Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1617 page)

“I met him, this morning, on his way into Toulouse.”

“He has not fallen ill, I hope? Did he look out of sorts when you met him?”

“He was in excellent health and spirits,” said Jean. “I never saw him look better — ”

“And
I
never saw him look worse,” said the second of the neighbours, striking into the conversation with the aggressive fretfulness of a hungry man.

“What! this morning?” cried Jean, in astonishment.

“No; this afternoon,” said the neighbour. “I saw him going into our church here. He was as white as our plates will be — when they come up. And what is almost as extraordinary, he passed without taking the slightest notice of me.” Jean relapsed into his customary silence. It was getting dark; the clouds had gathered while the company had been talking; and, at the first pause in the conversation, the rain, falling again in torrents, made itself drearily audible. “Dear, dear me!” said the widow. “If it was not raining so hard, we might send somebody to inquire after good Monsieur Chaubard.”

“I’ll go and inquire,” said Thomas Siadoux. “It’s not five minutes’ walk. Have up the supper; I’ll take a cloak with me; and if our excellent Monsieur Chaubard is out of his bed, I’ll bring him back, to answer for himself.”

With those words he left the room. The supper was put on the table forthwith. The hungry neighbour disputed with nobody from that moment, and the melancholy neighbour recovered his spirits.

On reaching the priest’s house, Thomas Siadoux found him sitting alone in his study. He started to his feet, with every appearance of the most violent alarm, when the young man entered the room.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Thomas; “I am afraid I have startled you.”

“What do you want?” asked Monsieur Chaubard, in a singularly abrupt, bewildered manner.

“Have you forgotten, sir, that this is the night of our supper?” remonstrated Thomas. “My father has not come back; and we can only suppose — ”

At those words the priest dropped into his chair again, and trembled from head to foot. Amazed to the last degree by this extraordinary reception of his remonstrance, Thomas Siadoux remembered, at the same time, that he had engaged to bring Monsieur Chaubard back with him; and he determined to finish his civil speech, as if nothing had happened.

“We are all of opinion,” he resumed, “that the weather has kept my father on the road. But that is no reason, sir, why the supper should be wasted, or why you should not make one of us, as you promised. Here is a good warm cloak — ”

“I can’t come,” said the priest. “I’m ill; I’m in bad spirits; I’m not fit to go out.” He sighed bitterly, and hid his face in his hands.

“Don’t say that, sir,” persisted Thomas. “If you are out of spirits, let us try to cheer you. And you, in your turn, will enliven us. They are all waiting for you at home. Don’t refuse, sir,” pleaded the young man, “or we shall think we have offended you, in some way. You have always been a good friend to our family — ”

Monsieur Chaubard again rose from his chair, with a second change of manner, as extraordinary and as perplexing as the first. His eyes moistened as if the tears were rising in them; he took the hand of Thomas Siadoux, and pressed it long and warmly in his own. There was a curious mixed expression of pity and fear in the look which he now fixed on the young man.

“Of all the days in the year,” he said, very earnestly, “don’t doubt my friendship to-day. Ill as I am, I will make one of the supper-party, for your sake — ”

“And for my father’s sake?” added Thomas, persuasively.

“Let us go to the supper,” said the priest.

Thomas Siadoux wrapped the cloak round him, and they left the house.

Every one at the table noticed the change in Monsieur Chaubard. He accounted for it by declaring, confusedly, that he was suffering from nervous illness; and then added that he would do his best, notwithstanding, to promote the social enjoyment of the evening. His talk was fragmentary, and his cheerfulness was sadly forced; but he contrived, with these drawbacks, to take his part in the conversation — except in the case when it happen to turn on the absent master of the house. Whenever the name of Saturnin Siadoux was mentioned — either by the neighbours, who politely regretted that he was not present; or by the family, who naturally talked about the resting-place which he might have chosen for the night — Monsieur Chaubard either relapsed into blank silence, or abruptly changed the topic. Under these circumstances, the company, by whom he was respected and beloved, made the necessary allowances for his state of health; the only person among them, who showed no desire to cheer the priest’s spirits, and to humour him in his temporary fretfulness, being the silent younger son of Saturnin Siadoux.

Both Louis and Thomas noticed that, from the moment when Monsieur Chaubard’s manner first betrayed his singular unwillingness to touch on the subject of their father’s absence, Jean fixed his eyes on the priest, with an expression of suspicious attention; and never looked away from him for the rest of the evening. The young man’s absolute silence at table did not surprise his brothers, for they were accustomed to his taciturn habits. But the sullen distrust betrayed in his close observation of the honoured guest and friend of the family, surprised and angered them. The priest himself seemed once or twice to be aware of the scrutiny to which he was subjected, and to feel uneasy and offended, as he naturally might. He abstained, however, from openly noticing Jean’s strange behavior; and Louis and Thomas were bound, therefore, in common politeness, to abstain from noticing it also.

The inhabitants of Croix-Daurade kept early hours. Towards eleven o’clock, the company rose and separated for the night. Except the two neighbours, nobody had enjoyed the supper, and even the two neighbours, having eaten their fill, were as glad to get home as the rest. In the little confusion of parting, Monsieur Chaubard completed the astonishment of the guests at the extraordinary change in him, by slipping away alone, without waiting to bid anybody good night.

The widow Mirailhe and her nieces withdrew to their bed-rooms, and left the three brothers by themselves in the parlor.

“Jean,” said Thomas Siadoux, “I have a word to say to you. You stared at our good Monsieur Chaubard in a very offensive manner all through the evening. What did you mean by it?”

“Wait till to-morrow,” said Jean; “and perhaps I may tell you.”

He lit his candle, and left them. Both the brothers observed that his hand trembled, and that his manner — never very winning — was, on that night, more serious and more unsociable than usual.

III. THE YOUNGER BROTHER

When post-time came on the morning of the twenty-seventh, no letter arrived from Saturnin Siadoux. On consideration, the family interpreted this circumstance in a favorable light. If the master of the house had not written to them, it followed, surely, that he meant to make writing unnecessary by returning on that day.

As the hours passed, the widow and her nieces looked out, from time to time, for the absent man. Towards noon, they observed a little assembly of people approaching the village. Ere long, on a nearer view, they recognised at the head of the assembly, the chief magistrate of Toulouse, in his official dress. He was accompanied by his Assessor (also in official dress), by an escort of archers, and by certain subordinates attached to the town-hall. These last appeared to be carrying some burden, which was hidden from view by the escort of archers. The procession stopped at the house of Saturnin Siadoux; and the two daughters, hastening to the door, to discover what had happened, met the burden which the men were carrying, and saw, stretched on a litter, the dead body of their father.

The corpse had been found that morning on the banks of the river Lers. It was stabbed in eleven places with knife or dagger wounds. None of the valuables about the dead man’s person had been touched; his watch and his money were still in his pockets. Whoever had murdered him, had murdered him for vengeance, not for gain.

Some time elapsed before even the male members of the family were sufficiently composed to hear what the officers of justice had to say to them. When this result had been at length achieved, and when the necessary inquiries had been made, no information of any kind was obtained which pointed to the murderer, in the eye of the law. After expressing his sympathy, and promising that every available means should be tried to effect the discovery of the criminal, the chief magistrate gave his orders to his escort, and withdrew.

When night came, the sister and the daughters of the murdered man retired to the upper part of the house, exhausted by the violence of their grief. The three brothers were left once more alone in the parlor, to speak together of the awful calamity which had befallen them. They were of hot Southern blood, and they looked on one another with a Southern thirst for vengeance in their tearless eyes.

The silent younger son was now the first to open his lips. “You charged me yesterday,” he said to his brother Thomas, “with looking strangely at Monsieur Chaubard all the evening; and I answered that I might tell you
why
I looked at him when to-morrow came. To-morrow has come, and I am ready to tell you.”

He waited a little, and lowered his voice to a whisper when he spoke again.

“When Monsieur Chaubard was at our supper-table last night,” he said, “I had it in my mind that something had happened to our father, and that the priest knew it.”

The two elder brothers looked at him in speechless astonishment. “Our father has been brought back to us a murdered man!” Jean went on, still in a whisper. “I tell you, Louis — and you, Thomas — that the priest knows who murdered him.”

Louis and Thomas shrank from their younger brother, as if he had spoken blasphemy.

“Listen,” said Jean. “No clue has been found to the secret of the murder. The magistrate has promised us to do his best — but I saw in his face that he had little hope. We must make the discovery ourselves — or our father’s blood will have cried to us for vengeance, and cried in vain. Remember that — and mark my next words. You heard me say yesterday evening, that I had met Monsieur Chaubard on his way to Toulouse in excellent health and spirits. You heard our old friend and neighbour contradict me at the supper-table, and declare that he had seen the priest, some hours later, go into our church here with the face of a panic-stricken man. You saw, Thomas, how he behaved when you went to fetch him to our house. You saw, Louis, what his looks were like when he came in. The change was noticed by everybody — what was the cause of it? I saw the cause in the priest’s own face, when our father’s name turned up in the talk round the supper-table. Did Monsieur Chaubard join in that talk? He was the only person present who never joined in it once. Did he change it, on a sudden, whenever it came his way? It came his way four times; and four times he changed it — trembling, stammering, turning whiter and whiter, but still, as true as the Heaven above us, shifting the talk off himself, every time! Are you men? Have you brains in your heads? Don’t you see, as I see, what this leads to? On my salvation I swear it — the priest knows the hand that killed our father!”

The faces of the two elder brothers darkened vindictively, as the conviction of the truth fastened itself on their minds.

“How
could he know it?” they inquired, eagerly.

“He must tell us himself,” said Jean.

“And if he hesitates — if he refuses to open his lips?”

“We must open them by main force.”

They drew their chairs together after that last answer, and consulted, for some time, in whispers.

When the consultation was over, the brothers rose and went into the room where the dead body of their father was laid out. The three kissed him, in turn, on the forehead — then took hands together, and looked, meaningly, in each other’s faces — then separated. Louis and Thomas put on their hats, and went at once to the priest’s residence; while Jean withdrew by himself to the great room at the back of the house, which was used for the purposes of the oil-factory.

Only one of the workmen was left in the place. He was watching an immense cauldron of boiling linseed-oil.

“You can go home,” said Jean, patting the man kindly on the shoulder. “There is no hope of a night’s rest for me, after the affliction that has befallen us — I will take your place at the cauldron. Go home, my good fellow — go home.”