"Your father had sworn to have his revenge."
"On Vorski, yes; but surely not on me, his daughter?… And such a revenge!"
"You loved your husband. Once you were in his power, instead of running away from him, you consented to marry him. Besides, the insult was a public one. And you know what your father was, with his violent, vindictive temperament and his rather… his rather unbalanced nature, to use his own expression."
"But since then?"
"Since then! Since then! He felt remorseful as he grew older, what with his affection for the child… and he tried everywhere to find you. The journeys I have taken, beginning with my journey to the Carmelites at Chartres! But you had left long ago… and where for? Where were you to be found?"
"You could have advertised in the newspapers."
"He did try advertising, once, very cautiously, because of the scandal. There was a reply. Some one made an appointment and he kept it. Do you know who came to meet him? Vorski, Vorski, who was looking for you too, who still loved you… and hated you. Your father became frightened and did not dare act openly."
Veronique did not speak. She felt very faint and sat down on the stone, with her head bowed.
[Pg 37]Then she murmured:
"You speak of my father as though he were still alive to-day."
"He is."
"And as though you saw him often."
"Daily."
"And on the other hand"-Veronique lowered her voice-"on the other hand you do not say a word of my son. And that suggests a horrible thought: perhaps he did not live? Perhaps he is dead since? Is that why you do not mention him?"
She raised her head with an effort. Honorine was smiling.
"Oh, please, please," Veronique entreated, "tell me the truth! It is terrible to hope more than one has a right to. Do tell me."
Honorine put her arm round Veronique's neck:
"Why, my poor, dear lady, would I have told you all this if my handsome Francois had been dead?"
"He is alive, he is alive?" cried Veronique, wildly.
"Why, of course he is and in the best of health! Oh, he's a fine, sturdy little chap, never fear, and so steady on his legs! And I have every right to be proud of him, because it's I who brought him up, your little Francois."
She felt Veronique, who was leaning on her shoulder, give way to emotions which were too much for her and which certainly contained as much suffering as joy; and she said:
"Cry, my dear lady, cry; it will do you good. It's a better sort of crying than it was, eh? Cry, until you've forgotten all your old troubles. I'm going[Pg 38] back to the village. Have you a bag of any kind at the inn? They know me there. I'll bring it back with me and we'll be off."
When the Breton woman returned, half an hour later, she saw Veronique standing and beckoning to her to hurry and heard her calling:
"Quick, quick! Heavens, what a time you've been! We have not a minute to lose."
Honorine, however, did not hasten her pace and did not reply. Her rugged face was without a smile.
"Well, are we going to start?" asked Veronique, running up to her. "There's nothing to delay us, is there, no obstacle? What's the matter? You seem quite changed."
"No, no."
"Then let's be quick."
Honorine, with her assistance, put the bag and the provisions on board. Then, suddenly standing in front of Veronique, she said:
"You're quite sure, are you, that the woman on the cross, as she was shown in the drawing, was yourself?"
"Absolutely. Besides, there were my initials above the head."
"That's a strange thing," muttered Honorine, "and it's enough to frighten anybody."
"Why should it be? It must have been someone who used to know me and who amused himself by… It's merely a coincidence, a chance fancy reviving the past."
"Oh, it's not the past that's worrying me! It's the future."
[Pg 39]"The future?"
"Remember the prophecy."
"I don't understand."
"Yes, yes, the prophecy made about you to Vorski."
"Ah, you know?"
"I know. And it is so horrible to think of that drawing and of other much more dreadful things which you don't know of."
Veronique burst out laughing:
"What! Is that why you hesitate to take me with you, for, after all, that's what we're concerned with?"
"Don't laugh. People don't laugh when they see the flames of hell before them."
Honorine crossed herself, closing her eyes as she spoke. Then she continued:
"Of course… you scoff at me… you think I'm a superstitious Breton woman, who believes in ghosts and jack-o'-lanterns. I don't say you're altogether wrong. But there, there! There are some truths that blind one. You can talk it over with Maguennoc, if you get on the right side of him."
"Maguennoc?"
"One of the four sailors. He's an old friend of your boy's. He too helped to bring him up. Maguennoc knows more about it than the most learned men, more than your father. And yet…"
"What?"
"And yet Maguennoc tried to tempt fate and to get past what men are allowed to know."
"What did he do?"
[Pg 40]"He tried to touch with his hand-you understand, with his own hand: he confessed it to me himself-the very heart of the mystery."
"Well?" said Veronique, impressed in spite of herself.
"Well, his hand was burnt by the flames. He showed me a hideous sore: I saw it with my eyes, something like the sore of a cancer; and he suffered to that degree…"
"Yes?"
"That it forced him to take a hatchet in his left hand and cut off his right hand himself."
Veronique was dumbfounded. She remembered the corpse at Le Faouet and she stammered:
"His right hand? You say that Maguennoc cut off his right hand?"
"With a hatchet, ten days ago, two days before I left… I dressed the wound myself… Why do you ask?"
"Because," said Veronique, in a husky voice, "because the dead man, the old man whom I found in the deserted cabin and who afterwards disappeared, had lately lost his right hand."
Honorine gave a start. She still wore the sort of scared expression and betrayed the emotional disturbance which contrasted with her usually calm attitude. And she rapped out:
"Are you sure? Yes, yes, you're right, it was he, Maguennoc… He had long white hair, hadn't he? And a spreading beard?… Oh, how abominable!"
She restrained herself and looked around her, frightened at having spoken so loud. She once more[Pg 41] made the sign of the cross and said, slowly, almost under her breath:
"He was the first of those who have got to die… he told me so himself… and old Maguennoc had eyes that read the book of the future as easily as the book of the past. He could see clearly where another saw nothing at all. 'The first victim will be myself, Ma'me Honorine. And, when the servant has gone, in a few days it will be the master's turn.'"
"And the master was…?" asked Veronique, in a whisper.
Honorine drew herself up and clenched her fists violently:
"I'll defend him! I will!" she declared. "I'll save him! Your father shall not be the second victim. No, no, I shall arrive in time! Let me go!"
"We are going together," said Veronique, firmly.
"Please," said Honorine, in a voice of entreaty, "please don't be persistent. Let me have my way. I'll bring your father and your son to you this very evening, before dinner."
"But why?"
"The danger is too great, over there, for your father… and especially for you. Remember the four crosses! It's over there that they are waiting… Oh, you mustn't go there!… The island is under a curse."
"And my son?"
"You shall see him to-day, in a few hours."
Veronique gave a short laugh:
"In a few hours! Woman, you must be mad! Here am I, after mourning my son for fourteen[Pg 42] years, suddenly hearing that he's alive; and you ask me to wait before I take him in
my arms! Not one hour! I would rather risk death a thousand times than put off that moment."
Honorine looked at her and seemed to realize that Veronique's was one of those resolves against which it is useless to fight, for she did not insist. She crossed herself for the third time and said, simply:
"God's will be done."
They both took their seats among the parcels which encumbered the narrow space. Honorine switched on the current, seized the tiller and skilfully steered the boat through the rocks and sandbanks which rose level with the water.
[Pg 43]
CHAPTER III
VORSKI'S SON
Veronique smiled as she sat to starboard on a packing-case, with her face turned towards Honorine. Her smile was anxious still and undefined, full of reticence and flickering as a sunbeam that tries to pierce the last clouds of the storm; but it was nevertheless a happy smile.
And happiness seemed the right expression for that wonderful face, stamped with dignity and with that particular modesty which gives to some women, whether stricken by excessive misfortune or preserved by love, the habit of gravity, combined with an absence of all feminine affectation.
Her black hair, touched with grey at the temples, was knotted very low down on the neck. She had the dead-white complexion of a southerner and very light blue eyes, of which the white seemed almost of the same colour, pale as a winter sky. She was tall, with broad shoulders and a well-shaped bust.
Her musical and somewhat masculine voice became light and cheerful when she spoke of the son whom she had found again. And Veronique could speak of nothing else. In vain the Breton woman tried to speak of the problems that harassed her and kept on interrupting Veronique:
"Look here, there are two things which I cannot understand. Who laid the trail with the clues that brought you from Le Faouet to the exact spot where[Pg 44] I always land? It almost makes one believe that someone had been from Le Faouet to the Isle of Sarek. And, on the other hand, how did old Maguennoc come to leave the island? Was it of his own free will? Or was it his dead body that they carried? If so, how?"
"Is it worth troubling about?" Veronique objected.
"Certainly it is. Just think! Besides me, who once a fortnight go either to Beg-Meil or Pont-l'Abbe in my motor-boat for provisions, there are only two fishing-boats, which always go much higher up the coast, to Audierne, where they sell their catch. Then how did Maguennoc get across? Then again, did he commit suicide? But, if so, how did his body disappear?"
But Veronique protested:
"Please don't! It doesn't matter for the moment. It'll all be cleared up. Tell me about Francois. You were saying that he came to Sarek…"
Honorine yielded to Veronique's entreaties:
"He arrived in poor Maguennoc's arms, a few days after he was taken from you. Maguennoc, who had been taught his lesson by your father, said that a strange lady had entrusted him with the child; and he had it nursed by his daughter, who has since died. I was away, in a situation with a Paris family. When I came home again, Francois had grown into a fine little fellow, running about the moors and cliffs. It was then that I took service with your father, who had settled in Sarek. When Maguennoc's daughter died, we took the child to live with us."
[Pg 45]"But under what name?"
"Francois, just Francois. M. d'Hergemont was known as Monsieur Antoine. Francois called him grandfather. No one ever made any remark upon it."
"And his character?" asked Veronique, with some anxiety.
"Oh, as far as that's concerned, he's a blessing!" replied Honorine. "Nothing of his father about him… nor of his grandfather either, as M. d'Hergemont himself admits. A gentle, lovable, most willing child. Never a sign of anger; always good-tempered. That's what got over his grandfather and made M. d'Hergemont come round to you again, because his grandson reminded him so of the daughter he had cast off. 'He's the very image of his mother,' he used to say. 'Veronique was gentle and affectionate like him, with the same fond and coaxing ways.' And then he began his search for you, with me to help him; for he had come to confide in me."
Veronique beamed with delight. Her son was like her! Her son was bright and kind-hearted!
"But does he know about me?" she said. "Does he know that I'm alive?"
"I should think he did! M. d'Hergemont tried to keep it from him at first. But I soon told him everything."
"Everything?"
"No. He believes that his father is dead and that, after the shipwreck in which he, I mean Francois, and M. d'Hergemont disappeared, you became a nun and have been lost sight of since. And he is so eager for news, each time I come back[Pg 46] from one of my trips! He too is so full of hope! Oh, you can take my word for it, he adores his mother! And he's always singing that song you heard just now, which his grandfather taught him."
"My Francois, my own little Francois!"
"Ah, yes, he loves you! There's Mother Honorine. But you're mother, just that. And he's in a great hurry to grow up and finish his schooling, so that he may go and look for you."
"His schooling? Does he have lessons?"
"Yes, with his grandfather and, since two years ago, with such a nice fellow that I brought back from Paris, Stephane Maroux, a wounded soldier covered with medals and restored to health after an internal operation. Francois dotes on him."
The boat was running quickly over the smooth sea, in which it ploughed a furrow of silvery foam. The clouds had dispersed on the horizon. The evening boded fair and calm.
"More, tell me more!" said Veronique, listening greedily. "What does my boy wear?"
"Knickerbockers and short socks, with his calves bare; a thick flannel shirt with gilt buttons; and a flat knitted cap, like his big friend, M. Stephane; only his is red and suits him to perfection."
"Has he any friends besides M. Maroux?"
"All the growing lads of the island, formerly. But with the exception of three or four ship's boys, all the rest have left the island with their mothers, now that their fathers are at the war, and are working on the mainland, at Concarneau or Lorient, leaving the old people at Sarek by themselves. We are not more than thirty on the island now."
[Pg 47]"Whom does he play with? Whom does he go about with?"
"Oh, as for that, he has the best of companions!"
"Really? Who is it?"
"A little dog that Maguennoc gave him."
"A dog?"
"Yes; and the funniest dog you ever saw: an ugly ridiculous-looking thing, a cross between a poodle and a fox-terrier, but so comical and amusing! Oh, there's no one like Master All's Well!"
"All's Well?"
"That's what Francois calls him; and you couldn't have a better name for him. He always looks happy and glad to be alive. He's independent, too, and he disappears for hours and even days at a time; but he's always there when he's wanted, if you're feeling sad, or if things aren't going as you might like them to. All's Well hates to see any one crying or scolding or quarrelling. The moment you cry, or pretend to cry, he comes and squats on his haunches in front of you, sits up, shuts one eye, half-opens the other and looks so exactly as if he was laughing that you begin to laugh yourself. 'That's right, old chap,' says Francois, 'you're quite right: all's well. There's nothing to take on about, is there?' And, when you're consoled, All's Well just trots away. His task is done."
Veronique laughed and cried in one breath. Then she was silent for a long time, feeling more and more gloomy and overcome by a despair which overwhelmed all her gladness. She thought of all the happiness that she had missed during the fourteen years of her childless motherhood, wearing her mourning for a son who was alive. All the cares[Pg 48] that a mother lavishes upon the little creature new-born into the world, all the pride that she feels at seeing him grow and hearing him speak, all that delights a mother and uplifts her and makes her heart overflow with daily renewed affection: all this she had never known.
"We are half-way across," said Honorine.
They were running in sight of the Glenans Islands.
On their right, the headland of Penmarch, whose coast-line they were following at a distance of fifteen miles, marked a darker line which was not always differentiated from the horizon.
And Veronique thought of her sad past, of her mother, whom she hardly remembered, of her childhood spent with a selfish, disagreeable father, of her marriage, ah, above all of her marriage! She recalled her first meetings with Vorski, when she was only seventeen. How frightened she had been from the very beginning of that strange and unusual man, whom she dreaded while she submitted to his influence, as one does at that age submit to the influence of anything mysterious and incomprehensible!
Next came the hateful day of the abduction and the other days, more hateful still, that followed, the weeks during which he had kept her imprisoned, threatening her and dominating her with all his evil strength, and the promise of marriage which he had forced from her, a pledge against which all the girl's instincts and all her will revolted, but to which it seemed to her that she was bound to agree after so great a scandal and also because her father was giving his consent.
Her brain rebelled against the memories of her[Pg 49] years of married life. Never that! Not even in the worst hours, when the nightmares of the past haunt one like spectres, never did she consent to revive, in the innermost recesses of her mind, that degrading past, with its mortifications, wounds and betrayals, and the disgraceful life led by her husband, who, shamelessly, with cynical pride, gradually revealed himself as the man he was, drinking, cheating at cards, robbing his boon companions, a swindler and blackmailer, giving his wife the impression, which she still retained and which made her shudder, of a sort of evil genius, cruel and unbalanced.
"Have done with dreams, Madame Veronique," said Honorine.
"It's not so much dreams and memories as remorse," she replied.
"Remorse, Madame Veronique? You, whose life has been one long martyrdom?"
"A martyrdom that was a punishment."
"But all that is over and done with, Madame Veronique, seeing that you are going to meet your son and your father again. Come, come, you must think of nothing but being happy."
The Secret of Sarek (arsene lupin) Page 3
