"Confess the truth."
_Measure for Measure._
"You would pluck out the heart of my mystery."
_Hamlet._
Claude Montigny rode to Stillyside and back, and was again with
the advocate within the hour. To conceive the terror and outcry in
that quiet dwelling, when its inmates ascertained that Amanda was
missing, let the reader recall the commotion in the castle of
Macbeth, when on the morning following his fatal entrance beneath
its battlements, it is discovered that the royal Duncan has been
murdered. As vehement and as wild as when the distracted Macduff,
in frantic tones and with wringing hands, declares to the assembling
sons and thanes of the ill-starred monarch, that, "confusion now
has made its masterpiece, most sacrilegeous murder has broken open
the Lord's anointed temple, and stolen hence the life o' the
building," was the outcry and disorder on the discovery of Amanda's
absence; and the wail and lamentation rung in Claude's ear as he
rode away from the gate to return to Montreal, where, still pacing
the library, the advocate anxiously awaited him. By the ratiocination,
as well as by the intuition, of the old man, the seigneur of
Mainville was reasonably to be suspected of being at least an
accessory to the stealing of Amanda. Claude, too, was not unvisited
by suspicions of his father's complicity; but thrust the dishonoring
doubts from him, as might a suffering saint dismiss hard thoughts
of the dealings of Providence towards himself. Each thought more
than he expressed to the other, but at length the advocate
communicated to Claude his injurious suspicions, acquainting him
with the fact and nature of his father's visits to his office; when
Claude, in turn, informed the advocate of the long cherished project
of an alliance between the houses of Duchatel and Montigny. This
information not only confirmed, but widened the field of the
advocate's fears. He was aware also of the lawless character of
Duchatel's sons; and recollected to have heard that the youngest
was a comrade of Narcisse, who, he likewise knew, entertained a
covert spite against Amanda, and, for his mother's sake, a rankling
dislike of Mona Macdonald. Against both of these his umbrage might
be supposed to have been heated by his recent ignominious expulsion
from Stillyside; and to gratify this resentment he might now be
executing some scheme of revenge, wherein, from his intimacy with
the young Duchatel, he could know that that family had cause to be
ready to assist him. Here was a clue to the recovery of his ward:--in
legal parlance, here was a prima facie case; and it but remained
to find and prosecute the criminals. To seize his son, and, by
threats or promises, extract a confession from him was the first
idea. But where was the errant and suspected Narcisse to be found?
His father knew he was absent, so the mother was summoned. She
came, but advanced no further than the threshold of the room, and
fell a trembling with fear, behaviour that she would fain have
dissembled to be from cold, for, with the divination with which
guilt endows its subject, she at once knew that the stranger was
the young Montigny, and herself had been cited in order to suffer
a searching cross-examination.
"Woman," said the advocate sternly, and wheeling his arm-chair
round so as to face her, "Woman, where is your son?"
"Helas!" she exclaimed, and shrugged her shoulders, as much as to
say, "I don't know where he is;" and smiled a rueful smile.
"No grinning now," cried the lawyer, raising his finger and shaking
it at her, and frowning as he was wont to do when he wished to
intimidate a witness, "no grinning now, madam. Will you pretend to
say you know nothing of where he was last night, where he is at
present?"
"Helas!" again exclaimed the affrighted Babet: "sir you forget
yourself. Last night? Why it is yet night. Open the shutters and
put out the lamp, and you will still be in darkness. Let me return
to bed."
"Babet Blais, many a better woman than you have I wished bedridden,"
the advocate cried with bitterness. "Beshrew me, but your answer.
Remember I am flint if you are steel, hence the less often we are
smitten together in this enquiry, the fewer may be the revealing
sparks. Babet Blais, here is an affair of blackest tinder, whereon
your bated breath has blown already, until it glows upon your
guilty face, as grimly as the lurid East that brews a rainy day,
to you the type of tears."
[Illustration: "Babet Blais, here is an affair of blackest tinder,
whereon your bated breath has blown already, until it glows upon
your guilty face."]
"What do you mean?" demanded the half mystified and still dissembling
woman, in terror.
"What do I mean? I mean that you shall tell me where your son was
during the last night, and where he is now."
"Where he is _now_?" echoed Babet, "Last night? it is now night,
or only just near dawning."
"Yes, we are near the dawning," mocked the old man, with loud,
relentless equivoque. "Madam, shed here the sunbeams of your highest
intelligence; clear the dull atmosphere of your soul from fog; and
let us see and hear respecting this occurrence, all that yourself
have seen, and heard, and known."
"Master, I know nothing," said she, "what affair?" enquired the
woman, fitfully.
"Is Narcisse at home?" bellowed the advocate, quivering with
excitement, and red to the roots of his white hair with wrath.
"Evil betide me that he should have ever made here his home;" he
continued. "Who called him hither? I? No, no; I called for aught
that might see fit to come, conditioned that it came in human guise;
but yonder frothy fool, yon swarthy pigmy, I did not summon him.
I called for anything of earth, but Heaven (to punish me) straight
passed the unhallowed call to hell, that sent me up a demon." The
apartment resounded with the last word, and still the old man's
voice was heard like the departing rumble of a thunder peal, as he
continued, with clasped hands and upturned eyes, whilst his
countenance assumed an air of singular elevation, passionately
exclaiming: "Oh, that a man who could have entertained the gods
with high conceits and philosophic parle,--could have communed with
spirits of the skies, should be assailed and pestered from the
pit!--Go on, woman, we will exorcise you, we will purge you, though
you be fouler than the Augean stable, that had been left uncleaned
for thirty years; ay, though you be as foul as is the stall that
holds the grimy company of the lost, and which goes uncleaned for
ever. Proceed, I charge thee!" and the fierce-eyed lawyer sat
dilated and erect in his chair, glaring upon her like a serpent
rearing its crest from amidst its coils, as he waited for an answer.
"I cannot, I know no further," she said at length with meek
doggedness.
"What say you?" exclaimed the advocate, almost screaming with
astonishment.
"I know no further; I know nothing," she replied.
"Assist me, patience, to confound this creature! Nothing! you know
all;" he shouted. "All, I say, all; for never had such a mother
such a son, but he did pour out all his purposes, all the infernal
cornucopia, into her breast from his. You have no secrets between
you; you, his mother, know all his course; his thoughts, intents,
conspiracies and plots; his loves, his hates, his loose, irregular
life; his merry moments, and his moods of malice. I charge thee,
tell us where he was last night, where yesterday, where he is now,
and where he will be to-morrow."
"Monsieur, I know no more, know nothing," cried the woman, appealing
to Claude. "My master is mad," and, bursting into tears, began:
"Here have I been his housekeeper twenty years--"
"Twenty years too long," vociferated the advocate. "One half the
period that heaven was vexed with a stiff-necked generation have
I endured you, Babet. Housekeeper! eh? Keeper of the King's
conscience next, a she Lord Chancellor,--but continue: call yourself
Keeper of the Seals, and mistress--or master either--of the Rolls,
so you unroll your secret. Tell all you may; empty your flask of
falsehood, then at the bottom we may find some sediment of truth.
Commence; don't count upon concealment. I will wring the truth from
you, though it shall ooze out drop by drop, and each drop be a
portion of your life."
Babet was still silent, but the lawyer pursued:
"Oh, toad, ugly and venomous, you have a precious jewel in your
head; deliver it; discover to myself and to this gentleman all that
you know about your son's late conduct. Speak, or you shall have
your closed lips forced apart, or there shall be found and set you
such tormenting penance, that you shall sue with speed to make
confession. What! still silent? Bathe no longer that face with
tears. Out on thee, crocodile! Oh, that those trite tears were
scales, falling, to leave you bare and vulnerable to arrows of
adjurement; then, with patience I could see them fall as fast as
flakes of snow in winter, till thou wert as white as Judge's ermine
with them! Creature, hast thou nothing plausible, nothing for us,
nothing for him, nor me?"
"Nothing for you, nor for this gentleman," she answered quietly.
"Do not imagine him to be so gentle, neither. Though he dwells
staid and silent, he is a roaring lion, that should I let slip may
soon devour thee, Babet. Overweening woman, you do not know how
much you and yours have wronged him," said the advocate.
Claude had heard all this without speaking, but now he interposed,
to try persuasion.
"Good Babet," said he, soothingly, "if you are aware of anything
untoward of Monsieur's ward, and will declare it, I guarantee to
you, not only a condonation for your son, if he have in any shape
conspired against her, but a reward so weighty for yourself, that
you shall bless the hour that you were awoke so early to be scolded.
What do you know of the lost lady of Stillyside?"
At these words a smile covered her face, as if of satisfaction at
good news; then, shrugging her shoulders, she languidly asked: "Is
she missing?" and added, "Helas! then others have an absent child,
as well as I," and shook her head; and, with another shrug, continued,
as if subsiding into herself, and in a tone of combined decision
and sadness: "I know nothing of the lady, nothing of my boy. Heaven
grant my son is safe, my poor Narcisse, and that he may not return
and meet his cruel father, who so hates him;" and she brushed away
a tear from her cheek.
"Heaven grant indeed we do not meet at present!" ejaculated the
foiled advocate; "for if we did, I might so far exceed a parent's
punitory privilege, that I should win but blame from the blind
world instead of sympathy. Begone, vampire," and she vanished like
a ghost at cockcrow.
That smile of her's at the mention of Amanda missing, had been
caught by the advocate's keen eye, and convinced him that she and
her son were accessories to the felony of the night. Brief
consultation now sufficed between him and Claude, who also felt
convinced of her complicity. Light began to glimmer amidst the
darkness of the situation, and, as it kindled into a dreary dawn,
as might a new scene amongst dissolving views, shadowy and sinistrous
amidst it seemed to loom the figures of the Duchatels; and, before
the sun had risen, Claude, winged equally with hope and indignation,
was posting towards Montboeuf. The advocate threw himself upon a
couch, and he would fain have thrown up his brief of that day, but
it was for a case involving capital punishment, and, at the eleventh
hour, to have deserted his client would have brought upon himself,
not only professional dishonor, but guilt. Hence, with heavy heart
and unwilling faculties he bent his attention to the study of the
important case, whilst at intervals he swallowed a portion of the
morning's meal, that at the usual hour was silently placed before
him; and at last, with an inexpressible sadness and boding, he left
the stillness of his home for the walls of the busy and exciting
arena of the criminal court.