During all this time Mary had no news of Bertha. Since the evening on
which the latter left the Jacquet mill, announcing her resolve to
search for Michel, Mary knew nothing of Bertha's movements. Her mind
was lost in conjecture. Had Michel spoken? Had Bertha, reduced to
despair, done some fatal deed? Was he wounded? Was he killed? Had
Bertha herself been shot in one of her adventurous undertakings? Such
were the gloomy alternatives Mary feared for the two objects of her
affections; both left her a prey to the keenest anxiety, the sharpest
anguish.
In vain she told herself that the wandering life she now led with
Petit-Pierre, forced each evening to leave the shelter of the night
before, made it very difficult for Bertha to recover their traces.
Making all such allowances it seemed to Mary that, unless some
misfortune had happened to her, Bertha would surely have sent some
news of her whereabouts through the channels of communication which
the royalists possessed among the peasantry. Mary's courage was
already weakened by the many shocks she had just endured; and she
herself, unsupported, isolated, deprived of her lover's presence,
which had secretly sustained her in the hour of struggle, now gave way
to gloomy distress, and broke down utterly under her trouble. She
spent her days, which she ought to have employed in resting after the
fatigues of the night, in watching for Bertha or for some messenger
who never came; for hours at a time she sat silently absorbed in her
grief, speaking only when spoken to.
Mary certainly loved her sister; the immense sacrifice to which she
had resigned herself for Bertha's sake abundantly proved it--and yet
she blushed, owning to herself, honestly, that it was not Bertha's
fate that chiefly filled her mind. However warm, however sincere was
the affection Mary felt for her sister, another and more imperious
emotion had glided into her soul, and fed on the pain it brought
there. In spite of all the poor girl's efforts, the sacrifice of which
we speak had never detached her from him who was the occasion of it.
Now that Michel was separated from her, she fancied she could indulge
without danger the thoughts she had struggled to put away from her;
and little by little Michel's image had so gained possession of her
heart that it no longer left it, even for a moment.
In the midst of the sufferings of her life, the pain these
remembrances of her lover gave her seemed comforting; she flung
herself into it with a sort of passion. Day by day he had an
ever-increasing share in the tears and anxiety caused by the strange
and long-protracted absence of her sister. After yielding, without
reserve, to her despair, after exhausting every gloomy supposition,
after evoking all the cruel alternatives of the uncertainty in which
each passing hour left her, after anxiously counting all the minutes
of those hours, little by little Mary fell into regret,--regret
intermingled with self-reproach.
She went over in her memory the smallest incidents of her relation and
that of her sister with Michel. She asked herself whether she were not
doing wrong in breaking the heart of the poor lad while she broke her
own; whether she had the right to force the disposal of his love;
whether she were not responsible for the misery into which she was
plunging Michel by compelling him to be a sharer in the immense
sacrifice she was offering to her sister. Her thoughts returned, with
irresistible inclination, to the night spent on the islet of Jonchère.
She saw once more those reedy barriers; she fancied she heard that
softly harmonious voice, which said: "I love thee!" She closed her
eyes, and again she felt the young man's breath as it touched her
hair, and his lips laying on her lips the first, the only, but ah! the
ineffable kiss she had received from him.
Then the renunciation which her virtue, her tenderness for her sister
urged upon her seemed greater than her strength could bear. She blamed
herself for rashly attempting a superhuman task, and Love regained so
vigorously a heart all love, that Mary,--ordinarily pious, submissive,
accustomed to seek, in view of a future life, the path of patient
courage,--Mary had no longer the strength to look to heaven only; she
was crushed. In the anguish of her passion she gave herself up to
impious despair, asking God if this fleeting memory of the touch of
those lips was all she was to know of the happiness of being loved;
and whether life were worth the pain of living thus disinherited of
joy.
The Marquis de Souday at last perceived the great alteration produced
on Mary's face by these grievous emotions; but he naturally attributed
it to the great bodily fatigue the young girl was now enduring. He was
himself much depressed in seeing all his fine dreams vanishing, and
all the predictions made to him by the general realized. He saw with
dread a return of his exiled days without even having seen, as it
were, the dawn of a struggle. Still, he felt it his duty to force his
courage and resolution to the level of the misfortune which
overwhelmed him, and that duty the marquis would have died rather than
not fulfil; for was it not a soldier's duty? Little as he cared for
social duties and proprieties, the more he stickled for those which
concerned his military honor. Therefore, notwithstanding his inward
depression, he showed no outward sign of it, and even found in the
vicissitudes of their adventurous life the text of many a joke with
which he tried to distract the minds of his companions from the
anxiety and disappointment consequent on the failure of the
insurrection.
Mary had told her father of Bertha's departure; and the worthy old
gentleman had intelligently guessed that the girl's anxiety about the
conduct and fate of her betrothed was at the bottom of it. As
eye-witnesses had already brought him word that Michel, far from
failing in his duty, had heroically contributed to, the defence of La
Pénissière, the marquis,--who supposed that Jean Oullier, on whose
care and prudence he implicitly relied, was with his daughter and
future son-in-law,--the marquis did not think it necessary to be more
uneasy at Bertha's absence than a general might have been about an
officer dispatched on an expedition. Nevertheless, the marquis could
not explain to himself why Baron Michel had preferred to fight so well
under Jean Oullier's orders rather than under his own,--and he was
inclined to be annoyed at the preference.
Surrounded by Legitimist leaders, Petit-Pierre, on the very evening of
the fight at Chêne, left the Jacquet mill, where the danger of a
surprise was imminent. The main-road, which was not far distant, was
covered at intervals by bodies of soldiers escorting prisoners.
Petit-Pierre and her bodyguard started, therefore, as soon as it was
dark.
Wishing to follow the highway as much as possible, the little troop
encountered a detachment of the government troops, and was forced to
crouch in a wayside ditch, which was filled with brambles, for over an
hour, while the detachment filed by. The whole region was so patrolled
by these movable columns that it was only by following the most
impassable wood-paths that the fugitives could be sure of escaping
their vigilance.
Petit-Pierre's uneasiness was extreme; her physical appearance
betrayed her mental sufferings, but her words, her behavior, never! In
the midst of this hazardous life, so disturbed and often so gloomy,
the same bright gayety sparkled from her, and held its own with that
the marquis was assuming. Pursued as they were, the fugitives never
had a full night's rest; and no sooner had the daylight dawned
than danger and fatigue awoke when they did. These terrible night
marches were sometimes dangerous, and always horribly fatiguing
to Petit-Pierre. Sometimes she went on horseback, oftener on
foot,--through fields divided by hedges and embankments, which could
only be crossed after darkness had fallen; through vineyards, which,
in that region, trail their vines on the ground, where they catch the
feet and threaten a fall at every moment; through cow-paths trampled
into mud by the constant passage of the cattle,--mud which came to the
knees of foot-passengers and horses.
Petit-Pierre's companions were now very anxious as to the results of
this life of incessant emotion and bodily fatigue on the health of
their precious charge. They deliberated on the best means of putting
her, once for all, in safety. Opinions differed; some were for taking
her to Paris, where she might be lost in the midst of a vast
population; others proposed Nantes, where a safe concealment was
already prepared; a third party counselled immediate embarkation, not
thinking it possible to ensure her safety so long as she stayed in
France, where search would be only the more active because the actual
insurrection was at an end.
The Marquis de Souday was of the latter opinion; to which objection
was made that a vigorous watch was kept along the coast, and that it
would be absolutely impossible to embark from any port, however
insignificant, without a passport.
Petit-Pierre cut short the discussion by declaring that she should go
to Nantes, and would enter it on the morrow in full daylight, dressed
as a peasant-woman. As the great change and depression visible in
Mary's appearance had not, as may well be supposed, escaped her, and
as she supposed, like the marquis, that they were due to the great
fatigue the girl was enduring,--and as this fatigue would continue if
she stayed with her father,--Petit-Pierre proposed to the marquis to
take his daughter with her. The marquis accepted the offer gratefully.
Mary did not readily resign herself. Shut up in a town she was not so
likely to obtain news of Bertha and Michel, which she was now awaiting
from hour to hour with feverish anxiety. On the other hand, refusal
was impossible, and she therefore yielded.
On the morrow, which was Saturday, and market-day, Petit-Pierre and
Mary, dressed as peasant-women, started for the town at six in the
morning; they had about ten miles to go. After walking for half an
hour the wooden shoes, but, above all, the woollen socks, to which
Petit-Pierre was not accustomed, hurt her feet. She tried to keep on;
but knowing that if she blistered her feet she would be unable to
continue the journey, she sat down by the wayside, took off her shoes
and stockings, stuffed them into her capacious pockets, and started
again barefooted.
Presently, however, she noticed, as other peasant-women passed her,
that the whiteness and delicacy of her skin might betray her; she
therefore turned off the road a little way, took some dark, peaty
earth, and rubbed it on her feet and legs till they were stained with
it, and then resumed her way.
They had just reached the top of the hill at Sorinières when they saw
in front of a roadside tavern two gendarmes who were talking with a
peasant like themselves, who was on horseback.
Mary and Bertha were at this moment in the midst of a group of five or
six peasant-women, and the gendarmes paid no attention to any of them.
But Mary, who watched every one she passed, thinking some information
as to Bertha and Michel might chance to reach her,--Mary fancied that
the mounted peasant looked at her with peculiar attention. A few
moments later she turned her head and saw that the peasant had left
the gendarmes, and was hurrying his pony as if to overtake the group
of peasant-women.
"Take care of yourself," she whispered hastily to Petit-Pierre;
"there's a man I don't know who just examined me with great attention
and then started to follow us. Go on alone, and seem not to know me!"
"Very good; but suppose he joins you, Mary?"
"I can answer him; don't be afraid."
"In case we are forced to separate, shall you know where to find me?"
"Yes; but don't let us say another word to each other--he is coming."
The horse's hoofs were now ringing on the paved centre of the
road. Without appearing to do so Mary lagged behind the group of
peasant-women. She could not help quivering when she heard, as she
expected, the voice of the man addressing her.
"So we are going to Nantes, my pretty girl?" he began, pulling in his
horse when he reached Mary's side, and again looking at her
attentively.
"So it appears," she said, seeming to take the matter gayly.
"Don't you want my company?" asked the rider.
"Oh, no, thank you," replied Mary, imitating the speech of the Vendéan
peasant-women; "I'll keep on with the rest from our parts."
"The rest from your parts? You don't expect me to believe that all
those girls before us are from your village?"
"Whether they are or not, what's that to you?" retorted Mary, evading
a question which was evidently insidious.
The man saw through her purpose.
"I'll make you a proposal," he said.
"What sort of proposal?"
"Get up behind me."
"Yes, that's likely!" replied Mary; "a pretty sight it would be to see
a poor girl like me holding on to a man who looks like a gentleman."
"Especially as you are not accustomed to hug those who look and are
such."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Mary.
"I mean that you may pass for a peasant-girl in the eyes of gendarmes;
but my eyes are another thing. You are not what you are trying to
seem, Mademoiselle Mary de Souday."
"If you have no evil intentions toward me why do you say my name in a
loud voice on the public highway?" asked the young girl, stopping
short.
"What harm is there in that?" said the rider.
"Only that those women may have heard you; and if I wear these clothes
you must know it is because my interests or my safety oblige me."
"Oh!" said the man, winking one eye and affecting a knowing air;
"those women you pretend to be afraid of know all about you."
"No, they do not!"
"One of them does, any how."
Mary trembled in spite of herself; but summoning all her strength of
will, she replied:--
"Neither one nor all. But may I ask why you are putting these
questions to me?"
"Because, if you are really alone, as you say you are, I shall ask you
to stop here for a few minutes."
"I?"
"Yes."
"For what purpose?"
"To save me a long search I should have made tomorrow if I had not met
you now."
"Search for what?"
"Why, for you!"
"Do you mean that you are seeking me?"
"Not on my own account, you must understand."
"But who sent you on such an errand?"
"Those who love you." Then lowering his voice he added: "Mademoiselle
Bertha and Monsieur Michel."
"Bertha? Michel?"
"Yes."
"Then he is not dead!" cried Mary. "Oh, tell me, tell me, monsieur, I
implore you, what has become of them?"
The terrible anxiety betrayed by the tone in which Mary said the
words, the agitation of her face as she awaited the answer, which
seemed to be one of life or death to her, were noticed with curiosity
by Courtin, on whose lips flickered a diabolical smile. He took
pleasure in delaying his answer in order to prolong the young girl's
anguish.
"No, no!" he said at last, "don't be uneasy; he'll get over it!"
"Get over it! is he wounded?" asked Mary, vehemently.
"Didn't you know it?"
"Oh, my God! my God! Wounded!" cried Mary, with her eyes full of
tears.
"Pooh!" said Courtin, "his wound won't keep him long in bed or hinder
his marriage!"
Mary felt that she turned pale in spite of herself. Courtin's words
reminded her that she had not asked news of her sister.
"And Bertha?" she said, "you have told me nothing about her."
"Your sister? Ha! she's a dashing girl! When she hooks her arm into
her husband's she may well say she has earned him."
"But she is not ill, she is not wounded, is she?"
"She is a trifle ill, but that's all."
"Poor Bertha!"
"She did too much. I tell you there's many a man would have died of
the strain if he had done what she did."
"Good God!" cried Mary; "both ill, and both without care!"
"Oh, as for that, no; they are caring for one another. You ought to
see how your sister, ill as she is, cossets the young baron. Some men
have the luck of it, that's a fact; Monsieur Michel is just as much
petted by his lady dove as he was by his mother. He'll have to love
her well, if he doesn't want to be ungrateful."
Mary's agitation increased at these words,--a fact which did not
escape the rider's notice, and he smiled.
"Shall I tell you something that I think I have discovered?" he said.
"What is it?"
"Why, that Monsieur le baron, in the matter of color, prefers fair
hair to black."
"What do you mean?" asked Mary, quivering.
"If you wish me to explain, I'll tell something that you know as well
as I do; and that is, that he loves you. And if Bertha is the name of
his betrothed, Mary is the name of his heart's love."
"Oh!" cried Mary, "you are inventing all that; Monsieur de la Logerie
never told you any such thing."
"No; but I have seen it for myself; and as I cherish him like my own
flesh and blood, I want to see him happy, the dear lad! Therefore I
said to myself yesterday, when your sister asked me to get word to you
about her, that I'd clear my conscience of the matter and tell you
what I think."
"You are mistaken in your thoughts, monsieur," replied Mary. "Monsieur
Michel does not care for me; he is my sister's betrothed husband, and
he loves her deeply; I can assure you of that."
"You are wrong not to trust me, Mademoiselle Mary. Do you know who I
am? I am Courtin, Monsieur Michel's head farmer, and I may say, his
confidential, man; and if you choose--"
"Monsieur Courtin, you will oblige me extremely," interrupted Mary,
"if you would choose--"
"What?"
"To change the conversation."
"Very good; but allow me to renew my offer. Won't you ride behind
me?--it would ease your journey. You are going to Nantes, I suppose?"
"Yes," replied Mary, who, little as she liked Courtin, thought she had
better not conceal her destination from the Baron de la Logerie's
confidential man.
"Well," continued Courtin, "as I am going there myself we had better
go together, unless--If you are going to Nantes on an errand, and I
could do it for you, I'd willingly undertake it, and save you the
trouble."
Mary, in spite of her natural truthfulness, felt compelled to
dissimulate; for it was all-important that no one should even guess at
the cause of her journey.
"No," she replied; "it is impossible. I am on my way to join my
father, who has taken refuge in Nantes, where he is now concealed."
"Dear, dear!" said Courtin, "Monsieur le marquis hiding in Nantes!
that's a clever idea. They are looking for him the other way, and talk
of turning the château de Souday inside out to its foundations."
"Who told you that?" asked Mary.
Courtin saw that he had made a blunder by seeming to know the plans of
the government agents; he tried to repair it as best he could.
"It was chiefly to prevent you from going back there that Mademoiselle
Bertha sent me in search of you," he said.
"Well, you see," said Mary, "that neither my father nor I are at
Souday."
"Ah, that reminds me!" exclaimed Courtin, as if the thought had just
come naturally into his head; "if Mademoiselle Bertha and Monsieur de
la Logerie want to communicate with you, how are they to address you?"
"I don't know myself as yet," replied Mary. "I am to meet a man on the
pont Bousseau who will take me to the house where my father is
concealed. After I get there and have seen him I will write to my
sister."
"Very good; if you have any communication to make, or if Monsieur le
baron and your sister want to join you, and need a guide, I will
undertake to manage it." Then, with a meaning smile, he added: "I'll
answer for one thing; Monsieur Michel will be sending me more than
once."
"Enough!" said Mary.
"Ah! excuse me. I didn't know it would make you angry."
"It does; your suppositions are offensive both to your master and to
me."
"Pooh!" said Courtin, "all that is only talk. Monsieur le baron has a
fine fortune, and there isn't a young lady the country round, whether
she is an heiress or not, who would turn up her nose at it. Say the
word, Mademoiselle Mary," continued the farmer, who believed that
everybody worshipped money as he did; "only say the word and I'll do
my best to make that fortune yours."
"Maître Courtin," said Mary, stopping short, and looking at the farmer
with an expression in her eye he could not mistake; "it needs all my
sense of your attachment to Monsieur de la Logerie to keep me from
being seriously angry. I tell you again, and once for all, you are not
to speak to me in that manner!"
Courtin expected a different reply,--his conception of a "she-wolf"
not admitting of such delicacy. He was all the more surprised because
he saw very plainly that the young girl shared the love his prying
eyes had detected in the depths of the young baron's heart. For a
moment he was disconcerted. Then he reflected that he might lose all
by hurrying matters; better let the fish get thoroughly entangled in
the net before he pulled it in.
The mysterious man at Aigrefeuille had told him it was probable that
the leaders of the Legitimist insurrection would seek shelter in
Nantes. Monsieur de Souday--Courtin believed this--was there already;
Mary was on her way; Petit-Pierre would probably follow. Michel's love
for the young girl might be used, like Ariadne's thread, to lead the
way to her retreat, which would probably be that of Petit-Pierre; and
the capture of Petit-Pierre was the real end and object of Courtin's
ambitious hopes. If he persisted in accompanying Mary he would rouse
her suspicions; and although he was most desirous to succeed that very
day in his enterprise, prudence and strategy prevailed, and he
resolved to give Mary some proof which might reassure her completely
as to his intentions.
"Ah!" said he, "I see you despise my horse; but all the same it hurts
me to see your little feet cut to pieces on those stones."
"Well, it can't be helped," replied Mary. "I shall be less noticed on
foot than if I were mounted behind you; and, if I dared, I would ask
you not to keep at my side. Anything that draws attention to me is
dangerous. Let me walk alone and join those peasant-women just in
front of us. I run less risk in their company."
"You are right," said Courtin; "and all the more because the gendarmes
are behind and will overtake us soon."
Mary started; true enough, two gendarmes were really following them
about a thousand feet back.
"Oh! you needn't be afraid," said Courtin; "I'll detain them at that
tavern. Go on alone; but tell me, first, what I am to say to your
sister?"
"Tell her that all my thoughts and prayers are for her welfare."
"Is that all?"
The girl hesitated; she looked at the farmer; doubtless the expression
of his countenance betrayed his secret thoughts, for she lowered her
head and answered:--
"Yes, that is all."
Courtin was well aware that although Mary did not utter Michel's name,
he was the first and last thought of her heart.
The farmer stopped his horse. Mary, on the other hand, hastened
her steps and joined the other peasant-women, who had gained
some distance ahead while she talked with Courtin. As soon as she
reached them she walked on by Petit-Pierre and told her what had
happened,--suppressing, of course, that part of the conversation that
related to the young baron.
Petit-Pierre thought it wise to evade the curiosity of the man; for
his name recalled in a vague way some unpleasant memory. She therefore
dropped behind the other women with Mary; and when they were fairly
out of sight--thanks to a turn in the road--the two fugitives slipped
into a wood at a short distance from the highway, from the edge of
which they could see who passed it. After about fifteen minutes
they saw Courtin hurrying, as best he could, his stubborn pony.
Unfortunately, the farmer passed too far from the place where they
were hidden to allow of Petit-Pierre's recognizing him as the man who
had visited Pascal Picaut's house, and cut the girths of Michel's
horse.
When he was out of sight Petit-Pierre and her companion returned to
the high-road and continued their way to Nantes. The nearer they came
to the town, where Petit-Pierre was promised a safe retreat, the more
their fears diminished. She was now quite used to her costume, and the
farmers who passed them did not seem to perceive that the little
peasant-woman who tripped so lightly along the road was other than she
seemed to be. It was surely a great thing to have deceived an instinct
so penetrating as that of the country-folk, who have no masters, and
perhaps no rivals, in this respect except soldiers.
At last they came in sight of Nantes. Petit-Pierre put on her shoes
and stockings, preparatory to entering the town. One thing, however,
made Mary uneasy. Courtin would doubtless be watching for her on the
bridge; therefore, instead of entering by the pont Rousseau, the two
women took advantage of a boat to cross the Loire to the other side of
the town.
As they passed the Bouffai a hand was laid on Petit-Pierre's shoulder.
She started and turned round. The person who had taken that alarming
liberty was a worthy old woman on her way to market, who had put down
her basket of apples in order to rest herself, and was not able to
lift it alone and replace it on her head.
"My dears," she said to Petit-Pierre and Mary, "do help me, please, to
get up my basket, and I'll give you each an apple."
Petit-Pierre took one handle, motioned to Mary to take the other, and
the basket was quickly replaced and balanced on the head of the old
woman, who began to walk away without bestowing the promised reward.
But Petit-Pierre caught her by the arm, saying:--
"Look here, mother, where's my apple?"
The market-woman gave it to her. Petit-Pierre set her teeth into it
and was munching it with an appetite sharpened by a ten-mile walk,
when, lifting her head, her eyes fell on a notice posted on the walls
upon which appeared in large letters these words:--