Chapter 13
It was so. Dionysia, as long as she had been uncertain of the result, had felt in her heart that Jacques's safety depended on her courage and her presence of mind. But now, assured of success, she could no longer control her excitement; and, overcome by the effort, she had sunk down on a chair and burst out into tears.
The clerk shut the door, and looked at her for some time; then, having overcome his own emotions, he said to her,--
"Madame."
But, as she heard his voice, she jumped up, and taking his hands into hers, she broke out,--
"O sir! How can I thank you! How can I ever make you aware of the depth of my gratitude!"
"Don't speak of that," he said almost rudely, trying to conceal his deep feeling.
"I will say nothing more," she replied very gently; "but I must tell you that none of us will ever forget the debt of gratitude which we owe you from this day. You say the great service which you are about to render us is not free from danger. Whatever may happen, you must remember, that, from this moment, you have in us devoted friends."
The interruption caused by his sisters had had the good effect of restoring to Mechinet a good portion of his habitual self-possession. He said,--
"I hope no harm will come of it; and yet I cannot conceal from you, madam, that the service which I am going to try to render you presents more difficulties than I thought."
"Great God!" murmured Dionysia.
"M. Galpin," the clerk went on saying, "is, perhaps, not exactly a superior man; but he understands his profession; he is cunning, and exceedingly suspicious. Only yesterday he told me that he knew the Boiscoran family would try every thing in the world to save M. de Boiscoran from justice. Hence he is all the time on the watch, and takes all kinds of precautions. If he dared to it, he would have his bed put across his cell in the prison."
"That man hates me, M. Mechinet!"
"Oh, no, madam! But he is ambitious: he thinks his success in his profession depends upon his success in this case; and he is afraid the accused might escape or be carried off."
Mechinet was evidently in great perplexity, and scratched his ear. Then he added,--
"How am I to go about to let M. de Boiscoran have your note? If he knew beforehand, it would be easy. But he is unprepared. And then he is just as suspicious as M. Galpin. He is always afraid lest they prepare him a trap; and he is on the lookout. If I make him a sign, I fear he will not understand me; and, if I make him a sign, will not M. Galpin see it? That man is lynx-eyed."
"Are you never alone with M. de Boiscoran?"
"Never for an instant, madam. I only go in with the magistrate, and I come out with him. You will say, perhaps, that in leaving, as I am behind, I might drop the note cleverly. But, when we leave, the jailer is there, and he has good eyes. I should have to dread, besides, M. de Boiscoran's own suspicions. If he saw a letter coming to him in that way, from me, he is quite capable of handing it at once to M. Galpin."
He paused, and after a moment's meditation he went on,--
"The safest way would probably be to win the confidence of M. Blangin, the keeper of the jail, or of some prisoner, whose duty it is to wait on M. de Boiscoran, and to watch him."
"Trumence!" exclaimed Dionysia.
The clerk's face expressed the most startled surprise. He said,--
"What! You know his name?"
"Yes, I do; for Blangin mentioned him to me; and the name struck me the day when M. de Boiscoran's mother and I went to the jail, not knowing what was meant by 'close confinement.'"
The clerk was disappointed.
"Ah!" he said, "now I understand M. Galpin's great trouble. He has, no doubt, heard of your visit, and imagined that you wanted to rob him of his prisoner."
He murmured some words, which Dionysia could not hear; and then, coming to some decision, apparently, he said,--
"Well, never mind! I'll see what can be done. Write your letter, madam: here are pens and ink."
The young girl made no reply, but sat down at Mechinet's table; but, at the moment when she was putting pen to paper she asked,--
"Has M. de Boiscoran any books in his prison?"
"Yes, madam. At his request M. Galpin himself went and selected, in M. Daubigeon's library, some books of travels and some of Cooper's novels for him."
Dionysia uttered a cry of delight.
"O Jacques!" she said, "how glad I am you counted upon me!" and, without noticing how utterly Mechinet seemed to be surprised, she wrote,--
"We are sure of your innocence, Jacques, and still we are in despair. Your mother is here, with a Paris lawyer, a M. Folgat, who is devoted to your interests. What must we do? Give us your instructions. You can reply without fear, as you have _our_ book.
"DIONYSIA."
"Read this," she said to the clerk, when she had finished. But he did not avail himself of the permission. He folded the paper, and slipped it into an envelope, which he sealed.
"Oh, you are very kind!" said the young girl, touched by his delicacy.
"Not at all, madam. I only try to do a dishonest thing in the most honest way. To-morrow, madam, you shall have your answer."
"I will call for it."
Mechinet trembled.
"Take care not to do so," he said. "The good people of Sauveterre are too cunning not to know that just now you are not thinking much of dress; and your calls here would look suspicious. Leave it to me to see to it that you get M. de Boiscoran's answer."
While Dionysia was writing, the clerk had made a parcel of the bonds which she had brought. He handed it to her, and said,--
"Take it, madam. If I want money for Blangin, or for Trumence, I will ask you for it. And now you must go: you need not go in to my sisters. I will explain your visit to them."
VIII.
"What can have happened to Dionysia, that she does not come back?" murmured Grandpapa Chandore, as he walked up and down the Square, and looked, for the twentieth time, at his watch. For some time the fear of displeasing his grandchild, and of receiving a scolding, kept him at the place where she had told him to wait for her; but at last it was too much for him, and he said,--
"Upon my word, this is too much! I'll risk it."
And, crossing the road which separates the Square from the houses, he entered the long, narrow passage in the house of the sisters Mechinet. He was just putting his foot on the first step of the stairs, when he saw a light above. He distinguished the voice of his granddaughter, and then her light step.
"At last!" he thought.
And swiftly, like a schoolboy who hears his teacher coming, and fears to be caught in the act, he slipped back into the Square. Dionysia was there almost at the same moment, and fell on his neck, saying,--
"Dear grandpapa, I bring you back your bonds," and then she rained a shower of kisses upon the old gentleman's furrowed cheeks.
If any thing could astonish M. de Chandore, it was the idea that there should exist in this world a man with a heart hard, cruel, and barbarous enough, to resist his Dionysia's prayers and tears, especially if they were backed by twenty thousand francs. Nevertheless, he said mournfully,--
"Ah! I told you, my dear child, you would not succeed."
"And you were mistaken, dear grandpapa, and you are still mistaken; for I have succeeded!"
"But--you bring back the money?"
"Because I have found an honest man, dearest grandpapa,--a most honorable man. Poor fellow, how I must have tempted his honesty! For he is very much embarrassed, I know it from good authority, ever since he and his sisters bought that house. It was more than comfort, it was a real fortune, I offered him. Ah! you ought to have seen how his eyes brightened up, and how his hands trembled, when he took up the bonds! Well, he refused to take them, after all; and the only reward he asks for the very good service which he is going to render us"--
M. de Chandore expressed his assent by a gesture, and then said,--
"You are right, darling: that clerk is a good man, and he has won our eternal gratitude."
"I ought to add," continued Dionysia, "that I was ever so brave. I should never have thought that I could be so bold. I wish you had been hid in some corner, grandpapa, to see me and hear me. You would not have recognized your grandchild. I cried a little, it is true, when I had carried my point."
"Oh, dear, dear child!" murmured the old gentleman, deeply moved.
"You see, grandpapa, I thought of nothing but of Jacques's danger, and of the glory of proving myself worthy of him, who is so brave himself. I hope he will be satisfied with me."
"He would be hard to please, indeed, if he were not!" exclaimed M. de Chandore.
The grandfather and his child were standing all the while under the trees in the great Square while they were thus talking to each other; and already a number of people had taken the opportunity of passing close by them, with ears wide open, and all eagerness, to find out what was going on: it is a way people have in small towns. Dionysia remembered the clerk's kindly warnings; and, as soon as she became aware of it, she said to her grandfather,--
"Come, grandpapa. People are listening. I will tell you the rest as we are going home."
And so, on their way, she told him all the little details of her interview; and the old gentleman declared, in all earnest, that he did not know which to admire most,--her presence of mind, or Mechinet's disinterestedness.
"All the more reason," said the young girl, "why we should not add to the dangers which the good man is going to run for us. I promised him to tell nobody, and I mean to keep my promise. If you believe me, dear grandpapa, we had better not speak of it to anybody, not even to my aunts."
"You might just as well declare at once, little scamp, that you want to save Jacques quite alone, without anybody's help."
"Ah, if I could do that! Unfortunately, we must take M. Folgat into our confidence; for we cannot do without his advice."
Thus it was done. The poor aunts, and even the marchioness, had to be content with Dionysia's not very plausible explanation of her visit. And a few hours afterwards M. de Chandore, the young girl, and M. Folgat held a council in the baron's study. The young lawyer was even more surprised by Dionysia's idea, and her bold proceedings, then her grandfather; he would never have imagined that she was capable of such a step, she looked so timid and innocent, like a mere child. He was about to compliment her; but she interrupted him eagerly, saying,--
"There is nothing to boast of. I ran no risk."
"A very substantial risk, madam, I assure you."
"Pshaw!" exclaimed M. de Chandore.
"To bribe an official," continued M. Folgat, "is a very grave offence. The Criminal Code has a certain paragraph, No. 179, which does not trifle, and punishes the man who bribes, as well as the man who is bribed."
"Well, so much the better!" cried Dionysia. "If poor M. Mechinet has to go to prison, I'll go with him!"
And, without noticing the dissatisfaction expressed in her grandfather's features, she added, turning to M. Folgat,--
"After all, sir, you see that your wishes have been fulfilled. We shall be able to communicate with M. de Boiscoran: he will give us his instructions."
"Perhaps so, madam."
"How? Perhaps? You said yourself"--
"I told you, madam, it would be useless, perhaps even imprudent, to take any steps before we know the truth. But will we know it? Do you think that M. de Boiscoran, who has good reasons for being suspicious of every thing, will at once tell us all in a letter which must needs pass through several hands before it can reach us?"
"He will tell us all, sir, without reserve, without fear, and without danger."
"Oh!"
"I have taken my precautions. You will see."
"Then we have only to wait."
Alas, yes! They had to wait, and that was what distressed Dionysia. She hardly slept that night. The next day was one unbroken torment. At each ringing of the bell, she trembled, and ran to see.
At last, towards five o'clock, when nothing had come, she said,--
"It is not to be to-day, provided, O God! that poor Mechinet has not been caught."
And, perhaps in order to escape for a time the anguish of her fears, she agreed to accompany Jacques's mother, who wanted to pay some visits.
Ah, if she had but known! She had not left the house ten minutes, when one of those street-boys, who abound at all hours of the day on the great Square, appeared, bringing a letter to her address. They took it to M. de Chandore, who, while waiting for dinner, was walking in the garden with M. Folgat.
"A letter for Dionysia!" exclaimed the old gentleman, as soon as the servant had disappeared. "Here is the answer we have been waiting for!"
He boldly tore it open. Alas! It was useless. The note within the envelope ran thus,--
"31:9, 17, 19, 23, 25, 28, 32, 101, 102, 129, 137, 504, 515--37:2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 24, 27, 52, 54, 118, 119, 120, 200, 201--41:7, 9, 17, 21, 22, 44, 45, 46"--
And so on, for two pages.
"Look at this, and try to make it out," said M. de Chandore, handing the letter to M. Folgat.
The young man actually tried it; but, after five minutes' useless efforts, he said,--
"I understand now why Miss Chandore promised us that we should know the truth. M. de Boiscoran and she have formerly corresponded with each other in cipher."
Grandpapa Chandore raised his hands to heaven.
"Just think of these little girls! Here we are utterly helpless without her, as she alone can translate those hieroglyphics for you."
If Dionysia had hoped, by accompanying the marchioness on her visits, to escape from the sad presentiments that oppressed her, she was cruelly disappointed. They went to M. Seneschal's house first; but the mayor's wife was by no means calculated to give courage to others in an hour of peril. She could do nothing but embrace alternately Jacques's mother and Dionysia, and, amid a thousand sobs, tell them over and over again, that she looked upon one as the most unfortunate of mothers, and upon the other as the most unfortunate of betrothed maidens.
"Does the woman think Jacques is guilty?" thought Dionysia, and felt almost angry.
And that was not all. As they returned home, and passed the house which had been provisionally taken for Count Claudieuse and his family, they heard a little boy calling out,--
"O mamma, come quick! Here are the murderer's mother and his sweetheart."
Thus the poor girl came home more downcast than before. Immediately, however, her maid, who had evidently been on the lookout for her return, told her that her grandfather and the lawyer from Paris were waiting for her in the baron's study. She hastened there without stopping to take off her bonnet; and, as soon as she came in, M. de Chandore handed her Jacques's letter, saying,--
"Here is your answer."
She could not repress a little cry of delight, and rapidly touched the letter with her lips, repeating,--
"Now we are safe, we are safe!"
M. de Chandore smiled at the happiness of his granddaughter.
"But, Miss Hypocrite," he said, "it seems you had great secrets to communicate to M. de Boiscoran, since you resorted to cipher, like arch conspirators. M. Folgat and I tried to read it; but it was all Greek to us."
Now only the young lady remembered M. Folgat's presence, and, blushing deeply, she said,--
"Latterly Jacques and I had been discussing the various methods to which people resort who wish to carry on a secret correspondence: this led him to teach me one of the ways. Two correspondents choose any book they like, and each takes a copy of the same edition. The writer looks in his volume for the words he wants, and numbers them; his correspondent finds them by the aid of these numbers. Thus, in Jacques's letters, the numbers followed by a colon refer to the pages, and the others to the order in which the words come."
"Ah, ah!" said Grandpapa Chandore, "I might have looked a long time."
"It is a very simple method," replied Dionysia, "very well known, and still quite safe. How could an outsider guess what book the correspondents have chosen? Then there are other means to mislead indiscreet people. It may be agreed upon, for instance, that the numbers shall never have their apparent value, or that they shall vary according to the day of the month or the week. Thus, to-day is Monday, the second day of the week. Well, I have to deduct one from each number of a page, and add one to each number of a word."
"And you will be able to make it all out?" asked M. de Chandore.
"Certainly, dear grandpapa. Ever since Jacques explained it to me, I have tried to learn it as a matter of course. We have chose a book which I am very fond of, Cooper's 'Spy;' and we amused ourselves by writing endless letters. Oh! it is very amusing, and it takes time, because one does not always find the words that are needed, and then they have to be spelled letter by letter."
"And M. de Boiscoran has a copy of Cooper's novels in his prison?" asked M. Folgat.
"Yes, sir. M. Mechinet told me so. As soon as Jacques found he was to be kept in close confinement, he asked for some of Cooper's novels, and M. Galpin, who is so cunning, so smart, and so suspicious, went himself and got them for him. Jacques was counting upon me."
"Then, dear child, go and read your letter, and solve the riddle," said M. de Chandore.
When she had left, he said to his companion,--
"How she loves him! How she loves this man Jacques! Sir, if any thing should happen to him, she would die."
M. Folgat made no reply; and nearly an hour passed, before Dionysia, shut up in her room, had succeeded in finding all the words of which Jacques's letter was composed. But when she had finished, and came back to her grandfather's study, her youthful face expressed the most profound despair.
"This is horrible!" she said.
The same idea crossed, like a sharp arrow, the minds of M. de Chandore and M. Folgat. Had Jacques confessed?
"Look, read yourself!" said Dionysia, handing them the translation.
Jacques wrote,--
"Thanks for your letter, my darling. A presentiment had warned me, and I had asked for a copy of Cooper.
"I understand but too well how grieved you must be at seeing me kept in prison without my making an effort to establish my innocence. I kept silence, because I hoped the proof of my innocence would come from outside. I see that it would be madness to hope so any longer, and that I must speak. I shall speak. But what I have to say is so very serious, that I shall keep silence until I shall have had an opportunity of consulting with some one in whom I can feel perfect confidence. Prudence alone is not enough now: skill also is required. Until now I felt secure, relying on my innocence. But the last examination has opened my eyes, and I now see the danger to which I am exposed.
"I shall suffer terribly until the day when I can see a lawyer. Thank my mother for having brought one. I hope he will pardon me, if I address myself first to another man. I want a man who knows the country and its customs.
"That is why I have chosen M. Magloire; and I beg you will tell him to hold himself ready for the day on which, the examination being completed, I shall be relieved from close confinement.
"Until then, nothing can be done, nothing, unless you can obtain that the case be taken out of M. G-----'s hands, and be given to some one else. That man acts infamously. He wants me to be guilty. He would himself commit a crime in order to charge me with it, and there is no kind of trap he does not lay for me. I have the greatest difficulty in controlling myself every time I see this man enter my cell, who was my friend, and now is my accuser.
"Ah, my dear ones! I pay a heavy price for a fault of which I have been, until now, almost unconscious.
"And you, my only friend, will you ever be able to forgive me the terrible anxiety I cause you?
"I should like to say much more; but the prisoner who has handed me your note says I must be quick, and it takes so much time to pick out the words!
"J."
When the letter had been read, M. Folgat and M. de Chandore sadly turned their heads aside, fearing lest Dionysia should read in their eyes the secret of their thoughts. But she felt only too well what it meant.
"You cannot doubt Jacques, grandpapa!" she cried.
"No," murmured the old gentleman feebly, "no."
"And you, M. Folgat--are you so much hurt by Jacques's desire to consult another lawyer?"
"I should have been the first, madam, to advise him to consult a native."
Dionysia had to summon all her energy to check her tears.
"Yes," she said, "this letter is terrible; but how can it be otherwise? Don't you see that Jacques is in despair, that his mind wanders after all these fearful shocks?"
Somebody knocked gently at the door.
"It is I," said the marchioness.
Grandpapa Chandore, M. Folgat, and Dionysia looked at each other for a moment; and then the advocate said,--
"The situation is too serious: we must consult the marchioness." He rose to open the door. Since the three friends had been holding the council in the baron's study, a servant had come five times in succession to knock at the door, and tell them that the soup was on the table.
"Very well," they had replied each time.
At last, as they did not come down yet, Jacques's mother had come to the conclusion that something extraordinary had occurred.
"Now, what could this be, that they should keep it from her?" she thought. If it were something good, they would not have concealed it from her. She had come up stairs, therefore, with the firm resolution to force them to let her come in. When M. Folgat opened the door, she said instantly,--
"I mean to know all!"
Dionysia replied to her,--
"Whatever you may hear, my dear mother, pray remember, that if you allow a single word to be torn from you, by joy or by sorrow, you cause the ruin of an honest man, who has put us all under such obligations as can never be fully discharged. I have been fortunate enough to establish a correspondence between Jacques and us."
"O Dionysia!"
"I have written to him, and I have received his answer. Here it is."
The marchioness was almost beside herself, and eagerly snatched at the letter. But, as she read on, it was fearful to see how the blood receded from her face, how her eyes grew dim, her lips turned pale, and at last her breath failed to come. The letter slipped from her trembling hands; she sank into a chair, and said, stammering,--
"It is no use to struggle any longer: we are lost!"
There was something grand in Dionysia's gesture and the admirable accent of her voice, as she said,--
"Why don't you say at once, my mother, that Jacques is an incendiary and an assassin?"
Raising her head with an air of dauntless energy, with trembling lips, and fierce glances full of wrath and disdain, she added,--
"And do I really remain the only one to defend him,--him, who, in his days of prosperity, had so many friends? Well, so be it!"
Naturally, M. Folgat had been less deeply moved than either the marchioness or M. de Chandore; and hence he was also the first to recover his calmness.
"We shall be two, madam, at all events," he said; "for I should never forgive myself, if I allowed myself to be influenced by that letter. It would be inexcusable, since I know by experience what your heart has told you instinctively. Imprisonment has horrors which affect the strongest and stoutest of minds. The days in prison are interminable, and the nights have nameless terrors. The innocent man in his lonely cell feels as if he were becoming guilty, as the man of soundest intellect would begin to doubt himself in a madhouse"--
Dionysia did not let him conclude. She cried,--
"That is exactly what I felt, sir; but I could not express it as clearly as you do."
Ashamed at their lack of courage, M. de Chandore and the marchioness made an effort to recover from the doubts which, for a moment, had well-nigh overcome them.
"But what is to be done?" asked the old lady.