Part 8

"Cousin," she said, "I am not mad, whatever they may say. My father, who was truth itself, always declared that when the direct line of our Spanish branch became exhausted we should be sole heirs to the estate. Unfortunately, his sudden and violent death prevented him from giving us more exact information; but, as I cannot doubt his word, I do not doubt my rights. However," she added, after a little pause, and in accents of touching sadness, "if I am not mad, I am old, and the people in Spain know it. For fifteen years they have dragged me on from one delay to another; they are waiting for my death to finish everything. And ... they will not have to wait long. Some morning, very soon now, I must make my last sacrifice. My dear cathedral--my only love, which has taken the place of so many broken or suppressed attachments--will have but one stone--that of my tomb."

She was silent; her thin hands wiped away two tears that flowed down her worn face, as, striving to smile, she said:

"Forgive me, cousin, you have enough troubles of your own. Besides, it is late--you must go. You will compromise me!"

Before leaving, I again recommended the greatest discretion in reference to the secret I had intrusted to her. She replied, a little naively, that I need not be anxious, and that my peace of mind and dignity were safe in her hands. Nevertheless, during the next few days, I suspected, from Mme. Laroque's increased attentions, that my excellent friend had handed on my confidence. Indeed, Mlle. de Porhoet admitted the fact, declaring that the honour of her family demanded this, and assured me that Mme. Laroque was incapable of betraying a secret intrusted to her, even to her own daughter.

Our interview had filled me with sympathetic respect for the old lady, which I tried to express by my actions. The evening of the next day I taxed all the resources of my pencil in the invention of decorations, internal and external, for her beloved cathedral. The attention seemed to please her very much, and I soon got into the habit of working on the cathedral every evening after our whist, enriching the ideal edifice with a statue, a pulpit, and a rood-loft. Mlle. Marguerite, who seems to feel a kind of adoration for her old neighbour, associated herself with my work of charity by devoting a special album to the Basilica Porhoet, which it is my duty to fill with designs and drawings.

And in addition, I offered my old confidant to take my share in the inquiries and other matters of business connected with her lawsuit. The poor lady confessed that I should do her a service; that though she could still keep up her ordinary correspondence, her sight was too weak to decipher the manuscripts of her archives. Hitherto she had not associated any one with her in this important work, for fear of giving more occasion to the rustic humourists. In short, she accepted me as counsellor and collaborator. Since this, I have conscientiously studied the voluminous documents of her lawsuit, and I have been convinced that the case, which must be sooner or later definitively settled, is absolutely hopeless from the beginning. M. Laubepin agrees with me in this opinion, which as far as possible I have concealed from the old lady. Meanwhile I have pleased her by going through her family archives piece by piece; she still hopes to find among them some incontestable proof in favour of her claim. Unfortunately, the records are very copious, and fill the pigeon-house from floor to roof. Yesterday I went early to Mlle. de Porhoet's to finish before lunch the examination of packet No. 115, which I had begun overnight. The lady of the house had not risen yet, so, with the help of the little servant, I quietly installed myself in the _salon_ and settled down to my dusty work. About an hour later, as I was going joyfully through the last sheet of packet No. 115, Mlle. de Porhoet came in, dragging a huge bundle neatly wrapped up in a white linen cover.

"Good-morning, my dear cousin," she said. "I've heard how you have been working for me this morning, so I determined to work for you. Here is packet No. 116."

I must confess that at this moment Mlle. de Porhoet reminded me of the cruel fairy of folklore, who shuts the princess up in a lonely tower and imposes a succession of extraordinary and impossible tasks on her.

"Last night," she continued, "I dreamed that the key of my Spanish treasure lay in this packet. So you will very much oblige me by examining it at once. Afterward I hope you will do me the honour to share a frugal repast in the shade of my arbour."

There was no help for it. I obeyed, and I need not say that the wonderful packet No. 116 contained, like its predecessors, nothing more valuable than the dust of centuries. Precisely at noon, the old lady came to offer me her arm and conduct me formally to a little box-bordered garden which, with a bit of adjoining meadow, now constitutes the sole domain of the Porhoets. The table was set out under an arched bower of foliage, and through the leaves the sunshine of a fine summer's day dappled the spotless, sweet-smelling table-cloth. I had done justice to the chicken, the fresh salad, and the bottle of old Bordeaux, which made up the _menu_ of the banquet, when Mlle. de Porhoet, who seemed charmed with my appetite, turned the conversation on to the Laroque family.

"I will own," she said to me, "that I do not care for the old buccaneer. When he first came here he had a large and favourite ape, which he dressed up like a servant, and which he seemed to be able to communicate with perfectly. The animal was a nuisance to the whole country, and only a man without education or decency could have kept it. I agreed when they told me that it was an ape, but, as a fact, I have always believed that it was a negro, more especially as I had always suspected its master of having trafficked in that commodity in Africa. But M. Laroque, the son, was a good sort of man, and quite a gentleman. As to the ladies--I refer, of course, to Mme. Laroque and her daughter, and in no way to the widow Aubry, an extremely common person--as to the ladies, I say, they deserve every good thing one can say of them."

Just then we heard the hoofs of a horse on the path that runs outside the garden wall, and the next moment some one was knocking sharply at a small door near the arbour.

"Yes," said Mlle. de Porhoet. "Who goes there?"

I looked up, and saw a black plume above the top of the wall.

"Open," said a gay voice outside, full of musical intonations. "Open. 'Tis the fortune of France!"

"What? Is it you, my darling?" said the old lady. "Quick, cousin, run!"

As I opened the door Mervyn rushed between my legs, nearly throwing me down. Mlle. Marguerite was tying up her horse to the fence by his reins.

"_Bonjour_, M. Odiot," she said, without showing any surprise at finding me there. Throwing the long folds of her habit over her arm, she entered the garden.

"Welcome this lovely day, my lovely girl!" said Mlle. de Porhoet. "Kiss me, dear. You've been riding too fast, you foolish child. I can tell by your colour and the fire that literally seems to flash from your eyes. What can I offer you, my beauty?"

"Let me see," said Mlle. Marguerite, glancing at the table. "What have you got? Has M. Odiot eaten up everything? Not that it matters. I am thirsty, not hungry."

"I utterly forbid you to drink while you're so hot. But wait a moment; there are some strawberries left in that bed."

"Strawberries! _O gioia_!" sang the girl. "Take one of those fig-leaves, M. Odiot, and come with me. Quick!"

While I chose the largest of the fig-leaves, Mlle. de Porhoet half-closed one eye, and followed her favourite with the other, as she walked proudly along the sunlit alley.

"Look at her, cousin," she whispered, with an approving smile; "isn't she worthy to be one of us?"

Meanwhile, Mlle. Marguerite, bending over the bed and catching her foot in her train at every step, greeted each strawberry she found with a little cry of delight. I kept near to her, holding out the fig-leaf, in which she put one strawberry for every two she ate, to help her to be patient. When she was satisfied with the harvest we returned in triumph to the arbour. The rest of the strawberries were sprinkled with sugar, and crushed by the prettiest teeth in Brittany with great relish.

"Oh, that's done me good!" exclaimed Mlle. Marguerite, throwing her hat on the seat and leaning back against the side of the bower. "And now, dearest lady, to complete my happiness, you're going to tell me stories of the old days when you were a fair warrior."

Mlle. de Porhoet, smiling and charmed, needed no pressing, and began to tell us some of the most striking events of her famous expeditions with Lescure and La Rochefoucauld. And on this occasion my old friend gave me another proof of her nobility of nature, for she paid her tribute to the heroes of those troublous wars without distinction of party. She spoke of General Hoche, whose prisoner she had been, with almost tender admiration. Mlle. Marguerite listened with an impassioned attention which surprised me. At one moment, half-buried in her leafy niche, her long eyelashes a little lowered, she sat as motionless as a statue; at another, when the story became more exciting, she put her elbows on the table, plunged a beautiful hand into the masses of her loosened hair, and fixed the lightning of her brilliant eyes eagerly on the old _Vendienne_.

Among the sweetest hours of my dull life, I shall always count those I spent watching that noble face, irradiated by the reflections of the glowing sky and the impressions of a valiant heart.

When the story-telling was over, Mlle. Marguerite embraced her old friend, and waking up Mervyn, who was asleep at her feet, declared that she must return to the chateau. As I was sure it would cause her no embarrassment, I had no hesitation in leaving at the same time. Apart from my personal insignificance in the sight of the rich heiress, Mlle. Laroque was quite at her ease without a chaperon. Her mother had given her the same kind of liberal education she had herself received in one of the British colonies. And we know that the English method accords to women before marriage all that independence which we so wisely give them only when the abuse of it becomes irreparable. So we went out of the garden together. I held her stirrup while she mounted, and we set off towards the chateau.

"Really, M. Odiot," she said, after a few steps, "I am afraid I spoiled your _tete-a-tete_ in the garden. You seemed to be very happy."

"Certainly, mademoiselle, but as I had already been there a long time, I forgive you; nay, more, I thank you."

"You are very good to our poor friend. My mother is very grateful to you."

"And your mother's daughter?" I said, laughing.

"Oh, I'm not so easily impressed. I am afraid you will have to wait a little before you get any praises from me. I don't judge people's actions leniently; there is generally more than one explanation of them. I grant that your behaviour towards Mlle. de Porhoet looks very well, but----" she paused, shook her head, and went on in a serious, bitter, and frankly insulting tone, "but I am not at all certain that you are not paying court to her in the hope that she may make you her heir."

I felt myself grow pale. But, seeing how absurd it would be to answer this young girl angrily, I controlled myself, and replied grandly, "Allow me, mademoiselle, to express my sincere pity for you."

She appeared very much surprised. "Your sincere pity?"

"Yes, mademoiselle, the respectful pity to which I think you have a right."

"Pity!" she said, stopping her horse and slowly turning her disdainful, half-closed eyes towards me. "I am not so fortunate as to understand you."

"It is really quite simple, mademoiselle; if disillusion, doubt, and callousness are the bitterest fruits of long experience, nothing in the world deserves pity so much as a heart withered by mistrust before it has even seen life."

"Sir," said Mlle. Laroque, with a strange vehemence, "you do not know what you are talking about. And," she added more harshly, "you forget to whom you are speaking!"

"That is true, mademoiselle," I answered gently, bowing. "I may have spoken without much knowledge, and perhaps I forgot, to some extent, to whom I was speaking. But you set me the example."

Her eyes fixed on the top of the trees that bordered the road, Mlle. Marguerite asked, with haughty irony:

"Must I beg your pardon?"

"Most certainly, mademoiselle," I replied firmly, "if either of us should ask pardon, it is you. You are rich, I am poor; you can humble yourself.... I cannot."

There was silence. Her tightened lips, her quivering nostrils, and the sudden whiteness of her forehead, showed what a struggle was going on within her. Suddenly lowering her whip as if to salute, she said:

"Very well, I beg your pardon."

At the same moment she gave her horse a sharp cut and set off at a gallop, leaving me in the middle of the road.

I have not seen her since.

_July 30th_.

The calculation of probabilities is never more misleading than when it has to do with the thoughts and feelings of a woman. After the painful scene between Mlle. Marguerite and myself, I had not been very anxious to encounter her. For two days I had not been to the chateau and I scarcely expected that the resentment I had aroused in this proud nature, would have subsided in this short interval. However, about seven o'clock on the morning of the day before yesterday, when I was working at the open window of my tower, I heard my name called out in a most friendly way by the very person of whom I thought I had made an enemy.

"M. Odiot, are you there?"

I went to the window and saw Mlle. Marguerite standing in the boat that was kept by the bridge. She was holding back the brim of her brown straw hat and looking up at my dark tower.

"Here I am, mademoiselle," I said eagerly.

"Are you coming out?"

After my well-founded apprehension of the last two days, so much condescension made me think, to use the accepted formula, I was the dupe of a disordered fancy.

"I beg your pardon.... What did you say?"

"Will you come out for a little with Alain, Mervyn, and me?"

"With pleasure, mademoiselle."

"Very well--bring your album."

I went down quickly and hurried to the bank.

"Ah! ah!" said the girl, laughing, "you're in a good-humour this morning, it seems."

I awkwardly murmured something to the effect that I was always in a good-humour, but Mlle. Marguerite scarcely seemed convinced of the fact. Then I stepped into the boat and sat down at her side.

"Row away, Alain," she said immediately; and old Alain, who prides himself on being a first-rate oarsman, set to work steadily, the long oars moving to and fro at his sides, making him look like a heavy bird trying to fly.

"I was obliged to come and save you from your donjon," said Mlle. Marguerite, "where you have been ailing for two whole days."

"Mademoiselle, I assure you that only consideration for you--respect--fear of..."

"Respect! Fear! Oh, dear, no! You were sulking, that is all. We behave much better than you. My mother, for some reason or other, thinks you ought to be treated with special consideration, and has implored me to sacrifice myself on the altar of your pride; so, like an obedient daughter, I sacrifice myself."

I expressed my gratitude frankly and warmly.

"Not to do things by halves," she continued, "I have determined to give you a treat to your taste. So here you have a lovely summer morning, woods and glades with all the proper light effects, birds warbling in the foliage, a mysterious bark gliding on the waves. As this is the sort of thing you like, you ought to be satisfied."

"Mademoiselle, I am charmed."

"Well, that's all right."

For the moment I was fairly contented with my fate. The air was sweet with the scent of the new-mown hay lying in swaths on either bank; the sombre avenues of the park, dotted with patches of sunshine, slipped past us, and from the flower-cups came the happy drone of myriads of insects feasting on the dew. Opposite me, old Alain smiled complacently at me with a protecting look at each stroke of his oars, and closer to me Mlle. Marguerite, dressed in white--contrary to her custom--beautiful and fresh and pure as a periwinkle blossom, shook with one hand the pearls of dew from her veil while she held out the other as a bait for Mervyn, who was swimming after the boat. I should not have wanted much persuasion to go to the end of the world in that little white boat.

As we passed under an arch in the wall that bounds the park the young Creole said to me:

"You do not ask where I am taking you?"

"No, mademoiselle, I do not. It is all the same to me."

"I am taking you into fairyland."

"I thought so, mademoiselle."

"Mlle. Helouin, more versed in poetic lore than I am, has no doubt told you that the thickets that cover the country for twenty miles round are the remains of the ancient forest of Brouliande, the hunting-ground of those beings of Gael, ancestors of your friend Mlle. de Porhoet, and the place where Mervyn's ancestor, wizard though he was, came under the magic spells of a damsel called Vivien. Now we shall soon be in the centre of that forest. And if this is not enough to fire your imagination, let me tell you that these woods are full of remains of the mysterious religion of the Celts; they are paved with them. In every shady nook you picture to yourself a white-robed Druid, and in every ray of sunlight the glitter of a golden sickle. The religion of these old bores has left near here, in a solitary and romantic place, a monument before which people subject to ecstasy are usually in raptures. I thought you would like to sketch it, and as it is not easy to find, I will show you the way, on condition that you suppress the explosions of an enthusiasm I cannot share."

"Agreed, mademoiselle, I will control myself."

"Yes, please do."

"I promise. And what is the name of this monument?"

"I call it a heap of big stones, but the antiquaries have more than one name for it. Some call it simply a _dolmen_, others, more pedantic, say it's a _cromlech_, and the country people--I do not know why--call it the _migourdit_."[#]

[#] In the wood of Cadoudal (Morbihan).

Meanwhile we glided gently with the current of the stream between two strips of wet meadow. Here and there, small black cattle with large pointed horns turned and looked fiercely at us. The valley through which the widening river crept, was shut in on both sides by a chain of hills, some covered with dry heather and furze, and some with green brushwood. Sometimes, at the end of a transversal cleft between two hills, we could see the crest of a mountain, blue and round in the distance. In spite of her indifference, Mlle. Marguerite was careful to draw my attention to all the beauties of this austere and peaceful country, and careful also, to qualify each remark with some ironic comment.

For a little while a dull, continuous sound had told us that we were approaching a waterfall. Suddenly the valley narrowed into a wild and lonely gorge. On the left stood a high wall of rock overgrown with moss; oaks and firs mixed with ivy and straggling brushwood rose one above the other in every crevice till they reached the top of the cliff, throwing a mysterious shade on to the deeper water at the foot of the rocks. A hundred paces in front of us, the water boiled and foamed, and then disappeared all at once, and the broken line of the stream stood out in a veil of white spray, against a distant background of vague foliage. On our right, the bank opposite to the cliff had only a narrow margin of sloping meadow, fringed with the sombre velvet of the wooded hills.

"Land, Alain," said the young Creole. Alain moored the boat to a willow.

"Now, sir," she said, stepping lightly on to grass, "aren't you overcome? Aren't you troubled, petrified, thunderstruck? You ought to be, for this is supposed to be a very pretty place. I like it because it is always fresh and cool. But follow me through the woods--if you are not too much afraid--and I will show you the famous stones."

Bright, alert, and gay as I had never seen her before, Mlle. Marguerite crossed the fields with a bounding step, and took a path which led along the hills to the forest. Alain and I followed in Indian file. After a few minutes' quick walking our guide stopped and seemed to hesitate, and looked about her for a moment. Then, deliberately separating two interlaced branches, she left the beaten track and plunged into the undergrowth. It was very difficult to make way through the thicket of strong young oaks whose slanting stems and twisted branches were knotted together as closely as Robinson Crusoe's palisade. At least Alain and I, bent double, advanced very slowly, catching our heads against something at every step, and at each of our clumsy movements bringing down a shower of dew upon us. But Mlle. Marguerite, with the greater dexterity and the catlike suppleness of her sex, slipped without any apparent effort through the meshes of the labyrinth, laughing at our sufferings, and carelessly letting the branches spring back after her into our faces. At last we reached a narrow glade on the top of the hill. There, not without emotion, I saw the dark and monstrous table of stone supported by five or six huge blocks half sunk in the earth, forming a cavern full of sacred horror. At first sight this perfect monument of a time almost fabulous, and of a primitive religion, has an aspect of eternal verity and of a real mysterious presence, that takes hold of the imagination, and fills the mind with awe.

The sunshine streaming through the leaves stole through the interstices in the roughly joined blocks, played about the sinister slab, and lent an idyllic charm to this barbarous altar. Even Mlle. Marguerite seemed pensive and brooding. For my part I entered the cavern, and, after examining the _dolmen_ thoroughly, set to work to sketch it. For ten minutes I had been absorbed in this work, forgetting everything that was going on about me, when Mlle. Marguerite suddenly spoke:

"Do you want a Velleda to enliven your picture?"

I looked up. She had wound a wreath of oak-leaves round her forehead and stood at the head of the _dolmen_, leaning lightly against a sheaf of saplings. In the half-light, under the branches, her white dress looked like marble, and her eyes shone with strange fire in the shadow of the oaken crown. She was beautiful, and I think she knew it. I looked at her and found it hard to speak.

"If I am in the way, I'll move," she said.

"Oh, no! please don't."

"Well, make haste; put Mervyn in too. He'll be the Druid and I the Druidess."

I was so lucky--thanks to the vagueness of a sketch--as to reproduce this poetic vision pretty faithfully. Evidently interested, she came and looked at the drawing.

"It isn't bad," she said, laughing, as she threw her crown away. "You must admit that I am very good to you."

I did. I might even have added, if she had asked me, that she was not without a spice of coquetry. But without that she would not have been a woman. Perfection is detestable, and even goddesses need something besides their deathless beauty to win love.

We went back through the tangled underwood to the path in the wood, and thence returned to the river.

"Before we return," said the young girl, "I want to show you the waterfall, more especially as I am looking forward to a little diversion on my own account. Come, Mervyn, come along, dear dog. Oh, you are lovely!"