He paused, a look of perplexity and of shamefacedness came over his wrinkled old face while he thoughtfully scratched his head: “Now I think of it,” he said, “I ought to have inspected that bundle. It looked mighty heavy for faggots or for rags. Perhaps he had been up to no good after all—And directly after I lost sight of him and his woman I saw a whole lot of faggots lying in a heap close by the stable door.”
The other old men and the maids had gathered closer round André and Fleurette. This was the first they had heard of the old vagabond and his woman, and the bundle which appeared so heavy.
“You certainly ought to have inspected that bundle, André,” Mathieu said sententiously. He felt that there was a chance of recapturing his dignity which seemed to have been slightly impaired through his argument with Pierre. He could reassert his authority at any rate by rebuking André. “It looks,” he went on, “as if the old vagabond had brought a lot of faggots with him, then turned them out of the sacking and replaced them by God knows what valuables he may have stolen.”
“I was so upset, you understand, papa!” André murmured ruefully.
“We were all of us upset, as you call it, André,” papa rebuked sternly, “but that is no excuse for neglect of duty.”
“Don’t scold André, papa,” Fleurette broke in excitedly. “My belief is that the old vagabond, as you call him, was a messenger from the Holy Virgin, sent on purpose to get Madame and Mademoiselle safely out of the way.”
“Oh, Mam’zelle!”
“From the Holy Virgin!”
“Sainte Marie, mere de Dieu, priez pour nous!” came in chorus from the maids. Even the cook, an elderly woman, jealous of her own dignity, was unable to conceal her excitement. The old men shook their heads, looked wise and sceptical.
“What makes you say that, Mam’zelle Fleurette?” Mathieu asked in an awed whisper.
But Fleurette was silent now. Already she had repented of having said so much. Discretion would have been so much wiser. That was the worst of her: she always allowed her tongue to run away with her. She looked eagerly from one anxious face to the other: well she knew that the little she had said would be talked over and commented on and be made the subject of gossip until it reached the village and possibly even Serres and Sisteron; and God only knew what harm this might do to Madame and Mademoiselle. She bit the tip of her tongue hard just to punish it for having wagged too freely, and seized with a sudden impulse, which she found irresistible, she snatched up a candle from the table, and incontinently turned and fled out of the hall, leaving the others to gape and stare after her, to scratch their heads, and to conjecture.
Aye! and to gossip too.
VIII
Perquisitions in these days of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality were perhaps among the minor horrors that befell innocent and guilty alike, at the behest of tyrants more implacable than the Inquisitors of Medieval Spain, more cruel than the Borgias: but they were terrible nevertheless. A perquisition meant, in most cases, the destruction of every household treasure, every family relic cherished through generations, it meant the wanton smashing of furniture and mirrors, the ripping up of valuable tapestries and of mattresses, the defacement of priceless pictures, it meant prying, hostile eyes thrust into receptacles, however secret, into private papers and even letters. Nothing was sacred to men deputed to insult and to offend, just as much as to search.
When Fleurette reached that part of the house which was occupied by the family, she was confronted by the wildest, the most heart-stirring confusion. The carpets had been torn off the floors, the furniture for the most part lay in broken heaps about the rooms, mirrors and pictures had been dragged off the walls, broken crockery and glass was scattered everywhere, intermingled with horsehair and other stuffing out of chairs and mattresses, whilst all the walls, the doors, the window-frames bore traces of rude handling with bayonet or the heel of a boot. Fleurette, wide-eyed and appalled, ran from room to room; the guttering tallow-candle which she held threw flickering lights and grotesque shadows on the scattered objects about her, made them seem more weird, like the appurtenances of an abode of ghosts. Here in the pretty boudoir Mademoiselle’s embroidery frame lay smashed to tinder wood with threads of the work still hanging to it, bits of rags, pathetic in their look of abandonment and desolation. There in the withdrawing room, the beautiful satinwood spinet with its painted panels and exquisite marqueterie was lying on its side, its body gaping like a gigantic wound, the strings emitting a final vibration like the last song of a dying swan.
From the direction of the dining-room came the incessant murmur of voices, but throughout the rest of the apartments, in the midst of all the wreckage, a silence reigned as of the grave. The place now was completely deserted. It seemed almost as if some terrible tornado had swept through these living-rooms: some implacable forces of nature rather than the hatred and cupidity of men. An earthquake could not have been more devastating, a fire more destructive.
And now in the midst of it all Fleurette came to a standstill, candle in hand: her breath came and went in quick short gasps, and her heart was beating furiously. The silence in this semidarkness with those long, ghostlike shadows seemed to oppress her; the broken bits of beautiful things which she had known and loved ever since she remembered anything, gave her an awful feeling of desolation and a kind of foreboding of things, still worse, to come. It was instinct which had brought her to a halt here in this one room amongst the others. It was always known as Madame’s room, for here
