CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH.
PIERRE'S SECRET.
I felt as if some strong hand had lifted me out of a whirl of troubled waters, and set me safely upon a rock. I ran down into the salon, where Monsieur Laurentie was seated, as tranquilly as if he had never been away, in his high-backed arm-chair, smiling quietly at Minima's gambols of delight, which ended in her sitting down on a tabouret at his feet. Jean stood just within the door, his hands behind his back, holding his white cotton cap in them: he had been making his report of the day's events. Monsieur held out his hand to me, and I ran to him, caught it in both of mine, bent down my face upon it, and burst into a passion of weeping, in spite of myself.
"Come, come, madame!" he said, his own voice faltering a little, "I am here, my child; behold me! There is no place for fear now. I am king in Ville-en-bois.—Is it not so, my good Jean?"
"Monsieur le Curé, you are emperor," replied Jean.
"If that is the case," he continued, "madame is perfectly secure in my castle. You do not ask me what brings me back again so soon. But I will tell you, madame. At Noireau, the proprietor of the omnibus to Granville told me that an Englishman had gone that morning to visit my little parish. Good! We do not have that honor every day. I ask him to have the goodness to tell me the Englishman's name. It is written in the book at the bureau. Monsieur Fostère. I remember that name well, very well. That is the name of the husband of my little English daughter. Fostère! I see in a moment it will not do to proceed, on my voyage. But I find that my good Jacques has taken on the char-à-banc a league or two beyond Noireau, and I am compelled to await his return. There is the reason that I return so late."
"O monsieur!" I exclaimed, "how good you are—"
"Pardon, madame," he interrupted, "let me hear the end of Jean's history."
Jean continued his report in his usual phlegmatic tone, and concluded with the assurance that he had seen the Englishman safe out of the village, and returning by the road he came.
"I could have wished," said the curé, regretfully, "that we might have shown him some hospitality in Ville-en-bois; but you did what was very good, Jean. Yet we did not encounter any stranger along the route."
"Not possible, monsieur," replied Jean; "it was four o'clock when he returned on his steps, and it is now after nine. He would pass the Calvary before six. After that, Monsieur le Curé, he might take any route which pleased him."
"That is true, Jean," he said, mildly; "you have done well. You may go now. Where is Monsieur the Vicaire?"
"He sleeps, monsieur, in the guest's chamber, as usual."
"Bien! Good-evening, Jean, and a good-night."
"Good-night, Monsieur le Curé, and all the company," said Jean.
"And you also, my child," continued Monsieur Laurentie, when Jean was gone, "you have great need of rest. So has this baby, who is very sleepy."
"I am not sleepy," protested Minima, "and I am not a baby."
"You are a baby," said the curé, laughing, "to make such rejoicing over an old papa like me. But go now, my children. There is no danger for you. Sleep well and have pleasant dreams."
I slept well, but I had no pleasant dreams, for I did not dream at all. The curé's return, and his presence under the same roof, gave me such a sense of security as was favorable to profound, unbroken slumber. When the chirping of the birds awoke me in the morning, I could not at first believe that the events of the day before were not themselves a dream. The bell rang for matins at five o'clock now, to give the laborers the cool of the morning for their work in the fields, after they were over. I could not sleep again, for the coming hours must be full of suspense and agitation to me. So at the first toll of the deep-toned bell, I dressed myself, and went out into the dewy freshness of the new day.
Matins were ended, and the villagers were scattered about their farms and households, when I noticed Pierre loitering stealthily about the presbytery, as if anxious not to be seen. He made me a sign as soon as he caught my eye, to follow him out of sight, round the corner of the church. It was a mysterious sign, and I obeyed it quickly.
"I know a secret, madame," he said, in a troubled tone, and with an apprehensive air—"that monsieur who came yesterday has not left the valley. My father bade me stay in the church, at my work; but I could not, madame, I could not. Not possible, you know. I wished to see your enemy again. I shall have to confess it to Monsieur le Curé, and he will give me a penance, perhaps a very great penance. But it was not possible to rest tranquil, not at all. I followed monsieur, your enemy, à la dérobée. He did not go far away."
"But where is he, then?" I asked, looking down the street, with a thrill of fear.
"Madame," whispered Pierre, "he is a stranger to this place, and the people would not receive him into their houses—not one of them. My father only said, 'He is an enemy to our dear English madame,' and all the women turned the back upon him. I stole after him, you know, behind the trees and the hedges. He marched very slowly, like a man very weary, down the road, till he came in sight of the factory of the late Pineaux. He turned aside into the court there. I saw him knock at the door of the house, try to lift the latch, and peep through the windows. Bien! After that, he goes into the factory; there is a door from it into the house. He passed through. I dared not follow him, but in one short half-hour I saw smoke coming out of the chimney. Bon! The smoke is there again this morning. The Englishman has sojourned there all the night."
"But, Pierre," I said, shivering, though the sun was already shining hotly—"Pierre, the house is like a lazaretto. No one has been in it since Mademoiselle Pineau died. Monsieur le Curé locked it up, and brought away the key."
"That is true, madame," answered the boy; "no one in the village would go near the accursed place; but I never thought of that. Perhaps monsieur your enemy will take the fever, and perish."
"Run, Pierre, run," I cried; "Monsieur Laurentie is in the sacristy, with the strange vicaire. Tell him I must speak to him this very moment. There is no time to be lost."
I dragged myself to the seat under the sycamore-tree, and hid my face in my hands, while shudder after shudder quivered through me. I seemed to be watching him again, as he strode weariedly down the street, leaning, with bent shoulders, on his stick, and turned away from every door at which he asked for rest and shelter for the night. Oh! that the time could but come back again, that I might send Jean to find some safe place for him where he could sleep! Back to my memory rushed the old days, when he screened me from the unkindness of my step-mother, and when he seemed to love me. For the sake of those times, would to God the evening that was gone, and the sultry, breathless night, could only come back again!