LA CORRIVEAU.
Angelique scarcely noticed her brother, except to bid him good-night when she left him in the vestibule of the mansion. Gathering her gay robes in her jewelled hand, she darted up the broad stairs to her own apartment, the same in which she had received Le Gardeur on that memorable night in which she crossed the Rubicon of her fate.
There was a fixedness in her look and a recklessness in her step that showed anger and determination. It struck Lizette with a sort of awe, so that, for once, she did not dare to accost her young mistress with her usual freedom. The maid opened the door and closed it again without offering a word, waiting in the anteroom until a summons should come from her mistress.
Lizette observed that she had thrown herself into a fauteuil, after hastily casting off her mantle, which lay at her feet. Her long hair hung loose over her shoulders as it parted from all its combs and fastenings. She held her hands clasped hard across her forehead, and stared with fixed eyes upon the fire which burned low on the hearth, flickering in the depths of the antique fireplace, and occasionally sending a flash through the room which lit up the pictures on the wall, seeming to give them life and movement, as if they, too, would gladly have tempted Angelique to better thoughts.
But she noticed them not, and would not at that moment have endured to look at them.
Angelique had forbidden the lamps to be lighted: it suited her mood to sit in the half-obscure room, and in truth her thoughts were hard and cruel, fit only to be brooded over in darkness and alone. She clenched her hands, and raising them above her head, muttered an oath between her teeth, exclaiming,--"Par Dieu! It must be done! It must be done!" She stopped suddenly when she had said that. "What must be done?" asked she sharply of herself, and laughed a mocking laugh. "He gave me her life! He did not mean it! No! The Intendant was treating me like a petted child. He offered me her life while he refused me a lettre de cachet! The gift was only upon his false lips, not in his heart!
But Bigot shall keep that promise in spite of himself. There is no other way,--none!"
This was a new world Angelique suddenly found herself in. A world of guilty thoughts and unresisted temptations, a chaotic world where black, unscalable rocks, like a circle of the Inferno, hemmed her in on every side, while devils whispered in her ears the words which gave shape and substance to her secret wishes for the death of her "rival," as she regarded the poor sick girl at Beaumanoir.
How was she to accomplish it? To one unpractised in actual deeds of wickedness, it was a question not easy to be answered, and a thousand frightful forms of evil, stalking shapes of death came and went before her imagination, and she clutched first at one, then at another of the dire suggestions that came in crowds that overwhelmed her power of choice.
In despair to find an answer to the question, "What must be done?" she rose suddenly and rang the bell. The door opened, and the smiling face and clear eye of Lizette looked in. It was Angelique's last chance, but it was lost. It was not Lizette she had rung for.
Her resolution was taken.
"My dear mistress!" exclaimed Lizette, "I feared you had fallen asleep. It is almost day! May I now assist you to undress for bed?" Voluble Lizette did not always wait to be first spoken to by her mistress.
"No, Lizette, I was not asleep; I do not want to undress; I have much to do. I have writing to do before I retire; send Fanchon Dodier here." Angelique had a forecast that it was necessary to deceive Lizette, who, without a word, but in no serene humor, went to summon Fanchon to wait on her mistress.
Fanchon presently came in with a sort of triumph glittering in her black eye. She had noticed the ill humor of Lizette, but had not the slightest idea why she had been summoned to wait on Angelique instead of her own maid. She esteemed it quite an honor, however.
"Fanchon Dodier!" said she, "I have lost my jewels at the ball; I cannot rest until I find them; you are quicker-witted than Lizette: tell me what to do to find them, and I will give you a dress fit for a lady."
Angelique with innate craft knew that her question would bring forth the hoped-for reply.
Fanchon's eyes dilated with pleasure at such a mark of confidence.
"Yes, my Lady," replied she, "if I had lost my jewels I should know what to do. But ladies who can read and write and who have the wisest gentlemen to give them counsel do not need to seek advice where poor habitan girls go when in trouble and perplexity."
"And where is that, Fanchon? Where would you go if in trouble and perplexity?"
"My Lady, if I had lost all my jewels,"--Fanchon's keen eye noticed that Angelique had lost none of hers, but she made no remark on it,--"if I had lost all mine, I should go see my aunt Josephte Dodier.
She is the wisest woman in all St. Valier; if she cannot tell you all you wish to know, nobody can."
"What! Dame Josephte Dodier, whom they call La Corriveau? Is she your aunt?"
Angelique knew very well she was. But it was her cue to pretend ignorance in order to impose on Fanchon.
"Yes, ill-natured people call her La Corriveau, but she is my aunt, nevertheless. She is married to my uncle Louis Dodier, but is a lady, by right of her mother, who came from France, and was once familiar with all the great dames of the Court. It was a great secret why her mother left France and came to St. Valier; but I never knew what it was. People used to shake their heads and cross themselves when speaking of her, as they do now when speaking of Aunt Josephte, whom they call La Corriveau; but they tremble when she looks at them with her black, evil eye, as they call it. She is a terrible woman, is Aunt Josephte! but oh, Mademoiselle, she can tell you things past, present, and to come! If she rails at the world, it is because she knows every wicked thing that is done in it, and the world rails at her in return; but people are afraid of her all the same."
