The Chouans Part 36

"Besides, cousin, we don't want excuses, we want your axe. You are condemned."

At a sign from his companion, Pille-Miche helped Marche-a-Terre to seize the victim. Finding himself in their grasp Galope-Chopine lost all power and fell on his knees holding up his hands to his slayers in desperation.

"My friends, my good friends, my cousin," he said, "what will become of my little boy?"

"I will take charge of him," said Marche-a-Terre.

"My good comrades," cried the victim, turning livid. "I am not fit to die. Don't make me go without confession. You have the right to take my life, but you've no right to make me lose a blessed eternity."

"That is true," said Marche-a-Terre, addressing Pille-Miche.

The two Chouans waited a moment in much uncertainty, unable to decide this case of conscience. Galope-Chopine listened to the rustling of the wind as though he still had hope. Suddenly Pille-Miche took him by the arm into a corner of the hut.

"Confess your sins to me," he said, "and I will tell them to a priest of the true Church, and if there is any penance to do I will do it for you."

Galope-Chopine obtained some respite by the way in which he confessed his sins; but in spite of their number and the circ.u.mstances of each crime, he came finally to the end of them.

"Cousin," he said, imploringly, "since I am speaking to you as I would to my confessor, I do a.s.sure you, by the holy name of G.o.d, that I have nothing to reproach myself with except for having, now and then, b.u.t.tered my bread on both sides; and I call on Saint-Labre, who is there over the chimney-piece, to witness that I have never said one word about the Gars. No, my good friends, I have not betrayed him."

"Very good, that will do, cousin; you can explain all that to G.o.d in course of time."

"But let me say good-bye to Barbette."

"Come," said Marche-a-Terre, "if you don't want us to think you worse than you are, behave like a Breton and be done with it."

The two Chouans seized him again and threw him on the bench where he gave no other sign of resistance than the instinctive and convulsive motions of an animal, uttering a few smothered groans, which ceased when the axe fell. The head was off at the first blow. Marche-a-Terre took it by the hair, left the room, sought and found a large nail in the rough casing of the door, and wound the hair about it; leaving the b.l.o.o.d.y head, the eyes of which he did not even close, to hang there.

The two Chouans then washed their hands, without the least haste, in a pot full of water, picked up their hats and guns, and jumped the gate, whistling the "Ballad of the Captain." Pille-Miche began to sing in a hoa.r.s.e voice as he reached the field the last verses of that rustic song, their melody floating on the breeze:-

"At the first town Her lover dressed her All in white satin;

"At the next town Her lover dressed her In gold and silver.

"So beautiful was she They gave her veils To wear in the regiment."

The tune became gradually indistinguishable as the Chouans got further away; but the silence of the country was so great that several of the notes reached Barbette's ear as she neared home, holding her boy by the hand. A peasant-woman never listens coldly to that song, so popular is it in the West of France, and Barbette began, unconsciously, to sing the first verses:-

"Come, let us go, my girl, Let us go to the war; Let us go, it is time.

"Brave captain, Let it not trouble you, But my daughter is not for you.

"You shall not have her on earth, You shall not have her at sea, Unless by treachery.

"The father took his daughter, He unclothed her And flung her out to sea.

"The captain, wiser still, Into the waves he jumped And to the sh.o.r.e he brought her.

"Come, let us go, my girl, Let us go to the war; Let us go, it is time.

"At the first town Her lover dressed her,"

Etc., etc.

As Barbette reached this verse of the song, where Pille-Miche had begun it, she was entering the courtyard of her home; her tongue suddenly stiffened, she stood still, and a great cry, quickly repressed, came from her gaping lips.

"What is it, mother?" said the child.

"Walk alone," she cried, pulling her hand away and pus.h.i.+ng him roughly; "you have neither father nor mother."

The child, who was rubbing his shoulder and weeping, suddenly caught sight of the thing on the nail; his childlike face kept the nervous convulsion his crying had caused, but he was silent. He opened his eyes wide, and gazed at the head of his father with a stupid look which betrayed no emotion; then his face, brutalized by ignorance, showed savage curiosity. Barbette again took his hand, grasped it violently, and dragged him into the house. When Pille-Miche and Marche-a-Terre threw their victim on the bench one of his shoes, dropping off, fell on the floor beneath his neck and was afterward filled with blood. It was the first thing that met the widow's eye.

"Take off your shoe," said the mother to her son. "Put your foot in that. Good. Remember," she cried, in a solemn voice, "your father's shoe; never put on your own without remembering how the Chouans filled it with his blood, and kill the Chouans!"

She swayed her head with so convulsive an action that the meshes of her black hair fell upon her neck and gave a sinister expression to her face.

"I call Saint-Labre to witness," she said, "that I vow you to the Blues. You shall be a soldier to avenge your father. Kill, kill the Chouans, and do as I do. Ha! they've taken the head of my man, and I am going to give that of the Gars to the Blues."

She sprang at a bound on the bed, seized a little bag of money from a hiding-place, took the hand of the astonished little boy, and dragged him after her without giving him time to put on his shoe, and was on her way to Fougeres rapidly, without once turning her head to look at the home she abandoned. When they reached the summit of the rocks of Saint-Sulpice Barbette set fire to the pile of f.a.gots, and the boy helped her to pile on the green gorse, damp with h.o.a.rfrost, to make the smoke more dense.

"That fire will last longer than your father, longer than I, longer than the Gars," said Barbette, in a savage voice.

While the widow of Galope-Chopine and her son with his b.l.o.o.d.y foot stood watching, the one, with a gloomy expression of revenge, the other with curiosity, the curling of the smoke, Mademoiselle de Verneuil's eyes were fastened on the same rock, trying, but in vain, to see her lover's signal. The fog, which had thickened, buried the whole region under a veil, its gray tints obscuring even the outlines of the scenery that was nearest the town. She examined with tender anxiety the rocks, the castle, the buildings, which loomed like shadows through the mist. Near her window several trees stood out against this blue-gray background; the sun gave a dull tone as of tarnished silver to the sky; its rays colored the bare branches of the trees, where a few last leaves were fluttering, with a dingy red. But too many dear and delightful sentiments filled Marie's soul to let her notice the ill-omens of a scene so out of harmony with the joys she was tasting in advance. For the last two days her ideas had undergone a change. The fierce, undisciplined vehemence of her pa.s.sions had yielded under the influence of the equable atmosphere which a true love gives to life. The certainty of being loved, sought through so many perils, had given birth to a desire to re-enter those social conditions which sanction love, and which despair alone had made her leave. To love for a moment only now seemed to her a species of weakness. She saw herself lifted from the dregs of society, where misfortune had driven her, to the high rank in which her father had meant to place her. Her vanity, repressed for a time by the cruel alternations of hope and misconception, was awakened and showed her all the benefits of a great position. Born in a certain way to rank, marriage to a marquis meant, to her mind, living and acting in the sphere that belonged to her. Having known the chances and changes of an adventurous life, she could appreciate, better than other women, the grandeur of the feelings which make the Family. Marriage and motherhood with all their cares seemed to her less a task than a rest. She loved the calm and virtuous life she saw through the clouds of this last storm as a woman weary of virtue may sometimes covet an illicit pa.s.sion. Virtue was to her a new seduction.

"Perhaps," she thought, leaving the window without seeing the signal on the rocks of Saint-Sulpice, "I have been too coquettish with him-but I knew he loved me! Francine, it is not a dream; to-night I shall be Marquise de Montauran. What have I done to deserve such perfect happiness? Oh! I love him, and love alone is love's reward. And yet, I think G.o.d means to recompense me for taking heart through all my misery; he means me to forget my sufferings-for you know, Francine, I have suffered."

"To-night, Marquise de Montauran, you, Marie? Ah! until it is done I cannot believe it! Who has told him your true goodness?"

"Dear child! he has more than his handsome eyes to see me with, he has a soul. If you had seen him, as I have, in danger! Oh! he knows how to love-he is so brave!"

"If you really love him why do you let him come to Fougeres?"

"We had no time to say one word to each other when the Blues surprised us. Besides, his coming is a proof of love. Can I ever have proofs enough? And now, Francine, do my hair."

But she pulled it down a score of times with motions that seemed electric, as though some stormy thoughts were mingling still with the arts of her coquetry. As she rolled a curl or smoothed the s.h.i.+ning plaits she asked herself, with a remnant of distrust, whether the marquis were deceiving her; but treachery seemed to her impossible, for did he not expose himself to instant vengeance by entering Fougeres? While studying in her mirror the effects of a sidelong glance, a smile, a gentle frown, an att.i.tude of anger, or of love, or disdain, she was seeking some woman's wile by which to probe to the last instant the heart of the young leader.

"You are right, Francine," she said; "I wish with you that the marriage were over. This is the last of my cloudy days-it is big with death or happiness. Oh! that fog is dreadful," she went on, again looking towards the heights of Saint-Sulpice, which were still veiled in mist.

She began to arrange the silk and muslin curtains which draped the window, making them intercept the light and produce in the room a voluptuous chiaro-scuro.

"Francine," she said, "take away those knick-knacks on the mantelpiece; leave only the clock and the two Dresden vases. I'll fill those vases myself with the flowers Corentin brought me. Take out the chairs, I want only this sofa and a fauteuil. Then sweep the carpet, so as to bring out the colors, and put wax candles in the sconces and on the mantel."

Marie looked long and carefully at the old tapestry on the walls. Guided by her innate taste she found among the brilliant tints of these hangings the shades by which to connect their antique beauty with the furniture and accessories of the boudoir, either by the harmony of color or the charm of contrast. The same thought guided the arrangement of the flowers with which she filled the twisted vases which decorated her chamber. The sofa was placed beside the fire. On either side of the bed, which filled the s.p.a.ce parallel to that of the chimney, she placed on gilded tables tall Dresden vases filled with foliage and flowers that were sweetly fragrant. She quivered more than once as she arranged the folds of the green damask above the bed, and studied the fall of the drapery which concealed it. Such preparations have a secret, ineffable happiness about them; they cause so many delightful emotions that a woman as she makes them forgets her doubts; and Mademoiselle de Verneuil forgot hers. There is in truth a religious sentiment in the multiplicity of cares taken for one beloved who is not there to see them and reward them, but who will reward them later with the approving smile these tender preparations (always so fully understood) obtain. Women, as they make them, love in advance; and there are few indeed who would not say to themselves, as Mademoiselle de Verneuil now thought: "To-night I shall be happy!" That soft hope lies in every fold of silk or muslin; insensibly, the harmony the woman makes about her gives an atmosphere of love in which she breathes; to her these things are beings, witnesses; she has made them the sharers of her coming joy. Every movement, every thought brings that joy within her grasp. But presently she expects no longer, she hopes no more, she questions silence; the slightest sound is to her an omen; doubt hooks its claws once more into her heart; she burns, she trembles, she is grasped by a thought which holds her like a physical force; she alternates from triumph to agony, and without the hope of coming happiness she could not endure the torture. A score of times did Mademoiselle de Verneuil raise the window-curtain, hoping to see the smoke rising above the rocks; but the fog only took a grayer tone, which her excited imagination turned into a warning. At last she let fall the curtain, impatiently resolving not to raise it again. She looked gloomily around the charming room to which she had given a soul and a voice, asking herself if it were done in vain, and this thought brought her back to her preparations.

"Francine," she said, drawing her into a little dressing-room which adjoined her chamber and was lighted through a small round window opening on a dark corner of the fortifications where they joined the rock terrace of the Promenade, "put everything in order. As for the salon, you can leave that as it is," she added, with a smile which women reserve for their nearest friends, the delicate sentiment of which men seldom understand.

"Ah! how sweet you are!" exclaimed the little maid.

"A lover is our beauty-foolish women that we are!" she replied gaily.

Francine left her lying on the ottoman and went away convinced that, whether her mistress were loved or not, she would never betray Montauran.