Chapter 33

"My child," he said, "monsieur is ill! attacked, I am afraid, by the fever. He is not delirious at present, and we have been talking together of many things. But the fever has taken hold upon him, I think. I shall remain with him all the day. You must bring us what we have need of, and leave it on the stone there, as it used to be."

"But cannot he be removed at once?" I asked.

"My dear," he answered, "what can I do? The village is free from sickness now; how can I run the risk of carrying the fever there again? It is too far to send monsieur to Noireau. If he is ill of it, it is best for us all that he should remain here. I will not abandon him; no, no. Obey me, my child, and leave him to me and to God. Cannot you confide in me yet?"

"Yes," I said, weeping, "I trust you with all my heart."

"Go, then, and do what I bid you," he replied. "Tell my sister and Jean, tell all my people, that no one must intrude upon me, no one must come nearer this house than the appointed place. Monsieur le Vicaire must remain in Ville-en-bois, and officiate for me, as though I were pursuing my journey to England. You must think of me as one absent, yet close at hand: that is the difference. I am here, in the path of my duty. Go, and fulfil yours."

"Ought you not to let me share your work and your danger?" I ventured to ask.

"If there be any need, you shall share both," he answered, in a tranquil tone, "though your life should be the penalty. Life is nothing in comparison with duty. When it is thy duty, my daughter, to be beside thy husband, I will call thee without fail."

Slowly I retraced my steps to the village. The news had already spread, from Pierre--for no one else knew it--that the Englishman, who had been turned away from their doors the day before, had spent the night in the infected dwelling. A group of weavers, of farmers, of women from their household work, stopped me as I entered the street. I delivered to them their curé's message, and they received it with sobs and cries, as though it bore in it the prediction of a great calamity. They followed me up the street to the presbytery, and crowded the little court in front of it.

When mademoiselle had collected the things Monsieur Laurentie had sent me for--a mattress, a chair, food, and medicine--every person in the crowd wished to carry some small portion of them. We returned in a troop to the factory, and stood beyond the stone, a group of sorrowful, almost despairing people. In a few minutes we saw the curé open the door, close it behind him, and stand before the proscribed dwelling. His voice came across the space between us and him in distinct and cheerful tones.

"My good children," he said, "I, your priest, forbid any one of you to come a single step nearer to this house. It may be but for a day or two, but let no one venture to disobey me. Think of me as though I had gone to England, and should be back again among you in a few days. God is here, as near to me under this roof, as when I stand before him and you at his altar."

He lifted up his hands to give them his benediction, and we all knelt to receive it. Then, with unquestioning obedience, but with many lamentations, the people returned to their daily work.

CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH.

A MALIGNANT CASE.

For three days, morning after morning, while the dew lay still upon the grass, I went down, with a heavy and foreboding heart, to the place where I could watch the cottage, through the long, sultry hours of the summer-day. The first thing I saw always was Monsieur Laurentie, who came to the door to satisfy me that he was himself in good health, and to tell me how Richard Foster had passed the night. After that I caught from time to time a momentary glimpse of his white head, as he passed the dusky window. He would not listen to my entreaties to be allowed to join him in his task. It was a malignant case, he said, and as my husband was unconscious, I could do him no good by running the risk of being near him.

An invisible line encircled the pestilential place, which none of us dare break through without the permission of the curé, though any one of the villagers would have rejoiced if he had summoned them to his aid. A perpetual intercession was offered up day and night, before the high altar, by the people, and there was no lack of eager candidates ready to take up the prayer when the one who had been praying grew weary. On the third morning I felt that they were beginning to look at me with altered faces, and speak to me in colder accents. If I were the means of bringing upon them the loss of their curé, they would curse the day he found me and brought me to his home. I left the village street half broken-hearted, and wandered hopelessly down to my chosen post.

I thought I was alone, but as I sat with my head bowed down upon my hands, I felt a child's hand laid upon my neck, and Minima's voice spoke plaintively in my ear.

"What is the matter, Aunt Nelly?" she asked. "Everybody is in trouble, and mademoiselle says it is because your husband is come, and Monsieur Laurentie is going to die for his sake. She began to cry when she said that, and she said, 'What shall we all do if my brother dies? My God! what will become of all the people in Ville-en-bois?' Is it true? Is your husband really come, and is he going to die?"

"He is come," I said, in a low voice; "I do not know whether he is going to die."

"Is he so poor that he will die?" she asked again. "Why does God let people be so poor that they must die?".

"It is not because he is so poor that he is ill," I answered.

"But my father died because he was so poor," she said; "the doctors told him he could get well if he had only enough money. Perhaps your husband would not have died if he had not been very poor."

"No, no," I cried, vehemently, "he is not dying through poverty."

Yet the child's words had a sting in them, for I knew he had been poor, in consequence of my act. I thought of the close, unwholesome house in London, where he had been living. I could not help thinking of it, and wondering whether any loss of vital strength, born of poverty, had caused him to fall more easily a prey to this fever. My brain was burdened with sorrowful questions and doubts.

I sent Minima back to the village before the morning-heat grew strong, and then I was alone, watching the cottage through the fine haze of heat which hung tremulously about it. The song of every bird was hushed; the shouts of the harvest-men to their oxen ceased; and the only sound that stirred the still air was the monotonous striking of the clock in the church-tower. I had not seen Monsieur Laurentie since his first greeting of me in the early morning. A panic fear seized upon me. Suppose he should have been stricken suddenly by this deadly malady! I called softly at first, then loudly, but no answer came to comfort me. If this old man, worn out and exhausted, had actually given his life for Richard's, what would become of me? what would become of all of us?

Step by step, pausing often, yet urged on by my growing fears, I stole down the parched and beaten track toward the house, then called once more to the oppressive silence.

Here in the open sunshine, with the hot walls of the mill casting its rays back again, the heat was intense, though the white cap I wore protected my head from it. My eyes were dazzled, and I felt ready to faint. No wonder if Monsieur Laurentie should have sunk under it, and the long strain upon his energies, which would have overtaxed a younger and stronger man. I had passed the invisible line which his will had drawn about the place, and had half crossed the court, when I heard footsteps close behind me, and a large, brown, rough hand suddenly caught mine.

"Mam'zelle'" cried a voice I knew well, "is this you!"

"O Tardif! Tardif!" I exclaimed. I rested my beating head against him, and sobbed violently, while he surrounded me with his strong arm, and laid his hand upon my head, as if to assure me of his help and protection.

"Hush; hush! mam'zelle," he said; "it is Tardif, your friend, my little mam'zelle; your servant, you know. I am here. What shall I do for you? Is there any person in yonder house who frightens you, my poor little mam'zelle? Tell me what I can do?"

He had drawn me back into the green shade of the trees, and set me down upon the felled tree where I had been sitting before. I told him all quickly, briefly--all that had happened since I had written to him. I saw the tears start to his eyes.

"Thank God I am here!" he said; "I lost no time, mam'zelle, after your letter reached me. I will save Monsieur le Curé; I will save them both, if I can. _Ma foi!_ he is a good man, this curé, and we must not let him perish. He has no authority over me, and I will go this moment and force my way in, if the door is fastened. Adieu, my dear little mam'zelle."

He was gone before I could speak a word, striding with quick, energetic tread across the court. The closed door under the eaves opened readily. In an instant the white head of Monsieur Laurentie passed the casement, and I could hear the hum of an earnest altercation, though I could not catch a syllable of it. But presently Tardif appeared again in the doorway, waving his cap in token of having gained his point.

I went back to the village at once to carry the good news, for it was the loneliness of the curé that had weighed so heavily on every heart, though none among them dare brave his displeasure by setting aside his command. The quarantine was observed as rigidly as ever, but fresh hope and confidence beamed upon every face, and I felt that they no longer avoided me, as they had begun to do before Tardif's arrival. Now Monsieur Laurentie could leave his patient, and sit under the sheltering eaves in the cool of the morning or evening, while his people could satisfy themselves from a distance that he was still in health.

The physician whom Jean fetched from Noireau spoke vaguely of Richard's case. It was very malignant, he said, full of danger, and apparently his whole constitution had been weakened by some protracted and grave malady. We must hope, he added.

Whether it was in hope or fear I awaited the issue, I scarcely know. I dared not glance beyond the passing hour; dared not conjecture what the end would be. The past was dead; the future yet unborn. For the moment my whole being was concentrated upon the conflict between life and death, which was witnessed only by the curé and Tardif.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST.

THE LAST DEATH.

It seemed to me almost as if time had been standing still since that first morning when Monsieur Laurentie had left my side, and passed out of my sight to seek for my husband in the fever-smitten dwelling. Yet it was the tenth day after that when, as I took up my weary watch soon after daybreak, I saw him crossing the court again, and coming toward me.

"What had he to say? What could impel him to break through the strict rule which had interdicted all dangerous contact with himself? His face was pale, and his eyes were heavy as if with want of rest, but they looked into mine as if they could read my inmost soul.

"My daughter," he said, "I bade you leave even your duty in my keeping. Now I summon you to fulfil it. Your duty lies yonder, by your husband's side in his agony of death."

"I will go," I whispered, my lips scarcely moving to pronounce the words, so stiff and cold they felt.

"Stay one moment," he said, pityingly. "You have been taught to judge of your duty for yourself, not to leave it to a priest. I ought to let you judge now. Your husband is dying, but he is conscious, and is asking to see you. He does not believe us that death is near; he says none but you will tell him the truth. You cannot go to him without running a great risk. Your danger will be greater than ours, who have been with him all the time. You see, madame, he does not understand me, and he refuses to believe in Tardif. Yet you cannot save him; you can only receive his last adieu. Think well, my child. Your life may be the forfeit."

"I must go," I answered, more firmly; "I will go. He is my husband."

"Good!" he said, "you have chosen the better part. Come, then. The good God will protect you."

He drew my hand through his arm, and led me to the low doorway. The inner room was very dark with the overhanging eaves, and my eyes, dilated by the strong sunlight, could discern but little in the gloom. Tardif was kneeling beside a low bed, bathing my husband's forehead. He made way for me, and I felt him touch my hand with his lips as I took his place. But no one spoke. Richard's face, sunken, haggard, dying, with filmy eyes, dawned gradually out of the dim twilight, line after line, until it lay sharp and distinct under my gaze. I could not turn away from it for an instant, even to glance at Tardif or Monsieur Laurentie. The poor, miserable face! the restless, dreary, dying eyes!

"Where is Olivia?" he muttered, in a hoarse and labored voice.

"I am here, Richard," I answered, falling on my knees where Tardif had been kneeling, and putting my hand on his; "look at me. I am Olivia."

"You are mine, you know," he said, his fingers closing round my wrist with a grasp as weak as a very young child's.--"She is my wife, Monsieur le Curé."

"Yes," I sobbed, "I am your wife, Richard."

"Do they hear it?" he asked, in a whisper.

"We hear it," answered Tardif.

A strange, spasmodic smile flitted across his ghastly face, a look of triumph and success. His fingers tightened over my hand, and I left it passively in their clasp.

"Mine!" he murmured.

"Olivia," he said, after a long pause, and in a stronger voice, "you always spoke the truth to me. This priest and his follower have been trying to frighten me into repentance, as if I were an old woman. They say I am near dying. Tell me, is it true?"

The last words he had spoken painfully, dragging them one after another, as if the very utterance of them was hateful to him. He looked at me with his cold, glittering eyes, which seemed almost mocking at me, even then.

"Richard," I said, "it is true."

"Good God!" he cried.

His lips closed after that cry, and seemed as if they would never open again. He shut his eyes weariedly. Feebly and fitfully came his gasps for breath, and he moaned at times. But still his fingers held me fast, though the slightest effort of mine would have set me free. I left my hand in his cold grasp, and spoke to him whenever he moaned.

"Martin," he breathed between his set teeth, though so low that only my ear could catch the words, "Martin--could--have saved--me."

There was another long silence. I could hear the chirping of the sparrows in the thatched roof, but no other sound broke the deep stillness. Monsieur Laurentie and Tardif stood at the foot of the bed, looking down upon us both, but I only saw their shadows falling across us. My eyes were fastened upon the face I should soon see no more. The little light there was seemed to be fading away from it, leaving it all dark and blank; eyelids closed, lips almost breathless; an unutterable emptiness and confusion creeping over every feature.

"Olivia!" he cried, once again, in a tone of mingled anger and entreaty.

"I am here," I answered, laying my other hand upon his, which was at last relaxing its hold, and falling away helplessly. But where was he? Where was the voice which half a minute ago called Olivia? Where was the life gone that had grasped my hand? He had not heard my answer, or felt my touch upon his cold fingers.

Tardif lifted me gently from my place beside him, and carried me away into the open air, under the overshadowing eaves.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.

FREE.

The rest of that day passed by like a dream. Jean had come down with the daily supply of food, and I heard Monsieur Laurentie call to him to accompany me back to the presbytery, and to warn every one to keep away from me, until I could take every precaution against spreading infection. He gave me minute directions what to do, and I obeyed them automatically and mechanically. I spent the whole day in my room alone.

At night, after all the village was silent, with the moon shining brilliantly down upon the deserted streets, the sound of stealthy footsteps came to me through my window. I pulled the casement open and looked out. There marched four men, with measured steps, bearing a coffin on their shoulders, while Monsieur Laurentie followed them bareheaded. It was my husband's funeral; and I sank upon my knees, and remained kneeling till I heard them return from the little cemetery up the valley, where so many of the curé's flock had been buried. I prayed with all my heart that no other life would be forfeited to this pestilence, which had seemed to have passed away from us.

But I was worn out myself with anxiety and watching. For three or four days I was ill with a low, nervous fever--altogether unlike the terrible typhoid, yet such as to keep me to my room. Minima and Mademoiselle Thérèse were my only companions. Mademoiselle, after talking that one night as much as she generally talked in twelve months, had relapsed into deeper taciturnity than before. But her muteness tranquillized me. Minima's simple talk brought me back to the level of common life. My own nervous weeping, which I could not control, served to soothe me. My casement, almost covered by broad, clustering vine-leaves, preserved a cool, dim obscurity in my room. The village children seemed all at once to have forgotten how to scream and shout, and no sound from the street disturbed me. Even the morning and evening bell rang with a deep, muffled tone, which scarcely stirred the silence. I heard afterward that Jean had swathed the bell in a piece of sackcloth, and that the children had been sent off early every morning into the woods.

But I could not remain long in that idle seclusion. I felt all my strength returning, both of body and mind. I began to smile at Minima, and to answer her childish prattle, with none of the feeling of utter weariness which had at first prostrated me.

"Are we going to stay here forever and ever?" she asked me, one day, when I felt that the solitary peace of my own chamber was growing too monotonous for me.

"Should you like to stay, Minima?" I inquired in reply. It was a question I must face, that of what I was going to do in the future.

"I don't know altogether," she said, reflectively. "The boys here are not so nice as they used to be at home. Pierre says I'm a little pagan, and that's not nice, Aunt Nelly. He says I must be baptized by Monsieur Laurentie, and be prepared for my first communion, before I can be as good as he is. The boys at home used to think me quite as good as them, and better. I asked Monsieur Laurentie if I ought to be baptized over again, and he only smiled, and said I must be as good a little girl as I could be, and it did not much matter. But Pierre, and all the rest, think I'm not as good as them, and I don't like it."

I could not help laughing, like Monsieur Laurentie, at Minima's distress. Yet it was not without foundation. Here we were heretics amid the orthodox, and I felt it myself. Though Monsieur le Curé never alluded to it in the most distant manner, there was a difference between us and the simple village-folk in Ville-en-bois which would always mark us as strangers in blood and creed.

"I think," continued Minima, with a shrewd expression on her face, which was beginning to fill up and grow round in its outlines, "I think, when you are quite well again, we'd better be going on somewhere to try our fortunes. It never does, you know, to stop too long in the same place. I'm quite sure we shall never meet the prince here, and I don't think we shall find any treasure. Besides, if we began to dig they'd all know, and want to go shares. I shouldn't mind going shares with Monsieur Laurentie, but I would not go shares with Pierre. Of course when we've made our fortunes we'll come back, and we'll build Monsieur Laurentie a palace of marble, and put Turkey carpets on all the floors, and have fountains and statues, and all sorts of things, and give him a cook to cook splendid dinners. But we wouldn't stay here always if we were very, very rich; would you, Aunt Nelly?"

"Has anybody told you that I am rich?" I asked, with a passing feeling of vexation.

"Oh, no," she said, laughing heartily, "I should know better than that. You're very poor, my darling auntie, but I love you all the same. We shall be rich some day, of course. It's all coming right, by-and-by."

Her hand was stroking my face, and I drew it to my lips and kissed it tenderly. I had scarcely realized before what a change had come over my circumstances.

"But I am not poor any longer, my little girl," I said; "I am rich now.".

"Very rich?" she asked, eagerly.

"Very rich," I repeated.

"And we shall never have to go walking, walking, till our feet are sore and tired? And we shall not be hungry, and be afraid of spending our money? And we shall buy new clothes as soon as the old ones are worn out? O Aunt Nelly, is it true? is it quite true?"

"It is quite true, my poor Minima," I answered.

She looked at me wistfully, with the color coming and going on her face. Then she climbed up, and lay down beside me, with her arm over me and her face close to mine.

"O Aunt Nelly!" she cried, "if this had only come while my father was alive!"

"Minima," I said, after her sobs and tears were ended, "you will always be my little girl. You shall come and live with me wherever I live."

"Of course," she answered, with the simple trustfulness of a child, "we are going to live together till we die. You won't send me to school, will you? You know what school is like now, and you wouldn't like me to send you to school, would you? If I were a rich, grown-up lady, and you were a little girl like me, I know what I should do."

"What would you do?" I inquired, laughing.

"I should give you lots of dolls and things," she said, quite seriously, her brows puckered with anxiety, "and I should let you have strawberry-jam every day, and I should make every thing as nice as possible. Of course I should make you learn lessons, whether you liked it or not, but I should teach you myself, and then I should know nobody was unkind to you. That's what I should do, Aunt Nelly."

"And that's what I shall do, Minima," I repeated.

We had many things to settle that morning, making our preliminary arrangements for the spending of my fortune upon many dolls and much jam. But the conviction was forced upon me that I must be setting about more important plans. Tardif was still staying in Ville-en-bois, delaying his departure till I was well enough to see him. I resolved to get up that evening, as soon as the heat of the day was past, and have a conversation with him and Monsieur Laurentie.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD.

A YEAR'S NEWS.

In the cool of the evening, while the chanting of vespers in the church close by was faintly audible, I went downstairs into the _salon_. All the household were gone to the service; but I saw Tardif sitting outside in my own favorite seat under the sycamore-tree. I sent Minima to call him to me, bidding her stay out-of-doors herself; and he came in hurriedly, with a glad light in his deep, honest eyes.

"Thank God, mam'zelle, thank God!" he said.

"Yes," I answered, "I am well again now. I have not been really ill, I know, but I felt weary and sick at heart. My good Tardif, how much I owe you!"

"You owe me, nothing, mam'zelle," he said, dropping my hand, and carrying the curé's high-backed chair to the open window, for me to sit in it, and have all the freshness there was in the air. "Dear mam'zelle," he added, "if you only think of me as your friend, that is enough."

"You are my truest friend," I replied.