It occurred to Marise, and the idea of a responsibility dried her tears
with a start, that she ought to get word somehow to Papa. Her heart
sprang up to think that perhaps if he knew Maman was so upset he would
come back at once. She did _want_ somebody so much, beside Jeanne and
Isabelle.
But she never knew Papa's address when he was away on business. Perhaps
there was something on Maman's writing-desk. She went quickly into the
salon, drew aside the curtains which shut off the writing-desk's alcove
from the salon, and began rather helplessly to fumble among Maman's
papers and novels. There were very few letters of any sort. Maman didn't
keep up her correspondence with America very much. Jeanne had heard
Marise moving and through the alcove curtains Marise saw her now come
into the salon with a basin of water in her hand, pretending that she
needed to water a plant. Marise remembered that she must as usual
arrange something to present to Jeanne that would not reflect on Maman's
fancifulness. But perhaps Soeur Ste. Lucie had told her something. She
inquired cautiously but Jeanne said stiffly, still outraged at having
been shut out of the room, that she knew nothing. Everything about her
except her words, said forcibly that she cared less, and that all this
foolishness was a part of the usual nonsense.
"Oh, Jeanne, a terrible thing has happened to poor Maman--she saw
somebody swept away in the Gavarnie and killed right before her eyes,
and it's upset her fearfully."
Jeanne's sulkiness vanished in the delight of her kind at having any
inside information about a violent death or a scandal. Marise remembered
how absorbed and excited Jeanne had been when somebody in the apartment
overhead had taken an over-dose of morphine and how proud she had been
to have everybody in the market stop to ask her details.
"Killed?" said Jeanne with a greedy eagerness, her eyes shining, "how
killed? Drowned? or knocked against the rocks? Man? or woman? Have they
got the body out?"
Marise did not, as a rule, enjoy Jeanne's interest in murders and deaths
and kidnappings, but this time she welcomed it and passed on to the old
woman all she could remember of what Soeur Ste. Lucie had told her.
Jeanne was much disappointed that Marise had not heard the name of the
dead person, but Marise promised to tell her as soon as the paper was
out, the next morning, since it would probably be printed. And with the
mention, there came back to her, with one of those sickening lurches,
the recollection of the girls putting their heads together over the
newspaper at school, and then looking at her so oddly and hiding it
away. "It was probably in this morning's paper," she said to Jeanne. "If
you'll get it, I'll read it to you."
But Jeanne came back in a moment with an astonished face, saying that
Isabelle reported that, of all queer things, Mlle. Hasparren, the
music-teacher had stopped in that morning and asked to borrow the paper.
Jeanne's astonishment never on any occasion remained more than an
instant untinged with suspicion, and Marise, who knew the old face so
well, saw the suspicious expression begin slowly to color the surprise.
"What in the name of God did the Hasparren want with our newspaper?" she
asked herself aloud, obviously snuffing around a new scent. Marise hated
Jeanne's face when it looked like that,--crafty and zestful, as though
she were licking her chops over a nasty smell.
They were still standing in the alcove, beside the writing-desk when the
door-bell rang. Jeanne turned to go, heard Isabelle open, and standing
between the half-open curtains turned her head to listen. Marise heard
nothing but a man's voice, and Isabelle answering, "Oui Monsieur, oui
Monsieur, oui Monsieur." But Jeanne started, stiffened, and darting on
tip-toe to the door, looked around the corner. The door shut, steps were
heard at the other end of the long hallway. Isabelle was evidently
bringing the visitor to the salon. Jeanne looked around wildly at
Marise, her face suddenly the color of lead, her eyes panic-struck. The
steps were nearer, there seemed to be more than one man. Jeanne ran
back, pushed Marise into the chair in the corner of the alcove,
motioning her violently but without a sound, to keep perfect silence,
and noiselessly drew the curtains together before the alcove. Marise
heard her step quickly back to the stand where the plant stood and the
click of her tin basin against the earthen-ware of the pot. And then she
heard her say in exactly her usual voice, only with a little surprise,
"Good-day, Messieurs, what can I do for you?"
"We have been sent," said a man's deep voice and not a "monsieur" but a
common sort of man, Marise could tell by his accent and intonation, "to
see and question Madame Allen." Jeanne evidently went through some
pantomime of astonishment for he explained, "a part of the inquest over
the death of M. Jean-Pierre Garnier, but the maid tells me she is
already not here."
Jeanne answered, and if she caught her breath or flinched, there was not
the smallest external sign of it, "No, M. l'Inspecteur, our poor lady
was so terribly upset over seeing such an awful thing, that the doctor
has just sent her for a few quiet days' retreat at the Holy Ghost
Convent. What a terrible thing, to be sure, M. l'Inspecteur."
The man answered wearily, "Eh bien, we shall have to see her, retreat or
no retreat. We have the blanks to fill out by all witnesses, and she is
the only witness. This is the inspecteur from St. Sauveur."
"Oh, the poor lady is in no state to be questioned," said Jeanne with an
affectionate warmth in her voice. "She is as tender-hearted as a child,
and besides had been a great invalid. She took the whole course of baths
at Saint Sauveur last season, and was starting in again."
"Oh," said the man as if surprised, "she had been at Saint Sauveur
before? For the baths?" and then as if speaking to some one else, "it
would be harder then, to establish that she was there to meet the young
Garnier."
Jeanne seemed so astounded at this idea, that she could scarcely get her
breath to protest. "Oh, M. l'Inspecteur, oh! Who ever heard of anything
so wild! Is _that_ what people are saying? Oh, why!" she laughed out in
her amazement, "she hardly knew him by sight."
"Why," said the man evidently not speaking to Jeanne, "didn't you say
that she ran down along the bank of the river, screaming that he had
killed himself for her sake?"
"Yes, I said that," answered another man's voice, astonished and on the
defense, "and she _did_ too! and when the body was pulled out she flung
herself down on it, and shrieked that she wanted to die with him."
Jeanne broke in now, at the top of her voice, calling Heaven and earth
and all the saints to witness that she never heard of anything so
preposterous in her life, and that anybody in Bayonne could tell them
so, and what crazy stories would people be making up next out of whole
cloth? "Some one is trying to play a joke on M. l'Inspecteur from Saint
Sauveur. Nobody _could_ have heard our Madame say such things, because
she couldn't possibly have said them, any more than she could about a
clerk who sold her a yard of cloth over the counter. For she didn't know
any more about the young man than that! Why, she _never_ knew him except
as the son of one of her friends. He never came to the house, and more
than that she hadn't even laid eyes on him for more than two years. He
had been in America and is only just returned, day before yesterday.
_Any_body you ask here can tell you that."
"Nom de Dieu!" said the first man's voice in extreme surprise. "Hadn't
seen him for two years!"
"No, he hasn't even been in France since he was a little young boy!" The
first man laughed as though the joke were on his comrade.
The second man's voice said, still defending himself, but now
uncertainly, "Very queer his following her right up there, if he
scarcely knew her--what was _he_ doing in Saint Sauveur at this season,
I'd like to know, if not...."
"Oh, as to that," said Jeanne carelessly, "I happen to know why he was
there. I saw the young monsieur day before yesterday, just as he was
about to take the seven o'clock train, valise in hand, and I had a talk
with him, our young mademoiselle and I."
"Why, I thought you hardly knew him by sight in this house and he never
came here," broke in the second policeman suspiciously.
"I didn't say it was here we saw him," said Jeanne, "and I said it was
Madame who hardly knew him. But he is the brother of a little girl
classmate of our mademoiselle. They are all children together. Well,
every evening at six, except the days when Mademoiselle takes her music
lesson, I go to the school to fetch her home, and that afternoon, as we
were coming up the rue Port Neuf, we met the young man going towards the
station, and when he saw our mademoiselle, he stopped for a moment for a
chat, as young folks will. He was in high good spirits and said he was
off for a fine business trip to the mountains and expected to have a
good time as well as do business, and would be in Cauterets the next
morning. Well, you know Cauterets is just over a ridge of the Pyrenees
from Saint Sauveur and Mlle. Marise said, 'Why, is not that queer, my
maman is at Saint Sauveur just now! Why don't you take the other train
at Pierrefitte-Nestalos and run up to Saint Sauveur for half a day and
take Maman a message from me, something I forgot to ask her before she
left,' and the young man said he had been half planning to go to Saint
Sauveur on business anyhow, and to tell him the message and if he saw
her maman, he'd repeat it. Only he said, 'I don't believe your maman
knows me,' and Mlle. Marise said, 'Well, you tell her you are Danielle's
big brother, and she'll know. She knows all about my school-mates,' and
the young man asked which sanitarium it was in Luz and Mlle. Marise
reminded him, 'No, it's at Saint Sauveur where Maman is,' and told him
the name of the sanitarium, and then he said he hoped he'd get a little
fishing in the Gavarnie, and I said the water would be too high, and he
said he'd go and have a look at it anyway. And then he went along with
his valise. Mlle. Marise is at school or you could ask her all about
this too."
"Eh _bien_, my friend from Saint Sauveur!" said the first man's voice,
in a rallying tone of jocularity. "This sounds as though some of you
country-people must have lost your heads a bit. Come now. Did you
yourself _hear_ her, saying all that?"
"No, of course I didn't," said the other man stiffly, "I was in the
office at Luz. How could I know anything was happening? But the men who
got the body out said she was awful to hear."
"Oh, I don't doubt," agreed Jeanne, "that she was. Any woman would have
been driven half crazy by such an awful thing, the only son of a friend,
killed before your eyes. And she is terribly nervous into the bargain,
the least little thing sends her off into hysteria. Some nights I have
to rub her back until eleven o'clock to quiet her. And the doctor has
warned her against the least excitement. Why, two days ago there was an
important prize-contest at our mademoiselle's school and the poor woman,
although she would have given anything to go, was forbidden by the
doctor. He said the excitement would be too much for her, and she would
feel it so if her daughter were defeated. You can ask any one whether
she was there! And that evening, although Mlle. Marise had won the
prize, she was so worked up, I had to give her a sleeping draught to get
her a little rest, poor thing...."
"Were they _sure_ of what she said?" asked the first man of the other.
"Would they swear to it?"
"I don't see how anybody could hear anything!" put in Jeanne. "In
ordinary weather the gave of Gavarnie makes such a noise down there in
that gorge, you can't hear your own voice even if you yell. I remember
last summer when Madame was taking the cure, when we went to see her ...
and now in flood...."
"They'd certainly swear to her being in a terrible state of agitation,"
said the other in a rather nettled tone. He went on, "You saw for
yourself what was put in the paper about it this morning, how they had
met there by design and spent the night together at the hotel and all."
"You won't get far in an inquest, my young friend, if you take what a
newspaper says. Newspapers are always wrong," said the first man
pityingly, in a tone of experienced scepticism. "If this happened at ten
in the morning, they can't have been together more than an hour. If he
was seen here in Bayonne at six o'clock the evening before, he couldn't
possibly have reached Saint Sauveur before nine the next morning. You
know you wait three or four hours for the connection at Lourdes. To my
mind there's nothing in it. I will take you to the convent to see her,
if you insist, but I have no liking for scenes with hysteric women."
"Oh, messieurs!" said Jeanne shocked at the idea, "you couldn't possibly
expect to see her _now_! Not for a week, at least, the doctor said."
"A _week_!" cried the second voice, dismayed, "sacrebleu, I can't kick
my heels for a week, waiting."
"Well, suppose we go through the usual routine?" suggested the other.
"Go to see the family of the young man, and if they confirm all this ...
there's no use going further. There is plenty of time for you to get all
the facts you need for your report, and catch the one o'clock train back
to Saint Sauveur."
Jeanne said now jocularly, with a change of manner to the intimate
knowing tone of a servant-girl speaking to a policeman, "If you're not
in a hurry, you must stay to have a glass in honor of the house. We have
an excellent white wine, and the patron never counts the bottles."
Marise heard her lead them down the hall and across the landing to the
dining-room, and then in an instant heard her come back and run on
tip-toe up the hall. She thrust her head through the curtains, showing a
haggard gray face, glistening with sweat, and whispered, "Don't move,
don't speak to a soul till I get back. I must see the Garniers before
they do."
Even without this, Marise would have been incapable of moving hand or
foot. Half an hour later, she was sitting in exactly the same position
frozen and deathly sick, when Jeanne let herself in cautiously. From the
gust of sounds that came in from across the landing, as the door was
opened, the two policemen seemed to be greatly enjoying both Isabelle
and the white wine.
Then Jeanne shut the door on the loud voices and laughter; and in their
place Marise heard the sound of dreadful hoarse gasps as Jeanne tried to
get her breath after running. It did not sound like the breathing of a
human being, but like that of some large animal, like a horse or cow,
exhausted and panting.
Jeanne came up the hall, fighting thus for her breath, and dragging her
feet. She shuffled heavily into the salon, and across to the closed
curtains, where locked in her nightmare, the child waited for some one
to come to the rescue.
The old woman drew the curtain a little aside. Marise caught one glimpse
of her face, now swollen and darkly congested. She saw that Jeanne was
nodding reassuringly at her; she heard Jeanne say in a whisper, "They
understood, it's all right, they...." Then, without the slightest
warning, she turned to one side and fell headlong inside the curtains.
For an instant she lay as if dead, her ghastly face at Marise's feet.
But almost at once she opened her eyes and tried to smile and to speak.
Only a guttural sound came from her lips. A look of terrible anxiety
came into her face. She motioned with one hand passionately, that the
curtain should be drawn shut to conceal her.
Marise, frightened out of her palsy, was kneeling by her sobbing,
"Jeanne, Jeanne."
She thought of what Jeanne had done for her mother, and flinging her
arms around her as she lay, she kissed her furiously, the tears coming
in a flood and pouring down on the dreadful face, now strangely twisted
to one side. Jeanne put one arm around her, and tried again to say
something. But her tongue moved senselessly in her distorted mouth; the
sweat stood out on her forehead as she struggled to speak.
Finally she gave up her desperate attempt, and put her finger to her
lips, exhorting Marise to silence. Such a wildness of apprehension was
in her eyes, that the girl muffled her sobs, hiding her face on the
inert breast, clinging with all her might to the half-dead body.
She thought that Jeanne was dying. She thought that she herself was
dying. She longed to die, there, that instant, and escape the shame and
sorrow and misery that buried her so deep, so much deeper even than
Jeanne knew.
The sound of laughter and voices chimed out merrily again. Isabelle had
opened the other door. Marise held her breath, her face buried on
Jeanne's breast. The old woman tightened the clasp of her arm. They
strained their ears.
Then they heard the men's feet clatter down the stairs.