Kitabı oku: «The Wolf-Leader», sayfa 11

CHAPTER XIII
Where it is demonstrated that a woman never speaks more eloquently than when she holds her tongue

AS Thibault was talking to himself he did not catch the few hurried words which Suzanne whispered to the Baron; and all he saw was that she appeared to totter, and then fell back into her lover’s arms, as if in a dead faint.

The Bailiff stopped short as he caught sight of this curious group, lit up by his candle. He was facing Thibault, and the latter endeavoured to read in Monsieur Magloire’s face what was passing in his mind.

But the Bailiff’s jovial physiognomy was not made by nature to express any strong emotion, and Thibault could detect nothing in it but a benevolent astonishment on the part of the amiable husband.

The Baron, also, evidently detected nothing more, for with a coolness and ease of manner, which produced on Thibault a surprise beyond expression, he turned to the Bailiff, and asked:

“Well, friend Magloire, and how do you carry your wine this evening?”

“Why, is it you, my lord?” replied the Bailiff opening his fat little eyes.

“Ah! pray excuse me, and believe me, had I known I was to have the honour of seeing you here, I should not have allowed myself to appear in such an unsuitable costume.”

“Pooh-pooh! nonsense!”

“Yes, indeed, my lord; you must permit me to go and make a little toilette.”

“No ceremony, I pray!” rejoined the Baron. “After curfew, one is at least free to receive one’s friends in what costume one likes. Besides, my dear friend, there is something which requires more immediate attention.”

“What is that, my lord?”

“To restore Madame Magloire to her senses, who, you see, has fainted in my arms.”

“Fainted! Suzanne fainted! Ah! my God!” cried the little man, putting down his candle on the chimney-piece, “how ever did such a misfortune happen?”

“Wait, wait, Monsieur Magloire!” said my lord, “we must first get your wife into a more comfortable position in an armchair; nothing annoys women so much as not to be at their ease when they are unfortunate enough to faint.”

“You are right, my lord; let us first put her in the armchair… Oh Suzanne! poor Suzanne! How can such a thing as this have happened?”

“I pray you at least, my dear fellow, not to think any ill of me at finding me in your house at such a time of night!”

“Far from it, my lord,” replied the Bailiff, “the friendship with which you honour us, and the virtue of Madame Magloire are sufficient guarantees for me to be glad at any hour to have my house honoured by your presence.”

“Triple dyed idiot!” murmured the shoe-maker, “unless I ought rather to call him a doubly clever dissembler… No matter which, however! we have yet to see how my lord is going to get out of it.”

“Nevertheless,” continued Maître Magloire, dipping a handkerchief into some aromatic water, and bathing his wife’s temples with it, “nevertheless, I am curious to know how my poor wife can have received such a shock.”

“It’s a simple affair enough, as I will explain, my dear fellow. I was returning from dining with my friend, de Vivières, and passing through Erneville on my way to Vez, I caught sight of an open window, and a woman inside making signals of distress.”

“Ah! my God!”

“That is what I exclaimed, when I realised that the window belonged to your house; and can it be my friend the Bailiff’s wife, I thought, who is in danger and in need of help?”

“You are good indeed, my lord,” said the Bailiff quite overcome. “I trust it was nothing of the sort.”

“On the contrary, my dear man.”

“How! on the contrary?”

“Yes, as you will see.”

“You make me shudder, my lord! And do you mean that my wife was in need of help and did not call me?”

“It had been her first thought to call you, but she abstained from doing so, for, and here you see her delicacy of feeling, she was afraid that if you came, your precious life might be endangered.”

The Bailiff turned pale and gave an exclamation.

“My precious life, as you are good enough to call it, is in danger?”

“Not now, since I am here.”

“But tell me, I pray, my lord, what had happened? I would question my wife, but as you see she is not yet able to answer.”

“And am I not here to answer in her stead?”

“Answer then, my lord, as you are kind enough to offer to do so; I am listening.”

The Baron made a gesture of assent, and went on:

“So I ran to her, and seeing her all trembling and alarmed, I asked, ‘What is the matter, Madame Magloire, and what is causing you so much alarm?’ ‘Ah! my lord,’ she replied, ‘just think what I feel, when I tell you that yesterday and to-day, my husband has been entertaining a man about whom I have the worst suspicions. Ugh! A man who has introduced himself under the pretence of friendship to my dear Magloire, and actually makes love to me, to me…’ ”

“She told you that?”

“Word for word, my dear fellow! She cannot hear what we are saying, I hope?”

“How can she, when she is insensible?”

“Well, ask her yourself when she comes to, and if she does not tell you exactly to the letter what I have been telling you, call me a Turk, an infidel and a heretic.”

“Ah! these men! these men!” murmured the Bailiff.

“Yes, race of vipers!” continued my lord of Vez, “do you wish me to go on?”

“Yes, indeed!” said the little man, forgetting the scantiness of his attire in the interest excited in him by the Baron’s tale.

“ ‘But Madame,’ I said to my friend Madame Magloire, ‘How could you tell that he had the audacity to love you?’ ”

“Yes,” put in the Bailiff, “how did she find it out? I never noticed anything myself.”

“You would have been aware of it, my dear friend, if only you had looked under the table; but, fond of your dinner as you are, you were not likely to be looking at the dishes on the table and underneath it at the same time.”

“The truth is, my lord, we had the most perfect little supper! just you think now – cutlets of young wild-boar…”

“Very well,” said the Baron, “now you are going to tell me about your supper, instead of listening to the end of my tale, a tale which concerns the life and honour of your wife!”

“True, true, my poor Suzanne! My lord, help me to open her hands, that I may slap them on the palms.”

The Lord of Vez gave all the assistance in his power to Monsieur Magloire, and by dint of their united efforts they forced open Madame Magloire’s hands.

The good man, now easier in his mind, began slapping his wife’s palms with his chubby little hands, all the while giving his attention to the remainder of the Baron’s interesting and veracious story.

“Where had I got to?” he asked.

“You had got just to where my poor Suzanne, whom one may indeed call ‘the chaste Suzanna…’ ”

“Yes, you may well say that!” interrupted the lord of Vez.

“Indeed, I do! You had just got to where my poor Suzanne began to be aware…”

“Ah, yes – that your guest like Paris of old was wishing to make another Menelaus of you; well, then she rose from table… You remember that she did so?”

“No… I was perhaps a little – just a little – overcome.”

“Quite so! Well then she rose from table, and said it was time to retire.”

“The truth is, that the last hour I heard strike was eleven,” said the jovial Bailiff.

“Then the party broke up.”

“I don’t think I left the table,” said the Bailiff.

“No, but Madame Magloire and your guest did. She told him which was his room, and Perrine showed him to it; after which, kind and faithful wife as she is, Madame Magloire tucked you into bed, and went into her own room.”

“Dear little Suzanne!” said the bailiff in a voice of emotion.

“And it was then, when she found herself in her room, and all alone, that she got frightened; she went to the window and opened it; the wind, blowing into the room, put out her candle. You know what it is to have a sudden panic come over you, do you not?”

“Oh! yes,” replied the Bailiff naïvely, “I am very timid myself.”

“After that she was seized with panic, and not daring to wake you, for fear any harm should come to you, she called to the first horseman she saw go by – and luckily, that horseman was myself.”

“It was indeed fortunate, my lord.”

“Was it not?.. I ran, I made myself known.”

“ ‘Come up, my lord, come up,’ she cried. ‘Come up quickly – I am sure there is a man in my room.’ ”

“Dear! dear!..” said the bailiff, “you must indeed have felt terribly frightened.”

“Not at all! I thought it was only losing time to stop and ring; I gave my horse to l’Eveillé, I stood up on the saddle, climbed from that to the balcony, and, so that the man who was in the room might not escape, I shut the window. It was just at that moment that Madame Magloire, hearing the sound of your door opening, and overcome by such a succession of painful feelings, fell fainting into my arms.”

“Ah! my lord!” said the Bailiff, “how frightful all this is that you tell me.”

“And be sure, my dear friend, that I have rather softened than added to its terror; anyhow, you will hear what Madame Magloire has to tell you when she comes to…”

“See, my lord, she is beginning to move.”

“That’s right! burn a feather under her nose.”

“A feather?”

“Yes, it is a sovereign anti-spasmodic; burn a feather under her nose, and she will revive instantly.”

“But where shall I find a feather?” asked the bailiff.

“Here! take this, the feather round my hat.” And the lord of Vez broke off a bit of the ostrich feather which ornamented his hat, gave it to Monsieur Magloire, who lighted it at the candle and held it smoking under his wife’s nose.

The remedy was a sovereign one, as the Baron had said; the effect of it was instantaneous; Madame Magloire sneezed.

“Ah!” cried the bailiff delightedly, “now she is coming to! my wife! my dear wife! my dear little wife!”

Madame Magloire gave a sigh.

“My lord! my lord!” cried the bailiff, “she is saved! saved!”

Madame Magloire opened her eyes, looked first at the Bailiff and then at the Baron, with a bewildered gaze, and then finally fixing them on the Bailiff:

“Magloire! dear Magloire!” she said, “is it really you? Oh! how glad I am to see you again after the bad dream I have had!”

“Well!” muttered Thibault, “she is a brazen-faced huzzy, if you like! if I do not get all that I want from the ladies I run after, they, at least, afford me some valuable object lessons by the way!”

“Alas! my beautiful Suzanne,” said the Bailiff, “it is no bad dream you have had, but, as it seems, a hideous reality.”

“Ah! I remember now,” responded Madame Magloire. Then, as if noticing for the first time that the lord of Vez was there:

“Ah! my lord,” she continued, “I hope you have repeated nothing to my husband of all those foolish things I told you?”

“And why not, dear lady?” asked the Baron.

“Because an honest woman knows how to protect herself, and has no need to keep on telling her husband a lot of nonsense like that.”

“On the contrary, Madame,” replied the Baron, “I have told my friend everything.”

“Do you mean that you have told him that during the whole of supper time that man was fondling my knee under the table?”

“I told him that, certainly.”

“Oh! the wretch!” exclaimed the Bailiff.

“And that when I stooped to pick up my table napkin, it was not that, but his hand, that I came across.”

“I have hidden nothing from my friend Magloire.”

“Oh! the ruffian!” cried the Bailiff.

“And that Monsieur Magloire having a passing giddiness which made him shut his eyes while at table, his guest took the opportunity to kiss me against my will?”

“I thought it was right for a husband to know everything.”

“Oh! the knave!” cried the Bailiff.

“And did you even go so far as to tell him that having come into my room, and the wind having blown out the candle, I fancied I saw the window curtains move, which made me call to you for help, believing that he was hidden behind them?”

“No, I did not tell him that! I was going to when you sneezed.”

“Oh! the vile rascal!” roared the Bailiff, taking hold of the Baron’s sword which the latter had laid on a chair, and drawing it out of the scabbard, then, running toward the window which his wife had indicated, “He had better not be behind these curtains, or I will spit him like a woodcock,” and with this he gave one or two lunges with the sword against the window hangings.

But all at once the Bailiff stayed his hand, and stood as if arrested like a school-boy caught trespassing out of bounds; his hair rose on end beneath his cotton night-cap, and this conjugal head-dress became agitated as by some convulsive movement. The sword dropped from his trembling hand, and fell with a clatter on the floor. He had caught sight of Thibault behind the curtains, and as Hamlet kills Polonius, thinking to slay his father’s murderer, so he, believing that he was thrusting at nothing, had nearly killed his crony of the night before, who had already had time enough to prove himself a false friend. Moreover as he had lifted the curtain with the point of the sword, the Bailiff was not the only one who had seen Thibault. His wife and the Lord of Vez had both been participators in the unexpected vision, and both uttered a cry of surprise. In telling their tale so well, they had had no idea that they were so near the truth. The Baron, too, had not only seen that there was a man, but had also recognised that the man was Thibault.

“Damn me!” he exclaimed, as he went nearer to him, “if I mistake not, this is my old acquaintance, the man with the boar-spear!”

“How! how! man with the boar-spear?” asked the Bailiff, his teeth chattering as he spoke. “Anyway I trust he has not his boar-spear with him now!” And he ran behind his wife for protection.

“No, no, do not be alarmed,” said the Lord of Vez, “even if he has got it with him, I promise you it shall not stay long in his hands. So, master poacher,” he went on, addressing himself to Thibault, “you are not content to hunt the game belonging to his Highness the Duke of Orleans, in the forest of Villers-Cotterets, but you must come and make excursions in the open and poach on the territory of my friend Maître Magloire?”

“A poacher! do you say?” exclaimed the Bailiff. “Is not Monsieur Thibault a landowner, the proprietor of farms, living in his country house on the income from his estate of a hundred acres?”

“What, he?” said the Baron, bursting into a loud guffaw, “so he made you believe all that stuff, did he? the rascal has got a clever tongue. He! a landowner! that poor starveling! why, the only property he possesses is what my stable-boys wear on their feet – the wooden shoes he gets his living by making.”

Madame Suzanne, on hearing Thibault thus classified, made a gesture of scorn and contempt, while Maître Magloire drew back a step, while the colour mounted to his face. Not that the good little man was proud, but he hated all kinds of deceit; it was not because he had clinked glasses with a shoe-maker that he turned red, but because he had drunk in company with a liar and a traitor.

During this avalanche of abuse Thibault had stood immovable with his arms folded and a smile on his lips. He had no fear but that when his turn came to speak, he would be able to take an easy revenge. And the moment to speak seemed now to have come. In a light, bantering tone of voice – which showed that he was gradually accustoming himself to conversing with people of a superior rank to his own – he then exclaimed; “By the Devil and his horns! as you yourself remarked a little while ago, you can tell tales of other people, my lord, without much compunction, and I fancy if everyone followed your example, I should not be at such a loss what to say, as I choose to appear!”

The lord of Vez, perfectly aware, as was the bailiff’s wife, of the menace conveyed in these words, answered by looking Thibault up and down with eyes that were starting with anger.

“Oh!” said Madame Magloire, somewhat imprudently, “you will see, he is going to invent some scandalous tale about me.”

“Have no fear, Madame,” replied Thibault, who had quite recovered his self-possession, “you have left me nothing to invent on that score.”

“Oh! the vile wretch!” she cried, “you see, I was right; he has got some malicious slander to report about me; he is determined to revenge himself because I would not return his sheep’s-eyes, to punish me because I was not willing to warn my husband that he was paying court to me.” During this speech of Madame Suzanne’s the lord of Vez had picked up his sword and advanced threateningly towards Thibault. But the Bailiff threw himself between them, and held back the Baron’s arm. It was fortunate for Thibault that he did so, for the latter did not move an inch to avoid the blow, evidently prepared at the last moment to utter some terrible wish which would avert the danger from him; but the Bailiff interposing, Thibault had no need to resort to this means of help.

“Gently, my lord!” said the Maître Magloire, “this man is not worthy our anger. I am but a plain citizen myself, but you see, I have only contempt for what he says, and I readily forgive him the way in which he has endeavoured to abuse my hospitality.”

Madame Magloire now thought that her moment had come for moistening the situation of affairs with her tears, and burst into loud sobs.

“Do not weep, dear wife!” said the Bailiff, with his usual kind and simple good-nature. “Of what could this man accuse you, even suppose he had something to bring against you! Of having deceived me? Well, I can only say, that made as I am, I feel I still have favours to grant you and thanks to render you, for all the happy days which I owe to you. Do not fear for a moment that this apprehension of an imaginary evil will alter my behaviour towards you. I shall always be kind and indulgent to you, Suzanne, and as I shall never shut my heart against you, so will I never shut my door against my friends. When one is small and of little account it is best to submit quietly and to trust; one need have no fear then but of cowards and evil-doers, and I am convinced, I am happy to say, that they are not so plentiful as they are thought to be. And, after all, by my faith! if the bird of misfortune should fly in, by the door or by the window, by Saint Gregory, the patron of drinkers, there shall be such a noise of singing, such a clinking of glasses, that he will soon be obliged to fly out again by the way he came in!”

Before he had ended, Madame Suzanne had thrown herself at his feet, and was kissing his hands. His speech, with its mingling of sadness and philosophy, had made more impression upon her than would have a sermon from the most eloquent of preachers. Even the lord of Vez did not remain unmoved; a tear gathered in the corner of his eye, and he lifted his finger to wipe it away, before holding out his hand to the Bailiff, saying as he did so:

“By the horn of Beelzebub! my dear friend, you have an upright mind and a kind heart, and it would be a sin indeed to bring trouble upon you; and if I have ever had a thought of doing you wrong, may God forgive me for it! I can safely swear, whatever happens, that I shall never have such another again.”

While this reconciliation was taking place between the three secondary actors in this tale, the situation of the fourth, that is of the principal character in it, was becoming more and more embarrassing.

Thibault’s heart was swelling with rage and hatred; himself unaware of the rapid growth of evil within him, he was fast growing, from a selfish and covetous man, into a wicked one. Suddenly, his eyes flashing, he cried aloud: “I do not know what holds me back from putting a terrible end to all this!”

On hearing this exclamation, which had all the character of a menace in it, the Baron and Suzanne understood it to mean that some great and unknown and unexpected danger was hanging over everybody’s heads. But the Baron was not easily intimidated, and he drew his sword for the second time and made a movement towards Thibault. Again the Bailiff interposed.

“My lord Baron! my lord Baron!” said Thibault in a low voice, “this is the second time that you have, in wish at least, passed your sword through my body; twice therefore you have been a murderer in thought! Take care! one can sin in other ways besides sinning in deed.”

“Thousand devils!” cried the Baron, beside himself with anger, “the rascal is actually reading me a moral lesson! My friend, you were wanting a little while ago to spit him like a woodcock, allow me to give him one light touch, such as the matador gives the bull, and I will answer for it, that he won’t get up again in a hurry.”

“I beseech you on my knees, as a favour to your humble servant, my lord,” replied the Bailiff, “to let him go in peace; and deign to remember, that, being my guest, there should no hurt nor harm be done to him in this poor house of mine.”

“So be it!” answered the Baron, “I shall meet him again. All kinds of bad reports are about concerning him, and poaching is not the only harm reported of him; he has been seen and recognised running the forest along with a pack of wolves – and astonishingly tame wolves at that. It’s my opinion that the scoundrel does not always spend his midnights at home, but sits astride a broom-stick oftener than becomes a good Catholic; the owner of the mill at Croyolles has made complaint of his wizardries. However, we will not talk of it any more now; I shall have his hut searched, and if everything there is not as it should be, the wizard’s hole shall be destroyed, for I will not allow it to remain on his Highness’s territory. And now, take yourself off, and that quickly!”

The shoe-maker’s exasperation had come to a pitch during this menacing tirade from the Baron; but, nevertheless, he profited by the passage that was cleared for him, and went out of the room. Thanks to his faculty of being able to see in the dark, he walked straight to the door, opened it, and passed over the threshold of the house, where he had left behind so many fond hopes, now lost for ever, slamming the door after him with such violence that the whole house shook. He was obliged to call to mind the useless expenditure of wishes and hair of the preceding evening, to keep himself from asking that the whole house, and all within it, might be devoured by the flames. He walked on for ten minutes before he became conscious that it was pouring with rain – but the rain, frozen as it was, and even because it was so bitterly cold, seemed to do Thibault good. As the good Magloire had artlessly remarked, his head was on fire.

On leaving the Bailiffs house, Thibault had taken the first road he came to; he had no wish to go in one direction more than another, all he wanted was space, fresh air and movement. His desultory walking brought him first of all on to the Value lands; but even then he did not notice where he was until he saw the mill of Croyolles in the distance. He muttered a curse against its fair owner as he passed, rushed on like a madman between Vauciennes and Croyolles, and seeing a dark mass in front of him, plunged into its depths. This dark mass was the forest.

The forest-path to the rear of Ham, which leads from Croyolles to Préciamont, was now ahead of him, and into this he turned, guided solely by chance.