started and turned round. The person who had taken that alarming liberty was a worthy old woman on her way to market, who had put down her basket of apples in order to rest herself, and was not able to lift it alone and replace it on her head.
"My dears," she said to Petit-Pierre and Mary, "do help me, please, to get up my basket, and I'll give you each an apple."
Petit-Pierre took one handle, motioned to Mary to take the other, and the basket was quickly replaced and balanced on the head of the old woman, who began to walk away without bestowing the promised reward. But Petit-Pierre caught her by the arm, saying: -
"Look here, mother, where's my apple?"
The market-woman gave it to her. Petit-Pierre set her teeth into it and was munching it with an appetite sharpened by a ten-mile walk, when, lifting her head, her eyes fell on a notice posted on the walls upon which appeared in large letters these words: -
STATE OF SIEGE
It was a ministerial decree placing four departments in La Vendée under martial law.
Petit-Pierre went up to the notice and read it through from end to end tranquilly, in spite of Mary's entreaties to go as quickly as possible to the house where she was expected. Petit-Pierre very justly remarked that the matter was of such importance to her that she was right in obtaining a thorough knowledge of it.
Presently, however, the two women went their way into the dark and narrow streets of the old Breton city.
