But La Corriveau had inherited the sharp intellect and Italian dissimulation of Antonio Exili: she was astute enough to throw a veil of hypocrisy over the evil eyes which shot like a glance of death from under the thick black eyebrows.
Her craft was equal to her malice. An occasional deed of alms, done not for charity's sake, but for ostentation; an adroit deal of cards, or a horoscope cast to flatter a foolish girl; a word of sympathy, hollow as a water bubble, but colored with iridescent prettiness, averted suspicion from the darker traits of her character.
If she was hated, she was also feared by her neighbors, and although the sign of the cross was made upon the chair whereon she had sat in a neighbor's house, her visits were not unwelcome, and in the manor-house, as in the cabin of the woodman, La Corriveau was received, consulted, rewarded, and oftener thanked than cursed, by her witless dupes.
There was something sublime in the satanic pride with which she carried with her the terrible secrets of her race, which in her own mind made her the superior of every one around her, and whom she regarded as living only by her permission or forbearance.
For human love other than as a degraded menial, to make men the slaves of her mercenary schemes, La Corriveau cared nothing. She never felt it, never inspired it. She looked down upon all her sex as the filth of creation and, like herself, incapable of a chaste feeling or a pure thought. Every better instinct of her nature had gone out like the flame of a lamp whose oil is exhausted; love of money remained as dregs at the bottom of her heart. A deep grudge against mankind, and a secret pleasure in the misfortunes of others, especially of her own sex, were her ruling passions.
Her mother, Marie Exili, had died in her bed, warning her daughter not to dabble in the forbidden arts which she had taught her, but to cling to her husband and live an honest life as the only means of dying a more hopeful death than her ancestors.
La Corriveau heard much, but heeded little. The blood of Antonio Exili and of La Voisin beat too vigorously in her veins to be tamed down by the feeble whispers of a dying woman who had been weak enough to give way at last. The death of her mother left La Corriveau free to follow her own will. The Italian subtlety of her race made her secret and cautious. She had few personal affronts to avenge, and few temptations in the simple community where she lived to practise more than the ordinary arts of a rural fortune-teller, keeping in impenetrable shadow the darker side of her character as a born sorceress and poisoner.
Fanchon Dodier, in obedience to the order of her mistress, started early in the day to bear the message entrusted to her for La Corriveau. She did not cross the river and take the king's highway, the rough though well-travelled road on the south shore which led to St. Valier. Angélique was crafty enough amid her impulsiveness to see that it were better for Fanchon to go down by water and return by land: it lessened observation, and might be important one day to baffle inquiry. La Corriveau would serve her for money, but for money also she might betray her. Angélique resolved to secure her silence by making her the perpetrator of whatever scheme of wickedness she might devise against the unsuspecting lady of Beaumanoir. As for Fanchon, she need know nothing more than Angélique told her as to the object of her mission to her terrible aunt.
In pursuance of this design, Angélique had already sent for a couple of Indian canoemen to embark Fanchon at the quay of the Friponne and convey her to St. Valier.
Half-civilized and wholly-demoralized red men were always to be found on the beach of Stadacona, as they still called the Batture of the St. Charles, lounging about in blankets, smoking, playing dice, or drinking pints or quarts,—as fortune favored them, or a passenger wanted conveyance in their bark canoes, which they managed with a dexterity unsurpassed by any boatman that ever put oar or paddle in water, salt or fresh.