As Tom Sampson’s knowledge of the French language was that of the average British schoolboy, he naturally found himself unable to understand the natives of an obscure port in Brittany. He was with his client in the capacity of adviser; but it behoved his client to do all the work.
“Well, my dear fellow,” said Treverton, when they had deposited their travelling bags at the hotel, and were standing in the empty marketplace, looking round them somewhat vaguely, “here we are, and what is to be our first move now we are here?”
“I should think about the best plan would be to go to the churches and examine the registers,” suggested Sampson. “I suppose you know your first wife’s real name?”
“Not unless it was Chicot—I married her under that name.”
“Chicot,” repeated Sampson, dubiously “It sounds rather barbarous, but it’s nothing to the names over the shops here. I never saw such crack-jaw cognomens. Well, we’d better go and look up all the registers for the name of Chicot.”
“That would be slow work,” said Treverton, thinking of the sweet young wife at home, full of fear and trouble, left to brood upon her sorrows at that very time when life ought to have been made bright and happy for her, a time when her mind might be most prone to despondency.
He had written Laura a consoling letter from St. Malo, affecting hopefulness he did not feel: but he knew how poor a consolation any letter must be, and he was longing to finish his business and turn his face homewards.
“Can you suggest a quicker way?” asked Sampson.
“I think it might be a better plan to find out the oldest priest in the parish, and question him. A priest in such a place as this ought to be a living chronicle of the lives of its inhabitants.”
“Not half a bad idea,” said Sampson, approvingly. “The sooner you find your priest the better, say I.”
“Come along, then,” said Treverton, and they went up the steps of a church near at hand, and into the dusky aisle, where a few scattered old women were kneeling in the winter gloom, and where the sanctuary lamp shone like a red star in the distance.
“What would they say at Hazlehurst if they could see me in a Roman Catholic church?” thought Sampson. “They’d give me over for lost.”
John Treverton walked softly round the church, till he met with a priest who was just shutting up his confessional, preparatory to departure. He was a youngish man, with a good-natured countenance, and acknowledged the stranger’s salutation with a friendly smile. John Treverton followed him out of the church before he ventured to ask for the information he wanted, and then he explained himself as briefly as possible.
“I have come from England to obtain information about a native of this town,” he said. “Do you think that among the priests connected with your church there is any gentleman who can remember the events of the last twenty years, and who would be obliging enough to answer my questions?”
“Most certainly, monsieur, since I apprehend your inquiries are to a good end.”
“I can give you my own word for that. This gentleman is my solicitor, and if he could speak French, or if you could speak English, he would be able to vouch for my respectability. Unhappily he cannot put half a dozen words together in your charming language. At least I’m afraid he can’t. — Do you think you could tell this gentleman who I am, Sampson?” John Treverton asked, turning to his ally.
Mr. Sampson became furiously red in the face, and blew out his cheeks like a turkey-cock.
“Mon ami, monsieur,” he began with a desperate plunge “Er, mon ami est bien riche homme, bien à faire, le plus fort riche homme dans notre part de la campagne. Il a un grand état, très-grand. Je suis son lawyer—comprenney, monsieur?—son avocat.”
The priest expressed himself deeply convinced of the honourable position of both travellers, though he was inwardly at a loss to understand why a man should go wandering about the country with his advocate.
He then went on to tell John Treverton that his superior, Father le Mescam, the curé of the parish, had been attached to that church for the last thirty years, and could doubtless recall every event of importance that had happened in the town during that period. He was likely to know much of the private history of his congregation; and as he was the most amiable of men, he would doubtless be willing to communicate anything which a stranger could have the right to know.
“Sir, you are most obliging,” said John Treverton. “Extend your courtesy still further, and bring Father le Mescam to dine with me and my friend at six o’clock this evening, and you will weigh me down with obligations.”
“You are very kind, sir,” murmured the priest. “We have vespers at five—yes, at six we shall be free. I shall feel much pleasure in persuading Father le Mescam to accept your very gracious invitation.”
“A thousand thanks. I consider it settled. We are staying at the Pavilion d’en haut, where I suppose that if a man cannot dine, he can at least eat.”
“Sir, I take it upon myself to answer for the hotel. As a type of the provincial cuisine the Pavilion d’en haut will prove itself worthy of your praise. You shall not be discontented with your dinner. I pledge myself to that. Till six o’clock, sir.”
The Vicaire lifted his biretta, and left them.
“It will go hard if I cannot find out something about my wife’s antecedents from a man who has lived thirty years in Auray,” said John Treverton, as
