The eagerness of the ill-fated girl to see La Corriveau outran every calculation of Mere Malheur. It was in vain and useless for her to speak further on the subject; Caroline would say no more. Her thoughts ran violently in the direction suggested by the artful letter. She would see La Corriveau to-morrow night, and would make no more avowals to Mere Malheur, she said to herself.
Seeing no more was to be got out of her, the crone bade her a formal farewell, looking at her curiously as she did so, and wondering in her mind if she should ever see her again. For the old creature had a shrewd suspicion that La Corriveau had not told her all her intentions with respect to this singular girl.
Caroline returned her salute, still holding the letter in her hand.
She sat down to peruse it again, and observed not Mere Malheur's equivocal glance as she turned her eyes for the last time upon the innocent girl, doomed to receive the midnight visit from La Corriveau.
"There is death in the pot!" the crone muttered as she went out,--"La Corriveau comes not here on her own errand either! That girl is too beautiful to live, and to some one her death is worth gold! It will go hard, but La Corriveau shall share with me the reward of the work of tomorrow night!"
In the long gallery she encountered Dame Tremblay "ready to eat her up," as she told La Corriveau afterwards, in the eagerness of her curiosity to learn the result of her interview with Caroline.
Mere Malheur was wary, and accustomed to fence with words. It was necessary to tell a long tale of circumstances to Dame Tremblay, but not necessary nor desirable to tell the truth. The old crone therefore, as soon as she had seated herself in the easy chair of the housekeeper and refreshed herself by twice accepting the dame's pressing invitation to tea and cognac, related with uplifted hands and shaking head a narrative of bold lies regarding what had really passed during her interview with Caroline.
"But who is she, Mere Malheur? Did she tell you her name? Did she show you her palm?"
"Both, dame, both! She is a girl of Ville Marie who has run away from her parents for love of the gallant Intendant, and is in hiding from them. They wanted to put her into the Convent to cure her of love. The Convent always cures love, dame, beyond the power of philtres to revive it!" and the old crone laughed inwardly to herself, as if she doubted her own saying.
Eager to return to La Corriveau with the account of her successful interview with Caroline, she bade Dame Tremblay a hasty but formal farewell, and with her crutched stick in her hand trudged stoutly back to the city.
Mere Malheur, while the sun was yet high, reached her cottage under the rock, where La Corriveau was eagerly expecting her at the window. The moment she entered, the masculine voice of La Corriveau was heard asking loudly,--"Have you seen her, Mere Malheur? Did you give her the letter?
Never mind your hat! tell me before you take it off!" The old crone was tugging at the strings, and La Corriveau came to help her.
"Yes! she took your letter," replied she, impatiently. "She took my story like spring water. Go at the stroke of twelve to-morrow night and she will let you in, Dame Dodier; but will she let you out again, eh?" The crone stood with her hat in her hand, and looked with a wicked glance at La Corriveau.
"If she will let me in, I shall let myself out, Mere Malheur," replied Corriveau in a low tone. "But why do you ask that?"
"Because I read mischief in your eye and see it twitching in your thumb, and you do not ask me to share your secret! Is it so bad as that, Dame Dodier?"
"Pshaw! you are sharing it! wait and you will see your share of it!
But tell me, Mere Malheur, how does she look, this mysterious lady of the Chateau?" La Corriveau sat down, and placed her long, thin hand on the arm of the old crone.
"Like one doomed to die, because she is too good to live. Sorrow is a bad pasture for a young creature like her to feed on, Dame Dodier!" was the answer, but it did not change a muscle on the face of La Corriveau.
"Ay! but there are worse pastures than sorrow for young creatures like her, and she has found one of them," she replied, coldly.
"Well! as we make our bed so must we lie on it, Dame Dodier,--that is what I always tell the silly young things who come to me asking their fortunes; and the proverb pleases them. They always think the bridal bed must be soft and well made, at any rate."
"They are fools! better make their death-bed than their bridal bed!
But I must see this piece of perfection of yours to-morrow night, dame! The Intendant returns in two days, and he might remove her.
Did she tell you about him?"
"No! Bigot is a devil more powerful than the one we serve, dame. I fear him!"
"Tut! I fear neither devil nor man. It was to be at the hour of twelve! Did you not say at the hour of twelve, Mere Malheur?"
"Yes! go in by the vaulted passage and knock at the secret door.
She will admit you. But what will you do with her, Dame Dodier? Is she doomed? Could you not be gentle with her, dame?"
There was a fall in the voice of Mere Malheur,--an intonation partly due to fear of consequences, partly to a fibre of pity which--dry and disused--something in the look of Caroline had stirred like a dead leaf quivering in the wind.
"Tut! has she melted your old dry heart to pity, Mere Malheur! Ha, ha! who would have thought that! and yet I remember she made a soft fool of me for a minute in the wood of St. Valier!" La Corriveau spoke in a hard tone, as if in reproving Mere Malheur she was also reproving herself.
"She is unlike any other woman I ever saw," replied the crone, ashamed of her unwonted sympathy. "The devil is clean out of her as he is out of a church."
"You are a fool, Mere Malheur! Out of a church, quotha!" and La Corriveau laughed a loud laugh; "why I go to church myself, and whisper my prayers backwards to keep on terms with the devil, who stands nodding behind the altar to every one of my petitions,--that is more than some people get in return for their prayers," added she.
