As he was rising up to go, he asked:
"When would you like me to come back to speak about this business to you, Mam"zelle Donet?"
"If it is all the same to you, say next Thursday, Monsieur Cesar. In that way, I would lose none of my time, as I always have my Thursdays free."
"That will suit me--next Thursday."
"You will come to lunch. Won"t you?"
"Oh! On that point I can"t give you a promise."
"The reason I suggested is that people can chat better when they are eating. One has more time too."
"Well, be it so. About twelve o"clock, then."
And he took his departure, after he had again kissed little Emile, and pressed Mademoiselle Donet"s hand.
PART III
The week appeared long to Cesar Hautot. He had never before found himself alone, and the isolation seemed to him insupportable. Till now, he had lived at his father"s side, just like his shadow, followed him into the fields, superintended the execution of his orders, and, when they had been a short time separated, again met him at dinner. They had spent the evenings smoking their pipes, face to face with one another, chatting about horses, cows or sheep, and the grip of their hands when they rose up in the morning might have been regarded as a manifestation of deep family affection on both sides.
Now Cesar was alone, he went vacantly through the process of dressing the soil of autumn, every moment expecting to see the tall gesticulating silhouette of his father rising up at the end of a plain. To kill time, he entered the houses of his neighbors, told about the accident to all who had not heard of it, and sometimes repeated it to the others. Then, after he had finished his occupations and his reflections, he would sit down at the side of a road, asking himself whether this kind of life was going to last for ever.
He frequently thought of Mademoiselle Donet. He liked her. He considered her thoroughly respectable, a gentle and honest young woman, as his father had said. Yes, undoubtedly she was an honest girl. He resolved to act handsomely towards her, and to give her two thousand francs a year, settling the capital on the child. He even experienced a certain pleasure in thinking that he was going to see her on the following Thursday and arrange this matter with her. And then the notion of this brother, this little chap of five, who was his father"s son, plagued him, annoyed him a little, and, at the same time, exhibited him. He had, as it were, a family in this brat, sprung from a clandestine alliance, who would never bear the name of Hautot, a family which he might take or leave, just as he pleased, but which would recall his father.
And so, when he saw himself on the road to Rouen on Thursday morning, carried along by Graindorge trotting with clattering foot-beats, he felt his heart lighter, more at peace than he had hitherto felt it since his bereavement.
On entering Mademoiselle Donet"s apartment, he saw the table laid as on the previous Thursday with the sole difference that the crust had not been removed from the bread. He pressed the young woman"s hand, kissed Emile on the cheeks, and sat down, more at ease than if he were in his own house, his heart swelling in the same way. Mademoiselle Donet seemed to him a little thinner and paler. She must have grieved sorely. She wore now an air of constraint in his presence, as if she understood what she had not felt the week before under the first blow of her misfortune, and she exhibited an excessive deference towards him, a mournful humility, and made touching efforts to please him, as if to pay him back by her attentions for the kindness he had manifested towards her. They were a long time at lunch talking over the business, which had brought him there. She did not want so much money. It was too much. She earned enough to live on herself, but she only wished that Emile might find a few sous awaiting him when he grew big. Cesar held out, however, and even added a gift of a thousand francs for herself for the expense of mourning.
When he had taken his coffee, she asked:
"Do you smoke?"
"Yes--I have my pipe."
He felt in his pocket. Good G.o.d! He had forgotten it! He was becoming quite woebegone about it when she offered him a pipe of his father that had been shut up in a cupboard. He accepted it, took it up in his hand, recognized it, smelled it, spoke of its quality in a tone of emotion, filled it with tobacco, and lighted it. Then, he set Emile astride on his knee, and made him play the cavalier, while she removed the tablecloth, and put the soiled plates at one end of the sideboard in order to wash them as soon as he was gone.
About three o"clock, he rose up with regret, quite annoyed at the thought of having to go.
"Well! Mademoiselle Donet," he said, "I wish you good evening, and am delighted to have found you like this."
She remained standing before him, blushing, much affected, and gazed at him while she thought of the other.
"Shall we not see one another again?" she said.
He replied simply:
"Why, yes, mam"zelle, if it gives you pleasure."
"Certainly, Monsieur Cesar. Will next Thursday suit you then?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle Donet."
"You will come to lunch, of course?"
"Well--if you are so kind as to invite me, I can"t refuse."
"It is understood, then, Monsieur Cesar--next Thursday at twelve, the same as to-day."
"Thursday at twelve, Mam"zelle Donet!"
LITTLE LOUISE ROQUe
Mederic Rompel, the postman, who was familiarly called by the country people Mederi, started at the usual hour from the posthouse at Rouy-le-Tors. Having pa.s.sed through the little town with his big strides of an old trooper, he first cut across the meadows of Villaumes in order to reach the bank of the Brindelle, which led him along the water"s edge to the village of Carvelin, where his distribution commenced. He went quickly, following the course of the narrow river, which frothed, murmured, and boiled along its bed of gra.s.s, under an arch of willow-trees. The big stones, impeding the flow, had around them a cushion of water, a sort of cravat ending in a knot of foam. In some places, there were cascades, a foot wide, often invisible, which made under the leaves, under the tendrils, under a roof of verdure, a big noise at once angry and gentle; then, further on, the banks widened out, and you saw a small, placid lake where trouts were swimming in the midst of all that green vegetation which keeps undulating in the depths of tranquil streams.
Mederic went on without a halt, seeing nothing, and with only this thought in his mind: "My first letter is for the Poivron family, then I have one for M. Renardet; so I must cross the wood."
His blue blouse, fastened round his waist by a black leathern belt moved in a quick, regular fashion above the green hedge of the willow-trees; and his stick of stout holly kept time with the steady movement of his legs.
Then, he crossed the Brindelle over a bridge formed of a single tree thrown lengthwise, with a rope attached to two stakes driven into the river"s banks as its only bal.u.s.trade.
The wood, which belonged to M. Renardet, the Mayor of Carvelin, and the largest landowner in the district, consisted of a number of huge old trees, straight as pillars, and extending for about half a league along the left-bank of the stream which served as a boundary for this immense arch of foliage. Alongside the water there were large shrubs warmed by the sun; but under the trees you found nothing but moss, thick, soft, plastic moss, which exhaled into the stagnant air a light odor of loam with withered branches.
Mederic slackened his pace, took off his black cap adorned with red lace, and wiped his forehead, for it was by this time hot in the meadows, though it was not yet eight o"clock in the morning.
He had just recovered from the effects of the heat, and resumed his accelerated pace when he noticed at the foot of a tree a knife, a child"s small knife. When he picked it up, he discovered a thimble and also a needle-case not far away.
Having taken up these objects, he thought: "I"ll intrust them to the Mayor," and he resumed his journey, but now he kept his eyes open expecting to find something else.
All of a sudden, he drew up stiffly as if he had knocked himself against a wooden bar; for, ten paces in front of him, lay stretched on her back a little girl, quite naked, on the moss. She was about twelve years old.
Her arms were hanging down, her legs parted, and her face covered with a handkerchief. There were little spots of blood on her thighs.
Mederic advanced now on tiptoe, as if he were afraid to make a noise, apprehended some danger, and he glanced towards the spot uneasily.
What was this? No doubt, she was asleep. Then, he reflected that a person does not go to sleep thus naked, at half-past seven in the morning under cool trees. So then she must be dead; and he must be face to face with a crime. At this thought, a cold shiver ran through his frame, although he was an old soldier. And then a murder was such a rare thing in the country, and above all the murder of a child, that he could not believe his eyes. But she had no wound--nothing save this blood stuck on her leg. How, then, had she been killed?
He stopped quite near her; and he stared at her, while he leaned on his stick. Certainly, he knew her, as he knew all the inhabitants of the district; but, not being able to get a look at her face, he could not guess her name. He stooped forward in order to take off the handkerchief which covered her face, then paused with outstretched hand, restrained by an idea that occurred to him.
Had he the right to disarrange anything in the condition of the corpse before the magisterial investigation? He pictured justice to himself as a kind of general whom nothing escapes, and who attaches as much importance to a lost b.u.t.ton as to a stab of a knife in the stomach.
Perhaps under this handkerchief evidence to support a capital charge could be found; in fact if there were sufficient proof there to secure a conviction, it might lost its value, if touched by an awkward hand.