Chapter XXXVI

When Madame Bastien and Frederick, coming out of the dining-room, passed by the library, they saw David there, standing in the door watching for them.

Marie extended her hand to him cordially, and said, making allusion to the two outrages to which the preceptor had so patiently submitted:

"Can you still have the same devotion to us?"

A loud noise of moving chairs and bursts of laughter from the dining-room informed the young woman that her husband and the bailiff were rising from the table. She hastened to her apartment with Frederick, after having said to David, with a look of despair:

"To-morrow morning, M. David. I am now in unspeakable agony."

"To-morrow, my friend," said Frederick, in his turn, to David, as he passed him.

Then Marie and her son entered their apartment, while David ascended to the garret chamber he was to share with Andre.

Scarcely had he entered his mother's chamber when Frederick threw himself in his mother's arms and cried with bitterness:

"Oh, mother! we were so happy before the arrival of--"

"Not a word more, my child; you are speaking of your father," interrupted Marie. "Embrace me more tenderly than ever; you have need of it, and so have I; but no recriminations of your father."

"My God! mother, you did not hear what he said to M. Bridou?"

"When your father said, 'Frederick will soon be seventeen?'"

"Yes, and that man said to my father, 'It is a good age for us.'"

"I, as well as you, my child, heard his words."

"'A good age for us,'--what does he mean by that, mother?"

"I do not know," replied the young woman, hoping to calm and reassure her son. "Perhaps we attach too much to these words,--more than they deserve."

After a short silence, Frederick said to Marie, in an altered voice:

"Listen to me, mother. Since you desire it, I shall always have that respect for my father which I owe to him, but I tell you frankly, understand me,--if my father thinks ever of separating me from you and M. David--"

"Frederick!" cried the young woman, alarmed at the desperate resolution she read in her son's countenance, "why suppose what is impossible--to separate us! to take you out of the hands of M. David, and that, too, at a time when-- But no, I repeat, your father has too much reason, too much good sense, to conceive such an idea."

"May Heaven hear you, mother, but I swear to you, and you know my will is firm, that no human power shall separate me from you and M. David, and that I will boldly say to my father. Let him respect our affection, our indissoluble ties, and I will bless him; but if he dares to put his hand on our happiness--"

"My son!"

"Oh, mother! our happiness, it is your life, and your life I will defend against my father himself, you understand."

"My God! my God! Frederick, I beseech you!"

"Oh, let him take care! let him take care! two or three times this evening my blood revolted against his words."

"Stop, Frederick, do not speak so; you will make me insane. Why, then, oh, my God! will you predict such painful, or rather, such impossible things! You only terrify yourself and render yourself desperate."

"Very well, mother, we will wait; but believe me, the frightful calmness of my father when he learned of the sale of the silver hides something. We expected to see him burst forth into a passion, but he remained impassible, he became pale. I never saw him so pale, mother," said Frederick, embracing his mother with an expression of tenderness and alarm. "Mother, I am chilled to the heart, some danger threatens us."

"Frederick," replied the young woman, with a tone of agonising reproach, "you frighten me terribly, and after all, your father will act according to his own will."

"And I also, mother, I will have mine."

"But why suppose your father has intentions which he has not and cannot have? Believe me, my child, in spite of his roughness, he loves you; why should he wish to grieve you? Why separate us and ruin the most beautiful, and the most assured hopes that a mother ever had for the future of her son? Wait,--I am sure that our friend M. David will say the same thing that I say to you. Come, calm yourself, take courage, we will have perhaps to pass through some disagreeable experiences, but we have already endured so much that is cruel, we cannot have much more to suffer."

Frederick shook his head sadly, embraced his mother with more than usual tenderness, and entered his room.

Madame Bastien rang for Marguerite.

The old servant soon appeared.

"Marguerite," said the young woman to her, "is M. Bastien still at table?"

"Unfortunately he is, madame."

"Unfortunately?"

"Bless me, I have never seen monsieur with such a wicked face; he drinks--he drinks until it is frightful, and in spite of it all he is pale. He has just asked me for a bottle of brandy and--"

"That is sufficient, Marguerite," said Marie, interrupting her servant; "have you prepared a bed in Andre's chamber for M. David?"

"Yes, madame, M. David has just gone up there, but old Andre says he would rather sleep in the stable than dare stay in the same chamber with M. David. Besides, Andre will hardly have time to go to sleep to-night."

"Why so?"

"Monsieur has ordered Andre to hitch the horse at three o'clock in the morning."

"What! M. Bastien is going away in the middle of the night?"

"Monsieur said the moon rose at half past two, and he wished to be at Blemur with M. Bridou at the break of day, so as to be able to return here to-morrow evening."

"That is different. Come, good night, Marguerite."

"Madame--"

"What do you want?"

"My God, madame! I do not know if I can dare--"

"Come, Marguerite, what is the matter?"

"Madame has interrupted me every time I spoke of monsieur, and yet I had something to say--something--"

And the servant stopped, looking at her mistress so uneasily, so sadly that the young woman exclaimed:

"My God! what is the matter with you, Marguerite? You frighten me."

"Ah, well, madame, when I went into the dining-room to give to monsieur the bottle of brandy he ordered, M. Bridou said to him, with a surprised and alarmed expression, 'Jacques, you will never do that.' Monsieur seeing me enter, made a sign to M. Bridou to hush, but when I went out, I--madame will excuse me perhaps on account of my intention--"

"Go on, Marguerite."

"I went out of the dining-room, but I stopped a moment behind the door, and I heard M. Bridou say to monsieur, 'Jacques, I say again, you will not do that.' Then monsieur replied, 'You will see.' I did not dare to listen to more of the conversation, and--"

"You were right, Marguerite; you had already been guilty of an indiscretion which only your attachment to me can excuse."

"What! What monsieur said does not frighten you?"

"The words of M. Bastien which you have reported to me prove nothing, Marguerite; you are, I think, needlessly alarmed."

"God grant it, madame."

"Go and see, I pray you, if M. Bastien and M. Bridou are still at the table. If they have left it, you can go to bed, I have no further need of you."

Marguerite returned in a few moments, and said to her mistress:

"I have just given a light to monsieur and to M. Bridou, madame, they bade each other good night; but, wait, madame," said Marguerite, interrupting herself, "do you hear? that is M. Bridou now going up-stairs."

In fact the steps of Bastien's boon companion resounded over the wooden staircase which conducted to the chamber formerly occupied by David.

"Has M. Bastien entered his chamber?" asked Marie of the servant.

"I can see from the outside if there is a light in monsieur's chamber," replied Marguerite.

The servant went out again, returned in a few moments, and said to her mistress, as she shivered with the cold:

"Monsieur is in his chamber, madame; I can see the light through the blinds. My God, how bitter the cold is; it is snowing in great heaps, and I forgot to make your fire, madame. Perhaps you wish to sit up."

"No, Marguerite, thank you, I am going to bed immediately." Marie added, after a moment's reflection: "My shutters are closed, are they not?"

"Yes, madame."

"And those of my son's chamber also?"

"Yes, madame."

"Good night, Marguerite, come to me to-morrow at the break of day."

"Madame has need of nothing else?"

"No, thank you."

"Good night, madame."

Marguerite went out.

Marie locked her door, went to see if her shutters were closed, and slowly undressed, a prey to the most poignant anxiety, thinking of the various events of the evening, the mysterious words uttered by the bailiff, Bridou on the subject of Frederick, and especially of those words which passed between Jacques and his friend, which Marguerite had overheard:

"Jacques, you will not do that?"

"You will see."

The young woman, wrapped in her dressing-gown, prepared as usual to embrace her son before going to bed, when she heard heavy walking in the corridor which opened into her apartment.

No doubt it was the step of Jacques Bastien.

Marie listened.

The steps discontinued.

Soon the sound of this heavy walking was succeeded by the noise of two hands, outside the door, groping in the darkness for the lock and key.

Jacques Bastien wished to enter his wife's apartment.

She, knowing the door was locked, at first felt assured, but soon, reflecting that if she did not open the door to her husband, he might in his brutal violence make a loud noise, or perhaps break the door, and by this uproar waken her son and call David down-stairs, and thus bring about a collision, the possible consequences of which filled her with alarm, she decided to open the door. Then, remembering that her son was in the next chamber, and that but a few minutes before all her maternal authority and tenderness were required to prevent an expression of his indignation against Jacques Bastien, she recalled his bitter words, and the resolution with which he uttered them:

"To make an attempt on our happiness, would be to attempt your life, mother, and your life I will defend even against my father."

Marie felt that no human power, not even her own, could prevent Frederick's interposition this time, if Jacques Bastien, intoxicated as in all probability he was, should enter her chamber, and attack her with invective and threatening.

The alternative was terrible.

Not to open the door would be to expose herself to a deplorable scandal. To open it was to set the son and father face to face, one drunk with anger and wine, the other exasperated by the sense of his mother's wrongs.

These reflections, as rapid as thought, Marie had scarcely ended, when she heard Jacques Bastien, who had found the key, turn it in the lock and, finding an obstacle inside, shake the door violently.

Then Marie took a desperate resolution; she ran to the door, removed the bolt, and standing on the threshold as if to forbid entrance to Jacques Bastien, she said to him in a low, supplicating voice:

"My son is sleeping, monsieur; if you have something to say to me, come, I beseech you, in the library."

The unhappy woman paused a moment.

Her courage failed her, so terrible was the expression of Bastien's countenance.

The rays of the lamp placed upon the chimneypiece in Marie's bedchamber shone full upon the face of M. Bastien, which, thus brilliantly lighted, seemed to glare upon the darkness of the corridor.

This man, who had the breadth of Hercules, was now frightfully pale in consequence of the reaction of long continued drink and anger. He was about half drunk; his coarse, thick hair fell low on his forehead and almost concealed his little, wicked gray eyes. His bull-like neck was naked and his blouse open, as well as his great coat and vest, exposing a part of a powerful and hairy chest.

At the sight of this man, Marie, as we have said, felt for a moment her courage give way.

But, reflecting that the excited state in which M. Bastien was, only rendered him more passionate, and more intractable, that he would not hesitate at any violence or outburst of temper, and that then the intervention of David and Frederick would, unfortunately, become inevitable, the young woman, brave as she always was, thanked Heaven that her son had heard nothing, seized the lamp on the chimneypiece, returned to her husband, who stood immovable on the threshold, and said to him in a low voice:

"Let us go in the library, monsieur. I am afraid, as I told you, of waking my son."

M. Bastien appeared to take counsel with himself before yielding to Marie's desire.

After several minutes' hesitation, during which the young woman almost died of anguish, the Hercules replied:

"Well, to come to the point, I prefer that; come, go on before me."

Marie, preceding Jacques Bastien in the corridor, soon entered the library.