CHAPTER THE FORTY-THIRD.
A SECOND PURSUER.
No wonder there was fever in the town, I thought, as I picked my way among the heaps of garbage and refuse lying out in the streets. The most hideous old women I ever saw, wrinkled over every inch of their skin, blear-eyed, and with eyelids reddened by smoke, met me at each turn. Sallow weavers, in white caps, gazed out at me from their looms in almost every house. There was scarcely a child to be seen about. The whole district, undrained and unhealthy, bears the name of the "Manufactory of Little Angels," from the number of children who die there. And this was the place where Olivia had been spending a very hard and severe winter!
There was going to be a large cattle-fair the next day, and all the town was alive. Every inn in the place was crowded to overflowing. As I sat at the window of my café, watching the picturesque groups which formed in the street outside, I heard a vehement altercation going on in the archway, under which was the entrance to my hotel.
"Grands Dieux!" cried the already familiar voice of my landlady, shrill as the cackling of a hen—"grands Dieux! not a single soul from Ville-en-bois can rest here, neither man nor woman! They have the fever like a pest there. No, no, m'sieur, that is impossible; go away, you and your beast. There is room at the Lion d'or. But the gensdarmes should not let you enter the town. We have fever enough of our own."
"But my farm is a league from Ville-en-bois," was the answer, in the slow, rugged accents of a Norman peasant.
"But I tell you it is impossible,'" she retorted; "I have an Englishman here, very rich, a milor, and he will not hear of any person from Ville-en-bois resting in the house. Go away to the Lion d'or, my good friend, where there are no English. They are as afraid of the fever as of the devil."
I laughed to myself at my landlady's ingenious excuses; but after this the conversation fell into a lower key, and I heard no more of it.
I went out late in the evening to question each of the omnibus—drivers, but in vain. Whether they were too busy to give me proper attention, or too anxious to join the stir and mirth of the townspeople, they all declared they knew nothing of any Englishwoman. As I returned dejectedly to my inn, I heard a lamentable voice, evidently English, bemoaning in doubtful French. The omnibus from Falaise had just come in, and under the lamp in the entrance of the archway stood a lady before my hostess, who was volubly asserting that there was no room left in her house. I hastened to the assistance of my countrywoman, and the light of the lamp falling full upon her face revealed to me who she was.
"Mrs. Foster!" I exclaimed, almost shouting her name in my astonishment. She looked ready to faint with fatigue and dismay, and she laid her hand heavily on my arm, as if to save herself from sinking to the ground.
"Have you found her?" she asked, involuntarily.
"Not a trace of her," I answered.
Mrs. Foster broke into an hysterical laugh, which was very quickly followed by sobs. I had no great difficulty in persuading the landlady to find some accommodation for her, and then I retired to my own room to smoke in peace, and turn over the extraordinary meeting which had been the last incident of the day.
It required very little keenness to come to the conclusion that the Fosters had obtained their information concerning Miss Ellen Martineau, where we had got ours, from Mrs. Wilkinson. Also that Mrs. Foster had lost no time in following up the clew, for she was only twenty-four hours behind me. She had looked thoroughly astonished and dismayed when she saw me there; so she had had no idea that I was on the same track. But nothing could be more convincing than this journey of hers that neither she nor Foster really believed in Olivia's death. That was as clear as day. But what explanation could I give to myself of those letters, of Olivia's above all? Was it possible that she had caused them to be written, and sent to her husband? I could not even admit such a question, without a sharp sense of disappointment in her.
I saw Mrs. Foster early in the morning, somewhat as a truce-bearer may meet another on neutral ground. She was grateful to me for my interposition in her behalf the night before; and, as I knew Ellen Martineau to be safely out of the way, I was inclined to be tolerant toward her. I assured her, upon my honor, that I had failed in discovering any trace of Olivia in Noireau, and I told her all I had learned about the bankruptcy of Monsieur Perrier, and the scattering of the school.
"But why should you undertake such a chase?" I asked; "if you and Foster are satisfied that Olivia is dead, why should you be running after Ellen Martineau? You show me the papers which seem to prove her death, and now I find you in this remote part of Normandy, evidently in pursuit of her. What does this mean?"
"You are doing the same thing yourself," she answered.
"Yes," I replied, "because I am not satisfied. But you have proved your conviction by becoming Richard Foster's second wife."
"That is the very point," she said, shedding a few tears; "as soon as ever Mrs. Wilkinson described Ellen Martineau to me, when she was talking about her visitor who had come to inquire after her, in that cab which was standing at the door the last time you visited Mr. Foster—and I had no suspicion of it—I grew quite frightened lest he should ever be charged with marrying me while she was alive. So I persuaded him to let me come here and make sure of it, though the journey costs a great deal, and we have very little money to spare. We did not know what tricks Olivia might do, and it made me very miserable to think she might be still alive, and I in her place."
I could not but acknowledge to myself that there was some reason in Mrs. Foster's statement of the case.
"There is not the slightest chance of your finding her," I remarked.
"Isn't there?" she asked, with an evil gleam in her eyes, which I just caught before she hid her face again in her handkerchief.
"At any rate," I said, "you would have no power over her if you found her. You could not take her back with you by force. I do not know how the French laws would regard Foster's authority, but you can have none whatever, and he is quite unfit to take this long journey to claim her. Really I do not see what you can do; and I should think your wisest plan would be to go back and take care of him, leaving her alone. I am here to protect her, and I shall stay until I see you fairly out of the place."
She did not speak again for some minutes, but she was evidently reflecting upon what I had just said.
"But what are we to live upon?" she asked at last; "there is her money lying in the bank, and neither she nor Richard can touch it. It must be paid to her personally or to her order; and she cannot prove her identity herself without the papers Richard holds. It is aggravating. I am at my wits' end about it."
"Listen to me," I said. "Why cannot we come to some arrangement, supposing Ellen Martineau proves to be Olivia? It would be better for you all to make some division of her property by mutual agreement. You know best whether Olivia could insist upon a judicial separation. But in any other case why should not Foster agree to receive half her income, and leave her free, as free as she can be, with the other half? Surely some mutual agreement could be made."
"He would never do it!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands round her knees, and swaying to and fro passionately; "he never loses any power. She belongs to him, and he never gives up any thing. He would torment her almost to death, but he would never let her go free. No, no. You do not know him, Dr. Martin."
"Then we will try to get a divorce," I said, looking at her steadily.
"On what grounds?" she asked, looking at me as steadily.
I could not and would not enter into the question with her.
"There has been no personal cruelty on Richard's part toward her," she resumed, with a half-smile. "It's true I locked her up for a few days once, but he was in Paris, and had nothing to do with it. You could not prove a single act of cruelty toward her."
Still I did not answer, though she paused and regarded me keenly.
"We were not married till we had reason to believe her dead," she continued; "there is no harm in that. If she has forged those papers, she is to blame. We were married openly, in our parish church; what could be said against that?"
"Let us return to what I told you at first," I said; "if you find Olivia, you have no more authority over her than I have. You will be obliged to return to England alone; and I shall place her in some safe custody. I shall ascertain precisely how the law stands, both, here and in England. Now I advise you, for Foster's sake, make as much haste home as you can; for he will be left without nurse or doctor while we two are away."
She sat gnawing her under lip for some minutes, and looking as vicious as Madam was wont to do in her worst tempers.
"You will let me make some inquiries to satisfy myself?" she said.
"Certainly," I replied; "you will only discover, as I have, that the school was broken up a month ago, and Ellen Martineau has disappeared."
I kept no very strict watch over her during the day, for I felt sure she would find no trace of Olivia in Noireau. At night I saw her again. She was worn out and despondent, and declared herself quite ready to return to Falaise by the omnibus at five o'clock in the morning. I saw her off, and gave the driver a fee, to bring me word for what town she took her ticket at the railway-station. When he returned in the evening, he told me he had himself bought her one for Honfleur, and started her fairly on her way home.
As for myself, I had spent the day in making inquiries at the offices of the octrois—those local custom-houses which stand at every entrance into a town or village in France, for the gathering of trifling, vexatious taxes upon articles of food and merchandise. At one of these I had learned, that, three or four weeks ago, a young Englishwoman with a little girl had passed by on foot, each carrying a small bundle, which had not been examined. It was the octroi on the road to Granville, which was between thirty and forty miles away. From Granville was the nearest route to the Channel Islands. Was it not possible that Olivia had resolved to seek refuge there again? Perhaps to seek me! My heart, bowed down by the sad picture of her and the little child leaving the town on foot, beat high again at the thought of Olivia in Guernsey.
I set off for Granville by the omnibus next morning, and made further inquiries at every village we passed through, whether any thing had been seen of a young Englishwoman and a little girl. At first the answer was yes; then it became a matter of doubt; at last everywhere they replied by a discouraging no. At one point of our journey we passed a dilapidated sign-post with a rude, black figure of the Virgin hanging below it. I could just decipher upon one finger of the post, in half-obliterated letters, "Ville-en-bois." It recurred to me that this was the place where fever was raging like the pest.
"It is a poor place," said the driver, disparagingly; "there is nothing there but the fever, and a good angel of a curé, who is the only doctor into the bargain. It is two leagues and a kilometre, and it is on the road to nowhere."
I could not stop in my quest to turn aside, and visit this village smitten with fever, though I felt a strong inclination to do so. At Granville I learned that a young lady and a child had made the voyage to Jersey a short time before; and I went on with stronger hope. But in Jersey I could obtain no further information about her; nor in Guernsey, whither I felt sure Olivia would certainly have proceeded. I took one day more to cross over to Sark, and consult Tardif; but he knew no more than I did. He absolutely refused to believe that Olivia was dead.
"In August," he said, "I shall hear from her. Take courage and comfort. She promised it, and she will keep her promise. If she had known herself to be dying, she would have sent me word."
"It is a long time to wait," I said, with an utter sinking of spirit.
"It is a long time to wait!" he echoed, lifting up his hands, and letting them fall again with a gesture of weariness; "but we must wait and hope."
To wait in impatience, and to hope at times, and despair at times, I returned to London.