A BRETON RECKONING
Raymond squirmed, but signed the confession. Tollemache forced the
belief that he was in deadly earnest. The blackmailer had either to
accept the proffered terms or concoct schemes of reprisal in a cell. At
the last moment Mrs. Carmac intervened.
"I know what it means to be tempted, and to yield," she said sadly,
realizing now that her own somewhat checkered record was not hidden from
anyone in that room. "You, Mr. Raymond, have only yourself to blame for
your misfortunes. Even your physical injury is the direct outcome of an
attempt to steal the few trinkets I prize. But I would never forgive
myself if I turned you out into the world penniless and suffering.
Please tell me the truth. Have you any money?"
"Very little," came the sullen answer. "I have spent a good deal during
the last few days."
"But how?" she cried, genuinely surprised. "You are under no expense
here."
"Since candor is in the air, I may as well acquaint you with the facts,"
said Raymond bitterly. "You blurted out your own secret, and I thought I
saw a way of improving my position. I should have won too if it were not
for a piece of cursed ill luck in the finding of those boxes. I employed
Duquesne to ferret out your early history in Paris. If I disappear, you
had better pay him well, or he may take it into his head to go to Rupert
Fosdyke with the story. Of course I don't expect you to place much
credence in anything I say; but mere commonsense should show you that
the only safe course is to send me to Paris with sufficient means to
secure Duquesne's silence. That is a fair offer. Take it or leave it, as
you will. Let me point out, however, that the Madeleine Demoret affair
supplies a reasonable excuse for my journey, and, if you are as generous
as you can afford to be, I promise to devote myself wholly to the task
of diverting any suspicions Duquesne may have formed as to the motive
behind my previous instructions."
Tollemache, with a wisdom beyond his years, seemed to know when to
strike and when to hold his hand. Raymond's suggestion was eminently
reasonable. The evil spirit that had raised all this commotion could
best allay it.
"Come, Yvonne," he said. "Let us leave Mrs. Carmac to determine this
matter as she thinks fit. I offer no opinion. Mrs. Carmac has not
compounded a felony,--that responsibility rests with me,--and, if she
chooses to employ Raymond in a personal undertaking, I cannot interfere.
He knows the penalty if she is troubled by any future act of his. I'll
hunt him round the globe!"
* * * * *
Yvonne never knew what terms her mother made with Raymond. That they did
not err on the side of parsimony may be taken for granted. Long after
the tornado that swept through Pont Aven that Christmastide was
forgotten by all save a few, the ex-secretary was able to buy a share in
an automobile agency.
Lorry was hugely amused as the two descended the stairs. "Socrates
believes there isn't any guile in my composition," he grinned. "I wonder
what he'll say when he reads the screed to which that beauty has just
put his left-handed signature?"
"Dad will agree with me that you carried a very difficult matter through
with great skill, Lorry," said Yvonne.
"But the joke is that if Raymond stuck to his guns I was done for. Who
cares tuppence whether a skunk like him goes to prison or not? Not a
soul! But the whole press of Europe would stand up on its hind legs and
roar if the Carmac millions were thrown into the melting pot of the law
courts. Don't you see, Yvonne, I had to rush Raymond off his feet. I've
broken about twenty statutes made and provided. If he had shown one
quarter the nerve in that room which he displayed when the Stella was
drifting on to the reef, he could have laughed at me."
"For all that, Lorry, you were very clever, and I think you're a dear,"
said Yvonne quietly.
Neither her father nor her lover should ever be told now of the sordid
compact that Raymond had put before her during that memorable walk by
the side of the Aven. She would simply erase the hateful record from her
mind; but she could not close her eyes to the certain fact that
Raymond's daring project had shriveled into nothingness because he saw
that, no matter what the consequences, Mrs. Carmac's daughter would
never marry a common thief. That phase had passed like the stupor of a
nightmare. The vital problem presented by her mother's future remained
insoluble as ever.
* * * * *
In the crowded Place they met Peridot. There was no chance of avoiding
him: he had seen them leaving the annex. Before they could join Popple
and Jackson beneath the sycamores the fisherman barred the way, cap in
hand.
"Pardon, Ma'mselle," he said, speaking with a civility that hardly
masked a note of defiance, "have you any news of Madeleine?"
"Nothing definite, nothing reliable," she answered, striving valiantly
to convey the impression that the mystery of Madeleine's whereabouts
would soon be cleared up satisfactorily.
"Nothing that you would care to tell, Ma'mselle--is that it?"
"No, Peridot. Madeleine said she was going to Quimperlé; but I have
heard that she is in Paris. That is all I know--probably all that anyone
in Pont Aven knows."
She had flushed under the fisherman's penetrating, scornful gaze not
because of the effort to conceal a scanty budget concerning her wilful
friend's flight, but out of sheer sympathy with the man, whom she knew
to be consumed with wrath and shame.
"Then I shall be justified in killing any man who calls her a strumpet?"
went on Peridot icily. He had used a Breton word which Tollemache did
not understand, but Yvonne's gasp of horror was eloquent, and Lorry came
to the rescue.
"You must have taken leave of your senses, Peridot, to address
Mademoiselle Yvonne in that manner," he said.
The fisherman spat, an unprecedented thing. "_Gars!_" he growled. "Taken
leave of my senses, have I? I'd like to see you if your girl had bolted
with the first well dressed dandy who made eyes at her. Scratch a
Russian and you find a Tatar, they say. Scratch Monsieur Tollemache and
you might find--Peridot!"
With that he left them, swaggering off among the throng of peasants as
though he had not a care in the world. Yvonne's troubled glance followed
him. Here was a new Peridot, a man out of whose life was fled the
light-hearted gaiety and spirit of good-fellowship that had made him so
popular in the village. No sooner, it would seem, was one cloud
dispelled than another gathered. Yvonne shuddered with foreboding; for
in those gray-green eyes she had seen the lurid light of a volcano.
* * * * *
During some days peace reigned in that small circle of a small community
with which this chronicle has dealt so intimately. Mrs. Carmac did not
hurry her departure. She promised Yvonne that on arriving in London
she would consult Bennett as to her exact position. She neither
affirmed nor denied that Walter Carmac had renewed his American
citizenship. Ingersoll, when the girl brought a faithful record of the
discussion between her mother and herself, drew the only reasonable
inference,--that no steps had been taken in that direction. The
knowledge was disheartening. Not without cause did he say to Tollemache
that he had fathomed his wife's nature to the depths. Were it possible
for her to end her days in real communion with the husband and child she
had forsaken deliberately, she would gladly have renounced wealth and
social position. As it was, she meant to cling fiercely to the bulk of
her possessions, thinking that thereby she would have a stronger hold on
Yvonne, since she hoped to draw the girl nearer by the lure that money
alone could spread so enticingly.
Undoubtedly she had it in mind to provide ample revenues for the Fosdyke
family, with guarantees of large interests in the estate at her death,
and thus close the only source that threatened discredit and loss. But
this was the half-measure that so often spells disaster. Its outcome lay
in the lap of the gods, and the gods were frowning on her.
Meanwhile she lingered on in Pont Aven. The equable climate suited her
health, she said. She dreaded the formalities with regard to the
succession, and wanted to leave all such disagreeable details to the
lawyers. Until Madeleine Demoret's affair was settled she wished to
remain within call of Paris. These were excuses. They deceived none,
Yvonne least of any. The girl's affection never wavered for an instant
when the interests of father and mother were at war. Her father could
not be at ease until the woman who had broken his life was far from the
village, and the daughter was on pins and needles of anxiety that the
mother should depart.
* * * * *
Raymond--suddenly reverted to type, become once more the discreet,
unobtrusive secretary--reported that Madeleine and Fosdyke seemed to
have quarreled. He had visited the girl, and found her uncommunicative
and rebellious. Fosdyke had gone to England. He supplied Madeleine's
address, and Yvonne wrote, in friendly and sympathetic strain, asking
for news of her welfare. By this time Ingersoll had advised the
cessation of any effort to persuade her to return. It was not in human
nature to expect the girl to endure the slights that would inevitably
attend her reappearance. To her Pont Aven must henceforth be a sealed
Paradise. If ever she saw the place again, she would tread its familiar
ways a stranger and unregarded.
At last came a letter from Madeleine herself. Its tone was honest, and
very much to the point. She had imagined that Rupert Fosdyke meant
marriage. When she was disillusioned she spurned him, and had obtained a
situation as a nurse, her country speech and Breton costume being
passports to ready employment. It was better so. Paris takes a more
lenient view of certain aspects of life than Pont Aven.
* * * * *
Singularly enough, during those days no word of love was spoken between
Tollemache and Yvonne. The mine was laid, and the smallest spark would
fire it; but the spark was not forthcoming, and for the excellent reason
that Lorry wished Mrs. Carmac and her millions far away before he asked
Yvonne to marry him. If, in some distant time, the girl's mother
insisted on enriching her, it would be difficult to defeat her intent.
But it was Yvonne he wanted, not Mrs. Carmac's money. He was more
attached to Ingersoll than to his own father, a narrow-minded Philistine
who had cut himself adrift from a son because the ingrate preferred art
to money spinning.
If once he and Yvonne were wed, Mrs. Carmac's ambitious schemes in
behalf of her beautiful "niece" would go by the board. Circumstances had
made it impossible that father and mother should meet, even at their
daughter's wedding--and where could such a marriage take place but in
Pont Aven, and who should spread the wedding feast but Mère Pitou?
So Lorry bided his time; though Yvonne read him like a book, and the
knowledge that her mother's continued residence in the village alone
prevented Lorry from taking her in a bearlike grip and telling her that
she was the one woman he had ever loved, or ever would love, gave active
reinforcement to her anxiety concerning her father, whose well-being,
she was convinced, depended on the prompt and complete restoration of
life to its normal plane.
Thus, when preparations were being made by Mère Pitou for the
Réveillon--that cheerful feast which enlivens the midnight of
Christmas--Yvonne did not hesitate to tell her mother that on that
occasion at least they would see little of each other, and perhaps less
in the immediate future, as she was going with her father to Concarneau.
Mrs. Carmac took the hint gracefully. As a preliminary she sent Captain
Popple and Jackson to England; the one to become a sort of factotum in
her Surrey house, the other to join the staff in her Charles Street
residence.
"Ask your father, as a last concession, to allow you to travel with me
as far as St. Malo when I leave on the twenty-sixth," she said. "It will
be a long and weary journey otherwise. Have you a friend who can
accompany you? You would need to stay one night in St. Malo and return
here next day."
Ingersoll did not demur. It was arranged that Barbe should go with
Yvonne; so one heart, at least, rejoiced, since the mere prospect of
such an outing brought untold joy to a little maid who regarded St. Malo
as a place so unutterably remote that it figured in her mind only as a
geographical expression somewhat akin to Timbuktu and the North Cape of
Lapland.
* * * * *
Yvonne left her mother about four o'clock on Christmas Eve. Tollemache
was waiting for her, and together they strolled to the cottage. There
was much to be done, because Mère Pitou expected a large party. Peridot,
though specially invited, had refused to come. Indeed, his manner was so
gruff that Barbe, who acted as messenger, was moved to tears while
relating the reception accorded her.
"_Tcha!_" snorted her mother. "That's a man's way, all over. When a
woman gives him the slip he'll sulk and paw the ground like an angry
bull for a week or so. Then he'll drown his sorrows in cognac, and at
the next _Pardon_ you'll see him squaring up to some pretty girl as if
the other one had never existed. What about that sardine boat which the
American lady promised him? That should widen his mouth when it reaches
the quay."
Mère Pitou never alluded to Mrs. Carmac by name. To a Frenchwoman the
word presented no difficulty; but, owing to some whim, Yvonne's "aunt"
was "the American lady," and was never promoted to greater intimacy of
description in the old woman's speech.
"The vessel is ordered in Concarneau," said Yvonne. "With complete
equipment it is to cost five thousand francs. Mrs. Carmac has also given
another five thousand francs to the notary to be invested for Peridot;
who is well aware of both gifts, but has neither called nor written to
express his thanks."
"The worm!" cried Madame. "_Peridot_, indeed! He ought to be christened
_Asticot_!"
As an _asticot_ is a maggot, it was well that none but Yvonne had
overheard Mère Pitou's biting comment, or the fisherman's new nickname
might have stuck, its point being specially appreciable in a fishing
community.
* * * * *
The weather that night was peculiarly calm and mild, even for Southern
Brittany. Shortly after midnight Ingersoll, who had been watching Yvonne
and Tollemache dancing the gavotte, in which the girl was an adept, and
her lover a sufficiently skilful partner to show off her graceful steps
to the utmost advantage, suddenly decided to smoke a cigar in the open
air.
He quitted the studio by a French window, and strolled into the garden,
which stretched some little way up the steep slope of the hill, and
through a narrow strip toward the road on one side of the cottage. Owing
to the feast, Pont Aven was by no means asleep; but the streets were
empty, as the people were either entertaining or being entertained. In a
house near the church a girl was singing the "_Adeste fideles_" in a
high, pure treble. Those in her company, men, women, and children, burst
into the harmonious chorus, "_Venite, adoremus; venite adoremus in
Bethlehem._" As the appeal swelled and then died away, and the girl's
voice took up the solo, Ingersoll remembered the verse, "And suddenly
there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God,"
and his eyes grew dim with unshed tears.
The hymn ceased. From some more distant gathering came the strumming of
a banjo in the latest Boulevard refrain. Ingersoll smiled at that. Not
often might any man hear twenty centuries summed up so concisely. He was
about to reënter the cottage when a woman, hatless, but with head and
face veiled in a shawl of black lace, appeared indistinctly in the
roadway. He knew instantly that it was his wife. Only two women in Pont
Aven walked with such ease and elegance, and they were Yvonne and her
mother.
A second later he heard the familiar creak of the garden gate. So she
was coming in! He was utterly at a loss to account for this amazing
intrusion. He had counted implicitly on his wife's sense of good
breeding and fairness restraining her from any frenzied effort to undo
the havoc of the past, and a spasm of anger shook him now because of
this threatened invasion of his small domain. At any rate she should not
have the hysterical satisfaction of placing him in a false position
before Mère Pitou and her guests, to say nothing of Yvonne and
Tollemache.
He retreated into the deep shadow of a lofty retaining wall, whence he
could see without being seen. If, as he expected, there was a commotion
among the dancers when the unexpected visitor was announced, he would
escape by way of the open hillside, and remain away during some hours.
Then, in the morning, Yvonne and he would end an intolerable state of
things by leaving Pont Aven for some unknown refuge until Lorry told
them that the coast was clear.
Thus do some men plan when beset by some unforeseen difficulty. Be they
wise or foolish, they seldom learn that in those crucial moments of life
when events of real importance take place they are as straws caught in a
whirlpool, and no more capable than straws of predetermined governance
of their deeds and movements.
Ingersoll was barely hidden before he received a fresh surprise. His
wife had not gone to the door. She was in the garden, and coming round
to the back evidently meaning to look in on the revelers and remain
unseen. She halted but a few paces short of the place where Ingersoll
was standing, and soon he knew that she was crying in a heartbroken way.
Her very attitude, the care she took to restrain the sounds of her
grief, and not become visible to any eye that chanced to look out
through the open window, showed that she was in the depths of despair.
By a rapid revulsion of feeling the man's heart ached for her. Strive as
he might, and strong as were the dictates of the social laws that closed
and bolted the door of reconciliation, he was tempted, or it may be
divinely inspired, to make known his presence, and utter words of
healing and forgiveness.
But the opportunity, no less than the impulse, passed as quickly as it
had risen.
The dancing had stopped. Evidently in response to some question of
Yvonne's, Tollemache came to the window, and peered out.
"Ingersoll!" he cried.
There was no answer. The artist could not be detected in any event, and
the change from a well lighted room to the external darkness temporarily
blinded Lorry's sharp eyes, or he might have noted the slight, shrinking
figure beneath one of the apple trees.
"He's not there," he said, speaking over his shoulder to Yvonne.
The girl came nearer. "I saw him go out," she persisted.
"Yes, of course. I saw him too. He stopped to light a cigar. Bet you
he's gone for a stroll. You remember last year at this time he went to
Julia's for half an hour."
That was an unfortunate recollection on Lorry's part. He was aware of it
instantly; but Yvonne helped to slur it over by saying that she had no
doubt "Dad" would soon return. Then the two rejoined their Breton
friends.
* * * * *
Mrs. Carmac clearly meant to take no further risk of discovery. She
hurried away. After a momentary indecision Ingersoll followed. His
action was inexplicable, even to himself. It arose, perhaps, from a
desire to make certain that his wife reached the hotel. Such a motive
was at least comprehensible. It came within the bounds of that
intelligence which regulates ordinary human affairs. But there is
another subtler spirit essence which sends out through space its
impalpable, invisible, yet compelling influences. Sometimes the
storm-tossed soul makes silent appeal for help, and finds response in
some other heart whence aid is unsought and unsuspected.
Howsoever that may be, John Ingersoll followed his wife, and Pont Aven
was soon in an uproar, when the news spread that while Monsieur
Ingersoll was rescuing _l'Américaine_, Madame Carmac, from the waters of
the harbor, Peridot, easygoing, devil-may-care Peridot, was battering
Rupert Fosdyke into a hardly recognizable corpse on the open road near
the hotel.
* * * * *
In a village rumor of that sort seldom lies. Both these sensational
statements were true; though the one became widely known far more
speedily than the other. In fact, Peridot's crime had witnesses. A party
of villagers, coming down the Toulifot, heard voices raised in
altercation. Then there were sounds of a scuffle, and a tall man was
seen to fall, while a shorter man stooped over the prostrate body and
struck blow after blow with an iron belaying pin.
The women screamed; the men ran forward to seize the would-be murderer.
He offered no resistance, but said calmly:
"When one meets a viper one batters its head. It is the only safe thing
to do, eh?"
He seemed to find comfort in the thought. He repeated it many times, in
one form or another. When the police came, and a sergeant who happened
to be a great friend of his had the miserable task of arresting him and
charging him with murder,--for Rupert Fosdyke was dead; would have died
under any one of those half-dozen fiercely vindictive blows,--Peridot
was quite cheerful.
"_Cré nom!_" he cried. "It is not often one finds a snake hereabouts at
Christmastime. This one made a mistake. It shouldn't have come to Pont
Aven, where we wear stout sabots!"
Then he broke gaily into one of Albert Larrieu's Breton songs:
"_Toc! toc! toc! toc!
C'est à Concarneau
Qu'on voit de belles filles,
Prestes et gentilles,
Dans leur petits sabots!_"
"Shut up, Peridot, for the sake of the good God!" muttered his friend.
"Come, Man! There's your mother looking out. She heard your voice!"
"Is that you, Jean Jacques?" came a shrill cry from a bent figure etched
in the lighted rectangle of an open door in a cottage higher up the
hill. "Time you were home and in bed!"
"Don't worry, Mother, I'm in good company," he shouted. "Here is the law
on one side of me, and a dead viper on the other! I'll go straight
tonight, never fear!"
Mère Larraidou saw her son walk off down the hill with his friend the
sergeant. In pity the men who were lifting a corpse desisted from their
gruesome labor till the door was closed again.
* * * * *
When Ingersoll carried the body of an insensible and half-drowned woman
into Mère Pitou's there was a rare stir.
By chance the lesser tragedy which took place in the river beneath the
line of dwarfed oaks had passed unnoticed by the villagers. Greatly
wondering, and wholly at a loss to account for his wife's behavior, the
artist had followed her into the main road, and kept her under close
observation when she failed to cross the bridge and hurried along the
narrow street leading to the harbor.
Once clear of the last mill, he could watch her from a greater distance,
because the valley widens with the stream, and the hills are neither so
high nor so precipitous. On and on she went, past Madame Maréchale's
café, past the triangular grass plot where roundabouts and swings and
canvas theaters stand in the summer, past the jolly little Hotel
Terminus, and along the picturesque Chemin du Hallage; which is not a
carriage road, but a pleasant footpath, bordered on the one hand by
pretty villas and on the other by the tidal stream, with here and there
beneath the stunted trees a rustic seat overlooking the water.
At such an hour, long after midnight, the last pollard oak marks the
Ultima Thule of Pont Aven. The nearest house in front is nearly a mile
away, and reached only by a narrow track through the gorse.
Some vague terror caused Ingersoll to quicken his pace, and a few
seconds later to break into a run. Perhaps his wife heard him, and,
fearing interference, made up her mind to delay the great adventure not
a moment longer. Uttering a wailing cry, she threw herself into the
water. The tide was falling, and as the main stream travels close to the
right bank at that point she was swept away as though some giant hand
were waiting to clutch her.
Commending his soul to Heaven, Ingersoll raced ahead to a rocky plateau
which, although submerged now, drove a broad and fairly level causeway
far into the center of the river. He was just in time. He saw a white
face, a hand, whirling in the current. Plunging in, he grasped
desperately at the place where he judged the body might be. Then began a
fight, a life and death struggle against a relentless, overwhelming
force. Yet somehow he conquered, and found himself with a limp body in
his arms, wading knee deep in a tract of mud and slime.
Though slightly built and frail looking, and, owing to the worry and
confinement of his recent life, rather out of condition, once he had
regained his breath he made light of carrying his wife to the cottage.
He could not tell why he brought her there, rather than to the hotel. He
remembered afterward giving the matter some thought; but he was either
deterred by the sight of so many people in the Place,--brought thither
by the affrighting news of murder,--or by the notion that a further
scandal might be averted if the unhappy woman were tended by those whom
he and she could trust. None of Mère Pitou's guests knew that Mrs.
Carmac had been rescued from the estuary. They thought she had mistaken
some byway, and fallen into the Aven, a quite possible accident to a
stranger on a dark night.
* * * * *
So a second time Yvonne stripped her mother's slender form of its
water-soaked garments, while Mère Pitou loudly invoked the aid and
commiseration of various saints--but did not forget to fill hot-water
bottles and wrap them in flannel before applying them to the unconscious
woman's benumbed body and feet. Dr. Garnier came, and shook his head,
muttering of "shock," and "derangement of the nervous system," and in
the midst of all this turmoil and furtive fear of the worst consequences
arrived Celeste, searching for her mistress, and almost incoherent with
her story of Rupert Fosdyke's fate. He had arrived in the village by the
half-past four train that afternoon, and after a long talk with Madame
had dined alone. She was told that he went out shortly before midnight,
and met Peridot, and was straightway beaten to death.
After some hours of horrible uncertainty Mrs. Carmac recovered
sufficiently to speak.
"Where am I?" she muttered, staring about wildly.
"At home, Dear, with me," whispered Yvonne.
The dazed eyes slowly gathered consciousness of Yvonne's presence. "Who
took me out of the river?" she went on.
"The man who has loved you all his life, Dear," said the girl softly.
She had the fixed belief now that her mother would surely die, and was
resolved that her last hours should be made happy by knowledge of her
husband's devotion.
"What! John saved me! Was it he who followed me?"
"Yes, Dear. He risked his life for your sake, and carried you here
unaided."
"A good man," came the low murmur. "I was not worthy of him."
"Mother, you are to try and sleep now. The doctor's orders must be
obeyed. Otherwise you will be very, very ill."
"I am sick unto death already, dear one. But I shall do as you bid--to
please you--and John. One word! Tell him--tell him--that I am poorer
than when I left him. Rupert is here. He gloated over my downfall. He
knows everything, and would hear of no terms. No, it is not Raymond's
doing. I asked that. He met some man, who knew us in the old days, and
who had read the account of the wreck. I am a pauper of sorts, Yvonne.
Please ask your father not to turn me out."
"Mother!" wailed the girl in a voice strangled with grief. "You must not
talk like that! You'll break my heart!"
"Ah, _tout passe_, Yvonne, even broken hearts! You will be far happier
in your cottage than ever I was in a mansion. Yes, I'll sleep--if only
to please you--and John. Tell him I said that, will you?"
* * * * *
Next morning Ingersoll, who, thanks to the exertion demanded after the
plunge into the river, was not one whit the worse for the wetting, sent
the following telegram to Bennett:
"Rupert Fosdyke met his death here last night, and Mrs. Carmac
was nearly drowned. Both events closely bound up with succession
to Carmac estate. Probably you will understand. Can you come at
once?--INGERSOLL."
That afternoon came the reply:
"Profoundly distressed. Crossing tonight. Wire reports
concerning Mrs. Carmac's health Southampton and St. Malo.
"BENNETT."
Yvonne wept with sheer gratitude when her father said that, with Dr.
Garnier's permission, he would visit her mother. She had not dared to
suggest it; but Ingersoll knew that his action had added one more link
to the chain of love that bound his daughter and himself. Dr. Garnier,
of course, was aware of no reason why the woman should not meet her
rescuer; though he might have been startled had he seen the look of
terror that darkened her eyes when she found her husband bending over
her.
"Don't be afraid, Stella," said he. "I am not here to reproach you. Be
content, and live! We want you to live, Yvonne and I."
"John, forgive!" she murmured.
"I do forgive, Stella, as I hope to be forgiven!"
"John, how could I have left you?"
"That is all passed now--merged in the mists of long years. You will be
made happy here. I mean what I say. You are in Yvonne's care, and in
mine, and always in God's. Believe that, and you will soon be restored
to health and to such happiness as life can bring."
She sobbed convulsively, and he called Yvonne in haste, thinking that
perhaps he had done more harm than good. However, the invalid rallied
after he had gone, and seemed to gain strength, though slowly. Next day
she was wracked by the first symptoms of pneumonia.
When Bennett arrived she was conscious and free from pain. He had not
been seated by the bedside many minutes before he put a curious
question.
"Do you feel able to sign a will?" he said.
She smiled wistfully. "Have you not been told?" she said. "I shall lose
everything. My second marriage can be proved illegal."
"I am not quite sure of that. I only want you to pull through this
present illness. But it is well to prepare against all eventualities.
Would you wish to constitute your daughter your sole heiress?"
She was beyond the reach of surprise, and contented herself with a
fervent yes.
"I have prepared the necessary documents. Listen now, while I read," and
the woman's weary, puzzled eyes dwelt on the lawyer's grave face as he
recited the testamentary clauses by which "Stella Ingersoll, otherwise
known as Stella Carmac," left all her real and personal estate to "her
daughter, Yvonne Ingersoll."
"Now we'll get witnesses, and remember that you sign your name Stella
Ingersoll," said the lawyer, with a cheerful and businesslike air. "Mr.
Tollemache will be one witness, my clerk another, and little Barbe Pitou
a third; so you need not worry at all because of the change of
signature."
Forthwith, in the presence of Lorry and Bennett's clerk, and the scared
Barbe, Mrs. Carmac signed her name in a way that was strangely familiar,
though she had not seen it written that way during two decades. A
precisely similar will was executed in the name of "Stella Carmac."
* * * * *
Bennett had not erred in his judgment. The pneumonia developed a high
temperature that night, and Yvonne's mother died without recovering
consciousness. She was buried at Nizon. To silence gossip, and by her
husband's emphatic wish, she was described on the monument erected to
her memory and to that of Walter Carmac as "Stella, wife of the
above-named Walter Carmac, and formerly known as Stella Ingersoll."
The lawyer's extraordinary haste and anxiety with regard to the two
wills was explained after the funeral.
"I have always had reason to believe that the validity of the marriage
might be questioned," he said, when he had drawn Ingersoll, Yvonne, and
Tollemache into the privacy of the studio. "When Mr. Carmac executed the
will which may now, under advice, be set aside, he caused two copies to
be made with blank spaces for names and dates. A few days later he
lodged a sealed envelope with me and another with his bankers, and each
bore the superscription:
"'This document is to be kept always in its present condition,
and never opened unless my wife's succession to my estate shall
be disputed. In that event the document must be produced and
acted on.'
"I broke the seal yesterday, soon after Mr. Ingersoll's telegram came to
hand, and was not surprised to find a will, properly filled in, signed,
and attested, leaving Carmac's estate to 'Stella Ingersoll, formerly
wife of John Ingersoll, artist, at one time resident in the Rue Blanche,
Paris,' and dated subsequently to that already in existence. So, you
see, all these tragic happenings might have been averted. Rupert Fosdyke
could never have touched a penny of his uncle's money beyond the
provision made for him in both wills."
But a white-faced girl looked at her father, and their eyes met, and
each knew that a Power not to be controlled by any human agency had
brought about the horrors that had agitated their beloved village during
that memorable month.
* * * * *
And, when the clouds disappeared, and the sun shone on a Brittany pink
with apple blossom, Yvonne herself had to ask that absurd fellow Lorry
whether or not he really wanted to marry her, because he was hanging
back shamefacedly, for no better reason apparently than the ridiculous
one that he had no right to woo and wed a girl so rich as she. At least
if she didn't exactly say "Will you marry me?" she did the next thing to
it by telling him that she and her father had decided to regard
themselves merely as trustees of the Carmac millions for the benefit of
their fellows. They would touch little, if any, of the money for
personal needs. The notion was thoroughly distasteful to both, and they
would help each other to find the best and wisest means of getting rid
of the incubus.
"So, you see, Lorry, with the exception of some of my mother's jewelry,
which I know she would wish me to keep and wear, I shall be quite poor,"
said Yvonne demurely.
That settled matters completely. They were in a secluded part of the
Bois d'Amour. How could locality be better named? The wedding took place
before the summer, and they roamed through Switzerland in June.
* * * * *
Madeleine? Madeleine is a certificated nurse in a big Paris hospital,
very smart in her nice uniform, and thoroughly devoted to her
profession.
Peridot? What French jury would convict Peridot of murder when his story
was told? His advocate almost moved the judge to righteous indignation
against the iniquitous Fosdyke, and Peridot was let off with a light
sentence. He came back to Pont Aven, was received with open arms by the
village, and sailed away in his own _vague_ to pursue the elusive
sardine. Last year he married little Barbe. So Mère Pitou's views anent
fishermen as husbands must have been modified by Peridot's ownership of
a fine boat and good money invested in French rentes.
Pont Aven, save for the riotous month of August, is still unchanged. A
new house springs up here and there, and rumor has it that sometime
soon, maybe when the gorse is in flower next summer, a new launch will
replace the old one which has to be coaxed daily to Port Manech and back
during the season.
But that is all--nothing to make a song about. Mademoiselle Julia, ever
busy, growing younger each year, still cracks jokes and encourages art;
though, to be sure, her opinion of cubism and futurist pictures is
distinctly unfavorable to both forms of excess. She is always ready with
a smile and the right word. If, for instance, anyone asks her if she
knew Yvonne, and Ingersoll, and Lorry, and where Mere Pitou's cottage
stands, you should see the way she jerks her head on one side, and hear
her rattle out, with a merry twinkle in her eyes:
"_Qu'est-ce que tu veux que je te dise, moi?_"