The Mysteries Of Paris Volume Iv Part 47

"Now you, my good lady," said Nicholas to Madame Seraphin, offering her his hand in turn.

Was it presentiment, or mistrust, or only fear that she could not spring quickly enough out of the little bark in which Nicholas and the Goualeuse were, that made Jacques Ferrand's housekeeper say to Nicholas, shrinking back, "No, I'll go in the boat with mademoiselle?" And she took her seat by Calabash.

"Just as you please," said Nicholas, exchanging an expressive look with his sister as, with a vigorous thrust with his oar, he drove his boat from the bank.

His sister did the same directly Madame Seraphin was seated beside her.

Standing, looking fixedly on the bank, indifferent to the scene, the widow, pensive and absorbed, fixed her look obstinately on Martial's window, which was discernible from the landing-place through the poplars. During this time the two boats, in the first of which were Nicholas and Fleur-de-Marie and in the other Calabash and Madame Seraphin, left the bank slowly.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE HAPPINESS OF MEETING.

Before the reader is made acquainted with the _denouement_ of the drama then pa.s.sing in Nicholas's boat, we shall beg leave to retrace our steps.

Shortly after Fleur-de-Marie had quitted St. Lazare in company of Madame Seraphin, La Louve also left that prison. Thanks to the recommendations of Madame Armand and the governor, who were desirous of recompensing her for her kindness towards Mont Saint-Jean, the few remaining days the beloved of Martial had still to remain in confinement were remitted her.

A complete change had come over this. .h.i.therto depraved, degraded, and intractable being. Forever brooding over the description of the peaceful, wild, and retired life, so beautifully depictured by Fleur-de-Marie, La Louve entertained the utmost horror and disgust of her past life. To bury herself with Martial in the deep shades of some vast forest, such was her waking and dreaming thought,--the one fixed idea of her existence, against which all her former evil inclinations had in vain struggled when, separating herself from La Goualeuse, whose growing influence she feared, this singular creature had retired to another part of St. Lazare.

To complete this sincere though rapid conversion, still more a.s.sured by the ineffectual resistance attempted by the perverse and froward habits of her companion, Fleur-de-Marie, following the dictates of her own natural good sense, had thus reasoned:

"La Louve, a violent and determined creature, is pa.s.sionately fond of Martial. She would, then, hail with delight the means of quitting the disgraceful life she now, for the first time, views with shame and disgust, for the purpose of entirely devoting herself to the rude, unpolished man whose taste she so entirely partakes of, and who seeks to hide himself from the world, as much from inclination as from a desire of escaping from the universal reprobation in which his family is viewed."

a.s.sisted by these small materials, gleaned during her conversation with La Louve, Fleur-de-Marie, in giving a right direction to the unbridled pa.s.sion and restraining the daring hardihood of the reckless creature, had positively converted a lost, wretched being into an honest woman; for what could the most virtuous of her s.e.x have desired more than to bestow her undivided affections on the man of her choice, to dwell with him in the silence and solitude of woods, where hard labour, privations and poverty, would all be cheerfully borne and shared for his dear sake, to whom her heart was given?

And such was the constant, ardent prayer of La Louve. Relying on the a.s.sistance which Fleur-de-Marie had a.s.sured her of in the name of an unknown benefactor, La Louve determined to make her praiseworthy proposal to her lover, not, indeed, without the keen and bitter apprehension of being rejected by him, for La Goualeuse, while she brought her to blush for her past life, awakened her to a just sense also of her position as regarded Martial.

Once at liberty, La Louve thought only of seeing "her man," as she called him. He took exclusive possession of her mind; she had heard nothing of him for several days. In the hopes of meeting with him in the Isle du Ravageur, and with the determination of waiting there until he came, should she fail to find him at first, she paid the driver of a cabriolet liberally to conduct her with all speed to the bridge of Asnieres, which she crossed about a quarter of an hour before Madame Seraphin and Fleur-de-Marie (they having walked from the barrier) had reached the banks of the river near the lime-kilns. As Martial did not present himself to ferry La Louve across to the Isle du Ravageur, she applied to an old fisherman, named Father Ferot, who lived close by the bridge.

It was about four o'clock in the day when a cabriolet stopped at the entrance of a small street in the village of Asnieres. La Louve leaped from it at one bound, threw a five-franc piece to the driver, and proceeded with all haste to the dwelling of old Ferot, the ferryman. La Louve, no longer dressed in her prison garb, wore a gown of dark green merino, a red imitation of cashmere shawl with large, flaming pattern, and a net cap trimmed with riband; her thick, curly hair was scarcely smoothed out, her impatient longing to see Martial having rendered an ordinary attention to her toilet quite impossible. Any other female would, after so long a separation, have exerted her very utmost to appear becomingly adorned at her first interview with her lover; but La Louve knew little and cared less for all these coquettish arts, which ill accorded with her excitable nature. Her first, her predominating desire was to see "her man" as quickly as possible, and this impetuous wish was caused, not alone by the fervour of a love which, in minds as wild and unregulated as hers, sometimes leads on to madness, but also from a yearning to pour into the ear of Martial the virtuous resolutions she had formed, and to reveal to him the bright vista of happiness opened to both by her conversation with Fleur-de-Marie.

The flying steps of La Louve soon conducted her to the fisherman's cottage, and there, seated tranquilly before the door, she found Father Ferot, an old, white-headed man, busily employed mending his nets. Even before she came close up to him, La Louve cried out:

"Quick, quick, Father Ferot! Your boat! Your boat!"

"What! Is it you, my girl? Well, how are you? I have not seen you this long while."

"I know, I know; but where is your boat? and take me across to the isle as fast as you can row."

"My boat? Well to be sure! Now, how very unlucky! As if it was to be so.

Bless you, my girl, it is quite out of my power to ferry you across to-day."

"But why? Why is it?"

"Why, you see, my son has taken my boat to go up to the boat-races held at St. Ouen. Bless your heart, I don't think there's a boat left all along the river's side."

"Distraction!" exclaimed La Louve, stamping her foot and clenching her hand. "Then all is lost; I shall not be able to see him!"

"'Pon my honour and word, it's true, though," said old Ferot. "I am extremely sorry I am unable to ferry you over, because, no doubt, by your going on so, he is very much worse."

"Who is much worse? Who?"

"Why, Martial!"

"Martial!" exclaimed La Louve, s.n.a.t.c.hing the sleeve of old Ferot's jacket, "My man ill?"

"Bless me! Did you not know it?"

"Martial? Do you mean Martial?"

"To be sure I do; but don't hold me so tight, you'll tear my blouse. Now be quiet, there's a good girl. I declare you frighten me, you stare about so wildly."

"Ill! Martial ill? And how long has he been so?"

"Oh, two or three days."

"'Tis false! He would have written and told me of it, had it been so."

"Ah, but then, don't you see? He's been too bad to handle a pen."

"Too ill to write! And he is on the isle! Are you sure--quite sure he is there?"

"Why, I'll tell you. You must know, this morning, I meets the widow Martial. Now you are aware, my girl, that most, in general, when I notice her coming one way, I make it my business to go the other, for I am not particular fond of her,--I can't say I am. So then--"

"But my man--my man! Tell me of him!"

"Wait a bit,--I'm coming to him. So when I found I couldn't get away from the mother, and, to speak the honest truth, that woman makes me afraid to seem to slight her. She has a sort of an evil look about her, like one as could do you any manner of harm for only wis.h.i.+ng for; I can't account for it, I don't know what it is, for I am not timorous by nature, but somehow the widow Martial does downright scare me. Well, says I, thinking just to say a few words and pa.s.s on, 'I haven't seen anything of your son Martial these last two or three days,' says I, 'I suppose he's not with you just now?' upon which she fixed her eyes upon me with such a look! 'Tis well they were not pistols, or they would have shot me, as folks say."

"You drive me wild! And then--and what said she?"

Father Ferot was silent for a minute or two, and then added:

"Come, now, you are a right sort of a girl; if you will only promise me to be secret, I will tell you all I know."

"Concerning my man?"

"Ay, to be sure, for Martial is a good fellow, though somewhat thoughtless; and it would be a sore pity should any mischance befall him through that old wretch of a mother or his rascally brother!"

"But what is going on? What have his mother or brother done? And where is he, eh? Speak, I tell you! Speak!"

"Well, well, have a little patience! And, I say, do just let my blouse alone! Come, take your hands off, there's a good girl; if you keep interrupting me, and tear my clothes in this way, I shall never be able to finish my story, and you will know nothing at last."

"Oh, how you try my patience!" exclaimed La Louve, stamping her foot with intense pa.s.sion.

"And you promise never to repeat a word of what I am about to tell you?"