Maître Jacques was not mistaken in his presentiments; Jean Oullier was
living. The ball which Courtin had fired at random into the bush--on
chance, as it were--had entered his breast; and when the widow Picaut
(the wheels of whose cart had alarmed Courtin and his companion)
reached him, she felt sure she was lifting a dead body. With a
charitable sentiment, very natural to a peasant-woman, she did not
choose that the body of a man for whom her husband had always, in
spite of their political differences, expressed the utmost respect,
should be left as food for the buzzards and jackals; she was
determined that the good Vendéan should lie in holy ground, and she
therefore placed him on her cart to take him home.
Only, instead of hiding him in the cart, as she had intended doing,
she now laid him on it uncovered, and several of the peasants whom she
met on the way stopped to look at and touch the bloody remains of the
Marquis de Souday's old keeper. In this way the news of Jean Oullier's
death was spread about the canton; and this was how the marquis and
his daughters heard of it, and why Courtin,--who, the next day, wanted
to make sure that the man he most feared was no longer living to
terrify him,--why Courtin had been deceived and misled like the rest.
It was to the old cottage where she had formerly lived with her
husband that Marianne Picaut now took the body. Since Pascal's death
she had, in her loneliness, removed to the inn kept by her mother at
Saint-Philbert. The cottage was nearer to Machecoul, Jean Oullier's
parish, than the inn; to which, had he been living, she intended to
take him and keep him safely concealed till he was well.
Just as the cart reached the open crossway we have often mentioned,
one road of which led to the dwelling of the two Picaut brothers, it
met a man on horseback following the road to Machecoul. This man, who
was no other than our old acquaintance, Monsieur Roger, the doctor at
Légé, questioned some of the little ragamuffins who, with the
persistency and curiosity of their age, were following the cart. When
the doctor heard that it contained the body of Jean Oullier, he left
his present direction and followed the cart to the Picaut dwelling.
The widow placed Jean Oullier on the bed where Pascal Picaut and the
poor Comte de Bonneville had lain side by side. While thus busy in
doing him the last offices, and wiping the blood and dust which
covered his face and matted his hair, the widow suddenly looked up and
saw the doctor.
"Alas! dear Monsieur Roger," she said, "the poor _gars_ is beyond your
help, more's the pity. There are so many left on this earth who are
not worth their salt that it is doubly sad when one like Jean Oullier
is carried off before his time."
The doctor made the widow tell him all she knew of Jean Oullier's
death. The presence of her sister-in-law and the children and women
who had followed the cart out of curiosity, prevented the widow from
relating how she had met him and left him a few hours earlier, full of
life, except for his broken ankle; and how, returning after dark, she
heard a pistol-shot and the footsteps of men who were running away,
having no doubt murdered him. She merely said that coming from the
moor she had found the body on the road.
"Poor, brave man!" said the doctor. "But after all, better such a
death--the death of a soldier--than the fate that awaited him had he
lived. He was seriously compromised, and if taken, they would have
sent him, no doubt, to the cells on Mont Saint-Michel."
As he said the words the doctor went nearer to the body and
mechanically took the inert arm to lay it over the breast; but his
hand had no sooner come in contact with the flesh than the doctor
started.
"What is it?" asked the widow.
"Nothing," replied the doctor, coldly. "The man is dead and only needs
the last offices."
"Why did you bring his body here?" said the wife of Joseph Picaut,
angrily. "We shall have the Blues down upon us! You know what happened
the first time, and can judge by that."
"What does that signify to you," said the widow, "as neither you nor
your husband live here any longer?"
"It is the very reason we don't live here," replied Joseph's wife. "We
are afraid the Blues may be after us and destroy the little property
that is left."
"You would do well to have him recognized before you bury him,"
interrupted the doctor; "and if that will be any trouble to you I'll
undertake to remove the body to the château of the Marquis de Souday,
whose physician I am." Then, seizing a moment when the widow passed
close beside him, he whispered, "Get rid of these people." This was
easy to do, as it was then near midnight. As soon as they were alone
the doctor said, going close up to Marianne:--
"Jean Oullier is not dead."
"Not dead?" she cried.
"No. I said nothing before those people, because, in my opinion, it is
of the utmost consequence that no one shall come here and disturb you
in the care I am sure you will give him."
"God bless you!" said the good woman, joyfully. "If I can help to cure
him you may count on me; I'll do it with the greatest happiness, for I
shall never forget the friendship my poor husband felt for him.
Neither shall I cease to remember that though I was then working
against him and his, Jean Oullier wouldn't let me die by the hand of a
murderer."
Then, having carefully closed all the shutters and the door of her
room, the widow lighted a fire, heated water, and while the doctor
examined the wound and tried to discover what, if any, vital organs
were involved, she said good-bye to a few old gossips still lingering
about the house, saying she was on her way back to Saint-Philbert.
Then at the first turn of the road she darted into the woods and
returned to the cottage by way of the orchard.
She listened at Joseph Picaut's part of the house; it was closed and
she heard no sound. Evidently her sister-in-law and the children had
returned to the hiding-place in which they lived while the husband and
father continued to keep up, under Maître Jacques, the partisan
warfare.
Marianne re-entered her own part of the house by the back door. The
doctor had finished dressing the wound: the signs of life in the body
were becoming more and more evident. Not only the heart, but the
pulses too were beating; and on putting a hand before the lips the
breath could be distinctly felt. The widow listened joyfully to what
the doctor told her.
"Do you think you can save him?" she asked.
"That's in God's hands," replied the doctor. "All I can say is that no
vital organ is involved, but the loss of blood has been enormous; and
I have also found it impossible to extract the ball."
"But," said Marianne, "I have heard that men can be cured and live to
old age with a ball in the body."
"So they can," replied the doctor. "But now, how are you going to
manage?"
"I did mean to take the poor fellow to Saint-Philbert and hide him
there till he died or recovered."
"You can't do that now," said the doctor. "He must have been saved by
what we call a clot, which has plugged the artery. The slightest
jar now would prove fatal. Besides, in your mother's inn at
Saint-Philbert, with so many going and coming, you could never conceal
his presence."
"Good God! do you believe that in such a state they would have the
cruelty to arrest him?"
"They would not put him in prison, of course; but they would take him
to some hospital, and as soon as he recovers they would try him, and
condemn him either to death or to the galleys. Jean Oullier is one of
those obscure leaders who are so dangerous through their influence on
the body of the people that the government will be pitiless toward
him. Why don't you confide in your sister-in-law? Jean Oullier and she
hold the same opinions."
"You heard what she said?"
"That's true. I see you can't have much confidence in her pity. And
yet, God knows, she of all people ought to be merciful to her
neighbor, for if her husband were taken it might go far worse with him
than with Jean Oullier."
"Yes, I know that," said the widow, in a gloomy voice. "Death is upon
them all."
"Well," said the doctor, "the question is, can you hide him here?"
"Here? Yes, of course I can; he will even be safer here than
elsewhere, because the house is thought to be empty. But who would
take care of him?"
"Jean Oullier is not a girl or a baby," replied the doctor. "Two or
three days hence, after the fever subsides, he can be left alone all
day; and I'll promise you to visit him at night."
"Very good; and I'll be here all the time I can without exciting
suspicion."
Marianne, with the doctor's help, carried the wounded man into the
stable adjoining her room; she bolted the door carefully, placed her
own mattress on a pile of straw, and then, appointing to meet the
doctor there the following night, and knowing that the sick man would
need only a little fresh water at first, she threw herself on a heap
of straw beside him and waited patiently till he showed some signs of
returning life, either by words or even by a sigh.
The next day she showed herself at Saint-Philbert; and when asked
about Jean Oullier, replied that she had followed the advice of her
sister-in-law, and fearing to be molested, had taken the dead body
back to the moor where she had found it. Then she returned to her
house on pretence of putting it in order. The following evening she
again closed it carefully and went back to Saint-Philbert before dark,
so that all the town might see her. But no sooner was it really night
than she returned to Jean Oullier.
She nursed him in this way for three days and nights, shut up with him
in the stable, fearing to make the slightest noise that might betray
her presence; and though at the end of those three days Jean Oullier
was still in the state of torpor which follows great physical
commotions and loss of blood, the doctor advised her to stay at home
during the day and return to him only at night.
Jean Oullier's wound was so severe that he really hung for a fortnight
between life and death; fragments of his clothing carried in by the
ball remained in the wound, where they kept up the inflammation, and
it was not till Nature herself eliminated them that the doctor, to the
widow's great joy, declared him out of danger. The good woman's care
redoubled as soon as she felt he would recover; and though her patient
was still weak and could hardly articulate more than a few words, and
the signs were few of his being any better, she never failed to spend
the night beside him and supply all his wants, taking at the same time
the utmost precautions.
In spite of all drawbacks, however, no sooner were the foreign
substances expelled from the wound, and a steady and healthful
suppuration set up, than he made rapid strides to recovery. As his
strength returned he began to worry greatly about those he loved; and
he now implored the widow to bring him some news of the Marquis de
Souday, Bertha, Mary, and even Michel,--Michel, who had actually
triumphed over the old Vendéan's antipathies and conquered a place,
however small, in his affections. Marianne did as he requested, and
made some inquiries of the royalist travellers who stopped at her
mother's inn; and she was soon able to relieve Jean Oullier's mind by
telling him that his friends were all living and well; that the
marquis was in the forest of Touvois, Bertha and Michel at Courtin's
farmhouse, and Mary, in all probability, at Nantes.
But the widow had no sooner uttered the name of Courtin than a total
change came over her patient's face; he passed his hand across his
forehead as if to clear his thought, and rose in his bed for the first
time without assistance. Friendship and tenderness had occupied his
first returning thoughts; hatred and thoughts of vengeance now filled
his hitherto empty brain, and over-excited it with all the more
violence because it had been torpid so long.
To her terror, Marianne Picaut heard Jean Oullier again uttering
phrases he had cried out in his fever, and which she had then taken
for delirium; she heard him mingle Courtin's name with accusations of
treachery and murder and of fabulous sums paid for some crime. Talking
thus, her patient became violently excited; with flashing eyes, and in
a voice trembling with emotion he implored her to go and find Bertha
and bring her to his bedside. The poor woman believed his excitement
was caused by a return of the fever, and was all the more uneasy
because the doctor had told her that he should not return for two
nights. She nevertheless promised the patient to do as he requested.
On this promise Jean Oullier calmed down, and little by little,
overcome with the violence of the emotions he had just passed through,
he went to sleep.
The widow, sitting on the straw beside the bed, and conscious of her
own fatigue, felt her eyes closing and sleep overtaking her in spite
of herself, when, all of a sudden she heard, or fancied she heard,
some unusual sound in the courtyard. She listened attentively; it was
certainly a man's step on the pavement which surrounded the pile of
manure which lay in the yard of the two dwellings. Presently a hand
unfastened the latch of the adjoining door, and Marianne heard a
voice, which she recognized as that of her brother-in-law, cry out:
"This way, this way!" and then the steps went up to Joseph's house.
Marianne knew that the house was empty; this nocturnal visit of her
brother-in-law excited her curiosity. She did not doubt it concerned
some scheme of violence such as all Chouans cherish traditionally, and
she resolved to listen.
She softly raised the shutter of a hole through which the cows, when
in the stable, poked their heads to eat the provender laid for them on
the floor of the room itself. Through this narrow opening she crawled
into her own room; then she climbed noiselessly up the ladder on which
the Comte de Bonneville had met his death, entered the garret, which,
as we know, was common to the two houses, and there, with her ear to
the floor above her brother-in-law's room, listened attentively.
She came into the midst of a conversation already begun.
"Did you see the sum?" said a voice which was not completely unknown
to her, though she could not recall the owner of it.
"As plain as I see you," replied Joseph Picaut. "It was all in
bank-bills; but he insisted on having it in gold."
"So much the better! for bills, I must say, don't attract me much; it
is difficult to get them taken in country places."
"I tell you he is to have gold."
"Good! and where are they to meet?"
"At Saint-Philbert, to-morrow night. You have plenty of time to
collect your _gars_."
"My _gars!_ are you crazy? How many did you say they were?"
"Two; that villain and his companion."
"Well, then, two against two; that's the right kind of war, as Georges
Cadoudal of glorious memory used to say."
"But you have only one hand now, Maître Jacques."
"That doesn't matter, if the one hand is a good one. I'll settle the
strongest of the pair."
"No, no! that's not in the agreement!"
"What do you mean?"
"I want the mayor for myself."
"You are exacting!"
"Oh, the villain! it will be little enough satisfaction for all he has
made me suffer."
"If they have the money you say they have, there'll be enough to
compensate you, even if he had sold you on the shambles like a negro.
Twenty-five thousand francs! You are not worth all that, my good
fellow, I know!"
"Perhaps not; but revenge is what I am after, and I've long wanted to
get my hand on him, the damned cur. It was he who caused--"
"Caused what?"
"No matter; I know."
Joseph Picaut's meaning was unintelligible to every one except
Marianne. She was certain that the recollection in the Chouan's mind
related to the killing of her poor husband, and a shudder ran through
her frame.
"Well," said Joseph's companion, "you shall have your man. But, before
undertaking the matter, will you swear that all you have said is true,
and that it is really a government agent on whom I am to lay hands?
Otherwise, you understand, the affair won't suit me."
"The devil! Do you suppose any private man is rich enough to make
presents like that to such a villain? Besides, those fifty thousand
francs are only on account; I heard that plainly."
"And you couldn't find out what they were paying such a large sum
for?"
"No, but I can guess."
"Tell me."
"It is my opinion, Maître Jacques, that in ridding the earth of that
pair of rascals we shall be killing two birds with one stone,--a
private matter first, and a political stroke next. But don't be
uneasy; I'll know more by to-morrow night, and let you know."
"_Sacredié!_" exclaimed Maître Jacques; "you make my mouth water. Look
here! I retract my word; you can only have your man if I leave a bit
of him!"
"Leave a bit of him! what do you mean?"
"Why, before you settle with him I want my share in the conversation."
"Pooh! do you suppose you could get his secret out of him?"
"Yes, if he is once my prisoner."
"He's a sly one!"
"Nonsense. You, who knew the old days, don't you remember how we used
to make 'em speak,--those who didn't want to?" said Maître Jacques,
with a dangerous look.
"Ha, yes! how we roasted their paws! Faith, you are right; that will
serve my vengeance better still," replied Joseph Picaut.
"And then we shall find out why and wherefore the government sends
those little gifts of fifty thousand francs, on account, to a country
mayor. That knowledge may be worth more to us than the gold we
pocket."
"Hey! gold has its value, especially to us who are old offenders and
likely to leave our heads on the place du Bouffai. With my share, that
is, twenty-five thousand francs, I can get away and live elsewhere."
"You shall do as you like. But come! tell me exactly where your pair
are to meet; it is important not to miss them."
"At the inn of Saint-Philbert."
"Then that's all right. Isn't that inn kept by your sister-in-law, or
pretty nearly? She shall have her share; it will be in the family."
"Oh, no, no!" cried Joseph. "In the first place she is not one of
ours; and besides, she doesn't speak to me since--"
"Since what?"
"My brother's death, there! since you force me to tell you."
"Ah, ha! so it was true, what they said, that if you did not strike
the blow, you at least held the candle?"
"Who said that,--who said that?" shouted Joseph Picaut. "Name him,
Maître Jacques, and I'll hack him into pieces like that stool!" And
suiting the action to the word, he dashed the stool on which he was
sitting to the stone hearth and shivered it to fragments.
"Quiet! quiet!" said Maître Jacques; "what's all that to me? You know
I never meddle in family affairs. Come back to our own business. You
were saying?"
"I was saying, don't mix the matter up with my sister-in-law."
"Then it must be settled in the open country. But where? They'll be
sure to come by different roads."
"Yes, but they will go away together. In order to get home, the mayor
will have to take the road to Nantes as far as the Tiercet."
"Well, then, let's ambush by the road to Nantes among the reeds; it is
a good hiding-place. For my part, I've made more than one good stroke
just there."
"So be it. Where shall we meet? I shall leave here to-morrow, before
daylight," said Joseph.
"Well, then, meet me at the Ragot crossways in the forest of
Machecoul," said the master of warrens.
Joseph agreed to the place and promised to be there. The widow heard
him offer Maître Jacques a night's lodging under his roof; but the old
Chouan, who had his burrows in every forest of the canton, preferred
those asylums to all the houses in the world, if not for comfort, at
least for security.
He departed therefore, and all was silent in Joseph's part of the
house.
Marianne returned to her stable and found Jean Oullier fast asleep;
she did not wake him. The night was far advanced,--so advanced that
she had only time to get back to Saint-Philbert before daylight. After
arranging, as usual, everything that her patient might want during the
morrow, she left the stable through the window.
As she walked thoughtfully along, the hatred she felt to her
brother-in-law, because of her firm conviction that he had shared in
the death of Pascal, and her deep desire for vengeance, which the
loneliness and sufferings of her widowhood made daily more imperious,
came over her. It seemed to her that heaven, by calling her
providentially to the discovery of Joseph's secret intention of crime,
put itself on her side; she believed she would be serving its designs
(while satisfying her hatred) in preventing the accomplishment of this
crime and the ruin and death of those she considered innocent. Her
first idea had been to denounce Maître Jacques and Joseph either to
the police or to those they intended to attack; but she now renounced
that scheme and resolved to be herself, and all alone, the
intermediary between fate and the victims of the intended crime.