CHAPTER X.

‘Come here, children--my angels, Gabriel and Gabrielle!’ said Madame Plomb, standing in the corridor at an open window. ‘Come and see what is to be seen.’

The yellow cat, who had been seated on a little work-table in the lady’s boudoir, bounded lightly to the floor, and obeyed its mistress’s call. Reaching her, the cat leaped to her shoulder, that being the situation in which it would obtain an uninterrupted view of what it was called to witness. Gabrielle followed, still in white, for she had no other clothes with her, looking very pale, with dark rings round her eyes.

Madame Berthier made no allusion to the occurrences of the night; they seemed to have faded from her recollection, and her attention had been concentrated on cat’s cradles, which she was able to execute with great ease, now that she had Gabrielle’s fingers on which to elaborate the changes.

In the courtyard was Berthier’s travelling carriage, with the horses attached, and the coachman standing beside them. Foulon and his son-in-law were near the carriage.

‘Adolphe! my dressing-case,’ said the old man.

‘Monsieur, you will find it in the well under the seat.’

‘Are the pistols in the sword-case?’ asked Berthier.

‘Monsieur will find them in the sword-case.’

‘You have packed up my green velvet coat, and you have provided silk stockings?’ asked Foulon.

‘Monsieur will find everything in his trunk.’

‘But you have forgotten the canister of snuff.’

‘Monsieur, I ask pardon, it is under the seat.’

‘Ah!’ said Foulon, pointing up at the window, and nudging Berthier; ‘contrasts,--see!’

The Intendant looked up, and caught sight of the three faces looking down on the preparations,--the yellow-faced cat, the blue-faced wife, the pale-faced peasant-girl.

‘You are surely going to salute the cheeks of your lady, before you start, my friend,’ said Foulon. Then, in a loud voice to his daughter,--‘Well now, Imogène, how are you this morning? eh! In rude health and buoyant spirits. Capital! And how is my little darling? What! pale as the moon. The naughty dogs must have disturbed your innocent slumbers. Oh, Poulet! oh, Pigeon! you rascals,’ he shook his forefinger at the dogs,--‘how shall I forgive you for having broken the rest of my little mignonne! for having robbed her of her roses! for having filled her maiden breast with fear! Oh, you dogs! oh, oh!’

‘Is everything ready?’ asked Berthier of Adolphe.

‘Everything--everything,’ replied the footman.

‘See that the dogs be properly fed, Gustave.’

‘Certainly, monsieur.’

‘What is the matter with my boy’s eye?’ asked Foulon. ‘It has been lacerated; it is unusually tender; it is bruised.’ Then, elevating his voice, and addressing those at the window, ‘Ah! who has been striking and scratching my good Berthier? I know it was that cat. Oh, puss! you sly puss, how demure you look! but that is all very well by day. At night, ah! then you show your claws.’

The sheriff, finding that everything necessary was in the carriage, mounted the steps to the house, and making his way to the corridor presented himself before his wife, Gabrielle, and the cat. He stood before them with his eyes down, and with a sullen expression of face. His right eye was discoloured and cut; it both watered and bled, and he repeatedly wiped it.

‘Madame,’ said he, with less of his usual insolence Of manner, ‘your father and I shall be absent for some days.’

‘Look me in the face,’ said his wife. He lifted his eyes for an instant; the wounded organ evidently pained him, for it was glassy, and the lid closed over it immediately; the other fell before the glance of the lady.

‘Madame,’ he continued, ‘we are about to visit Conches on business, and, after a delay there of a day, we proceed to Évreux to meet the Count of Provence. He visits the bishop, and we dine with him at the palace on Thursday evening.’

‘What is that to me?’ asked his wife.

‘I thought you would like to know, madame.’

‘Why do you not call me Madame Plomb?’

His eyes fluttered up to hers and fell again.

‘Because you are a coward,’ said the lady. ‘I know you for a bully and a coward.’

‘Madame, I shall retire,’ he said, scowling. ‘I came here in courtesy to announce to you our departure, and I meet with insult.’

‘What is to become of this child?’ asked the lady, touching Gabrielle.

‘She remains here,’ answered Berthier; ‘I have engaged her to be your servant. I have hired her of her father.’ A look of triumph shot across his flabby countenance: ‘he has received six months’ wage in advance.’

Gabrielle uttered a faint cry and covered her face.

‘I doubt not he has returned the money,’ said Madame Berthier. ‘See! in this soiled rag is a sum; it was cast in at the window last night. If I mistake not, this blood which discolours the linen is yours. It looks like yours, it feels like yours--ugh! it smells like yours.’

‘Madame, I know nothing about that money. I know that I have agreed with the girl’s father, that he has received payment for her services, and that I keep her here.’

‘Whether she remains here or at home,’ said Madame Berthier, ‘she is safe from you, as long as I am here to protect her.’

‘As long as you are here,’ answered Berthier, as he walked towards the stairs. Then turning to her, with his foot on the steps, he said, with a coarse laugh: ‘As long as you are here to protect her! Quite so, Madame Plomb. But how long will you be here?’ He disappeared down the stairs, and entering the carriage with Foulon, drove through the gay iron gates, and was gone.

‘Gabrielle,’ said Madame Berthier; ‘my dear child, we will seek your father, and ask him whether this is true. I do not believe it, do you, Gabriel, my angel!’ she turned her lips to the cat’s ear. The animal rubbed its chin against her mouth and purred. ‘I understand, my sweet! you wonder how the money came in at the window, do you not? Well, perhaps the good man was deceived by that beast, and, when he found out what sort of a man the beast was, he brought the money back; he could not get into the house at night, so he cast the silver through the window. Was it so, Gabriel? You are awake at night, you walk about in the moonlight, you can see in the dark; tell me, my seraph! was it so?’ Then catching the girl’s arm, she whispered, ‘Wait, I have not shown you the cat’s castle. You have seen his net and his coffer, his parlour, his pantry, and now you shall see his castle, in which we shall shut him up when he is naughty. That is his Bastille. Have you ever seen the Bastille, Gabrielle? No, of course you have not. Now come with me, and I will build you the cat’s Bastille.’

The unfortunate woman drew the little peasant-girl into her yellow room, seated herself in her high-backed chair, and in a moment had her fingers among the strings.

‘Take it off, Gabrielle,’ she said. ‘Come, Gabriel! sit quiet, and you shall see the pretty things we shall construct for you.’

The cat obediently settled himself into an observant attitude, with his head resting between his paws; Gabrielle drew her chair opposite Madame Berthier, and held up her fingers to receive the threads.

‘So,’ said the lady; ‘that is the net.’

She worked nimbly with her fingers.

‘I have such trouble when I am alone,’ she said; ‘I have to stretch the threads on this winding machine, or lay them on the table. Gabriel is so selfish, he will not make an attempt to assist me. But then all these contrivances are for him, you know, and he would lose half the pleasure, if he were made to labour at their construction. See! this, now, is the cat’s cabinet. I should so much like to do something, that is, to dye your white dress saffron. You do not know how becoming it would be. I love yellow and black. I wear black, but Gabriel wears yellow. There! we have the basket. They used to dress the victims of the Inquisition in yellow and black, and torture and burn them in these colours. This is the cat’s parlour. And Jews, as an accursed race, were obliged to wear yellow, so I have heard. Among the Buddhists, too, the monks wear saffron habits, in token that they have renounced the world. This, my dear, is the pantry. And the Chinese wear it as their mourning colour--their very deepest mourning. But I like it; it suits my complexion, I think. There! Do you observe this? How your fingers tremble! This is my own invention. Put up your fingers, so. Up, up! There, now. You have the cat’s Bastille, a terrible tower for naughty pusses, when we shut them up. Ah! what have you done with your shaking, quaking fingers? You have pulled down, you have utterly dissolved my Bastille, and all the imprisoned cats will get out!’

At the same moment, Gabriel bounded from his perch.

‘Why, how now!’ exclaimed Madame Berthier; ‘you are crying, my poor girl! Why do you cry? You lack patience. Ah! that is a great and saintly virtue, very hard to acquire. Indeed, you can only acquire it by constant prayer and making cat’s cradles. That is my experience. Yes, it is patience that you want. We poor women have much to bear in this world from the wicked men. If we had not religion and trifling to occupy our thoughts and time, we should go mad. I am sure of it. Sometimes I feel a burning in my head, but first it comes in my chest, a fire there consuming me; then it flames up from my heart into my brain, and sets that on fire, and I should go crazy but for this. I say my rosary and then I make cradles, and then I say my chaplet again, and then go back to my threads. Why are you crying?’

‘Madame!’ entreated Gabrielle; ‘may I go to my father?’

‘But, my dear, I think the beast said your father had engaged you to him as my servant and companion.’

‘Oh, dear madame! you are so kind, pray let me see him and speak to him.’

‘You shall,’ answered the lady; ‘I will accompany you. I like to walk out, but I go veiled. I frighten children sometimes, and even horses are afraid of me. Yes; we will go together, and I shall see your papa! Ah! I long to see your papa! You are Gabrielle, and my cat is Gabriel. Both were quite white, till I dyed my angel yellow, and I want to dye your white clothes, and then you will be both just alike. Who knows, when I see your papa, perhaps we may be alike!’

The strange woman went into her bedroom to dress for going out; presently she came from it, bearing some black garments.

‘You should have waited,’ said she to Gabrielle; ‘after the Bastille comes the grave. I was going to make the grave for puss, and then you pulled my tower down.’

When ready for the walk, Madame Berthier parted with many expressions of tenderness from the yellow cat. It was some time before she could resolve on going, for she stood in the door wafting kisses to her ‘angel Gabriel,’ and apologising to him with profuse expression of regret for her absence.

‘But we shall return soon, my Gabriel! do not waste your precious affections in weeping for my absence. Soon, soon! And now, adieu! come on, my Gabrielle.’

The walk was pleasant, and Madame Berthier enjoyed it. She insisted on picking yellow and blue flowers as they went along, and showing them to her companion.

‘See!’ she would say; ‘the colours harmonise.’

The plantation of pines was soon passed, and then their road traversed beech copse. The leaves were beginning to turn, for the drought had affected the trees like an early frost. Among the beech were hazels, laden with nuts, hardly ripe; fern and fox-gloves grew rank on the road-side.

The day was warm, the air languid, being charged with moisture that rose from the heated and wet earth, so that a haze veiled the landscape. The flies were troublesome, following Madame Berthier and Gabrielle in swarms. A squirrel darted across the path and disappeared up one of the trees.

‘Oh!’ cried Madame Berthier; ‘if Gabriel had only been here. How he would have run, how he would have pounced upon that red creature! Gabriel is so nimble.’

‘Ah, madame!’ exclaimed the girl, as they came within sight of the valley and the Island of Swallows, ‘my poor father has lost his corn.’

‘What is the matter?’

‘See! the water has been out, and it has flooded our field in which the wheat was standing uncarried.’

‘Alas! the pretty yellow corn,’ said Madame Berthier, ‘your father must buy some more.’

‘He has no money.’

‘Yes, child, he has; did not the beast give him your wage? Ah! I forgot, and he returned it.’

They crossed the little foot-bridge. Gabrielle stood still, with her hand on her heart, and looked round.

‘I do not see him,’ she said, anxiously.

‘Oh, the papa is indoors, doubtless.’

They reached the front of the cottage.

‘The garden must have been very gay,’ said Madame Berthier; ‘what roses! but ah! how the rain has battered them, and the flood has spoiled the beds. Why do you grow so many pink and white roses? I like this yellow one.’

Gabrielle put her hand on the latch and gently opened the door. She looked in; it was dark, for the little green blind was drawn across the window.

‘Go in, my child,’ said the lady; ‘I will look about me, and then I shall come to you. I want to see the papa, so much.’

The girl stepped into the room, and called her father.

How silent the house seemed to be! the air within was close and hot.

‘Father, where are you?’ she called again.

Madame Berthier was picking some roses, when she heard a scream. She ran to the cottage-door, sprang in, and saw Gabrielle standing against the wall, her eyes distended with horror, her hands raised, and the palms open before her, as though to repel some one or something she saw.

‘What is the matter?’ asked madame. ‘It is so dark in here.’ She drew back the window-curtain.

‘Ah!’

There, in a corner, where the ladder conducting to the upper rooms had stood, hung Matthias André, with his head on one side, his eyes open and fixed, the hands clenched and the feet contracted.

‘Mon Dieu! is that the papa?’ exclaimed Madame Berthier. ‘Why, really, he is not unlike me. See! our faces are much alike. I am Madame Plomb, and he is Monsieur Plomb.’

The girl was falling. The strange woman carried her out into the open air.

‘His complexion is darker than mine,’ she said, musingly; ‘but we are something alike.’