I felt as if I had passed through an immeasurable spell, both of memory
and anguish, before Monsieur Laurentie came to me, though he had
responded to my summons immediately. I told him, in hurried, broken
sentences, what Pierre had confessed to me. His face grew overcast and
troubled; yet he did not utter a word of his apprehensions to me.
"Madame," he said, "permit me to take my breakfast first; then I will
seek Monsieur Foster without delay. I will carry with me some food for
him. We will arrange this affair before I return; Jean shall bring the
_char à bancs_ to the factory, and take him back to Noireau."
"But the fever, monsieur? Can he pass a night there without taking it?"
"He is in the hands of his Creator," he answered; "we can know nothing
till I have seen him. We cannot call back the past."
"Ought I not to go with you?" I asked.
"Wherefore, my child?"
"He is my husband," I said, falteringly; "if he is ill, I will nurse
him."
"Good! my poor child," he replied, "leave all this affair to me; leave
even thy duty to me. I will take care there shall be no failure in it,
on thy part."
We were not many minutes over our frugal breakfast of bread-and-milk,
and then we set out together, for he gave me permission to go with him,
until we came within sight of the factory and the cottage. We walked
quickly and in foreboding silence. He told me, as soon as he saw the
place, that I might stay on the spot where he left me, till the
church-clock struck eight; and then, if he had not returned to me, I
must go back to the village, and send Jean with the _char à bancs_. I
sat down on the felled trunk of a tree, and watched him, in his old
threadbare cassock, and sunburnt hat, crossing the baked, cracked soil
of the court, till he reached the door, and turned round to lift his hat
to me with a kindly gesture of farewell. He fitted the key into the
lock, passed out of my sight; but I could not withdraw my eyes from the
deep, thatched eaves, and glossy _fleur-de-lis_ growing along the roof.
How interminable seemed his absence! I sat so still that the crickets
and grasshoppers in the tufted grass about me kept up their ceaseless
chirruping, and leaped about my feet, unaware that I could crush their
merry life out of them by a single movement. The birds in the dusky
branches overhead whistled their wild wood-notes, as gayly as if no one
were near their haunts. Now and then there came a pause, when the
silence deepened until I could hear the cones, in the fir-trees close at
hand, snapping open their polished scales, and setting free the winged
seeds, which fluttered softly down to the ground. The rustle of a
swiftly--gliding snake through the fallen leaves caught my ear, and I
saw the blunted head and glittering eyes lifted up to look at me for a
moment; but I did not stir. All my fear and feeling, my whole life, were
centred upon the fever-cottage yonder.
There was not the faintest line of smoke from the chimney, when we first
came in sight of it. Was it not quite possible that Pierre might have
been mistaken? And if he had made a mistake in thinking he saw smoke
this morning, why not last night also? Yet the curé was lingering there
too long for it to be merely an empty place. Something detained him, or
why did he not come back to me? Presently a thin blue smoke curled
upward into the still air. Monsieur Laurentie was kindling a fire on the
hearth. _He_ was there then.
What would be the end of it all? My heart contracted, and my spirit
shrank from the answer that was ready to flash upon my mind. I refused
to think of the end. If Richard were ill, why, I would nurse him, as I
should have nursed him if he had always been tender and true to me. That
at least was a clear duty. What lay beyond that need not be decided
upon now. Monsieur Laurentie would tell me what I ought to do.
He came, after a long, long suspense, and opened the door, looking out
as if to make sure that I was still at my post. I sprang to my feet, and
was running forward, when he beckoned me to remain where I was. He came
across to the middle of the court, but no nearer; and he spoke to me at
that distance, in his clear, deliberate, penetrating voice.
"My child," he said, "monsieur is ill! attacked, I am afraid, by the
fever. He is not delirious at present, and we have been talking together
of many things. But the fever has taken hold upon him, I think. I shall
remain with him all the day. You must bring us what we have need of, and
leave it on the stone there, as it used to be."
"But cannot he be removed at once?" I asked.
"My dear," he answered, "what can I do? The village is free from
sickness now; how can I run the risk of carrying the fever there again?
It is too far to send monsieur to Noireau. If he is ill of it, it is
best for us all that he should remain here. I will not abandon him; no,
no. Obey me, my child, and leave him to me and to God. Cannot you
confide in me yet?"
"Yes," I said, weeping, "I trust you with all my heart."
"Go, then, and do what I bid you," he replied. "Tell my sister and Jean,
tell all my people, that no one must intrude upon me, no one must come
nearer this house than the appointed place. Monsieur le Vicaire must
remain in Ville-en-bois, and officiate for me, as though I were pursuing
my journey to England. You must think of me as one absent, yet close at
hand: that is the difference. I am here, in the path of my duty. Go, and
fulfil yours."
"Ought you not to let me share your work and your danger?" I ventured to
ask.
"If there be any need, you shall share both," he answered, in a tranquil
tone, "though your life should be the penalty. Life is nothing in
comparison with duty. When it is thy duty, my daughter, to be beside thy
husband, I will call thee without fail."
Slowly I retraced my steps to the village. The news had already spread,
from Pierre--for no one else knew it--that the Englishman, who had been
turned away from their doors the day before, had spent the night in the
infected dwelling. A group of weavers, of farmers, of women from their
household work, stopped me as I entered the street. I delivered to them
their curé's message, and they received it with sobs and cries, as
though it bore in it the prediction of a great calamity. They followed
me up the street to the presbytery, and crowded the little court in
front of it.
When mademoiselle had collected the things Monsieur Laurentie had sent
me for--a mattress, a chair, food, and medicine--every person in the
crowd wished to carry some small portion of them. We returned in a troop
to the factory, and stood beyond the stone, a group of sorrowful, almost
despairing people. In a few minutes we saw the curé open the door, close
it behind him, and stand before the proscribed dwelling. His voice came
across the space between us and him in distinct and cheerful tones.
"My good children," he said, "I, your priest, forbid any one of you to
come a single step nearer to this house. It may be but for a day or two,
but let no one venture to disobey me. Think of me as though I had gone
to England, and should be back again among you in a few days. God is
here, as near to me under this roof, as when I stand before him and you
at his altar."
He lifted up his hands to give them his benediction, and we all knelt to
receive it. Then, with unquestioning obedience, but with many
lamentations, the people returned to their daily work.