“I am going to ask you a good many questions, Father le Mescam,” began John Treverton. “I hope you won’t think me troublesome or impertinently inquisitive. However trivial my inquiries may seem, the result is a matter of life and death to me.
“Ask what you will, sir,” answered the curé. “So long as you ask no question which a priest ought not to answer, you may command me.”
XXXVI
Kergariou’s Wife
“Father le Mescam,” said John Treverton, “do you ever remember hearing of a girl who left this town a laundress to become afterwards a celebrity in Paris, as a stage dancer?”
“I ought to remember her,” answered the curé, looking somewhat astonished at the question, “for I baptized her; I prepared her for her first communion, poor soul; and I married her.”
John Treverton started from his chair, and then sat down again profoundly agitated. Sampson was right. Yes; there had been a previous marriage. Yet it might be too soon for exultation. The first husband might have died before La Chicot came to Paris.
“Are we talking of the same woman?” he asked; “a girl who was known as Mademoiselle Chicot.”
“Yes,” answered Father le Mescam, “that was the only woman who ever left Auray to blossom into a stage dancer. Ours is not a soil which freely produces that kind of flower. I have good reason to remember that girl, for I was interested by her singular beauty, and I felt anxious for the safety of her soul amidst the snares and temptations to which such remarkable beauty is subject. I did my best to teach her—to fortify her against all future dangers; but she was as empty within as she was lovely without. I hardly know whether one ought to consider such a creature responsible for all her errors. Hers was a case of invincible ignorance. The church has to deal with many such characters—the heart hard as stone, the intellect a blank.”
“What’s he jabbering about?” said Tom Sampson to his client. “You look as if you had found out something.”
“Wait, my dear fellow. I am on the point of making a discovery. You were right in your guess, Sampson; there was a previous husband.”
“Of course,” cried Sampson, triumphantly. “My surprise in the case of a woman of that kind would be to discover only one previous husband. I should sooner expect to hear of six.”
“Hold your tongue,” said John Treverton, authoritatively, and then he refilled Father le Mescam’s glass before he proceeded with his inquiry. “You say you married La Chicot?”
“She was not La Chicot when I married her, but plain Marie Pomellec, the eldest daughter of a drunken old fisherman down by the quay. Drink was hereditary in her family. Grandfather and great-grandfather, they had all been drunkards from generation to generation. The children had to shift for themselves from the time they could run. I think that may have helped to make them hard and cruel, though some sweet souls educate themselves for heaven in just as hard a life. As Marie grew up to a fine tall slip of a girl her handsome face attracted notice. She got to know that she was the prettiest woman in Auray, and the knowledge soon spoiled whatever good there was in her. I saw all the perils of her position—dissolute parents—utter want of guidance from without—a mind too frivolous to be a guide to itself. In my idea her only chance of salvation lay in an early marriage, and although she was but seventeen when Jean Kergariou asked her to be his wife, I did not hesitate in advising her to marry him.”
“Who was Kergariou?”
“A sailor, and as good a fellow as ever went to sea. He and Marie had been playfellows. They had attended the same class for instruction. Jean was intelligent, Marie was dull, Jean was frank and good-humoured, Marie was reserved and self-willed. But the poor fellow was dazzled by the girl’s beauty, and she was endeared to him by old associations. He told me that she was the only woman he ever had cared for, the only woman he ever should care for. He had saved a little money, and could afford to furnish one of the cottages in the street by the quay. He would have to go to sea, of course, and Marie would stop at home and keep house, and perhaps earn a little money by washing linen, having the river so convenient. I would rather have had a home-staying husband for her, but Jean was a thoroughly good fellow, and I thought such a husband must keep her out of harm’s way. He was not the kind of man that any woman could attempt to trifle with.”
“And he married her?”
“Yes, they were married in the church yonder, one Easter Monday.”
“Can you tell me the date?”
“I can find it for you in the book where such events are registered. I could not say at this moment how many years ago it may have been. I could tell you the year of poor Kergariou’s death.”
“Oh, he is dead, then?” asked Treverton, with a dreadful sinking of the heart.
“Yes, poor fellow. Let me see; it must have been three years ago last summer that Kergariou met with his melancholy death.”
“His melancholy death,” repeated Treverton. “Why melancholy?”
“He was killed—run over
