CHAPTER XLI. A DEED WITHOUT A NAME.
Caroline, profoundly agitated, rested her hands on the back of achair for support, and regarded La Corriveau for some moments withoutspeaking. She tried to frame a question of some introductory kind, butcould not. But the pent-up feelings came out at last in a gush straightfrom the heart.
"Did you write this?" said she, falteringly, to La Corriveau, andholding out the letter so mysteriously placed in her hand by MereMalheur. "Oh, tell me, is it true?"
La Corriveau did not reply except by a sign of assent, and standingupright waited for further question.
Caroline looked at her again wonderingly. That a simple peasant-womancould have indited such a letter, or could have known aught respectingher father, seemed incredible.
"In heaven's name, tell me who and what you are!" exclaimed she. "Inever saw you before!"
"You have seen me before!" replied La Corriveau quietly.
Caroline looked at her amazedly, but did not recognize her. La Corriveaucontinued, "Your father is the Baron de St. Castin, and you, lady,would rather die than endure that he should find you in the Chateau ofBeaumanoir. Ask me not how I know these things; you will not deny theirtruth; as for myself, I pretend not to be other than I seem."
"Your dress is that of a peasant-woman, but your language is not thelanguage of one. You are a lady in disguise visiting me in this strangefashion!" said Caroline, puzzled more than ever. Her thoughts at thisinstant reverted to the Intendant. "Why do you come here in this secretmanner?" asked she.
"I do not appear other than I am," replied La Corriveau evasively, "andI come in this secret manner because I could get access to you in noother way."
"You said that I had seen you before; I have no knowledge orrecollection of it," remarked Caroline, looking fixedly at her.
"Yes, you saw me once in the wood of St. Valier. Do you remember thepeasant-woman who was gathering mandrakes when you passed with yourIndian guides, and who gave you milk to refresh you on the way?"
This seemed like a revelation to Caroline; she remembered the incidentand the woman. La Corriveau had carefully put on the same dress she hadworn that day.
"I do recollect!" replied Caroline, as a feeling of confidence welled uplike a living spring within her. She offered La Corriveau her hand. "Ithank you gratefully," said she; "you were indeed kind to me that day inthe forest, and I am sure you must mean kindly by me now."
La Corriveau took the offered hand, but did not press it. She could notfor the life of her, for she had not heart to return the pressure of ahuman hand. She saw her advantage, however, and kept it through the restof the brief interview.
"I mean you kindly, lady," replied she, softening her harsh voice asmuch as she could to a tone of sympathy, "and I come to help you out ofyour trouble."
For a moment that cruel smile played on her thin lips again, but sheinstantly repressed it. "I am only a peasant-woman," repeated she again,"but I bring you a little gift in my basket to show my good-will." Sheput her hand in her basket, but did not withdraw it at the moment, asCaroline, thinking little of gifts but only of her father, exclaimed,--
"I am sure you mean well, but you have more important things to tellme of than a gift. Your letter spoke of my father. What, in God's name,have you to tell me of my father?"
La Corriveau withdrew her hand from the basket and replied, "He is onhis way to New France in search of you. He knows you are here, lady."
"In Beaumanoir? Oh, it cannot be! No one knows I am here!" exclaimedCaroline, clasping her hands in an impulse of alarm.
"Yes, more than you suppose, lady, else how did I know? Your fathercomes with the King's letters to take you hence and return with you toAcadia or to France." La Corriveau placed her hand in her basket, butwithdrew it again. It was not yet time.
"God help me, then!" exclaimed Caroline, shrinking with terror. "But theIntendant; what said you of the Intendant?"
"He is ordered de par le Roi to give you up to your father, and he willdo so if you be not taken away sooner by the Governor."
Caroline was nigh fainting at these words. "Sooner! how sooner?" askedshe, faintly.
"The Governor has received orders from the King to search Beaumanoirfrom roof to foundation-stone, and he may come to-morrow, lady, and findyou here."
The words of La Corriveau struck like sharp arrows into the soul of thehapless girl.
"God help me, then!" exclaimed she, clasping her hands in agony. "Oh,that I were dead and buried where only my Judge could find me at thelast day, for I have no hope, no claim upon man's mercy! The world willstone me, dead or living, and alas! I deserve my fate. It is not hard todie, but it is hard to bear the shame which will not die with me!"
She cast her eyes despairingly upward as she uttered this, and didnot see the bitter smile return to the lips of La Corriveau, whostood upright, cold and immovable before her, with fingers twitchingnervously, like the claws of a fury, in her little basket, while shewhispered to herself, "Is it time, is it time?" but she took not out thebouquet yet.
Caroline came still nearer, with a sudden change of thought, andclutching the dress of La Corriveau, cried out, "O woman, is this alltrue? How can you know all this to be true of me, and you a stranger?"
"I know it of a certainty, and I am come to help you. I may not tell youby whom I know it; perhaps the Intendant himself has sent me," repliedLa Corriveau, with a sudden prompting of the spirit of evil who stoodbeside her. "The Intendant will hide you from this search, if there be asure place of concealment in New France."
The reply sent a ray of hope across the mind of the agonized girl. Shebounded with a sense of deliverance. It seemed so natural that Bigot, sodeeply concerned in her concealment, should have sent this peasant womanto take her away, that she could not reflect at the moment how unlikelyit was, nor could she, in her excitement, read the lie upon the coldface of La Corriveau.
She seized the explanation with the grasp of despair, as a sailor seizesthe one plank which the waves have washed within his reach, when allelse has sunk in the seas around him.
"Bigot sent you?" exclaimed Caroline, raising her hands, while herpale face was suddenly suffused with a flush of joy. "Bigot sent you toconduct me hence to a sure place of concealment? Oh, blessed messenger!I believe you now." Her excited imagination outflew even the inventionsof La Corriveau. "Bigot has heard of my peril, and sent you here atmidnight to take me away to your forest home until this search be over.Is it not so? Francois Bigot did not forget me in my danger, even whilehe was away!"
"Yes, lady, the Intendant sent me to conduct you to St. Valier, tohide you there in a sure retreat until the search be over," replied LaCorriveau, calmly eyeing her from head to foot.
"It is like him! He is not unkind when left to himself. It is solike the Francois Bigot I once knew! But tell me, woman, what said hefurther? Did you see him, did you hear him? Tell me all he said to you."
"I saw him, lady, and heard him," replied La Corriveau, taking thebouquet in her fingers, "but he said little more than I have told you.The Intendant is a stern man, and gives few words save commands to thoseof my condition. But he bade me convey to you a token of his love;you would know its meaning, he said. I have it safe, lady, in thisbasket,--shall I give it to you?"
"A token of his love, of Francois Bigot's love to me! Are you a womanand could delay giving it so long? Why gave you it not at first? Ishould not have doubted you then. Oh, give it to me, and be blessed asthe welcomest messenger that ever came to Beaumanoir!"
La Corriveau held her hand a moment more in the basket. Her darkfeatures turned a shade paler, although not a nerve quivered as sheplucked out a parcel carefully wrapped in silver tissue. She slipped offthe cover, and held at arm's length towards the eager, expectant girl,the fatal bouquet of roses, beautiful to see as the fairest that everfilled the lap of Flora.
Caroline clasped it with both hands, exclaiming in a voice ofexultation, while every feature radiated with joy, "It is the gift ofGod, and the
return of Francois's love! All will yet be well!"
She pressed the glowing flowers to her lips with passionate kisses,breathed once or twice their mortal poison, and suddenly throwing backher head with her dark eyes fixed on vacancy, but holding the fatalbouquet fast in her hands, fell dead at the feet of La Corriveau.
A weird laugh, terrible and unsuppressed, rang around the walls of thesecret chamber, where the lamps burned bright as ever; but the glowingpictures of the tapestry never changed a feature. Was it not strangethat even those painted men should not have cried out at the sight of sopitiless a murder?
Caroline lay amid them all, the flush of joy still on her cheek, thesmile not yet vanished from her lips. A pity for all the world, could ithave seen her; but in that lonely chamber no eye pitied her.
But now a more cruel thing supervened. The sight of Caroline's lifelessform, instead of pity or remorse, roused all the innate furies thatbelonged to the execrable race of La Corriveau. The blood of generationsof poisoners and assassins boiled and rioted in her veins. The spiritsof Beatrice Spara and of La Voisin inspired her with new fury. She wasat this moment like a pantheress that has brought down her prey andstands over it to rend it in pieces.
Caroline lay dead, dead beyond all doubt, never to be resuscitated,except in the resurrection of the just. La Corriveau bent over her andfelt her heart; it was still. No sign of breath flickered on lip ornostril.
The poisoner knew she was dead, but something still woke her suspicions,as with a new thought she drew back and looked again at the beauteousform before her. Suddenly, as if to make assurance doubly sure, sheplucked the sharp Italian stiletto from her bosom, and with a firm,heavy hand plunged it twice into the body of the lifeless girl. "Ifthere be life there," she said, "it too shall die! La Corriveau leavesno work of hers half done!"
A faint trickle of blood in red threads ran down the snow-whitevestment, and that was all! The heart had forever ceased to beat, andthe blood to circulate. The golden bowl was broken and the silver cordof life loosed forever, and yet this last indignity would have recalledthe soul of Caroline, could she have been conscious of it. But all waswell with her now; not in the sense of the last joyous syllables shespoke in life, but in a higher, holier sense, as when God interprets ourwords, and not men, all was well with her now.
The gaunt, iron-visaged woman knelt down upon her knees, gazing withunshrinking eyes upon the face of her victim, as if curiously markingthe effect of a successful experiment of the aqua tofana.
It was the first time she had ever dared to administer that subtlepoison in the fashion of La Borgia.
"The aqua tofana does its work like a charm!" muttered she. "That vialwas compounded by Beatrice Spara, and is worthy of her skill and moresure than her stiletto! I was frantic to use that weapon, for no purposethan to redden my hands with the work of a low bravo!"
A few drops of blood were on the hand of La Corriveau. She wiped themimpatiently upon the garment of Caroline, where it left the impress ofher fingers upon the snowy muslin. No pity for her pallid victim, wholay with open eyes looking dumbly upon her, no remorse for her acttouched the stony heart of La Corriveau.
The clock of the Chateau struck one. The solitary stroke of the bellreverberated like an accusing voice through the house, but failed toawaken one sleeper to a discovery of the black tragedy that had justtaken place under its roof.
That sound had often struck sadly upon the ear of Caroline, as sheprolonged her vigil of prayer through the still watches of the night.Her ear was dull enough now to all earthly sound! But the toll ofthe bell reached the ear of La Corriveau, rousing her to the need ofimmediately effecting her escape, now that her task was done.
She sprang up and looked narrowly around the chamber. She marked withenvious malignity the luxury and magnificence of its adornments. Upon achair lay her own letter sent to Caroline by the hands of Mere Malheur.La Corriveau snatched it up. It was what she sought. She tore it inpieces and threw the fragments from her; but with a sudden thought, asif not daring to leave even the fragments upon the floor, she gatheredthem up hastily and put them in her basket with the bouquet of roses,which she wrested from the dead fingers of Caroline in order to carry itaway and scatter the fatal flowers in the forest.
She pulled open the drawers of the escritoire to search for money, butfinding none, was too wary to carry off aught else. The temptation laysore upon her to carry away the ring from the finger of Caroline.She drew it off the pale wasted finger, but a cautious considerationrestrained her. She put it on again, and would not take it.
"It would only lead to discovery!" muttered she. "I must take nothingbut myself and what belongs to me away from Beaumanoir, and the soonerthe better!"
La Corriveau, with her basket again upon her arm, turned to give onelast look of fiendish satisfaction at the corpse, which lay like a deadangel slain in God's battle. The bright lamps were glaring full upon herstill beautiful but sightless eyes, which, wide open, looked, even indeath, reproachfully yet forgivingly upon their murderess.
Something startled La Corriveau in that look. She turned hastily away,and, relighting her candle, passed through the dark archway of thesecret door, forgetting to close it after her, and retraced her stepsalong the stone passage until she came to the watch-tower, where shedashed out her light.
Creeping around the tower in the dim moonlight, she listened long andanxiously at door and window to discover if all was still about theChateau. Not a sound was heard but the water of the little brookgurgling in its pebbly bed, which seemed to be all that was awake onthis night of death.
La Corriveau emerged cautiously from the tower. She crept like a guiltything under the shadow of the hedge, and got away unperceived by thesame road she had come. She glided like a dark spectre through theforest of Beaumanoir, and returned to the city to tell Angelique desMeloises that the arms of the Intendant were now empty and ready toclasp her as his bride; that her rival was dead, and she had put herselfunder bonds forever to La Corriveau as the price of innocent blood.
La Corriveau reached the city in the gray of the morning; a thick foglay like a winding-sheet upon the face of nature. The broad river, thelofty rocks, every object, great and small, was hidden from view.
To the intense satisfaction of La Corriveau, the fog concealed herreturn to the house of Mere Malheur, whence, after a brief repose, andwith a command to the old crone to ask no questions yet, she salliedforth again to carry to Angelique the welcome news that her rival wasdead.
No one observed La Corriveau as she passed, in her peasant dress,through the misty streets, which did not admit of an object beingdiscerned ten paces off.
Angelique was up. She had not gone to bed that night, and sat feverishlyon the watch, expecting the arrival of La Corriveau.
She had counted the minutes of the silent hours of the night as theypassed by her in a terrible panorama. She pictured to her imaginationthe successive scenes of the tragedy which was being accomplished atBeaumanoir.
The hour of midnight culminated over her head, and looking out of herwindow at the black, distant hills, in the recesses of which she knewlay the Chateau, her agitation grew intense. She knew at that hour LaCorriveau must be in the presence of her victim. Would she kill her? Wasshe about it now? The thought fastened on Angelique like a wild beast,and would not let go. She thought of the Intendant, and was filled withhope; she thought of the crime of murder and shrunk now that it wasbeing done.
It was in this mood she waited and watched for the return of her bloodymessenger. She heard the cautious foot on the stone steps. She knew by asure instinct whose it was, and rushed down to admit her.
They met at the door, and without a word spoken, one eager glance ofAngelique at the dark face of La Corriveau drank in the whole fatalstory. Caroline de St. Castin was dead! Her rival in the love of theIntendant was beyond all power of rivalry now! The lofty doors ofambitious hope stood open--what! to admit the queen of beauty and ofsociety? No! but a murderess, who would be forever haunte
d with the fearof justice! It seemed at this moment as if the lights had all gone outin the palaces and royal halls where her imagination had so long runriot, and she saw only dark shadows, and heard inarticulate sounds ofstrange voices babbling in her ear. It was the unspoken words of her owntroubled thoughts and the terrors newly awakened in her soul!
Angelique seized the hand of La Corriveau, not without a shudder. Shedrew her hastily up to her chamber and thrust her into a chair. Placingboth hands upon the shoulders of La Corriveau, she looked wildly in herface, exclaiming in a half exultant, half piteous tone, "Is it done? Isit really done? I read it in your eyes! I know you have done the deed!Oh, La Corriveau!"
The grim countenance of the woman relaxed into a half smile of scornand surprise at the unexpected weakness which she instantly noted inAngelique's manner.
"Yes, it is done!" replied she, coldly, "and it is well done! But, bythe manna of St. Nicholas!" exclaimed she, starting from the chair anddrawing her gaunt figure up to its full height, while her black eyesshot daggers, "you look, Mademoiselle, as if you repented its beingdone. Do you?"
"Yes! No! No, not now!" replied Angelique, touched as with a hot iron."I will not repent now it is done! that were folly, needless, dangerous,now it is done! But is she dead? Did you wait to see if she were reallydead? People look dead sometimes and are not! Tell me truly, and concealnothing!"
"La Corriveau does not her work by halves, Mademoiselle, neither do you;only you talk of repentance after it is done, I do not! That is all thedifference! Be satisfied; the lady of Beaumanoir is dead! I made doublysure of that, and deserve a double reward from you!"
"Reward! You shall have all you crave! But what a secret between you andme!" Angelique looked at La Corriveau as if this thought now struck herfor the first time. She was in this woman's power. She shivered fromhead to foot. "Your reward for this night's work is here," faltered she,placing her hand over a small box. She did not touch it, it seemed asif it would burn her. It was heavy with pieces of gold. "They areuncounted," continued she. "Take it, it is all yours!"
La Corriveau snatched the box off the table and held it to her bosom.Angelique continued, in a monotonous tone, as one conning a lesson byrote,--"Use it prudently. Do not seem to the world to be suddenly rich:it might be inquired into. I have thought of everything during the pastnight, and I remember I had to tell you that when I gave you the gold.Use it prudently! Something else, too, I was to tell you, but I thinknot of it at this moment."
"Thanks, and no thanks, Mademoiselle!" replied La Corriveau, in a hardtone. "Thanks for the reward so fully earned. No thanks for your faintheart that robs me of my well-earned meed of applause for a work done soartistically and perfectly that La Brinvilliers, or La Borgia herself,might envy me, a humble paysanne of St. Valier!"
La Corriveau looked proudly up as she said this, for she felt herself tobe anything but a humble paysanne. She nourished a secret pride in herheart over the perfect success of her devilish skill in poisoning.
"I give you whatever praise you desire," replied Angelique,mechanically. "But you have not told me how it was done. Sit downagain," continued she, with a touch of her imperative manner, "and tellme all and every incident of what you have done."
"You will not like to hear it. Better be content with the knowledge thatyour rival was a dangerous and a beautiful one." Angelique looked up atthis. "Better be content to know that she is dead, without asking anymore."
"No, you shall tell me everything. I cannot rest unless I know all!"
"Nor after you do know all will you rest!" replied La Corriveauslightingly, for she despised the evident trepidation of Angelique.
"No matter! you shall tell me. I am calm now." Angelique made a greateffort to appear calm while she listened to the tale of tragedy in whichshe had played so deep a part.
La Corriveau, observing that the gust of passion was blown over, satdown in the chair opposite Angelique, and placing one hand on the kneeof her listener, as if to hold her fast, began the terrible recital.
She gave Angelique a graphic, minute, and not untrue account of all shehad done at Beaumanoir, dwelling with fierce unction on the marvellousand sudden effects of the aqua tofana, not sparing one detail of thebeauty and innocent looks of her victim; and repeating, with a mockinglaugh, the deceit she had practised upon her with regard to the bouquetas a gift from the Intendant.
Angelique listened to the terrible tale, drinking it in with eyes,mouth, and ears. Her countenance changed to a mask of ugliness,wonderful in one by nature so fair to see. Cloud followed cloud overher face and eyes as the dread recital went on, and her imaginationaccompanied it with vivid pictures of every phase of the diabolicalcrime.
When La Corriveau described the presentation of the bouquet as a giftof Bigot, and the deadly sudden effect which followed its joyousacceptance, the thoughts of Caroline in her white robe, stricken as bya thunderbolt, shook Angelique with terrible emotion. But when LaCorriveau, coldly and with a bitter spite at her softness, describedwith a sudden gesticulation and eyes piercing her through and through,the strokes of the poniard upon the lifeless body of her victim,Angelique sprang up, clasped her hands together, and, with a cry of woe,fell senseless upon the floor.
"She is useless now," said La Corriveau, rising and spurning Angeliquewith her foot. "I deemed she had courage to equal her wickedness. She isbut a woman after all,--doomed to be the slave of some man throughlife, while aspiring to command all men! It is not of such flesh that LaCorriveau is made!"
La Corriveau stood a few moments, reflecting what was best to be done.
All things considered, she decided to leave Angelique to come to ofherself, while she made the best of her way back to the house of MereMalheur, with the intention, which she carried out, of returning to St.Valier with her infamous reward that very day.