CHAPTER VIII.

The moon, in her first quarter, hung in a cloudless sky over the valley of the Charentonne, reflected from every patch and pool of water. The poplars, like frosted silver, cast black shadows over the white ground. The frogs were clamorous, for their domain had been unexpectedly extended.

Thomas Lindet, in his attic, was putting together a few clothes into a bundle, to take with him to Évreux, as he was about to start next morning, after the first mass at six. He occupied two rooms in a small cottage opposite the church. It was an old house, in plaster and timber, with a thatched roof, and consisted of a ground-floor and an upper storey. The ground-floor was occupied by an old woman, and the priest tenanted the rooms above. His sitting-room, in which he was making up his bundle, was clean; the walls were laden with whitewash, as was also the sloping ceiling. The window was covered with a blue-and-white striped curtain of bedticking; the chairs were of wood, unpolished, with wooden seats. Over the chimney-piece were a crucifix and two little prints, one of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the other of S. Jerome. His small library occupied a few deal shelves on one side of the fireplace. Besides his breviary, there were few books in binding, except an old copy of Atto of Vercellæ on the ‘Sufferings and Persecutions of the Church,’ and a Geoffrey of Vendôme on ‘Investitures.’ But there were many pamphlets and polemical tracts, such as were circulated at that time in France, and in paper covers, torn and dirty, were Montesquieu’s ‘Esprit des Lois,’ and Rousseau’s ‘Emile.’

Having completed his preparations, the priest blew out his candle, drew the curtain, and looked out of his window, pierced through the thatch. The church of S. Cross was exactly opposite, on the other side of the small square, and the moon brought its sculpture into relief. The gothic tower, surmounted by an ugly bulbous cap, cut the clear grey sky; the delicate tracery of the windows stood out like white lace against the gloom of the bell-chamber.

The west front had been remodelled in 1724, and, though Lindet, with the taste of the period, admired it, no one at the present day would approve of the stiff Italian pedimented doorway, with its four pillars incrusted in the wall, or of the niche in the same style, containing the effigy of the Empress Helena bearing the cross, which intrudes upon the elegant gothic west window.

After the excitement of the day, a reaction had set in, and Lindet felt dispirited, and disposed to question the judiciousness of his purpose. He leaned on the window-sill listening to the trill of the frogs, sweetened by distance, and to the throbbing of the clock in the tower. From where he stood, he could see the rosy glimmer of the sanctuary lamp, through the west window of the church. At this window, looking towards the light which burned before the Host, he was wont every evening to say his prayers, before retiring to rest.

He put his delicate hands together. The mechanism of the clock whirred, and then midnight struck. The notes boomed over the sleeping town, and lost themselves among the wooded hills. All at once Lindet’s mind turned to the poor child for whose preservation he had laboured ineffectually that day. Then, fervently, he prayed for her.

She was seated at the window in Madame Plomb’s antechamber, fast asleep, with her head on her hands. The window was wide open, and the shutters were back, so that the moon and air entered, and made the chamber light and balmy.

About nine o’clock, the cook had been to madame’s room to tell Gabrielle that she was to sleep with her at the other end of the house; but Madame Berthier, full of violence, had struck and driven the woman out of the room, and she had retired, very angry, and threatening to tell ‘Monsieur.’ The woman had been as good as her word; but Berthier and Foulon being together in the billiard-room playing, she had not ventured to interrupt them till they left, which was at midnight. The cook was very angry, and, like an insulted servant, threatened to leave the house.

‘Ah! so so!’ exclaimed Berthier. ‘We shall see. You were right to obey my orders. Gustave! come here; follow me, Antoinette; the girl shall be removed immediately, awake or asleep, by gentleness or by force.’

The silver light struck across the face of the sleeping girl, still wet with tears, and streaked the floor. An acacia intercepted some of the light, and as a light wind stirred, it produced an uneasy shiver over the floor. A leaf, caught in a cobweb, pattered timidly against one of the window-panes. A ghost-moth fluttered about the room, its white wings gleaming in the moonlight, as it swerved and wheeled, while its shadow swerved and wheeled in rhythm, on the sheet of Gabrielle’s couch, as though there were two moths, one white, the other black, dancing up and down before one another. The shadows of the acacia foliage made faces on the floor. Dark profiles, hatchet-shaped, with glistening eyes and mouths that opened and shut, faces of old women munching silently, silhouettes of demons butting with their horns, or nodding, as though they would say,--Wait, wait, wait! We shall see!

The white veil of the sleeping girl lay on the floor, in a line. The flickering lights crossed it, and the shadows of the leaves resembled black flat insects, and long slugs, scrambling over it, in a mad race. The foliage of the acacia whispered, and the pines of the forest close by hummed as the wind stirred their myriad vibrating spines. The air laden with the fragrance of the resin, was not balmy only, but warm as well. An owl in the woods called at intervals to-whoo! and waited, expecting an answer, then called again. Then the night-hawk screeched, and fluttered among the trees. In the garden-plots whole colonies of crickets chirped a long quivering song in a thousand parts, perfectly harmonized, all night long, with a rapidity of execution perfectly amazing.

From Bernay sounded distant, yet distinct, the chime of midnight. At the same moment the hounds in the yard became restless, and gave tongue spasmodically. The girl sighed in sleep, and turned her head from the light; then she woke, started up, and uttered a scream. The door of the room was open, and Berthier stood in it, looking at her, with the cook and Gustave in the background. At the same moment, a black figure glided from behind the window-curtains, and stood between him and her.

‘Sacré! Madame Plomb, you are up late,’ observed the Intendant, advancing into the chamber, and shutting the door behind him upon the two servants. ‘May I trouble you, Madame Plomb, to retire to your couch?’ He stepped towards her.

The woman drew herself up, raised her arm, and the moon flashed along a slender steel blade she brandished.

‘Nonsense, my charmer!’ said Berthier; ‘no acting with me. Put down that little toy and begone.’

‘Stop!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you see that veil there; there, beast, there on the floor?’

‘Perfectly well, my angel.’

‘Pass over it, if you dare.’

‘I dare!’ he said scornfully, but without advancing.

‘If your foot transgresses that limit, I swear, beast! it will be your death.’

He looked at her; the moon was on her blue-grey face, and she looked at him. Her countenance was terrible: in that light, it was like the face of a fiend.

‘You are a devil,’ he said.

‘You have made me one,’ she answered.

Deadly hatred glared out of her wild black eyes; there was resolution in the set lips and hard brow, and Berthier felt that what his wife threatened, that she would execute. He could not endure the flash and glitter of her eye-balls, and he lowered his.

‘I hate you,’ she muttered; ‘I hate you, beast! Do you think I should shrink from _your_ blood? Is your blood so dear to me? Should I shrink from your corpse--from your dead face? I have only seen the living one, and that is to me so odious, that I long to see the dead one; it is sure to be more pleasant. Those red inflamed eyes of yours, are they so bewitching that I should not wish to close them for ever? Those lips, which I have never kissed, beast! I promise to kiss them one day. I promise it, remember. They shall be stiff and cold then. That shall be my one and only kiss.’

The hounds barked furiously without, so furiously that they disturbed the house. Adolphe opened his window and called: ‘Be quiet, my children; be good boys, there! Pigeon and Poulet!’

Gustave roared from the window of the corridor: ‘A thousand devils! shall I not murder you to-morrow, if you are not quiet this instant?’

The acacia creaked and crackled.

Berthier moved towards the window, he was determined to disarm his wife, if possible.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked, sharply.

‘I am going to look out, and see why the dogs are so furious.’

‘You cannot see into the yard from this window.’

‘No, but I can see if anyone is without.’ Next moment--‘Imogène! I believe that there must be some one.’

She lowered her knife, with the fickleness of her disorder; the idea distracted her attention.

‘Where?’

‘Come and look.’

She stepped towards the window. Instantly, quick as thought, he struck her wrist, and sent the knife flying from her grasp, across the room.

Gabrielle in an agony of terror cried, ‘My father! Oh, my father!’

Madame Berthier uttered a moan of pain and rage. Her husband would have grappled with her at once, but that something whizzed in at the open window, and struck him in the eye with such force that he staggered backward, and the blood burst from the lid and streamed over his cheek.

Madame Berthier recovered her knife, and threatening him with it, drove him, blinded with pain and blood, out of the room.

Who can describe the horror of conscience to which Matthias André was a prey that night? He remained after the departure of Berthier, for some hours half stupefied, looking at the money which he held in his hand; then he tied it up in a piece of rag, and placed it in his bosom; but it was too heavy there, it seemed to weigh him down, so he fastened it to the belt of his blouse, which he now put on. To distract his mind, he began to replace in the boxes the clothes he had drawn from them, but, as he huddled them in, unfolded, they would not all go in. In the dusk, the garments which were not thus disposed of looked like bodies of human beings waiting to be buried. He threw out all the clothes from the trunks again, and began to fold them, but he did this work clumsily, and there remained still one of Gabrielle’s dresses uncoffered. The sight of this distressed him, it reminded him of his daughter too painfully, so he hid it under the table. Then he could not resist the desire to peer at it where it lay, and the fancy came upon him that she lay there dead, and that he had killed her; so he fled up the ladder into his loft, and cast himself upon his bed.

But there was no rest there. The transactions of that evening haunted him. He tried to calculate what had best be done with the money; but no! all he could think of was that this was the price of his child’s honour and happiness.

Remembering that he had not taken any supper, he descended the ladder and sought in the dark for a potato pasty; but when he had found it he could not eat it, for he considered that it had been made by _her_ fingers. He tried to uncork a bottle of wine, but could not find the screw, so he broke the neck, and drank from it thus; the broken glass cut his lips, for his hand shook. Gabrielle’s old gown under the table he could not see, it was too dark, but he was constrained by a frenzied curiosity to creep towards it, and feel if it were there. Yes; he felt it, and he shrank from the touch.

The moon shone in at his bedroom window. The light distressed him, when he returned to his couch; so he tried to block up the window by erecting his coat against it, supported by a pitchfork and a broom. It remained thus for just five minutes, and then the structure gave way, and the moonlight flowed in again.

André could bear the house no longer. He again descended the ladder, stole past the table, and opening his door, went outside. He took the path across the foot-bridge and entered the forest. He resolved to ascend the hill, and see the outside of the château in which lay his child. The way was dark, the shadows of the pines and beech-trees obscured it, but the wretched man knew it well, and he walked along it, trembling with fear. He heard voices in the forest, he saw faces peeping from behind the tree-boles. The rustle of birds in the pine-tops made him start; but he held on his way.

When he reached the castle Malouve, he stood still. His brow was dripping. The clock of Bernay parish church struck twelve. At the same time the dogs scented him, and began to bark.

The unhappy father prowled round the building, looking up at every window, his every limb shaking with apprehension.

Suddenly, from an open casement he heard a cry. He knew the tone of that voice. The cry pierced his heart. He ran to the foot of the building which rose from the sward at this spot, and looked up at the window. An acacia-tree stood at a little distance from the wall, and he proceeded to scramble up it. The trunk was smooth, and presented no foot-hold. He was a clumsy man, and could not mount well; the branches were brittle and broke with him. He heard voices in the chamber whence his daughter’s cry had reached him, he grappled with the tree and worked himself up a little way with his knees. The leaves shook above him as though the acacia responded to every pulsation of his heart.

‘Father! Oh, my father!’

That call to him--it seemed denunciatory, reproachful--burst upon his ear. He tore the money from his belt, and with all his force, he hurled it through the window; then he slid down the tree and fled.

He fled, but the cry pursued him; it echoed from every wall of the château. He heard it in the bay of the bloodhounds; it came to him from the dark aisles of the forest, the wind swept it after him; the owl caught it up and towhoo’d it, the night-hawk screamed it.

He put his hands to his ears to shut it out. But the cry was within him, and it echoed through and through and through him--

‘Father! Oh, my father!’

The cry of a child betrayed by its own parent,--the cry of a slave sold by its own father,--the cry of a soul given up to devils by him who had given it being,--the cry of a loving heart against him it had loved, against him for whom the hands had worked gladly, the feet tripped nimbly, the lips smiled sweetly, and the eyes twinkled blithely--

‘Father! Oh, my father!’

As he sprang over the stile, as he raced to the foot-bridge, as he traversed it, from the white face that glared up at him from the water, from the rustling reeds, from the soughing willows, from his own white and black home as he reached it--

‘Father! Oh, my father!’

In his horror and despair he threw himself in at the door, and ran towards the ladder. He scrambled up it; and drawing it up after him fastened a rope that lay coiled on his floor to it, and he noosed the other end about his neck, and he crawled to the hole in the floor through which he had mounted and drawn the ladder, and the cry came up to him from below.

He leaped towards it, and so sought to silence it.