Александр Дюма
The Last Vendée
XXXIII.
THAT WHICH HAPPENED IN TWO DWELLINGS
Maître Jacques was not mistaken in his presentiments; Jean Oullier was living. The ball which Courtin had fired at random into the bush-on chance, as it were-had entered his breast; and when the widow Picaut (the wheels of whose cart had alarmed Courtin and his companion) reached him, she felt sure she was lifting a dead body. With a charitable sentiment, very natural to a peasant-woman, she did not choose that the body of a man for whom her husband had always, in spite of their political differences, expressed the utmost respect, should be left as food for the buzzards and jackals; she was determined that the good Vendéan should lie in holy ground, and she therefore placed him on her cart to take him home.
Only, instead of hiding him in the cart, as she had intended doing, she now laid him on it uncovered, and several of the peasants whom she met on the way stopped to look at and touch the bloody remains of the Marquis de Souday's old keeper. In this way the news of Jean Oullier's death was spread about the canton; and this was how the marquis and his daughters heard of it, and why Courtin, – who, the next day, wanted to make sure that the man he most feared was no longer living to terrify him, – why Courtin had been deceived and misled like the rest.
It was to the old cottage where she had formerly lived with her husband that Marianne Picaut now took the body. Since Pascal's death she had, in her loneliness, removed to the inn kept by her mother at Saint-Philbert. The cottage was nearer to Machecoul, Jean Oullier's parish, than the inn; to which, had he been living, she intended to take him and keep him safely concealed till he was well.
Just as the cart reached the open crossway we have often mentioned, one road of which led to the dwelling of the two Picaut brothers, it met a man on horseback following the road to Machecoul. This man, who was no other than our old acquaintance, Monsieur Roger, the doctor at Légé, questioned some of the little ragamuffins who, with the persistency and curiosity of their age, were following the cart. When the doctor heard that it contained the body of Jean Oullier, he left his present direction and followed the cart to the Picaut dwelling.
The widow placed Jean Oullier on the bed where Pascal Picaut and the poor Comte de Bonneville had lain side by side. While thus busy in doing him the last offices, and wiping the blood and dust which covered his face and matted his hair, the widow suddenly looked up and saw the doctor.
"Alas! dear Monsieur Roger," she said, "the poor gars is beyond your help, more's the pity. There are so many left on this earth who are not worth their salt that it is doubly sad when one like Jean Oullier is carried off before his time."
The doctor made the widow tell him all she knew of Jean Oullier's death. The presence of her sister-in-law and the children and women who had followed the cart out of curiosity, prevented the widow from relating how she had met him and left him a few hours earlier, full of life, except for his broken ankle; and how, returning after dark, she heard a pistol-shot and the footsteps of men who were running away, having no doubt murdered him. She merely said that coming from the moor she had found the body on the road.
"Poor, brave man!" said the doctor. "But after all, better such a death-the death of a soldier-than the fate that awaited him had he lived. He was seriously compromised, and if taken, they would have sent him, no doubt, to the cells on Mont Saint-Michel."
As he said the words the doctor went nearer to the body and mechanically took the inert arm to lay it over the breast; but his hand had no sooner come in contact with the flesh than the doctor started.
"What is it?" asked the widow.
"Nothing," replied the doctor, coldly. "The man is dead and only needs the last offices."
"Why did you bring his body here?" said the wife of Joseph Picaut, angrily. "We shall have the Blues down upon us! You know what happened the first time, and can judge by that."
"What does that signify to you," said the widow, "as neither you nor your husband live here any longer?"
"It is the very reason we don't live here," replied Joseph's wife. "We are afraid the Blues may be after us and destroy the little property that is left."
"You would do well to have him recognized before you bury him," interrupted the doctor; "and if that will be any trouble to you I'll undertake to remove the body to the château of the Marquis de Souday, whose physician I am." Then, seizing a moment when the widow passed close beside him, he whispered, "Get rid of these people." This was easy to do, as it was then near midnight. As soon as they were alone the doctor said, going close up to Marianne: -
"Jean Oullier is not dead."
"Not dead?" she cried.
"No. I said nothing before those people, because, in my opinion, it is of the utmost consequence that no one shall come here and disturb you in the care I am sure you will give him."
"God bless you!" said the good woman, joyfully. "If I can help to cure him you may count on me; I'll do it with the greatest happiness, for I shall never forget the friendship my poor husband felt for him. Neither shall I cease to remember that though I was then working against him and his, Jean Oullier wouldn't let me die by the hand of a murderer."
Then, having carefully closed all the shutters and the door of her room, the widow lighted a fire, heated water, and while the doctor examined the wound and tried to discover what, if any, vital organs were involved, she said good-bye to a few old gossips still lingering about the house, saying she was on her way back to Saint-Philbert. Then at the first turn of the road she darted into the woods and returned to the cottage by way of the orchard.
She listened at Joseph Picaut's part of the house; it was closed and she heard no sound. Evidently her sister-in-law and the children had returned to the hiding-place in which they lived while the husband and father continued to keep up, under Maître Jacques, the partisan warfare.
Marianne re-entered her own part of the house by the back door. The doctor had finished dressing the wound: the signs of life in the body were becoming more and more evident. Not only the heart, but the pulses too were beating; and on putting a hand before the lips the breath could be distinctly felt. The widow listened joyfully to what the doctor told her.
"Do you think you can save him?" she asked.
"That's in God's hands," replied the doctor. "All I can say is that no vital organ is involved, but the loss of blood has been enormous; and I have also found it impossible to extract the ball."
"But," said Marianne, "I have heard that men can be cured and live to old age with a ball in the body."
"So they can," replied the doctor. "But now, how are you going to manage?"
"I did mean to take the poor fellow to Saint-Philbert and hide him there till he died or recovered."
"You can't do that now," said the doctor. "He must have been saved by what we call a clot, which has plugged the artery. The slightest jar now would prove fatal. Besides, in your mother's inn at Saint-Philbert, with so many going and coming, you could never conceal his presence."
"Good God! do you believe that in such a state they would have the cruelty to arrest him?"
"They would not put him in prison, of course; but they would take him to some hospital, and as soon as he recovers they would try him, and condemn him either to death or to the galleys. Jean Oullier is one of those obscure leaders who are so dangerous through their influence on the body of the people that the government will be pitiless toward him. Why don't you confide in your sister-in-law? Jean Oullier and she hold the same opinions."
"You heard what she said?"
"That's true. I see you can't have much confidence in her pity. And yet, God knows, she of all people ought to be merciful to her neighbor, for if her husband were taken it might go far worse with him than with Jean Oullier."
"Yes, I know that," said the widow, in a gloomy voice. "Death is upon them all."
"Well," said the doctor, "the question is, can you hide him here?"
"Here? Yes, of course I can; he will even be safer here than elsewhere, because the house is thought to be empty. But who would take care of him?"
"Jean Oullier is not a girl or a baby," replied the doctor. "Two or three days hence, after the fever subsides, he can be left alone all day; and I'll promise you to visit him at night."
"Very good; and I'll be here all the time I can without exciting suspicion."
Marianne, with the doctor's help, carried the wounded man into the stable adjoining her room; she bolted the door carefully, placed her own mattress on a pile of straw, and then, appointing to meet the doctor there the following night, and knowing that the sick man would need only a little fresh water at first, she threw herself on a heap of straw beside him and waited patiently till he showed some signs of returning life, either by words or even by a sigh.
The next day she showed herself at Saint-Philbert; and when asked about Jean Oullier, replied that she had followed the advice of her sister-in-law, and fearing to be molested, had taken the dead body back to the moor where she had found it. Then she returned to her house on pretence of putting it in order. The following evening she again closed it carefully and went back to Saint-Philbert before dark, so that all the town might see her. But no sooner was it really night than she returned to Jean Oullier.
She nursed him in this way for three days and nights, shut up with him in the stable, fearing to make the slightest noise that might betray her presence; and though at the end of those three days Jean Oullier was still in the state of torpor which follows great physical commotions and loss of blood, the doctor advised her to stay at home during the day and return to him only at night.
Jean Oullier's wound was so severe that he really hung for a fortnight between life and death; fragments of his clothing carried in by the ball remained in the wound, where they kept up the inflammation, and it was not till Nature herself eliminated them that the doctor, to the widow's great joy, declared him out of danger. The good woman's care redoubled as soon as she felt he would recover; and though her patient was still weak and could hardly articulate more than a few words, and the signs were few of his being any better, she never failed to spend the night beside him and supply all his wants, taking at the same time the utmost precautions.
In spite of all drawbacks, however, no sooner were the foreign substances expelled from the wound, and a steady and healthful suppuration set up, than he made rapid strides to recovery. As his strength returned he began to worry greatly about those he loved; and he now implored the widow to bring him some news of the Marquis de Souday, Bertha, Mary, and even Michel, – Michel, who had actually triumphed over the old Vendéan's antipathies and conquered a place, however small, in his affections. Marianne did as he requested, and made some inquiries of the royalist travellers who stopped at her mother's inn; and she was soon able to relieve Jean Oullier's mind by telling him that his friends were all living and well; that the marquis was in the forest of Touvois, Bertha and Michel at Courtin's farmhouse, and Mary, in all probability, at Nantes.
But the widow had no sooner uttered the name of Courtin than a total change came over her patient's face; he passed his hand across his forehead as if to clear his thought, and rose in his bed for the first time without assistance. Friendship and tenderness had occupied his first returning thoughts; hatred and thoughts of vengeance now filled his hitherto empty brain, and over-excited it with all the more violence because it had been torpid so long.
To her terror, Marianne Picaut heard Jean Oullier again uttering phrases he had cried out in his fever, and which she had then taken for delirium; she heard him mingle Courtin's name with accusations of treachery and murder and of fabulous sums paid for some crime. Talking thus, her patient became violently excited; with flashing eyes, and in a voice trembling with emotion he implored her to go and find Bertha and bring her to his bedside. The poor woman believed his excitement was caused by a return of the fever, and was all the more uneasy because the doctor had told her that he should not return for two nights. She nevertheless promised the patient to do as he requested.
On this promise Jean Oullier calmed down, and little by little, overcome with the violence of the emotions he had just passed through, he went to sleep.
The widow, sitting on the straw beside the bed, and conscious of her own fatigue, felt her eyes closing and sleep overtaking her in spite of herself, when, all of a sudden she heard, or fancied she heard, some unusual sound in the courtyard. She listened attentively; it was certainly a man's step on the pavement which surrounded the pile of manure which lay in the yard of the two dwellings. Presently a hand unfastened the latch of the adjoining door, and Marianne heard a voice, which she recognized as that of her brother-in-law, cry out: "This way, this way!" and then the steps went up to Joseph's house.
Marianne knew that the house was empty; this nocturnal visit of her brother-in-law excited her curiosity. She did not doubt it concerned some scheme of violence such as all Chouans cherish traditionally, and she resolved to listen.
She softly raised the shutter of a hole through which the cows, when in the stable, poked their heads to eat the provender laid for them on the floor of the room itself. Through this narrow opening she crawled into her own room; then she climbed noiselessly up the ladder on which the Comte de Bonneville had met his death, entered the garret, which, as we know, was common to the two houses, and there, with her ear to the floor above her brother-in-law's room, listened attentively.
She came into the midst of a conversation already begun.
"Did you see the sum?" said a voice which was not completely unknown to her, though she could not recall the owner of it.
"As plain as I see you," replied Joseph Picaut. "It was all in bank-bills; but he insisted on having it in gold."
"So much the better! for bills, I must say, don't attract me much; it is difficult to get them taken in country places."
"I tell you he is to have gold."
"Good! and where are they to meet?"
"At Saint-Philbert, to-morrow night. You have plenty of time to collect your gars."
"My gars! are you crazy? How many did you say they were?"
"Two; that villain and his companion."
"Well, then, two against two; that's the right kind of war, as Georges Cadoudal of glorious memory used to say."
"But you have only one hand now, Maître Jacques."
"That doesn't matter, if the one hand is a good one. I'll settle the strongest of the pair."
"No, no! that's not in the agreement!"
"What do you mean?"
"I want the mayor for myself."
"You are exacting!"
"Oh, the villain! it will be little enough satisfaction for all he has made me suffer."
"If they have the money you say they have, there'll be enough to compensate you, even if he had sold you on the shambles like a negro. Twenty-five thousand francs! You are not worth all that, my good fellow, I know!"
"Perhaps not; but revenge is what I am after, and I've long wanted to get my hand on him, the damned cur. It was he who caused-"
"Caused what?"
"No matter; I know."
Joseph Picaut's meaning was unintelligible to every one except Marianne. She was certain that the recollection in the Chouan's mind related to the killing of her poor husband, and a shudder ran through her frame.
"Well," said Joseph's companion, "you shall have your man. But, before undertaking the matter, will you swear that all you have said is true, and that it is really a government agent on whom I am to lay hands? Otherwise, you understand, the affair won't suit me."
"The devil! Do you suppose any private man is rich enough to make presents like that to such a villain? Besides, those fifty thousand francs are only on account; I heard that plainly."
"And you couldn't find out what they were paying such a large sum for?"
"No, but I can guess."
"Tell me."
"It is my opinion, Maître Jacques, that in ridding the earth of that pair of rascals we shall be killing two birds with one stone, – a private matter first, and a political stroke next. But don't be uneasy; I'll know more by to-morrow night, and let you know."
"Sacredié!" exclaimed Maître Jacques; "you make my mouth water. Look here! I retract my word; you can only have your man if I leave a bit of him!"
"Leave a bit of him! what do you mean?"
"Why, before you settle with him I want my share in the conversation."
"Pooh! do you suppose you could get his secret out of him?"
"Yes, if he is once my prisoner."
"He's a sly one!"
"Nonsense. You, who knew the old days, don't you remember how we used to make 'em speak, – those who didn't want to?" said Maître Jacques, with a dangerous look.
"Ha, yes! how we roasted their paws! Faith, you are right; that will serve my vengeance better still," replied Joseph Picaut.
"And then we shall find out why and wherefore the government sends those little gifts of fifty thousand francs, on account, to a country mayor. That knowledge may be worth more to us than the gold we pocket."
"Hey! gold has its value, especially to us who are old offenders and likely to leave our heads on the place du Bouffai. With my share, that is, twenty-five thousand francs, I can get away and live elsewhere."
"You shall do as you like. But come! tell me exactly where your pair are to meet; it is important not to miss them."
"At the inn of Saint-Philbert."
"Then that's all right. Isn't that inn kept by your sister-in-law, or pretty nearly? She shall have her share; it will be in the family."
"Oh, no, no!" cried Joseph. "In the first place she is not one of ours; and besides, she doesn't speak to me since-"
"Since what?"
"My brother's death, there! since you force me to tell you."
"Ah, ha! so it was true, what they said, that if you did not strike the blow, you at least held the candle?"
"Who said that, – who said that?" shouted Joseph Picaut. "Name him, Maître Jacques, and I'll hack him into pieces like that stool!" And suiting the action to the word, he dashed the stool on which he was sitting to the stone hearth and shivered it to fragments.
"Quiet! quiet!" said Maître Jacques; "what's all that to me? You know I never meddle in family affairs. Come back to our own business. You were saying?"
"I was saying, don't mix the matter up with my sister-in-law."
"Then it must be settled in the open country. But where? They'll be sure to come by different roads."
"Yes, but they will go away together. In order to get home, the mayor will have to take the road to Nantes as far as the Tiercet."
"Well, then, let's ambush by the road to Nantes among the reeds; it is a good hiding-place. For my part, I've made more than one good stroke just there."
"So be it. Where shall we meet? I shall leave here to-morrow, before daylight," said Joseph.
"Well, then, meet me at the Ragot crossways in the forest of Machecoul," said the master of warrens.
Joseph agreed to the place and promised to be there. The widow heard him offer Maître Jacques a night's lodging under his roof; but the old Chouan, who had his burrows in every forest of the canton, preferred those asylums to all the houses in the world, if not for comfort, at least for security.
He departed therefore, and all was silent in Joseph's part of the house.
Marianne returned to her stable and found Jean Oullier fast asleep; she did not wake him. The night was far advanced, – so advanced that she had only time to get back to Saint-Philbert before daylight. After arranging, as usual, everything that her patient might want during the morrow, she left the stable through the window.
As she walked thoughtfully along, the hatred she felt to her brother-in-law, because of her firm conviction that he had shared in the death of Pascal, and her deep desire for vengeance, which the loneliness and sufferings of her widowhood made daily more imperious, came over her. It seemed to her that heaven, by calling her providentially to the discovery of Joseph's secret intention of crime, put itself on her side; she believed she would be serving its designs (while satisfying her hatred) in preventing the accomplishment of this crime and the ruin and death of those she considered innocent. Her first idea had been to denounce Maître Jacques and Joseph either to the police or to those they intended to attack; but she now renounced that scheme and resolved to be herself, and all alone, the intermediary between fate and the victims of the intended crime.
