The Old Countess (Sedgwick)/Chapter 31
IT was late afternoon and at the Manoir door Graham had rung three times. The dark house, cloaked with rain, loomed above him, its walls filled with the furtive patterings of falling drops, like the running feet of mice. Behind him the wet branches of the sycamores sighed in the melancholy wind. There was no other sound; but, as he stood there, his foreboding Scotch blood alert and listening, old Médor stumbled round the corner of the house and paused, as Marthe Ludérac had paused, so long ago, and, fixing his fading eyes upon him, he lifted his nose and uttered a low howl. Hastily, angrily, at that, Graham turned the handle of the door and found it yield. The chill, high hall was before him and from the high window, above the stair, a pallid light fell down upon it.
Graham stood and looked; and listened to the stillness. He was alone as he had never been alone. Jill had not yet left him; but she had found a car and it was to take her that night to Mérinac, where she would catch the Paris train. It might be that he and Jill would never meet again. He had come to tell Marthe Ludérac that she was his wife no longer.
And as he stood in the silent house the real Marthe Ludérac seemed further from him than the Marthe of his dream.
He remembered that window. How curiously it had affected him when he first saw it. Should he now, suddenly, see Marthe appear at the turning of the stair? Or would it be the demented figure of Madame de Lamouderie? Or a figure in black, with a patch over its eye? Yes. This house had always terrified him. He knew that now. Had there not been terror, from the first, in his love for Marthe Ludérac? Had he not felt her, from the first, a ghost?—a corpse? What was he doing, standing here in this house of death? What had he come to seek? Where was Jill?—and life?—safe, sweet life?
He mastered the sickness of his blood. He went forward and opened the drawing-room door. The room was empty. The shrouded harp stood in the recess. His easel leaned in its place and he noted the gashed canvas, though he did not move forward to examine its destruction. But by the fire the footstool had been pushed away from the bergère and on the little table was the white earthenware basin that had been so inopportunely visible when he and Jill had first found the old lady; on a day of ill-omen. Madame de Lamouderie had been there, then; and recently.
He went outside and stood. 'Joseph!' he called. Dismally the walls and corridors of the old house answered his call, echoing back its challenge impotently. And as he heard the echo and the silence, another fear smote upon him; a natural, not a supernatural fear. Where was Marthe, then?
He went up the stair. He found the green baize door; and it led him to the old woman's room. It was empty; well ordered for the day. There stood the pink dressing-table and there the bed, all canopied in pink. In a corner was an important prie-dieu, mahogany and worn green velvet, a crucifix above it; and on the opposite wall hung a large engraving of a picture popular in the eighties, 'Enfin Seuls!' showing a draped and padded drawing-room in which two fashionable lovers clasped each other. Hideous rubbish it was; just such a picture as Madame de Lamouderie would have hanging opposite the crucifix; yet the element of sincerity in the lovers' absorption transcended the frippery, and Graham felt his heart stabbed to a living love once more by the sight of that embrace. He turned away. He followed the long passage. The door yielded to his hand, as it had yielded on the moonlit night. He stood on the threshold of Marthe's room, as he had stood once before, and it was as empty as if she were dead.
Poor, sad, desolate little room, without a trace of magic now, the window opening on the rainy sky. Yet it had signs of the happier past of childhood. On the bed was a faded satin eiderdown; on the chest of drawers a little toilet-set of silver, such as a child might receive on a splendid birthday, carefully laid out; and was that not, in the corner, sitting in its little chair, a faded, smiling, ancient doll? Yes; through all these years of tragedy she had kept her doll to comfort her. Graham's heart almost broke as he looked at it.
'You can't only be her lover.' Those words of Jill's came back to him. He had only been her lover as yet. As he looked at the piteous room, at the smiling doll, a new element came into his love, and into his life. He was unworthy; unworthy; how deeply unworthy—of Jill, and of Marthe. What should he ever do to repay?—to atone? How lift himself to the level where he could be to Marthe what Jill's love and sacrifice demanded of him? Tears came into his fierce dark eyes. He could have fallen on his knees beside the bed and prayed to be purified and strengthened.
A mewing sound drifted down the corridor, and turning he saw the old white-and-grey cat of Jill's first encounter with Marthe Ludérac. He remembered its story as he saw it, and remembered that he had seen it once before. It walked with a jerky gait, its mutilated leg turning in at every step. It was not affected by the loneliness as Médor had been. It looked quietly up at him, accepting his presence, and tilted itself against his leg as it passed into the room and went to sniff at the black sateen apron lying thrown down upon a chair. Contemplating the emptiness, it stood waving its tail tranquilly from side to side for some moments and then, looking up at Graham again, it mewed once more, as if in interrogation. Graham picked it up tenderly.
He went down the corridor, holding the cat, and back to the stairs. The front door opened as he descended them and on the landing he looked down at the upturned face of Joseph;—Joseph wearing a strange little bowler hat of an obsolete shape. The relief of seeing him was exquisite.
Joseph was agitated, too much agitated to express any surprise or displeasure. 'Is Monsieur looking for Madame la comtesse?' he asked.
'Yes. And for Mademoiselle Ludérac,' said Graham.
'Mademoiselle has gone out to seek her kid. It has escaped, or been taken away. She went to give it its evening milk in the shed;—and found it gone. But the rope, too, was gone, so that we think the boy from the cottage may have come to fetch it.'
Relief, delicious, ecstatic, was flooding Graham's heart. He stood above Joseph, the cat in his arms, and questioned him. 'Why should the boy come for it—if it's Mademoiselle's?'
'Ah; Mademoiselle Marthe intends to buy it now. She will give him two fowls, for his first communion feast, in place of it, as well as its price, to his mother; but Blaise will have set his heart on roast kid.'
'Will he!—The little ogre!'
'Ah, roast kid is an excellent dish, Monsieur,' said Joseph, in his flat, impartial tones. 'And if the kid is not eaten, the fowls will be.'
'That's true enough!' laughed Graham, his sardonic humour gratified by Joseph's realism. 'But since Mademoiselle wants it to live, that's all that need concern us, isn't it?—I must go and help her find it; at once.'
'Ah, but it is Madame la comtesse who is lost now!' said Joseph, and with something of impatience for a gaiety he must feel misplaced, and, indeed, Graham himself felt it misplaced, as he looked into Joseph's face. 'It is Madame la comtesse who will trouble Mademoiselle more than the kid. She is gone. She is disappeared. I went to look at the fire, when Mademoiselle had left me, and she was not there. Only an hour before I had taken her in her panade; but she had not eaten it; the bowl was untouched. Madame la comtesse is not well. Her mind seems to be affected. Mademoiselle is much alarmed for her. And what I now think is that she may have run down to Buissac to find Monsieur. She hoped, I think, to see him last night.'
'I see.' Graham reflected. 'Yes. That's probable. Though I've just come from Buissac and didn't meet her on the road.'
Joseph reflected, observing with a thoughtful eye Graham's hand as it unconsciously caressed the head of the cat. 'She will have gone through the forest then. Will Monsieur not search for her?—and bring her back?'
'But what of Mademoiselle? It's her I've come to see.'
'She will not have gone far,' said Joseph coldly, though Graham felt that Joseph was less cold than might have been expected. 'She will first have gone down to the cottage, to see if the kid is there. If it is not, she may stay there for a little while with Madame Scannin, who is ill. She often visits her. If the kid has run away, it is useless to look for it in this storm.'
'It's most unlikely to have run away, isn't it?'
'Most unlikely. That is what Mademoiselle thinks. She thinks that it is Blaise.'
'Well; I'll go down to Buissac, then.' Graham placed the cat in Joseph's arms as he spoke. 'But I'll go to the cottage first, and tell Mademoiselle that I will bring the old lady back, if I can find her. How's that?—Joseph,' said Graham suddenly, looking down into the old man's shrinking eyes; 'you may trust me.'
'Trust you, Monsieur?' Joseph eyed him askew.
'Yes. You may trust me and Madame Graham. We want the same thing for Mademoiselle.'
'You cannot take her from Buissac. You cannot take her from France,' said Joseph in a low, concentrated voice. 'She remains with me. I have cared for her since she was a child. I have known her family from before her birth. It would kill her to take her away.'
'No; no; no;—it wouldn't kill her,' said Graham, also speaking in a low voice and as if to an equal. 'And you shall not be left. Trust me. That is all. If you could understand what I feel for her, even you would be satisfied.'
'You cannot understand her,' said Joseph. 'You are a stranger.'
Graham stood there in the hall, and for a moment, as he looked at Joseph, another fear flickered in his heart. Was Joseph right? What was the life he could give Marthe Ludérac? Would he take her from the darkness that she knew into another, a strange darkness? Was she not rooted here as deeply as the chestnut-trees that grew above her mother's grave? Then he remembered Jill. Jill believed that he could make up to Marthe—for everything. Jill, who loved Marthe, had left her to him.
'You must trust me, Joseph,' he said. 'I am not a stranger. I do understand her. If they trust me—so must you.'
Joseph, making no reply, stood in the doorway and watched him pass out, under the silent bell.
He did not knock when he reached the cottage. He pushed open the door and found himself in the one room of the place, with floor of hard-beaten earth, wide fireplace, where a pot hung from a chain above a faltering fire, and stately bed in a corner. From the pillow the white face of a peasant woman turned to survey him in astonishment. A small boy sat before the fire.
'Have you seen Mademoiselle Ludérac?' Graham asked.
The little boy, staring with all his eyes, remained speechless, but the woman said: 'Mademoiselle was here a little while ago. We have no news of the kid. The mother has been killed by the lightning. Heaven pray that no evil has befallen the kid. Mademoiselle has promised to buy it from us.'
'Where has she gone, then? Where is she?' cried Graham. 'She's not looking for it on such a day!'
'But Mademoiselle would be well capable of looking for it—with her love of dumb things. I cannot tell you where she is gone, Monsieur. Back to the Manoir, I think. She will bring me some soup before it is dark.'
'But she's not at the Manoir. Where would she have gone? Where would she look for it? Can it have run down to the meadow?' cried Graham.
'To the island? How could it think of such a thing?—when Mademoiselle has always carried it? And in this storm!'
'And it could not get to the meadow. The bridge is under water,' the small boy volunteered suddenly.
'Under water? How do you know that?' his mother questioned.
'I went down to look this afternoon. The stream was almost level with it then. And I went to the bottom of the road and saw the dyke. All the people from Buissac were there. The water was running over the top and through the stones.'
'Running over the dyke?—And why did you not tell me?'
'Mademoiselle Marthe and Monsieur Trumier were there too, and they told me to say nothing, lest it should trouble you. But you would rather know that the kid could not be on the meadow,' said the boy with conviction.
'Pray Heaven the dyke does not give way!' the woman exclaimed. 'It is the best grazing land in the commune and we all remember the flood of fifteen years ago. Not only were six fine cows drowned, but the land was spoiled for two whole seasons. Some people say it has never been so good since; the river did it so much damage.'
Graham took out some coins and laid them on the table, muttering his thanks. He closed the door behind him and stood among the vineyards. The wind had dropped a little, but the rain fell still more resolutely and the evening was now as dark as the rain. Where was she? She could not have gone down the cliff to the meadow. Might she not again be at the bottom of the road watching the menaced dyke?
Suddenly he saw below him, black, tottering, half blotted out by the rain, the figure of Madame de Lamouderie. She was climbing the cliff-side, inch by inch, stopping to breathe at every three steps. He saw her against the sky, as he had first seen her; but this was a livid sky, and she was below, not above him. As he stood there, looking down upon her, she lifted the grey disk of her face and saw him, and she stopped short as if a bullet had gone through her heart.
A horrible presage traversed Graham's mind as he saw that arrest. Just so would a criminal stop, seeing suddenly before him the armed and inescapable forces of the law. No fear that he had ever known equalled the fear he felt as he recognized in that instant the embodied evil before him.
He walked slowly down the path until he had come close to her, and as he thus advanced upon her he did not move his eyes from her fixed and staring face. Then, standing still before her,' he said: 'Where is Marthe?'
Madame de Lamouderie made no reply. She continued to stare at him, with her mouth twisted to one side.
'Where is she? I've come to find her,' said Graham.
Madame de Lamouderie had evidently been exposed to the elements for a considerable time. The black laces of her hat-brim were beaten down about her neck. Rain streamed from her arms and shoulders; it seemed to pass through her, and her skirts were deep in mud and clung closely to her knees.
She made an effort to speak at last; but only a croaking sound issued from her throat.
'Why are you out here in this storm? What's brought you out?' Graham demanded, mastering his mounting fury.
'I have come to look for her,' said the old lady in a dry, rattling voice.
'Come to look for her! When did you miss her, then? You must have gone before she did.'
The old lady shook her head. 'No; no;—you are mistaken. You do not understand. It was when I did not find her that I came to look. She is nowhere to be found. Nowhere,' said the old lady, gazing all round her and then back at him with gaunt eyes.
Graham stood there, piercing her with his menacing stare.
'I want her,' the old lady went on, and her voice now found the tremolo of pathos and ill-usage. 'I cannot live when she is not beside me. She is the one person in the world who cares for me.'
'That may well be so. That's very likely, I think,' said Graham with unstudied cruelty. But he stood and pondered. There was always the half truth in her lie. Marthe was the one person in the world who cared for her and it was very probable that, even while she hated her, Madame de Lamouderie wanted her. Was it just possible that she had missed her and come out to seek her? And as he stood in this uncertainty, the old lady watched, watched him;—in what was almost a frenzy of fear and caution;—as a lion-tamer in a cage might watch the lion upon whom his wiles have failed to act. And as he remained silent, gazing down at the rainswept hillside, she found a further note: 'I am very weary,' she murmured. 'I am dead with weariness.' A distorted smile twisted her mouth still further. 'Will you not lend me your arm,' she murmured, 'to reach the house again? Then we can take counsel of Joseph.'
'No; I'll do nothing for you; nothing, do you hear?' Graham muttered. 'Until I find her. Stay here, or crawl back home by yourself—as you please;—you'll get no help from me. There's something about you;—there's a lie;—a horror—' He stopped.
From far below them, through the rushing of the rain, a sound came to his ear. Faint; thin; intermittent. The bleating of a young animal in distress. 'Good God!' he cried. 'She's down on the island!'
The old lady sprang at him and seized his arm. 'No! No!' she cried. 'You are mad!—On the island?—You are mad! It is already under water! I have been down to look. The dyke is down!—The kid is drowned!—Listen! Listen!—to one who loves you! It was for your sake—for the sake of your wife that I lied to you!—Yes! Yes! I have lied! So that you should not go to her!—so that you should not break your young wife's heart!—Oh, listen!—Stay one moment!—She is at the Manoir!—She is hidden in the Manoir!—So that you should not find her!—She begged me to keep her secret! She is in deadly fear of you!'
Turned away from her, his hand laid on her shoulder to force her from him, he had paused to hear what she might still bring forth; but now, again, came the sharp, the faltering bleat; unmistakable. The kid was on the island and Marthe was with it.
As he sprang down the path he dragged Madame de Lamouderie with him. She was clinging to his arm, clawing at his coat; her feet slipped and beat on the uneven path as she grappled with him. But one backward blow of his arm freed him at last. He heard her fall roughly on the stones, and as he bounded forward her wailing cry followed him—half curse, half lamentation: 'Insensate! Mad! Cruel! You will drown! You will die! The dyke is down! You will not find her!'