MARIE LAGOUTTE RELATES HER EXPERIENCE.
When I again saw Odile her expression was one of complete wretchedness;
her swollen eyes told me that she had been weeping long, and her extreme
pallor and weariness cut me to the heart.
"My dear mademoiselle," I said to her, with forced cheerfulness, "we
must not be despondent. The turning-point of the malady must soon
arrive, and this crisis safely passed, we may expect to see the Count in
as good health as before."
She looked at me with an expression of gratitude for my wish to console
her, but underlying it, I felt there was a quiet conviction to the
contrary, and I realized the weakness of my position when I reflected
that she might very probably be possessed of facts, unknown to me, which
entirely disproved my words.
"At all events," she replied, after a pause of some moments, "it is
grateful to know that there is some one who shares our anxieties and has
the desire really at heart to mitigate them."
"You speak truly, mademoiselle," I returned. "I desire nothing so much
as to see peace and contentment restored to this house, and I only wish
that I possessed a thousandfold more power to accomplish it than I do.
But whatever my skill is, it shall be devoted to this one end; and I
shall not despair of success until all my efforts have proved
unavailing."
I was surprised at my own warmth a moment after; but Odile's glance
satisfied me that I had not transgressed the limits of that reserve with
which she surrounded herself.
"And furthermore," I continued, encouraged by this fact to speak what I
had for some time meditated, "if I might add the advice of a friend to
that of the doctor, I should beg of you to spare yourself as much as
possible in the matter of night watches and too unremitting a care of
the Count, for a true woman's strength is exhausted long before her
will, and you owe it to your friends as well as to yourself to preserve
the life which God has entrusted to you."
Odile lowered her eyes, then raised them; and as I approached and lifted
to my lips the hand which she gave me, I surprised there a look which
opened up to me a world of speculation.
I returned to my chamber, where I found an hour none too long to calm in
a measure the exuberance of feeling to which my moments with Odile
invariably gave rise.
Inclination made me quite as much concerned to spare Odile the suffering
which her father's revolting harshness in his moments of delirium caused
her, as to restore the Count to health, for after the morning's
experience I felt that my pity for the sick man had, in spite of
myself, largely given place to loathing; and I felt too, with Sperver,
that I could throttle him as he continued to heap injuries upon his
daughter's defenceless head.
However, there was but one way to alter the present condition of things
and to establish a better one; namely, to effect the Count's cure, and I
resolved that the best effort of my life should be expended here.
Meanwhile I knew not where to begin. Medicines used otherwise than as
opiates seemed lacking in the smallest efficacy. I saw nothing for it
but to await developments.
To remonstrate with Odile in the matter of the vow which she had taken
was clearly out of the question, though I was curious to see if any
yielding on her part would effect the change in her father's condition
which he averred it would.
And the reason of her absolute refusal to entertain even the thought of
marriage? What could it be? She was not without feeling, a fact
sufficiently demonstrated by her unswerving devotion to the Count. Nor
did it seem to me that she could regard with disdain the fulfilment of
that position which is the noblest aim and achievement of womankind, and
which she was so eminently fitted by every circumstance of fortune to
occupy and adorn. It could not be that there was any lack of
understanding; for at times, when I surprised her glance resting upon
me, I read in it a depth of sensibility that seemed almost
unfathomable; and that its possessor was all kindness, in the strongest
and best sense of the term, I was convinced. Of the answer to this
riddle, it seemed then, I must forever remain in ignorance; but while
any chance remained to solve it, I was determined to do so at all costs.
Meanwhile the Count's illness continued its course. All that Sperver had
told me verified itself. Sometimes the Count, starting up and leaning on
his elbow with outstretched neck and staring eyes, would mutter, "She is
coming! She is coming!" Then Gideon would shake his head and climb the
signal-tower; but in vain did he look to right and left: the Black
Plague was nowhere to be seen.
After long reflection upon this strange malady, I had finally persuaded
myself that the Count was deranged. The singular influence which the old
creature exerted upon his mind, his alternate periods of delirium and
calm, all served to strengthen me in this opinion. "Unknown chains unite
his fate with that of the Black Plague," I said to myself. "That woman
may have been young and beautiful in the past; who knows?" and my
imagination, once launched in this direction, soon built up a romance;
but I was careful to mention nothing of my thoughts,--Sperver would
never have forgiven me for entertaining suspicions of a relationship
between his master and the hag.
During these anxious days, the one bright thing in my life was Odile's
presence. Had it not been for this, I doubt if I should longer have
preserved any degree of hope.
I know not if I myself quite realized the extent of my growing affection
for Odile, but certain it is that with each day her image became more
and more identified with all that I held dearest in the world, and as I
moved about the old Castle halls and chambers, the library, the
drawing-room, the chapel, her fair figure and light step accompanied me
in fancy, and I likened her to the delicate, fragrant rose, which in
summer blossomed and waved from the rough interstices of the Castle's
battlements.
Things were in this pass when one morning, at about eight o'clock, I was
walking up and down in Hugh's Tower thinking of the Count's malady, the
outcome of which I could foresee no more clearly than before, and
cudgelling my wits to determine what was next to be done. Suddenly I was
roused from these cheerless reflections by three discreet taps on my
door.
"Come in!"
The door opened, and Marie Lagoutte entered, dropping a low courtesy.
The worthy woman's arrival annoyed me a good deal; I was on the point of
asking her to leave me for the present, when an expression of unusual
seriousness on her face aroused my curiosity. She had thrown a large
red-and-green shawl over her shoulders, and stood with her lips pursed
up and her eyes on the floor. It surprised me not a little to see her,
after a moment, approach the door and open it again, apparently to make
sure that no one had followed her.
"What does she want of me?" I asked myself. "What do all these
precautions mean?" I was puzzled.
"Monsieur," she said at length, drawing nearer me, "I beg your pardon
for disturbing you so early in the morning, but I have something
important to tell you."
"Pray go on! What is it about?"
"It is about the Count."
"Ah!"
"Yes, monsieur; you probably know that I sat up with him last night."
"I know you did. Pray sit down!"
She seated herself in a chair opposite me, a big, leather-covered
armchair, and I remarked with interest the energetic character of the
face which had seemed to me only grotesque on the evening of my arrival
at the Castle.
"Monsieur," she went on after a brief pause, fixing her dark eyes on me,
"I must tell you first of all that I am not a timid woman. I have seen
many things in my life,--things so terrible that nothing astonishes me
any more. When any one has passed through Rossbach, Leuthen, and
Zorndorf, he has left fear behind him on the road."
"You speak truly, madame!"
"I don't tell you this from a desire to boast, but only to convince you
that I don't lose my wits at nothing, and that you may depend upon what
I say when I tell you I have seen something."
"What the deuce can she have to tell me?" I said to myself.
"Well!" she continued; "last night, between nine and ten, just as I was
starting up to bed, Offenloch came in and said to me:
"'Marie, you must sit up with the Count to-night.'
"I was surprised at this, and replied:
"'What! sit up with the Count! Isn't madame going to sit up with him
herself?'
"'No; our mistress is ill, and you must take her place.'
"Ill, poor child! I was sure it would end that way, and I told her so a
hundred times; but what can you do, monsieur? Young people never have
any thought for the future,--and then, it was her own father, too. So I
took my knitting, said good night to Toby, and went to the master's
room. Sperver, who was waiting for me, went off to bed as soon as I
came in, and I was left all alone."
Here the good woman paused, slowly breathed up a pinch of snuff, and
seemed to be brushing up her memory. I had become attentive.
"At about half past ten," she continued, "I was knitting away beside the
bed, and every now and then I raised the curtain to see how the Count
was doing; he never stirred; he was sleeping like a child. All went well
up to eleven o'clock; then I began to feel tired; when you are old,
monsieur, do what you will, you fall asleep in spite of yourself; and
then, too, I didn't think anything was going to happen. I said to
myself, 'He will sleep like a top till morning!'
"Towards midnight the wind died down, and the big windows that had been
rattling all the evening were quiet. I got up to see if anything was
going on outside. The night was as black as a bottle of ink, and I went
back to my armchair. I took another look at the sick man and I saw that
he hadn't stirred; then I went on knitting. After a few minutes, I fell
slowly, slowly to sleep. My chair was as soft as down and the room was
very warm; I couldn't keep awake.
"I had been asleep about an hour, when a draught of cold air woke me. I
opened my eyes, and what did I see? The long, middle window was wide
open, the curtains were drawn, and the Count was standing upright on the
window-sill!"
"The Count?"
"Yes."
"Impossible! He cannot move!"
"I couldn't believe my eyes; but, nevertheless, I saw him as plainly as
I see you this minute. He held a torch in his hand, and the air was so
still that its flame never wavered."
I stared at Marie Lagoutte, stupefied.
"At first," she went on, "when I saw the master in this extraordinary
position, it made such an effect on me that I wanted to scream; but then
I thought, 'Perhaps he is walking in his sleep; if you cry out and wake
him he will fall and be dashed to pieces.' So I kept still and watched
him, as you can fancy. He raised his torch slowly, and then he lowered
it, and he did this three times, like a man making signals to some one;
then he threw it down on to the ramparts, closed the window, and drew
the curtains; he passed before me without appearing to see me, and got
into bed again muttering Heaven knows what."
"Are you certain you saw all this, madame?"
"Perfectly!"
"It is strange!"
"Yes, I know it, but it is true! Goodness, how astonished I was for a
moment! Then, when I saw him go back to bed again and cross his hands
over his breast as if nothing had happened, I said to myself, 'Marie
Anne, you have had a bad dream; that is the only explanation of it!' and
I went over to the window. But the torch was still burning; it had
fallen into a bush a little to the left of the third gate, and you
could see it glowing like a spark. There was no denying it!"
Marie Lagoutte looked at me for some minutes without speaking.
"You can imagine, monsieur, that there was no more sleep for me that
night. I was on tenter-hooks; every moment I thought I heard something
behind my chair. I wasn't afraid, but I was uneasy; it worried me. This
morning, at the first signs of day, I ran to wake up Offenloch, and I
sent him to the Count's bedside. As I went along the corridor I noticed
that the first torch on the right was missing from its ring. I went down
the stairs, and I found it in the little path that leads to the Black
Forest. See! here it is!"
And she took from under her apron the end of a torch, which she laid on
the table. I was thunderstruck. How could this man, whom but the night
before I had seen so weak and exhausted, have risen from his bed, walked
to the window, and opened and closed the heavy sash? What did this
midnight signal mean? Wide awake as I was, it seemed to me as if I, too,
had witnessed the strange scene, and my thoughts reverted involuntarily
to the Black Plague. I roused myself at last from introspection, and I
saw Marie Lagoutte had risen and was about to depart.
"Madame," I said, as I moved with her to the door, "you have acted
wisely in telling me this, and I thank you heartily for doing so. You
have told no one else of this adventure?"
"No one, monsieur. Such things are only to be confided to the priest
and doctor."
"Ah! I see you are a very sensible person."
These words were exchanged on my threshold. At this moment, Sperver
appeared at the end of the gallery, followed by his friend Sebalt.
"Ho, Gaston!" he cried, hurrying up; "I have news for you!"
"Well, well!" I exclaimed; "more news. The Old Harry is most certainly
taking a hand in our affairs."
Marie Lagoutte had disappeared. The steward and his comrade entered the
Tower.