THIS was three days after Marie-Anne’s arrival at the Borderie, which
event was the general topic of conversation throughout the
neighbourhood; Chanlouineau’s will especially forming the subject of
countless comments. The old folks looked grave, and repeated to one
another, “Ah, well, here’s M. Lacheneur’s daughter with an income of
more than two thousand francs, without counting the house.” While the
unattractive maidens who had not been fortunate enough to secure
husbands muttered in their turn, “An honest girl would have had no such
luck as that!”
When Chupin brought this great news to Blanche she trembled with anger,
and clenched her soft white hands, exclaiming: “What audacity! What
impudence!”
The old poacher seemed to be of the same opinion. “If each of her lovers
gives her as much she will be richer than a queen,” quothed he
maliciously. “She will be able to buy up Sairmeuse, and Courtornieu as
well if she chooses.”
“And this is the woman who has estranged Martial from me!” ejaculated
Blanche. “He abandons me for a filthy drab like that!” She was so
incensed that she entirely forgot Chupin’s presence, making no attempt
to restrain herself, or to hide the secret of her sufferings. “Are you
sure that what you tell me is true?” she asked.
“As sure as you stand there.”
“Who told you all this?”
“No one--I have eyes. That is, I overheard two villagers talking about
Mademoiselle Lacheneur’s return; so then I went to the Borderie to see
for myself, and I found all the shutters open. Marie-Anne was leaning
out of a window. She doesn’t even wear mourning, the heartless hussy!”
Chupin spoke the truth, but then the only dress the poor girl possessed
was the one that Madame d’Escorval had lent her on the night of the
insurrection, when it became necessary for her to doff her masculine
attire.
The old poacher was about to increase Blanche’s irritation by some
further malicious remarks, when she checked him with the
enquiry--”Whereabouts is the Borderie?”
“Oh, about a league and a half from here, opposite the water mills on
the Oiselle, and not far from the river bank.”
“Ah, yes! I remember now. Were you ever in the house?”
“Oh, scores and scores of times while Chanlouineau was living.”
“Then you can describe it to me?”
“I should think I could. It stands in an open space a little distance
from the road. There’s a small garden in front, and an orchard behind.
They are both hedged in. In the rear of the orchard, on the right, are
the vineyards; while on the left there’s a small grove planted round
about a spring.” Chupin paused suddenly in his description, and with a
knowing wink, inquired: “But what use do you mean to make of all this
information?”
“That’s no matter of yours. But tell me, what is the house like inside?”
“There are three large square rooms on the ground floor, besides the
kitchen and pantry. I can’t say what there is upstairs, as I’ve never
been there.”
“And what are the rooms you’ve seen furnished like?”
“Why, like those in any peasant’s house, to be sure.” Chupin, it should
be observed, knew nothing of the luxurious apartment which Chanlouineau
had intended for Marie-Anne. Indeed, the only stranger who was aware of
its existence was the leading upholsterer of Montaignac, for the young
farmer had never confided his secret to any one in the neighbourhood,
and the furniture had been brought to the Borderie one night in the
stealthiest fashion.
“How many doors are there to the house?” enquired Blanche.
“Three: one opening into the garden, one into the orchard, and another
communicating with the stables. The staircase is in the middle room.”
“And is Marie-Anne quite alone at the Borderie?”
“Quite alone at present; but I expect her brigand of a brother will join
her before long.”
After this reply, Blanche fell into so deep and prolonged a reverie that
Chupin at last became impatient. He ventured to touch her on the arm,
and, in a wily voice, enquired, “Well, what shall we decide?”
Blanche drew back shuddering. “My mind is not yet made up,” she
stammered. “I must reflect--I will see.” And then noting the old
poacher’s discontented face, she added, “I will do nothing lightly.
Don’t lose sight of the marquis. If he goes to the Borderie, and he will
go there, I must be informed of it. If he writes, and he will write, try
to procure one of his letters. I must see you every other day. Don’t
rest! Try to deserve the good place I am reserving for you at
Courtornieu. Now go!”
The old rascal trudged off without attempting a rejoinder, but his
manner plainly showed that he was intensely disappointed. “It serves me
deucedly well right,” he growled. “I oughtn’t to have listened to such a
silly, affected woman. She fills the air with her ravings, wants to kill
everybody, burn and destroy everything. She only asks for an
opportunity. Well, the occasion presents itself, and then of course her
heart fails her. She draws back, and gets afraid!”
In these remarks Chupin did Blanche great injustice. If, as he had
noted, she had shrunk back shuddering when he urged her to decide, it
was not because her will wavered, but rather because her flesh
instinctively revolted against the deed she had in her mind. The old
spy’s unwelcome touch, his perfidious voice and threatening glance, may
also in a minor degree have prompted this movement of repulsion. At all
events, Blanche’s reflections were by no means calculated to appease her
rancour. Whatever Chupin and the Sairmeuse villagers might say to the
contrary, she regarded the story which Marie-Anne, in obedience to the
Abbe Midon’s instructions, had told of her travels in Piedmont as a
ridiculous fable, and nothing more. In her opinion, Marie-Anne had
simply emerged from some retreat where Martial had previously deemed it
prudent to conceal her. But why this sudden re-appearance? Vindictive
Blanche was ready to swear that it was out of mere bravado, and intended
only as an insult to herself. “Ah, I _will_ have my revenge,” she
thought. “I would tear my heart out if it were capable of cowardly
weakness under such provocation!”
The voice of conscience was unheard, unheeded, in this tumult of
passion. Her sufferings, and Jean Lacheneur’s attempt upon her father’s
life, seemed to justify the most terrible reprisals. She had plenty of
time now to brood over her wrongs, and to concoct schemes of vengeance;
for her father no longer required her care. He had passed from the
frenzied ravings of delirium to the stupor of idiocy. And yet the
physician had confidently declared his patient to be cured. Cured! The
body was cured, perhaps, but reason had utterly fled. All traces of
intelligence had left the marquis’s once mobile face, so ready in former
times to assume the precise expression which his hypocrisy and duplicity
required. His eyes, which had gleamed with cunning, wore a dull, vacant
stare, and his under lip hung low, as is customary with idiots. Worst of
all, no hope of any improvement was to be entertained. A single
passion--indulgence at table--had taken the place of all those which in
former times had swayed the life of this ambitious man. The marquis, in
previous years most temperate in his habits, now ate and drank with
disgusting voracity, and was rapidly becoming extremely corpulent.
Between his meals he would wander about the Chateau and its surrounding
in a listless fashion, scarcely knowing what he did. His memory had
gone, and he had lost all sense of dignity, all knowledge of good and
evil. Even the instinct of self-preservation, the last which dies within
us, had departed, and he had to be watched like a child. Often, as he
roamed about the grounds, his daughter would gaze at him from her window
with a strange terror in her heart. But after all, this warning of
providence only increased her desire for revenge. “Who would not prefer
death to such a misfortune?” she murmured. “Ah! Jean Lacheneur’s revenge
is far more terrible than if his bullet had pierced my father’s heart.
It is a similar revenge that I must have, and I will have it!”
She saw Chupin every two or three days; sometimes going alone to the
meeting-place, and at others in Aunt Medea’s company. The old poacher
came punctually enough although he was beginning to tire of his task. “I
am risking a great deal,” he growled. “I fancied that Jean Lacheneur
would go and live at the Borderie with his sister. Then, I should have
been safe. But no; the brigand continues to prowl about with his gun
under his arm: and sleeps in the woods at night time. What game is he
after? Why, Father Chupin, of course. On the other hand, I know that my
rascally innkeeper over there has abandoned his inn and disappeared.
Where is he? Hidden behind one of these trees, perhaps, in settling what
part of my body he shall plunge his knife into.” What irritated the old
poacher most of all was, that after two months watching he had come to
the conclusion that whatever might have been Martial’s connection with
Marie-Anne in former times, everything was now all over between them.
But Blanche would not admit this. “Own that they are more cunning than
you are, Father Chupin, but don’t tell me they don’t see each other,”
she observed one day.
“Cunning--and how?” was the retort. “Since I have been watching the
marquis, he hasn’t once passed outside the fortifications of Montaignac,
while, on the other hand, the postman at Sairmeuse, whom my wife
cleverly questioned, declares that he hasn’t taken a single letter to
the Borderie.”
After this, if it had not been for the hope of a safe and pleasant
retreat at Courtornieu, Chupin would have abandoned his task altogether;
as it was, he relaxed his surveillance considerably; coming to the
rendezvous with Blanche, chiefly because he had fallen into the habit of
claiming some money for his expenses, on each occasion. And when Blanche
asked him for an account of everything that Martial had done since their
previous meeting, he generally told her anything that came into his
head. However, one day, early in September, she interrupted him as he
began the same old story, and, looking him steadfastly in the eyes,
exclaimed: “Either you are betraying me, Father Chupin, or else you are
a fool. Yesterday Martial and Marie-Anne spent a quarter of an hour
together at the Croix d’Arcy.”