"Do you perchance wish to go out?" asked the Pasteur, who was keeping him under constant observation.
"What of it if he does?" interrupted Madame. "Did not Monsieur G.o.dfrey inform us that he was unwell? Go then, Monsieur G.o.dfrey."
"No, not so," said the Pasteur. "Remain seated. In one minute I will be ready to accompany you."
"_Mon Dieu!_ what for?" exclaimed Madame. "Never did I hear of such a thing," while even Juliette looked amazed.
Meanwhile G.o.dfrey had risen and was making for the door, with a fixed and sickly smile upon his face. The Pasteur swallowed down his _vin ordinaire_ and rushed after him.
"He is ill," said Juliette, with sympathy, "all day he has looked strange."
"Perhaps," said Madame. "That sermon of your father"s was enough to turn anybody"s stomach, with his talk about devils and witches. But why cannot he leave him alone? A doctor in such a case perhaps, but a clergyman----! _Mon Dieu!_ there they go, the two of them walking towards the woods. What a strange idea! And your father has Monsieur G.o.dfrey by the arm, although a.s.suredly he is not faint for he pulls ahead as though in a great hurry. They must be mad, both of them. I have half a mind----"
"No, no, Mother," said Juliette. "Leave them alone. Doubtless in time they will return. Perhaps it has something to do with the stars."
"Silly girl! Stars at midday!"
"Well, Mamma, you know they are always there even if one cannot see them."
"Nonsense, child. They only come at night. The question is--where are those two going?"
Juliette shook her head and gave it up, and so perforce did her mother.
CHAPTER IX
THE PASTEUR CONQUERS
Meanwhile, following a short cut through the snowy woods that ran over the shoulder of the intervening hill, the pair were wending their way towards Lucerne. G.o.dfrey, a fixed and vacant look upon his face, went first; the Pasteur clinging to his arm like a limpet to a rock, puffed along beside him.
"Heaven!" he gasped, "but this attraction of yours must be strong that it makes you walk so fast immediately after dinner."
"It is, it is!" said G.o.dfrey, in a kind of agony. "I feel as though my inside were being drawn out, and I must follow it. Please hold my arm tight or I shall run."
"Ah! the witch. The great witch!" puffed the Pasteur, "and up this hill too, over snow. Well, it will be better on the down grade. Give me your hand, my boy, for your coat is slipping, and if once you got away how should I catch you?"
They accomplished the walk into Lucerne in absolutely record time.
Fortunately, at this after-dinner hour few people were about, but some of those whom they met stared at them, and one called:
"Do you take him to the police-station? Shall I summon the _gens-d"arme_?"
"No, no," replied the Pasteur, "he goes to keep an a.s.signation, and is in a hurry."
"Then why does he take you with him? Surely a clergyman will make a bad third at such an affair?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed an outspoken lady who was standing at her house door.
"Where is the street? I do not know it," asked the Pasteur.
"Nor do I," answered G.o.dfrey, "but we shall come there all right. To the left now."
"Oh! the influence! The strong influence!" muttered Monsieur Boiset.
"Behold! it leads him."
Truly it did lead him. Round corners and across squares they went into an old part of the town with which neither of them was acquainted, till at length G.o.dfrey, diving beneath an archway, pulled up in front of an antique doorway, saying:
"I think this is the place."
"Look at the writing and make sure," said the Pasteur, "for it seems ridiculous----"
At that moment the door opened mysteriously, and G.o.dfrey disappeared into the pa.s.sage beyond. Scarcely had the Pasteur time to follow him when it shut again, although he could see no _concierge_.
"Doubtless it is one of those that works with a wire," he thought to himself, but he had no time to stop to look, for already G.o.dfrey was climbing the stairs. Up he went, three floors, and up after him scrambled the Pasteur. Suddenly G.o.dfrey stopped at a door and not waiting to ring the bell, knocked with his hand. Immediately it opened and G.o.dfrey, with his companion, pa.s.sed into a very dark hall round which were several other doors. Here in the gloom the Pasteur lost him.
G.o.dfrey had gone through one of the doors, but which he could not see.
He stood still, listening, and presently heard a deep peculiar voice speaking English with a very foreign accent, say:
"So you have come to see your G.o.dmamma, my dear little clever boy.
Well, I thought you would, and last night I sent you a pretty messenger to give you remembrance."
Then the Pasteur found the handle of the door and entered the room. It was a curious place draped, not without taste of a bizarre kind, in vivid colours, wherein purple dominated, and it gave an idea of mingled magnificence and squalor. Some of the furniture was very good, as were one or two of the pictures, though all of it was of an odd and unusual make. Thus, the sideboard was shaped like a sarcophagus, and supported on solid sphinxes with gilded faces. In a corner of the room also stood an unwrapped mummy in a gla.s.s case.
In the midst of all this stood a common deal table, whereon were a black bottle, and the remains of Madame"s meal, which seemed to have consisted of large supplies of underdone meat. In front of the fire was a large, well-worn couch, and by it a small stout table such as spiritualists use, on which gleamed a ball of gla.s.s or crystal. On this couch was seated Madame clad in a kind of black dressing-gown and a wide gold scarf tied about her ample waist. Her fat, ma.s.sive face was painted and powdered; on her head she wore a kind of mantilla also gold-coloured, and about her neck a string of old Egyptian amulets.
Anything more unwholesome or uncanny than were her general appearance and surroundings as the bright flames of the fire showed them in this stuffy, shadowed room, it would be impossible to imagine.
"Sit down here by my side, my little son in the speerit, where I have made a place ready for you, and let me hold your hand while you tell me all that you have been doing and if you have been thinking much of me and that beautiful Eleanor whom I sent to see you last night," went on Madame Riennes in her ogreish, purring voice, patting the sofa.
Just then she looked up and caught sight of the Pasteur standing in the shadow. Staring at him with her fierce, prominent eyes, she started violently as though at last she had seen something of which she was afraid.
"Say, my G.o.dfrey," she exclaimed in a rather doubtful voice, "what is this that you have brought with you? Is it a scarecrow from the fields?
Or is it a speerit of your own? If so, I should have thought that a young man would have liked better the lovely Eleanor than this old devil."
"Yes, Madame Jezebel," said the Pasteur striding forward, speaking in a loud, high voice and waving a large umbrella, which had come partly unfolded in his hurried walk. "It is a scarecrow--one that scares the crows of h.e.l.l who seek to pick out the souls of the innocent, like _you_, Madame Jezebel."
Madame uttered a voluminous oath in some strange tongue, and sprang to her feet with an agility surprising in one so stout.
"Say, who are you?" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in French, confronting him.
"I am the Pasteur Boiset who accompany my ward to pay this little call, Madame."
"Oh! indeed. That thief of a clergyman, who got his finger into the pie of dead Mademoiselle, eh? Well, there are no more pickings here, Pasteur, but perhaps you come to have your fortune told. Shall I look in the crystal for you and tell you nice things about--what shall we say? About the past of that handsome Madame of yours, for instance? Oh!
I will do it for love, yes, for love. Or shall I make that mummy speak for you? I can, for once I lived in that body of hers--it was a gay life," and she stopped, gasping.
"Hearken, woman," said the Pasteur, "and do not think to frighten me. I know all about my wife, and, if once she was foolish, what of it in a world where none are altogether wise? If you do not wish to visit the police cell, you will do well to leave her alone. As for your tricks of chicanery, I want none of them. What I want is that you take off the spell which you have laid upon this poor boy, as Satan your master has given you the power to do. Now, obey me--or----"
"Or? Or what, you old paid advocate of G.o.d?"
"That is a good term. If I am an advocate, I know my Employer"s mind, I, who have taken His fee, and am therefore in honour bound to serve Him faithfully. Now I will tell you His mind about you. It is that unless you change your ways and repent, soon you will go to h.e.l.l. Yes, quite soon, I think, for one so fat cannot be very strong in the heart.
Do what I bid you, Madame, or I, the advocate of G.o.d, having His authority, will curse you in the Name of G.o.d, and in the ancient form of which you may have heard."
"Bah! would you frighten me, the great Madame Riennes who have spirits at my command and who, as you admit, can lay on spells and take them off. A flea for you and your G.o.d!"