Part 21

The Marquis was feeling better; he had gone to lie down after having chatted with Justine in such a friendly way that she was delighted. "Do you see, Peyraque, this man," said she, "he has a good heart like hers-- I can understand it perfectly myself--"

"Stop talking now," said Peyraque, who knew the thinness of the flooring; "if he is asleep, we ought to sleep too."

At Lantriac the night passed in absolute quiet. The Marquis actually rested, and at two o'clock awoke, having shaken off the fever. He felt imbued with a pleasant calm, such as he had not known for a long time, and he attributed this to some sweet dream that he had forgotten, though its impression remained. Unwilling to awaken his hosts, he kept still, gazing at the four walls of the little chamber, brightly lighted by his lamp, and grasping the facts of his position more positively than he had done before since Caroline's departure. He had debated a thousand extreme measures; then he had said to himself that his first duty was to his son; and the sight of this child had given him the force of will he needed to resist the physical disease which now began to threaten him anew. Within twenty-four hours he had fixed upon a definite plan. He would take Didier to Madame Heudebert, leaving with her a letter for Caroline, and then quit France for some time, so that Mlle de Saint-Geneix, reassured by his absence, might return to be near her sister at Étampes. In the course of a few quiet weeks, the Marchioness would perhaps get further information, or perhaps her secret would be discovered by the Duke, who had sworn he would draw it from her by surprise. If the Duke failed, Urbain was not at the end of his resources. He would come back quietly to the castle of Mauveroche, where his mother, was to pass the summer with her daughter-in-law, and he would not let Caroline know of his return until he had cleared her in his mother's estimation, and thus again smoothed away every difficulty.

The most important and the most urgent thing, then, was to draw Mlle de Saint-Geneix from her mysterious hiding-place. The Marquis still thought she was in some Parisian convent. He found himself compelled to stay a few days longer in Polignac to make sure of Dame Roqueberte's complete recovery, before grieving her by taking away his son, and this delay had fretted him more than anything else. To cheat his impatience, he asked himself why he should not write to Madame Heudebert at once and to Caroline also, that they might be prepared to rejoin each other after his departure for a foreign land. By this means he would perhaps gain a few days. He could mail the letter at once, as he would pass through Le Puy on his return to Polignac.

What gave him the idea of writing from Lantriac was, mainly, the sight of the little bureau, where Caroline had left pens, some ink in a cup, and a few stray sheets of paper. These objects, on which his gaze fastened mechanically, seemed inviting him to follow his inspiration. He rose noiselessly, put the lamp on the table, and wrote to Caroline.

"My friend, my sister, you will not desert an unhappy man, who, for a year past, has centred in you the hopes of his life. Caroline, do not mistake my meaning. I have a favor to ask of you which you cannot refuse. I am going away.

"I have a son who has no mother. I love him devotedly; I intrust him to you. Come back!--As for myself, I go to England. You shall never see me again, if you have lost faith in me,--but that is impossible. When have I been unworthy of your esteem? Caroline--"

The Marquis stopped abruptly. An object of little importance had caught his eye. The ordinary paper, the steel pens, had no peculiarities; but one black bead lay on the table between his hand and the inkstand, a trifle insignificant in itself, but one bringing with it a whole world of memories. It was a bit of jet, cut and perforated in a certain unusual fashion. It was part of a valueless bracelet Caroline had worn at Séval; which he easily recognized because she used to take it off whenever she wrote, and he had himself formed a habit of toying with this bracelet while talking to her. He had handled it a hundred times, and one day she had said to him, "Pray don't break it, it is all I have left from my mother's jewel-box." He had looked at it respectfully, and held it lovingly in his hands. Just as she was on the point of quitting her little room in Lantriac, Caroline, in her precipitation, had broken this bracelet; she had picked up the beads hastily, leaving behind but this one.

This black bead reversed all the ideas of the Marquis; but what kind of dreaming was this? These cut jets might be an industrial product of the country he was then in. Nevertheless he sat motionless, absorbed in new surmises. He breathed and questioned the vague perfume of the room. He looked everywhere without moving from his chair. There was nothing on the walls, nothing on the table, nothing on the mantel. Finally he became aware of some bits of paper in the fireplace, which were not completely charred. He bent over the ashes, searched minutely, and found one single fragment of an address, only two syllables of which were legible: one, written by hand, was the last in the word Lantriac, the other, "am," forming part of the postmark. The postmark was that of Étampes, the handwriting that of Madame Heudebert. There could be no longer a doubt: Charlette was no one but Caroline, and perhaps she had never gone away, perhaps she was still in the house.

From that moment, the Marquis had the cunning, the watchfulness, the coolness, and the keen perception of a savage. He discovered the pipe from the little spring leading down to the sink below. The pipe itself was stopped up, but there was more than one fissure in the plaster which surrounded it. He put his ear down to it closely, and caught Peyraque's long, even breathing as he lay yet asleep.

Not a word, though spoken ever so low, could then escape him. In a few moments he distinctly heard Justine rise, uttering the words, "Come, get up, Peyraque; perhaps poor Caroline has not been sleeping so well as we have!"

"A night is a night," said Peyraque; "besides, I can't go for her till after he has gone away."

Justine listened and replied, "He does n't stir, but he said he should get up at daybreak. Daylight is n't far off now; he means to go away without taking anything, he said so."

"It is all the same," rejoined Peyraque, who had now risen, and whose voice was even more audible, though he spoke quite low; "I don't want him to set out on foot; it is too far. The lad shall saddle my horse, and when I have seen him fairly off, I will start for Laussonne."

M. de Villemer had made sure. He stirred a little to show he was up, and went down stairs after having slipped his purse into the bureau-drawer. He seemed very impatient to get back to Polignac, and declaring he felt perfectly strong, obstinately refused the horse. It would have been an encumbrance in the war of observation he was about to wage. He shook hands cordially with his entertainers and set out; but, on the borders of the village, having inquired about the road of a passer-by, he changed his course, plunging into a by-way that led to Laussonne.

He thought he could arrive there in advance of Peyraque, wait for him stealthily, and see him take Caroline back. When he had made sure of her return to Lantriac, he would lay his plans further. Until then, being quite aware she was trying to escape him, he would not risk losing track of her again. But Peyraque was very expeditious; Mignon travelled fast in spite of the roads which grew worse and worse, forming one unbroken ascent in the direction of Laussonne, and crossing more than one mountain declivity. The by-path cut off the angles of the main road but slightly, and the Marquis was distanced by the rustic equipage. He saw it pass and recognized Peyraque, who, for his part, thought he distinguished, in the morning fog, a man who was not in peasant garb, and who quickly retreated behind an embanking wall of rough stones.

Peyraque was suspicious. "Very likely," thought he, "he has been fooling us, or he has found out something. Well! if it is he, and if he is no more of an invalid than that, I will cure him of trying to follow a mountain horse on foot."

He urged Mignon forward, and arrived at Laussonne with the first rays of the sun. Caroline, in deadly anxiety, after a cruelly sleepless night, came out to meet him.

"All is going well," said he. "I was mistaken yesterday; he is not so very ill, for he slept well and would return on foot."

"So he is gone?" replied Caroline, climbing to her seat by Peyraque. "He never suspected anything, then? And I shall never see him again? Well, so much the better!" and she burst into tears under her hood, which she pulled over her face in vain. Peyraque heard her sob as if her heart would break.

"So you are the one going to be sick now?" said he, in a tone of paternal severity. "Come, be reasonable, or your Peyraque will never believe you when you tell him you are a Christian."

"So long as I do not weep before him, can you not excuse one moment of weakness in me? But what are you doing? Why are we going on toward Laussonne?"

Peyraque thought he again caught sight of the Marquis still creeping onward. "You must excuse me," said he, "but I have an errand to do in the village. It is quite near."

He entered the village, shrewdly thinking that the Marquis would still keep himself in sight at a distance. He went up the street and exchanged a few words with one of the townspeople. Pretexts could not fail to be at hand. Then, returning to Caroline, he said, "You see, my daughter, you have too much on your mind. I want to revive your spirits; you know an excursion always does you good. Would you like to have me take you on one--O, a very pleasant one!"

"If you have business anywhere, I don't want to incommode you. I will go wherever you like."

"I shall have to go to the foot of Mézenc, to the village of Estables. It is a beautiful place really, and you have been longing to see the grandest of the Cévennes."

"You said it would be hard travelling over there until after next month."

"Bless me! Why, the weather is cloudy, to be sure, and perhaps the roads are a little damaged. I have n't passed over them since last year; but they have been worked upon, as I have heard, and besides you know with me there is no danger."

"I assure you I am in no mood to worry about danger. Let us set out."

Peyraque hurried on his horse, which soon crossed the boundaries of Laussonne and bravely descended the rocky hill, climbing the other slope again without delay, and even more rapidly. When they had reached the top, Peyraque turned round, saw no one in the paths behind him, and looked at the road ahead, which was taking on a discouraging aspect. "You are going to see a wilderness," said he; "but that need n't annoy you, need it?"

"No, no," replied she; "when we are desperate we cease to be annoyed."

Peyraque went on, not without warning his companion repeatedly that the sun might not be disposed to shine, that they had four leagues to go, and that perhaps Mézenc would be under a fog. All this had little interest for Caroline, who did not guess the hesitation of her old friend or his qualms of conscience.

They traversed a mountain wooded with pines, and cut into by a vast glade,--the result of an ancient felling of the trees,--which opened a gigantic avenue, where the road, from a distance, looked like a highway for a hundred chariots abreast; but when the little carriage had ventured in, it was a frightful task to get over the ground, rain-soaked and hollowed out into deep ruts in a thousand places. Further on, it was worse still; the turf was strewed with blocks of lava, which left boggy places between them; and when they found traces of the travelled road again, they had to turn aside for monstrous piles of flints and pebbles, to stop altogether before deep cuts or trenches, to seek the old road among twenty others that lost themselves in the morass. The horse performed prodigies of courage, and Peyraque miracles of skill and judgment.

At the expiration of two hours, they had accomplished only two leagues, and were in open country on an interminable plateau, at an elevation of fifteen hundred metres. Except the breaks here and there in the road, nothing could be distinguished. The sun had disappeared; a thick mist enshrouded everything, and nothing can paint the feeling of bitter desolation which fell upon Caroline. Peyraque himself lost courage and kept silence. The obstructed road, which, he had been forced to leave one side did not reappear, and for the last fifteen minutes they had been pacing over a spongy turf, broken up by the hoofs of cattle in search of pasturage, but no longer bearing any traces of wheels. The horse stopped, bathed in sweat; he thus gave warning that he had never been over this ground before.

Peyraque alighted, sinking almost knee deep in the boggy soil, and tried to find where he was. It was out of the question. The mountains and ravines were only one plain of white vapor.

"Have we lost our way?" asked Caroline with cool indifference.

At this point the wind made a little opening in the fog, and they saw in the distance fantastic horizons empurpled by the sun; but the mist closed in again so quickly that Peyraque could not determine his position from this isolated peak in the distant circle of mountains. However, they heard a confused barking and then voices, though they could not distinguish the dogs till they were quite upon them. These dogs were the advance-guard of a caravan of men and mules carrying vegetables and leather bottles. They were mountaineers who had been down to the plains to exchange the cheese and butter of their cows for the fruits and vegetables of the level country. They accosted Peyraque, who asked information. They told him that he had done very wrong to think of going with a carriage to Estables at this season, that it could not be done, and that he would have to return. Peyraque showed some obstinacy, and asked if he was still far from the village. They guided him into the road again, telling him he had work before him for an hour and a half; but as their animals were loaded and warm, and they themselves in haste to arrive, these mountaineers offered no assistance, and disappeared, with a laugh at the little carriage. Caroline saw them rapidly vanish into the fog like shadows.

It was absolutely necessary to let the horse breathe, for a fresh effort to regain the solid road had exhausted him. "What comforts me," said Peyraque, really moved, "is that you don't complain of anything! It is very cold, nevertheless, and I'm sure the dampness has gone through your cloak."

Caroline replied only by a shiver.

A new shadow had just passed along the side of the road; it was M. de Villemer. He pretended not to see the carriage, although he did see it perfectly; but he chose to seem unconscious that it held any one he knew. He advanced with extraordinary energy, affecting an air of indifference.

"It is he! I saw him," said Caroline to Peyraque. "He goes wherever we go."

"Well, let him go on, and we will turn back."

"No, I cannot, I will not! He will die after such a walk. He will never reach Estables. Let us follow him."

This time Caroline's terror was so commanding that Peyraque obeyed. They came up with M. de Villemer, who moved aside to let them pass, without stopping or looking up. He would be neither intrusive nor rebellious, but he would know, he would follow to the death.

Unfortunately he was at the end of his strength. The difficulty of this walk, which from Lantriac had been a continual ascent and, for the last two leagues, one chaos of stones and peaty turf, had started on him a profuse perspiration which he could feel freezing in the blast of a sharp wind that had suddenly veered to the east. He lost his breath, and was forced to stop.

Caroline turned her head toward him, and was on the point of crying out. Peyraque seized her arm. "Courage, my daughter," he said, with his stern religious fervor. "The Lord requires it at your hands." And she felt herself overborne by the strong faith of the peasant.

"What do you want to do for him?" resumed Peyraque, as he still drove on. "He has had strength to come so far, he will have enough to go the rest of the way. A man does not die from the effects of a walk. He will rest at Estables. And if he is sick,--I shall be there."

"But he is following me! You see I shall have to speak to him there or elsewhere."

"Why should he follow you? He does not suspect you are here even. So many travellers want to see Mézenc."

"In such weather as this?"

"The sun rose brightly, and we ourselves started to see Mézenc."

The Marquis saw Caroline hesitate and submit. This was the final blow. No sooner had he seen himself left behind than he felt he could go no farther. He sank down on a stone, his eyes fixed on the black speck slowly vanishing from his sight, for the wind had risen suddenly and was violently scattering the fog, in whose stead there now came light flurries of snow and sleet. "So she would have me know nothing more of her?" said he to himself, as he felt his strength failing. "She flees from hope, she has lost faith. Then she never loved me!"

And he lay down to die.

XXV

"We must hasten, we must hasten!" said Peyraque, at the close of another half-hour, as he saw the snow deepening. "Here is something worse than fog. When this begins to fall it soon piles up in the road higher than your head."

This imprudent admission set Caroline in open rebellion; she wanted to jump from the carriage, fully determined to walk back to the place where she had met M. de Villemer.

Peyraque dissuaded her from this; but finally had to yield and return, in spite of the ever-increasing danger and the difficulties of a still slower progress over the half-league they had so painfully traversed since losing sight of the Marquis.

It was in vain for them to search by simply looking for him. In one hour the snow in large, spreading flakes had buried up the ground and its ruggedness. It was impossible for them to tell whether they had not passed by the place they wanted to explore. Caroline uttered groans, inaudible to herself, finding no words at her command but the faint outcry, "My God, my God!" Peyraque no longer strove to quiet her, and only encouraged her by telling her to look carefully.

Suddenly the horse stopped. "It must be we have found the road again here," said Peyraque. "Mignon remembers."

"Then we have come too far," replied Caroline.

"But we have met no one," returned Peyraque. "This gentleman, seeing the storm coming on, has gone back to Laussonne, and we, who are nearer Estables, are running a great risk in staying here, unless it stops snowing. I give you warning."

"Go on, go on, Peyraque!" cried Caroline, leaping into the snow. "For my part, I shall stay here till I find him."

Peyraque made no reply. He alighted and began searching, but without the least hope. There was already half a foot of snow, and the wind, drifting it into every hollow, would soon bury up a corpse.

Caroline walked on at random, gliding forward like a spirit, so great was her excitement. She was already at some little distance from the carriage when she heard the horse snort loudly as he put down his head. She thought he was dying, and, watching him with real distress, saw him scenting out something in front of him in a strange way. It was a revelation; she darted forward and perceived a gloved hand, apparently belonging to one dead, which the breath of the horse, melting the snow over it, had brought to light. The body extended beneath was the obstacle which the animal had refused to tread under foot. Peyraque came running at Caroline's call, and, extricating M. de Villemer, put him in the carriage, where Mlle de Saint-Geneix held him up and tried to warm him in her arms.

Peyraque took the bridle and walked on again in the direction of Mézenc. He knew perfectly there was not a moment to lose, but went on without knowing where to set foot; and he soon disappeared in a ravine which he was unable to clear. The horse stopped of his own accord; Peyraque got up again, but, on trying to make him back, found the wheels caught in some unseen obstacle. Besides, the horse was at the end of his strength. Peyraque treated him harshly, but all to no purpose; he struck his pony for the first time in his life; he pulled on the bridle till the creature's mouth bled. The poor animal turned upon him with a glance of almost human intelligence, as if to say, "I have done all I could; I can do nothing more to save you."

"Must we then perish here?" said Peyraque, disheartened, as he watched the snow falling in inexorable whirls. The plateau had become a Siberian waste, beyond which Mézenc alone showed his livid head between the gusts of wind. Not a tree, not a roof, not a rock for shelter. Peyraque knew there was nothing to be done.

"Let us hope," said he, which, in these Southern forms of speech, simply means, "Let us wait."

It soon occurred to him, however, that he would gain the next fifteen minutes, even if they should be the last of life. He took a small board from his little carriage, and fought with the drifting snow, which threatened to bury up both horse and vehicle. Incessantly for ten minutes he worked like a wrestler at this task of clearing away, saying to himself that perhaps it was all useless, but that he would defend himself and Caroline to the last breath.

At the expiration of the ten minutes he thanked God the snow grew lighter; the wind abated; the fog, which was far less dangerous, strove to reappear. He slackened his work without giving it over. At last he saw something like a pale streak of light breaking through the depths of the sky; it was a promise of fair weather.

So far he had not spoken a word or uttered an oath. If Caroline had been fated to perish there, she would not have suspected it till the last moment. Yet he looked at her and found her so pale and her glance so wild that he was alarmed.

"Well, well!" said he, "what is the trouble? There is no more danger; this will be nothing."

"O, nothing, is it?" she replied, with a bitter smile, pointing to Urbain, stretched out on the seat of the little vehicle, his face livid with the cold, his large eyes wide open and glazed, like those of a corpse.

Peyraque looked around him again. It was hopeless to expect human aid. He sprang into the carriage, seized M. de Villemer firmly in his arms, rubbed him vigorously, bruised him in his iron hands, trying to impart to him the warmth of his own old blood reanimated by exercise and a strong will; but it was all in vain. With the effects of the cold were united those of a nervous crisis peculiar to the organization of the Marquis.

"He is not dead, though," said Peyraque. "I feel that; I am sure of it. If I only had something to make a fire with! But I can't make one of stones."

"We might burn the carriage, at all events," cried Caroline.

"That is an idea,--yes, but after that?"

"After that perhaps the Lord will send help. Don't you see the first thing is to prevent death from laying hold of us here?"