LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 15

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      Catherine, going downstairs, found Peyrol still at the well. He seemed to be looking into it with extreme interest.

      “Your coffee is ready, Peyrol,” she shouted to him from the doorway.

      He turned very sharply like a man surprised and came along smiling.

      “That's pleasant news, Mademoiselle Catherine,” he said. “You are down early.”

      “Yes,” she admitted, “but you too, Peyrol. Is Michel about? Let him come and have some coffee too.”

      “Michel's at the tartane. Perhaps you don't know that she is going to make a little voyage.” He drank a mouthful of coffee and took a bite out of a slice of bread. He was hungry. He had been up all night and had even had a conversation with Citizen Scevola. He had also done some work with Michel after daylight; however, there had not been much to do because the tartane was always kept ready for sea. Then after having again locked up Citizen Scevola, who was extremely concerned as to what was going to happen to him but was left in a state of uncertainty, he had come up to the farm, had gone upstairs where he was busy with various things for a time, and then had stolen down very cautiously to the well, where Catherine, whom he had not expected downstairs so early, had seen him before she went into Lieutenant Réal's room. While he enjoyed his coffee he listened without any signs of surprise to Catherine's comments upon the disappearance of Scevola. She had looked into his den. He had not slept on his pallet last night, of that she was certain, and he was nowhere to be seen, not even in the most distant field, from the points of vantage around the farm. It was inconceivable that he should have slipped away to Madrague, where he disliked to go, or to the village, where he was afraid to go. Peyrol remarked that whatever happened to him he was no great loss, but Catherine was not to be soothed.

      “It frightens a body,” she said. “He may be hiding somewhere to jump on one treacherously. You know what I mean, Peyrol.”

      “Well, the lieutenant will have nothing to fear, as he's going away. As to myself, Scevola and I are good friends. I had a long talk with him quite recently. You two women can manage him perfectly; and then, who knows, perhaps he has gone away for good.”

      Catherine stared at him, if such a word as stare can be applied to a profound contemplative gaze. “The lieutenant has nothing to fear from him,” she repeated cautiously.

      “No, he is going away. Didn't you know it?” The old woman continued to look at him profoundly. “Yes, he is on service.”

      For another minute or so Catherine continued silent in her contemplative attitude. Then her hesitation came to an end. She could not resist the desire to inform Peyrol of the events of the night. As she went on Peyrol forgot the half-full bowl of coffee and his half-eaten piece of bread. Catherine's voice flowed with austerity. She stood there, imposing and solemn like a peasant-priestess. The relation of what had been to her a soul-shaking experience did not take much time, and she finished with the words, “The lieutenant is an honest man.” And after a pause she insisted further: “There is no denying it. He has acted like an honest man.”

      For a moment longer Peyrol continued to look at the coffee in the bowl, then without warning got up with such violence that the chair behind him was thrown back upon the flagstones.

      “Where is he, that honest man?” he shouted suddenly in stentorian tones which not only caused Catherine to raise her hands, but frightened himself, and he dropped at once to a mere forcible utterance. “Where is that man? Let me see him.”

      Even Catherine's hieratic composure was disturbed. “Why,” she said, looking really disconcerted, “he will be down here directly. This bowl of coffee is for him.”

      Peyrol made as if to leave the kitchen, but Catherine stopped him. “For God's sake, Monsieur Peyrol,” she said, half in entreaty and half in command, “don't wake up the child. Let her sleep. Oh, let her sleep! Don't wake her up. God only knows how long it is since she has slept properly. I could not tell you. I daren't think of it.” She was shocked by hearing Peyrol declare: “All this is confounded nonsense.” But he sat down again, seemed to catch sight of the coffee bowl and emptied what was left in it down his throat.

      “I don't want her on my hands more crazy than she has been before,” said Catherine, in a sort of exasperation but in a very low tone. This phrase in its selfish form expressed a real and profound compassion for her niece. She dreaded the moment when that fatal Arlette would wake up and the dreadful complications of life which her slumbers had suspended would have to be picked up again. Peyrol fidgeted on his seat.

      “And so he told you he was going? He actually did tell you that?” he asked.

      “He promised to go before the child wakes up. . . . At once.”

      “But, sacré nom d'un chien, there is never any wind before eleven o'clock,” Peyrol exclaimed in a tone of profound annoyance, yet trying to moderate his voice, while Catherine, indulgent to his changing moods, only compressed her lips and nodded at him soothingly. “It is impossible to work with people like that,” he mumbled.

      “Do you know, Monsieur Peyrol, that she has been to see the priest?” Catherine was heard suddenly, towering above her end of the table. The two women had had a talk before Arlette had been induced by her aunt to lie down. Peyrol gave a start.

      “What? Priest? . . . Now look here, Catherine,” he went on with repressed ferocity, “do you imagine that all this interests me in the least?”

      “I can think of nothing but that niece of mine. We two have nobody but each other in the world,” she went on, reproducing the very phrase Arlette had used to Réal. She seemed to be thinking aloud, but noticed that Peyrol was listening with attention. “He wanted to shut her up from everybody,” and the old woman clasped her meagre hands with a sudden gesture. “I suppose there are still some convents about the world.”

      “You and the patronne are mad together,” declared Peyrol. “All this only shows what an ass the curé is. I don't know much about these things, though I have seen some nuns in my time, and some very queer ones too, but it seems to me that they don't take crazy people into convents. Don't you be afraid. I tell you that.” He stopped because the inner door of the kitchen came open and Lieutenant Réal stepped in. His sword hung on his forearm by the belt,

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