In these remarks Chupin did Blanche great injustice. If, as he had noted, she had shrunk back shuddering when he urged her to decide, it was not because her will wavered, but rather because her flesh instinctively revolted against the deed she had in her mind. The old spy’s unwelcome touch, his perfidious voice and threatening glance, may also in a minor degree have prompted this movement of repulsion. At all events, Blanche’s reflections were by no means calculated to appease her rancour. Whatever Chupin and the Sairmeuse villagers might say to the contrary, she regarded the story which Marie-Anne, in obedience to the Abbe Midon’s instructions, had told of her travels in Piedmont as a ridiculous fable, and nothing more. In her opinion, Marie-Anne had simply emerged from some retreat where Martial had previously deemed it prudent to conceal her. But why this sudden re-appearance? Vindictive Blanche was ready to swear that it was out of mere bravado, and intended only as an insult to herself. “Ah, I will have my revenge,” she thought. “I would tear my heart out if it were capable of cowardly weakness under such provocation!”
The voice of conscience was unheard, unheeded, in this tumult of passion. Her sufferings, and Jean Lacheneur’s attempt upon her father’s life, seemed to justify the most terrible reprisals. She had plenty of time now to brood over her wrongs, and to concoct schemes of vengeance; for her father no longer required her care. He had passed from the frenzied ravings of delirium to the stupor of idiocy. And yet the physician had confidently declared his patient to be cured. Cured! The body was cured, perhaps, but reason had utterly fled. All traces of intelligence had left the marquis’s once mobile face, so ready in former times to assume the precise expression which his hypocrisy and duplicity required. His eyes, which had gleamed with cunning, wore a dull, vacant stare, and his under lip hung low, as is customary with idiots. Worst of all, no hope of any improvement was to be entertained. A single passion—indulgence at table—had taken the place of all those which in former times had swayed the life of this ambitious man. The marquis, in previous years most temperate in his habits, now ate and drank with disgusting voracity, and was rapidly becoming extremely corpulent. Between his meals he would wander about the Chateau and its surrounding in a listless fashion, scarcely knowing what he did. His memory had gone, and he had lost all sense of dignity, all knowledge of good and evil. Even the instinct of self-preservation, the last which dies within us, had departed, and he had to be watched like a child. Often, as he roamed about the grounds, his daughter would gaze at him from her window with a strange terror in her heart. But after all, this warning of providence only increased her desire for revenge. “Who would not prefer death to such a misfortune?” she murmured. “Ah! Jean Lacheneur’s revenge is far more terrible than if his bullet had pierced my father’s heart. It is a similar revenge that I must have, and I will have it!”
She saw Chupin every two or three days; sometimes going alone to the meeting-place, and at others in Aunt Medea’s company. The old poacher came punctually enough although he was beginning to tire of his task. “I am risking a great deal,” he growled. “I fancied that Jean Lacheneur would go and live at the Borderie with his sister. Then, I should have been safe. But no; the brigand continues to prowl about with his gun under his arm: and sleeps in the woods at night time. What game is he after? Why, Father Chupin, of course. On the other hand, I know that my rascally innkeeper over there has abandoned his inn and disappeared. Where is he? Hidden behind one of these trees, perhaps, in settling what part of my body he shall plunge his knife into.” What irritated the old poacher most of all was, that after two months watching he had come to the conclusion that whatever might have been Martial’s connection with Marie-Anne in former times, everything was now all over between them.
But Blanche would not admit this. “Own that they are more cunning than you are, Father Chupin, but don’t tell me they don’t see each other,” she observed one day.
“Cunning—and how?” was the retort. “Since I have been watching the marquis, he hasn’t once passed outside the fortifications of Montaignac, while, on the other hand, the postman at Sairmeuse, whom my wife cleverly questioned, declares that he hasn’t taken a single letter to the Borderie.”
After this, if it had not been for the hope of a safe and pleasant retreat at Courtornieu, Chupin would have abandoned his task altogether; as it was, he relaxed his surveillance considerably; coming to the rendezvous with Blanche, chiefly because he had fallen into the habit of claiming some money for his expenses, on each occasion. And when Blanche asked him for an account of everything that Martial had done since their previous meeting, he generally told her anything that came into his head. However, one day, early in September, she interrupted him as he began the same old story, and, looking him steadfastly in the eyes, exclaimed: “Either you are betraying me, Father Chupin, or else you are a fool. Yesterday Martial and Marie-Anne spent a quarter of an hour together at the Croix d’Arcy.”
XXXI.
AFTER the old physician of Vigano had left the Borderie with his precious burden, Marie-Anne fell into a state of bitter despondency. Many in her situation would perhaps have experienced a feeling of relief, for had she not succeeded in concealing the outcome of her frailty, which none, save perhaps the Abbe Midon, so much as suspected? Hence, her despondency may at first sight seem to have been uncalled for. But then, let it be remembered that the sublime instinct of maternity had been awakened in her breast; and when she saw the physician leave her, carrying away her child she felt as if her soul and body were being rent asunder. When might she hope to set her eyes again on this poor babe who was doubly dear to her by reason of the very sorrow and anguish he had cost her? Ah, if it had not been for her promise to Maurice, she would have braved public opinion and kept her infant son at the Borderie. Had she not braved calumny already? She had been accused of having three lovers. Chanlouineau, Martial, and Maurice. The comments of the villagers had not affected her; but she had been tortured, and was still tortured by the thought that these people didn’t know the truth. Maurice was her husband, and yet she dare not proclaim the fact; she was “Mademoiselle Lacheneur” to all around—a maiden—a living lie. Surely such a situation accounted only too completely for her despondency and distress. And when she thought of her brother she positively shuddered with dismal apprehensions.
Having learnt that Jean was roving about the country she sent for him; but it was not without considerable persuasion that he consented to come and see her at the Borderie. A glance at his appearance sufficed to explain all Chupin’s terror. The young fellow’s clothes were in tatters, and the expression of his weather-stained, unshaven, unkempt face was ferocious in the extreme. When he entered the cottage, Marie-Anne recoiled with fear. She did not recognize him until he spoke. “It is I, sister,” he said gloomily.
“What, you—my poor Jean! you!”