He then gave her very clear instructions. She was to obtain the most precise information possible about the lad's health, disposition, and conduct, whether the schoolmaster had always been pleased with him, whether his employer was equally satisfied, and so forth. Briefly, the inquiry was to be complete. But, above all things, she was to carry it on in such a way that nobody should suspect anything, neither the boy himself nor the folks of the district. There must be absolute secrecy.
'All that is easy,' replied La Couteau, 'I understand perfectly, and you can rely on me. I shall need a little time, however, and the best plan will be for me to tell you of the result of my researches when I next come to Paris. And if it suits you you will find me to-day fortnight, at two o'clock, at Broquette's office in the Rue Roquepine. I am quite at home there, and the place is like a tomb.'
Some days later, as Mathieu was again at the Beauchene works with his son Blaise, he was observed by Constance, who called him to her and questioned him in such direct fashion that he had to tell her what steps he had taken. When she heard of his appointment with La Couteau for the Wednesday of the ensuing week, she said to him in her resolute way: 'Come and fetch me. I wish to question that woman myself. I want to be quite certain on the matter.'
In spite of the lapse of fifteen years Broquette's nurse-office in the Rue Roquepine had remained the same as formerly, except that Madame Broquette was dead and had been succeeded by her daughter Herminie. The sudden loss of that fair, dignified lady, who had possessed such a decorative presence and so ably represented the high morality and respectability of the establishment, had at first seemed a severe one. But it so happened that Herminie, a tall, slim, languid creature that she was, gorged with novel-reading, also proved in her way a distinguished figurehead for the office. She was already thirty and was still unmarried, feeling indeed nothing but loathing for all the mothers laden with whining children by whom she was surrounded. Moreover, M. Broquette, her father, though now more than five-and-seventy, secretly remained the all-powerful, energetic director of the place, discharging all needful police duties, drilling new nurses like recruits, remaining ever on the watch and incessantly perambulating the three floors of his suspicious, dingy lodging-house.
La Couteau was waiting for Mathieu in the doorway. On perceiving Constance, whom she did not know, for she had never previously met her, she seemed surprised. Who could that lady be? what had she to do with the affair? However, she promptly extinguished the bright gleam of curiosity which for a moment lighted up her eyes; and as Herminie, with distinguished nonchalance, was at that moment exhibiting a party of nurses to two gentlemen in the office, she took her visitors into the empty refectory, where the atmosphere was as usual tainted by a horrible stench of cookery.
'You must excuse me, monsieur and madame,' she exclaimed, 'but there is no other room free just now. The place is full.'
Then she carried her keen glances from Mathieu to Constance, preferring to wait until she was questioned, since another person was now in the secret.
'You can speak out,' said Mathieu. 'Did you make the inquiries I spoke to you about?'
'Certainly, monsieur. They were made, and properly made, I think.'
'Then tell us the result: I repeat that you can speak freely before this lady.'
'Oh! monsieur, it won't take me long. You were quite right: there were two apprentices at the wheelwright's at Saint-Pierre, and one of them was Alexandre-Honore, the pretty blonde's child, the same that we took together over yonder. He had been there, I found, barely two months, after trying three or four other callings, and that explains my ignorance of the circumstance. Only he's a lad who can stay nowhere, and so three weeks ago he took himself off.'
Constance could not restrain an exclamation of anxiety: 'What! took himself off?'
'Yes, madame, I mean that he ran away, and this time it is quite certain that he has left the district, for he disappeared with three hundred francs belonging to Montoir, his master.'
La Couteau's dry voice rang as if it were an axe dealing a deadly blow. Although she could not understand the lady's sudden pallor and despairing emotion, she certainly seemed to derive cruel enjoyment from it.
'Are you quite sure of your information?' resumed Constance, struggling against the facts. 'That is perhaps mere village tittle-tattle.'
'Tittle-tattle, madame? Oh! when I undertake to do anything I do it properly. I spoke to the gendarmes. They have scoured the whole district, and it is certain that Alexandre-Honore left no address behind him when he went off with those three hundred francs. He is still on the run. As for that I'll stake my name on it.'
This was indeed a hard blow for Constance. That lad, whom she fancied she had found again, of whom she dreamt incessantly, and on whom she had based so many unacknowledgable plans of vengeance, escaped her, vanished once more into the unknown! She was distracted by it as by some pitiless stroke of fate, some fresh and irreparable defeat. However, she continued the interrogatory.
'Surely you did not merely see the gendarmes? you were instructed to question everybody.'
'That is precisely what I did, madame. I saw the schoolmaster, and I spoke to the other persons who had employed the lad. They all told me that he was a good-for-nothing. The schoolmaster remembered that he had been a liar and a bully. Now he's a thief; that makes him perfect. I can't say otherwise than I have said, since you wanted to know the plain truth.'
La Couteau thus emphasized her statements on seeing that the lady's suffering increased. And what strange suffering it was; a heart-pang at each fresh accusation, as if her husband's illegitimate child had become in some degree her own! She ended indeed by silencing the nurse-agent.
'Thank you. The boy is no longer at Rougemont, that is all we wished to know.'
La Couteau thereupon turned to Mathieu, continuing her narrative, in order to give him his money's worth.
'I also made the other apprentice talk a bit,' said she; 'you know, that big carroty fellow, Richard, whom I spoke to you about. He's another whom I wouldn't willingly trust. But it's certain that he doesn't know where his companion has gone. The gendarmes think that Alexandre is in Paris.'
Thereupon Mathieu in his turn thanked the woman, and handed her a bank-note for fifty francs-a gift which brought a smile to her face and rendered her obsequious, and, as she herself put it, 'as discreetly silent as the grave.' Then, as three nurses came into the refectory, and Monsieur Broquette could be heard scrubbing another's hands in the kitchen, by way of teaching her how to cleanse herself of her native dirt, Constance felt nausea arise within her, and made haste to follow her companion away. Once in the street, instead of entering the cab which was waiting, she paused pensively, haunted by La Couteau's final words.
'Did you hear?' she exclaimed. 'That wretched lad may be in Paris.'
'That is probable enough; they all end by stranding here.'
Constance again hesitated, reflected, and finally made up her mind to say in a somewhat tremulous voice: 'And the mother, my friend; you know where she lives, don't you? Did you not tell me that you had concerned yourself about her?'
'Yes, I did.'
'Then listen-and above all, don't be astonished; pity me, for I am really suffering. An idea has just taken possession of me; it seems to me that if the boy is in Paris, he may have found his mother. Perhaps he is with her, or she may at least know where he lodges. Oh! don't tell me that it is impossible. On the contrary, everything is possible.'
Surprised and moved at seeing one who usually evinced so much calmness now giving way to such fancies as these, Mathieu promised that he would make inquiries. Nevertheless, Constance did not get into the cab, but continued gazing at the pavement. And when she once more raised her eyes, she spoke to him entreatingly, in an embarrassed, humble manner: 'Do you know what we ought to do? Excuse me, but it is a service I shall never forget. If I could only know the truth at once it might calm me a little. Well, let us drive to that woman's now. Oh! I won't go up; you can go alone, while I wait in the cab at the street corner. And perhaps you will obtain some news.'
It was an insane idea, and he was at first minded to prove this to her. Then, on looking at her, she seemed to him so wretched, so painfully tortured, that without a word, making indeed but a kindly gesture of compassion, he consented. And the cab carried them away.
The large room in which Norine and Cecile lived together was at Grenelle, near the Champ de Mars, in a street at the end of the Rue de la Federation. They had been there for nearly six years now, and in the earlier days had experienced much worry and wretchedness. But the child whom they had to feed and save had on his side saved them also. The motherly feelings slumbering in Norine's heart had awakened with passionate intensity for that poor
