Chapter XLII: "Let's Talk of Graves and Worms and Epitaphs" edit
About the hour that La Corriveau emerged from the gloomy woods of Beauport, on her return to the city, the night of the murder of Caroline, two horsemen were battering at full speed on the highway that led to Charlebourg. Their dark figures were irrecognizable in the dim moonlight. They rode fast and silent, like men having important business before them, which demanded haste; business which both fully understood and cared not now to talk about.
And so it was. Bigot and Cadet, after the exchange of a few words about the hour of midnight, suddenly left the wine, the dice, and the gay company at the Palace, and mounting their horses, rode, unattended by groom or valet, in the direction of Beaumanoir.
Bigot, under the mask of gaiety and indifference, had felt no little alarm at the tenor of the royal despatch, and at the letter of the Marquise de Pompadour concerning Caroline de St. Castin.
The proximate arrival of Caroline's father in the Colony was a circumstance ominous of trouble. The Baron was no trifler, and would as soon choke a prince as a beggar, to revenge an insult to his personal honor or the honor of his house.
Bigot cared little for that, however. The Intendant was no coward, and could brazen a thing out with any man alive. But there was one thing which he knew he could not brazen out or fight out, or do anything but miserably fail in, should it come to the question. He had boldly and wilfully lied at the Governor's council-table-- sitting as the King's councillor among gentlemen of honor--when he declared that he knew not the hiding-place of Caroline de St. Castin. It would cover him with eternal disgrace, as a gentleman, to be detected in such a flagrant falsehood. It would ruin him as a courtier in the favor of the great Marquise should she discover that, in spite of his denials of the fact, he had harbored and concealed the missing lady in his own chateau.
Bigot was sorely perplexed over this turn of affairs. He uttered a thousand curses upon all concerned in it, excepting upon Caroline herself, for although vexed at her coming to him at all, he could not find it in his heart to curse her. But cursing or blessing availed nothing now. Time was pressing, and he must act.
That Caroline would be sought after in every nook and corner of the land, he knew full well, from the character of La Corne St. Luc and of her father. His own chateau would not be spared in the general search, and he doubted if the secret chamber would remain a secret from the keen eyes of these men. He surmised that others knew of its existence besides himself: old servitors, and women who had passed in and out of it in times gone by. Dame Tremblay, who did know of it, was not to be trusted in a great temptation. She was in heart the Charming Josephine still, and could be bribed or seduced by any one who bid high enough for her.
Bigot had no trust whatever in human nature. He felt he had no guarantee against a discovery, farther than interest or fear barred the door against inquiry. He could not rely for a moment upon the inviolability of his own house. La Corne St. Luc would demand to search, and he, bound by his declarations of non-complicity in the abduction of Caroline, could offer no reason for refusal without arousing instant suspicion; and La Corne was too sagacious not to fasten upon the remotest trace of Caroline and follow it up to a complete discovery.
She could not, therefore, remain longer in the Chateau--this was absolute; and he must, at whatever cost and whatever risk, remove her to a fresh place of concealment, until the storm blew over, or some other means of escape from the present difficulty offered themselves in the chapter of accidents.
In accordance with this design, Bigot, under pretence of business, had gone off the very next day after the meeting of the Governor's Council, in the direction of the Three Rivers, to arrange with a band of Montagnais, whom he could rely upon, for the reception of Caroline, in the disguise of an Indian girl, with instructions to remove their wigwams immediately and take her off with them to the wild, remote valley of the St. Maurice.
The old Indian chief, eager to oblige the Intendant, had assented willingly to his proposal, promising the gentlest treatment of the lady, and a silent tongue concerning her.
Bigot was impressive in his commands upon these points, and the chief pledged his faith upon them, delighted beyond measure by the promise of an ample supply of powder, blankets, and provisions for his tribe, while the Intendant added an abundance of all such delicacies as could be forwarded, for the use and comfort of the lady.
To carry out this scheme without observation, Bigot needed the help of a trusty friend, one whom he could thoroughly rely upon, to convey Caroline secretly away from Beaumanoir, and place her in the keeping of the Montagnais, as well as to see to the further execution of his wishes for her concealment and good treatment.
Bigot had many friends,--men living on his bounty, who ought only to have been too happy to obey his slightest wishes,--friends bound to him by disgraceful secrets, and common interests, and pleasures. But he could trust none of them with the secret of Caroline de St. Castin.
He felt a new and unwonted delicacy in regard to her. Her name was dear to him, her fame even was becoming dearer. To his own surprise it troubled him now as it had never troubled him before. He would not have her name defiled in the mouths of such men as drank his wine daily and nightly, and disputed the existence of any virtue in woman.
Bigot ground his teeth as he muttered to himself that they might make a mock of whatever other women they pleased. He himself could out-do them all in coarse ribaldry of the sex, but they should not make a mock and flash obscene jests at the mention of Caroline de St. Castin! They should never learn her name. He could not trust one of them with the secret of her removal. And yet some one of them must perforce be entrusted with it!
He conned over the names of his associates one by one, and one by one condemned them all as unworthy of confidence in a matter where treachery might possibly be made more profitable than fidelity. Bigot was false himself to the heart's core, and believed in no man's truth.
He was an acute judge of men. He read their motives, their bad ones especially, with the accuracy of a Mephistopheles, and with the same cold contempt for every trace of virtue.
Varin was a cunning knave, he said, ambitious of the support of the Church; communing with his aunt, the Superior of the Ursulines, whom he deceived, and who was not without hope of himself one day rising to be Intendant. He would place no such secret in the keeping of Varin!
Penisault was a sordid dog. He would cheat the Montagnais of his gifts, and so discontent them with their charge. He had neither courage nor spirit for an adventure. He was in his right place superintending the counters of the Friponne. He despised Penisault, while glad to use him in the basest offices of the Grand Company.
Le Mercier was a pickthank, angling after the favor of La Pompadour,--a pretentious knave, as hollow as one of his own mortars. He suspected him of being a spy of hers upon himself. Le Mercier would be only too glad to send La Pompadour red-hot information of such an important secret as that of Caroline, and she would reward it as good service to the King and to herself.
Deschenaux was incapable of keeping a secret of any kind when he got drunk, or in a passion, which was every day. His rapacity reached to the very altar. He would rob a church, and was one who would rather take by force than favor. He would strike a Montagnais who would ask for a blanket more than he had cheated him with. He would not trust Deschenaux.
De Pean, the quiet fox, was wanted to look after that desperate gallant, Le Gardeur de Repentigny, who was still in the Palace, and must be kept there by all the seductions of wine, dice, and women, until we have done with him. De Pean was the meanest spirit of them all. "He would kiss my foot in the morning and sell me at night for a handful of silver," said Bigot. Villains, every one of them, who would not scruple to advance their own interests with La Pompadour by his betrayal in telling her such a secret as that of Caroline's.
De Repentigny had honor and truth in him, and could be entirely trusted if he promised to serve a friend. But Bigot dared not name to him a matter of this kind. He would spurn it, drunk as he was. He was still in all his instincts a gentleman and a soldier. He could only be used by Bigot through an abuse of his noblest qualities. He dared not broach such a scheme to Le Gardeur de Repentigny!
Among his associates there was but one who, in spite of his brutal manners and coarse speech, perhaps because of these, Bigot would trust as a friend, to help him in a serious emergency like the present.
Cadet, the Commissary General of New France, was faithful to Bigot as a fierce bull-dog to his master. Cadet was no hypocrite, nay, he may have appeared to be worse than in reality he was. He was bold and outspoken, rapacious of other men's goods, and as prodigal of his own. Clever withal, fearless, and fit for any bold enterprise. He ever allowed himself to be guided by the superior intellect of Bigot, whom he regarded as the prince of good fellows, and swore by him, profanely enough, on all occasions, as the shrewdest head and the quickest hand to turn over money in New France.
Bigot could trust Cadet. He had only to whisper a few words in his ear to see him jump up from the table where he was playing cards, dash his stakes with a sweep of his hand into the lap of his antagonist, a gift or a forfeit, he cared not which, for not finishing the game. In three minutes Cadet was booted, with his heavy riding-whip in his hand ready to mount his horse and accompany Bigot "to Beaumanoir or to hell," he said, "if he wanted to go there."
In the short space of time, while the grooms saddled their horses, Bigot drew Cadet aside and explained to him the situation of his affairs, informing him, in a few words, who the lady was who lived in such retirement in the Chateau, and of his denial of the fact before the Council and Governor. He told him of the letters of the King and of La Pompadour respecting Caroline, and of the necessity of removing her at once far out of reach before the actual search for her was begun.
Cadet's cynical eyes flashed in genuine sympathy with Bigot, and he laid his heavy hand upon his shoulder and uttered a frank exclamation of admiration at his ruse to cheat La Pompadour and La Galissoniere both.
"By St. Picot!" said he, "I would rather go without dinner for a month than you should not have asked me, Bigot, to help you out of this scrape. What if you did lie to that fly-catching beggar at the Castle of St. Louis, who has not conscience to take a dishonest stiver from a cheating Albany Dutchman! Where was the harm in it? Better lie to him than tell the truth to La Pompadour about that girl! Egad! Madame Fish would serve you as the Iroquois served my fat clerk at Chouagen--make roast meat of you--if she knew it! Such a pother about a girl! Damn the women, always, I say, Bigot! A man is never out of hot water when he has to do with them!"
Striking Bigot's hand hard with his own, he promised; wet or dry, through flood or fire, to ride with him to Beaumanoir, and take the girl, or lady,--he begged the Intendant's pardon,--and by such ways as he alone knew he would, in two days, place her safely among the Montagnais, and order them at once, without an hour's delay, to pull up stakes and remove their wigwams to the tuque of the St. Maurice, where Satan himself could not find her. And the girl might remain there for seven years without ever being heard tell of by any white person in the Colony.
Bigot and Cadet rode rapidly forward until they came to the dark forest, where the faint outline of road, barely visible, would have perplexed Bigot to have kept it alone in the night. But Cadet was born in Charlebourg; he knew every path, glade, and dingle in the forest of Beaumanoir, and rode on without drawing bridle.
Bigot, in his fiery eagerness, had hitherto ridden foremost. Cadet now led the way, dashing under the boughs of the great trees that overhung the road. The tramp of their horses woke the echoes of the woods. But they were not long in reaching the park of Beaumanoir.
They saw before them the tall chimney-stacks and the high roofs and the white walls of the Chateau, looking spectral enough in the wan moonlight,--ghostly, silent, and ominous. One light only was visible in the porter's lodge; all else was dark, cold, and sepulchral.
The watchful old porter at the gate was instantly on foot to see who came at that hour, and was surprised enough at sight of his master and the Sieur Cadet, without retinue or even a groom to accompany them.
They dismounted and tied their horses outside the gate. "Run to the Chateau, Marcele, without making the least noise," said Bigot. "Call none of the servants, but rap gently at the door of Dame Tremblay. Bid her rise instantly, without waking any one. Say the Intendant desires to see her. I expect guests from the city."
The porter returned with the information that Dame Tremblay had got up and was ready to receive his Excellency.
Bidding old Marcele take care of the horses, they walked across the lawn to the Chateau, at the door of which stood Dame Tremblay, hastily dressed, courtesying and trembling at this sudden summons to receive the Intendant and Sieur Cadet.
"Good night, dame!" said Bigot, in a low tone, "conduct us instantly to the grand gallery."
"Oh, your Excellency!" replied the dame, courtesying, "I am your humble servant at all times, day and night, as it is my duty and my pleasure to serve my master!"
"Well, then!" returned Bigot, impatiently, "let us go in and make no noise."
The three, Dame Tremblay leading the way with a candle in each hand, passed up the broad stair and into the gallery communicating with the apartments of Caroline. The dame set her candles on the table and stood with her hands across her apron in a submissive attitude, waiting the orders of her master.
"Dame!" said he, "I think you are a faithful servant. I have trusted you with much. Can I trust you with a greater matter still?"
"Oh, your Excellency! I would die to serve so noble and generous a master! It is a servant's duty!"
"Few servants think so, nor do I! But you have been faithful to your charge respecting this poor lady within, have you not, dame?" Bigot looked as if his eyes searched her very vitals.
"O Lord! O Lord!" thought the dame, turning pale. "He has heard about the visit of that cursed Mere Malheur, and he has come to hang me up for it in the gallery!" She stammered out in reply, "Oh, yes! I have been faithful to my charge about the lady, your Excellency! I have not failed wilfully or negligently in any one point, I assure you! I have been at once careful and kind to her, as you bade me to be, your Excellency. Indeed, I could not be otherwise to a live angel in the house like her!"
"So I believe, dame!" said Bigot, in a tone of approval that quite lifted her heart. This spontaneous praise of Caroline touched him somewhat. "You have done well! Now can you keep another secret, dame?"
"A secret! and entrusted to me by your Excellency!" replied she, in a voice of wonder at such a question. "The marble statue in the grotto is not closer than I am, your Excellency. I was always too fond of a secret ever to part with it! When I was the Charming Josephine of Lake Beauport I never told, even in confession, who they were who--"
"Tut! I will trust you, dame, better than I would have trusted the Charming Josephine! If all tales be true, you were a gay girl, dame, and a handsome one in those days, I have heard!" added the Intendant, with well-planned flattery.
A smile and a look of intelligence between the dame and Bigot followed this sally, while Cadet had much to do to keep in one of the hearty horse-laughs he used to indulge in, and which would have roused the whole Chateau.
The flattery of the Intendant quite captivated the dame. "I will go through fire and water to serve your Excellency, if you want me," said she. "What shall I do to oblige your Excellency?"
"Well, dame, you must know then that the Sieur Cadet and I have come to remove that dear lady from the Chateau to another place, where it is needful for her to go for the present time; and if you are questioned about her, mind you are to say she never was here, and you know nothing of her!"
"I will not only say it," replied the dame with promptness, "I will swear it until I am black in the face if you command me, your Excellency! Poor, dear lady! may I not ask where she is going?"
"No, she will be all right! I will tell you in due time. It is needful for people to change sometimes, you know, dame! You comprehend that! You had to manage matters discreetly when you were the Charming Josephine. I dare say you had to change, too, sometimes! Every woman has an intrigue once, at least, in her lifetime, and wants a change. But this lady is not clever like the Charming Josephine, therefore we have to be clever for her!"
The dame laughed prudently yet knowingly at this, while Bigot continued, "Now you understand all! Go to her chamber, dame. Present our compliments with our regrets for disturbing her at this hour. Tell her that the Intendant and the Sieur Cadet desire to see her on important business."
Dame Tremblay, with a broad smile all over her countenance at her master's jocular allusions to the Charming Josephine, left at once to carry her message to the chamber of Caroline.
She passed out, while the two gentlemen waited in the gallery, Bigot anxious but not doubtful of his influence to persuade the gentle girl to leave the Chateau, Cadet coolly resolved that she must go, whether she liked it or no. He would banish every woman in New France to the tuque of the St. Maurice had he the power, in order to rid himself and Bigot of the eternal mischief and trouble of them!
Neither Bigot nor Cadet spoke for some minutes after the departure of the dame. They listened to her footsteps as the sound of them died away in the distant rooms, where one door opened after another as she passed on to the secret chamber.
"She is now at the door of Caroline!" thought Bigot, as his imagination followed Dame Tremblay on her errand. "She is now speaking to her. I know Caroline will make no delay to admit us." Cadet on his side was very quiet and careless of aught save to take the girl and get her safely away before daybreak.
A few moments of heavy silence and expectation passed over them. The howl of a distant watch-dog was heard, and all was again still. The low, monotonous ticking of the great clock at the head of the gallery made the silence still more oppressive. It seemed to be measuring off eternity, not time.
The hour, the circumstance, the brooding stillness, waited for a cry of murder to ring through the Chateau, waking its sleepers and bidding them come and see the fearful tragedy that lay in the secret chamber.
But no cry came. Fortunately for Bigot it did not! The discovery of Caroline de St. Castin under such circumstances would have closed his career in New France, and ruined him forever in the favor of the Court.
Dame Tremblay returned to her master and Cadet with the information "that the lady was not in her bedchamber, but had gone down, as was her wont, in the still hours of the night, to pray in her oratory in the secret chamber, where she wished never to be disturbed.
"Well, dame," replied Bigot, "you may retire to your own room. I will go down to the secret chamber myself. These vigils are killing her, poor girl! If your lady should be missing in the morning, remember, dame, that you make no remark of it; she is going away to- night with me and the Sieur Cadet and will return soon again; so be discreet and keep your tongue well between your teeth, which, I am glad to observe," remarked he with a smile, "are still sound and white as ivory."
Bigot wished by such flattery to secure her fidelity, and he fully succeeded. The compliment to her teeth was more agreeable than would have been a purse of money. It caught the dame with a hook there was no escape from.
Dame Tremblay courtesied very low, and smiled very broadly to show her really good teeth, of which she was extravagantly vain. She assured the Intendant of her perfect discretion and obedience to all his commands.
"Trust to me, your Excellency," said she with a profound courtesy. "I never deceived a gentleman yet, except the Sieur Tremblay, and he, good man, was none! When I was the Charming Josephine, and all the gay gallants of the city used to flatter and spoil me, I never deceived one of them, never! I knew that all is vanity in this world, but my eyes and teeth were considered very fine in those days, your Excellency."
"And are yet, dame. Zounds! Lake Beauport has had nothing to equal them since you retired from business as a beauty. But mind my orders, dame! keep quiet and you will please me. Good-night, dame!"
"Good-night, your Excellency! Good-night, your Honor!" replied she, flushed with gratified vanity. She left Bigot vowing to herself that he was the finest gentleman and the best judge of a woman in New France! The Sieur Cadet she could not like. He never looked pleasant on a woman, as a gentleman ought to do!
The dame left them to themselves, and went off trippingly in high spirits to her own chamber, where she instantly ran to the mirror to look at her teeth, and made faces in the glass like a foolish girl in her teens.
Bigot, out of a feeling of delicacy not usual with him, bid Cadet wait in the anteroom while he went forward to the secret chamber of Caroline. "The sudden presence of a stranger might alarm her," he said.
He descended the stair and knocked softly at the door, calling in a low tone, "Caroline! Caroline!" No answer came. He wondered at that, for her quick ear used always to catch the first sound of his footsteps while yet afar off.
He knocked louder, and called again her name. Alas! he might have called forever! That voice would never make her heart flutter again or her eyes brighten at his footstep, that sounded sweeter than any music as she waited and watched for him, always ready to meet him at the door.
Bigot anticipated something wrong, and with a hasty hand pushed open the door of the secret chamber and went in. A blaze of light filled his eyes. A white form lay upon the floor. He saw it and he saw nothing else! She lay there with her unclosed eyes looking as the dead only look at the living. One hand was pressed to her bosom, the other was stretched out, holding the broken stem and a few green leaves of the fatal bouquet which La Corriveau had not wholly plucked from her grasp.
Bigot stood for a moment stricken dumb and transfixed with horror, then sprang forward and knelt over her with a cry of agony. He thought she might have fallen in a swoon. He touched her pale forehead, her lips, her hands. He felt her heart, it did not beat; he lifted her head to his bosom, it fell like the flower of a lily broken on its stem, and he knew she was dead. He saw the red streaks of blood on her snowy robe, and he knew she was murdered.
A long cry like the wail of a man in torture burst from him. It woke more than one sleeper in the distant chambers of the Chateau, making them start upon their pillows to listen for another cry, but none came. Bigot was a man of iron; he retained self-possession enough to recollect the danger of rousing the house.
He smothered his cries in suffocating sobs, but they reached the ear of Cadet, who, foreboding some terrible catastrophe, rushed into the room where the secret door stood open. The light glared up the stair. He ran down and saw the Intendant on his knees, holding in his arms the half raised form of a woman which he kissed and called by name like a man distraught with grief and despair.
Cadet's coarse and immovable nature stood him in good stead at this moment. He saw at a glance what had happened. The girl they had come to bear away was dead! How? He knew not; but the Intendant must not be suffered to make an alarm. There was danger of discovery on all sides now, and the necessity of concealment was a thousand times greater than ever. There was no time to question, but instant help was needed. In amaze at the spectacle before him, Cadet instantly flew to the assistance of the Intendant.
He approached Bigot without speaking a word, although his great eyes expressed a look of sympathy never seen there before. He disengaged the dead form of Caroline tenderly from the embrace of Bigot, and laid it gently upon the floor, and lifting Bigot up in his stout arms, whispered hoarsely in his ear, "Keep still, Bigot! keep still! not one word! make no alarm! This is a dreadful business, but we must go to another room to consider calmly, calmly, mind, what it means and what is to be done."
"Oh, Cadet! Cadet!" moaned the Intendant, still resting on his shoulder, "she is dead! dead! when I just wanted her to live! I have been hard with women, but if there was one I loved it was she who lies dead before me! Who, who has done this bloody deed to me?"
"Who has done it to her, you mean! You are not killed yet, old friend, but will live to revenge this horrid business!" answered Cadet with rough sympathy.
"I would give my life to restore hers!" replied Bigot despairingly. "Oh, Cadet, you never knew what was in my heart about this girl, and how I had resolved to make her reparation for the evil I had done her!"
"Well, I can guess what was in your heart, Bigot. Come, old friend, you are getting more calm, you can walk now. Let us go upstairs to consider what is to be done about it. Damn the women! They are man's torment whether alive or dead!"
Bigot was too much absorbed in his own tumultuous feelings to notice Cadet's remark. He allowed himself to be led without resistance to another room, out of sight of the murdered girl, in whose presence Cadet knew calm council was impossible.
Cadet seated Bigot on a couch and, sitting beside him, bade him be a man and not a fool. He tried to rouse Bigot by irritating him, thinking, in his coarse way, that that was better than to be maudlin over him, as he considered it, with vain expressions of sympathy.
"I would not give way so," said he, "for all the women in and out of Paradise! and you are a man, Bigot! Remember you have brought me here, and you have to take me safely back again, out of this den of murder."
"Yes, Cadet," replied Bigot, rousing himself up at the sharp tone of his friend. "I must think of your safety; I care little for my own at this moment. Think for me."
"Well, then, I will think for you, and I think this, Bigot, that if the Governor finds out this assassination, done in your house, and that you and I have been here at this hour of night with the murdered girl, by God! he will say we have alone done it, and the world will believe it! So rouse up, I for one do not want to be taxed with the murder of a woman, and still less to be hung innocently for the death of one. I would not risk my little finger for all the women alive, let alone my neck for a dead one!"
The suggestion was like a sharp probe in his flesh. It touched Bigot to the quick. He started up on his feet. "You are right, Cadet, it only wants that accusation to make me go mad! But my head is not my own yet! I can think of nothing but her lying there, dead in her loveliness and in her love! Tell me what to do, and I will do it."
"Ay, now you talk reasonably. Now you are coming to yourself, Bigot. We came to remove her alive from here, did we not? We must now remove her dead. She cannot remain where she is at the risk of certain discovery to-morrow."
"No, the secret chamber would not hide such a secret as that," replied Bigot, recovering his self-possession. "But how to remove her? We cannot carry her forth without discovery." Bigot's practical intellect was waking up to the danger of leaving the murdered girl in the Chateau.
Cadet rose and paced the room with rapid strides, rubbing his forehead, and twitching his mustache violently. "I will tell you what we have got to do, Bigot! Par Dieu! we must bury her where she is, down there in the vaulted chamber."
"What, bury her?" Bigot looked at him with intense surprise.
"Yes, we must bury her in that very chamber, Bigot. We must cover up somebody's damnable work to avert suspicion from ourselves! A pretty task for you and me, Bigot! Par Dieu! I could laugh like a horse, if I were not afraid of being overheard."
"But who is to dig a grave for her? surely not you or I," replied Bigot with a look of dismay.
"Yes, gentlemen as we are, you and I must do it, Bigot. Zounds! I learned to dig and delve when I was a stripling at Charlebourg, and in the trenches at Louisbourg, and I have not yet forgotten the knack of it! But where to get spades, Bigot; you are master here and ought to know."
"I, how should I know? It is terrible, Cadet, to bury her as if we had murdered her! Is there no other way?"
"None. We are in a cahot and must get our cariole out of it as best we can! I see plainly we two shall be taxed with this murder, Bigot, if we let it be discovered! Besides, utter ruin awaits you from La Pompadour if she finds out you ever had this girl at Beaumanoir in keeping. Come! time for parley is past; where shall we find spades? We must to work, Bigot!"
A sudden thought lighted up the eyes of the Intendant, who saw the force of Cadet's suggestion, strange and repulsive as it was. "I think I know," said he; "the gardeners keep their tools in the old tower, and we can get there by the secret passage and return."
"Bravo!" exclaimed Cadet, encouragingly, "come, show the way, and we will get the tools in a trice! I always heard there was a private way underground to the old tower. It never stood its master in better stead than now; perhaps never worse if it has let in the murderer of this poor girl of yours."
Bigot rose up, very faint and weak; Cadet took his arm to support him, and bidding him be firm and not give way again at sight of her dead body, led him back to the chamber of death. "Let us first look around a moment," said he, "to find, if possible, some trace of the hellish assassins."
The lamps burned brightly, shedding a glare of light over every object in the secret chamber.
Cadet looked narrowly round, but found little trace of the murderers. The drawers of the escritoire stood open, with their contents in great disorder, a circumstance which at once suggested robbers. Cadet pointed it out to Bigot with the question:
"Kept she much money, Bigot?"
"None that I know of. She asked for none, poor girl! I gave her none, though I would have given her the King's treasury had she wished for it."
"But she might have had money when she came, Bigot," continued Cadet, not doubting but robbery had been the motive for the murder.
"It may be, I never questioned her," replied Bigot; "she never spoke of money; alas! all the money in the world was as dross in her estimation. Other things than money occupied her pure thoughts."
"Well, it looks like robbers: they have ransacked the drawers and carried off all she had, were it much or little," remarked Cadet, still continuing his search.
"But why kill her? Oh, Cadet, why kill the gentle girl, who would have given every jewel in her possession for the bare asking?"
"Nay, I cannot guess," said Cadet. "It looks like robbers, but the mystery is beyond my wit to explain. What are you doing, Bigot?"
Bigot had knelt down by the side of Caroline; he lifted her hand first to his lips, then towards Cadet, to show him the stalk of a rose from which the flower had been broken, and which she held with a grip so hard that it could not be loosened from her dead fingers.
The two men looked long and earnestly at it, but failed to make a conjecture even why the flower had been plucked from that broken stalk and carried away, for it was not to be seen in the room.
The fragment of a letter lay under a chair. It was a part of that which La Corriveau had torn up and missed to gather up again with the rest. Cadet picked it up and thrust it into his pocket.
The blood streaks upon her white robe and the visible stabs of a fine poniard riveted their attention. That that was the cause of her death they doubted not, but the mute eloquence of her wounds spoke only to the heat. It gave no explanation to the intellect. The whole tragedy seemed wrapped in inexplicable mystery.
"They have covered their track up well!" remarked Cadet. "Hey! but what have we here?" Bigot started up at the exclamation. The door of the secret passage stood open. La Corriveau had not closed it after her when making her escape. "Here is where the assassins have found entrance and exit! Egad! More people know the secret of your Chateau than you think, Bigot!"
They sprang forward, and each seizing a lamp, the two men rushed into the narrow passage. It was dark and still as the catacombs. No trace of anything to the purpose could they perceive in the vaulted subterranean way to the turret.
They speedily came to the other end; the secret door there stood open also. They ascended the stairs in the tower, but could see no trace of the murderers. "It is useless to search further for them at this time," remarked Cadet, "perhaps not safe at any time, but I would give my best horse to lay hands on the assassins at this moment."
Gardeners' tools lay around the room. "Here," exclaimed Cadet, "is what is equally germane to the matter, and we have no time to lose."
He seized a couple of spades and a bar of iron, and bidding Bigot go before him with the lights, they returned to the chamber of death.
"Now for work! This sad business must be done well, and done quickly!" exclaimed Cadet. "You shall see that I have not forgotten how to dig, Bigot!"
Cadet threw off his coat, and setting to work, pulled up the thick carpet from one side of the chamber. The floor was covered with broad, smooth flags, one of which he attacked with the iron bar, raised the flagstone and turned it over; another easily followed, and very soon a space in the dry brown earth was exposed, large enough to make a grave.
Bigot looked at him in a sort of dream. "I cannot do it, Cadet! I cannot dig her grave!" and he threw down the spade which he had taken feebly in his hand.
"No matter, Bigot! I will do it! Indeed, you would only be in my way. Sit down while I dig, old friend. Par Dieu! this is nice work for the Commissary General of New France, with the Royal Intendant overseeing him!"
Bigot sat down and looked forlornly on while Cadet with the arms of a Hercules dug and dug, throwing out the earth without stopping for the space of a quarter of an hour, until he had made a grave large and deep enough to contain the body of the hapless girl.
"That will do!" cried he, leaping out of the pit. "Our funeral arrangements must be of the briefest, Bigot! So come help me to shroud this poor girl."
Cadet found a sheet of linen and some fine blankets upon a couch in the secret chamber. He spread them out upon the floor, and motioned to Bigot without speaking. The two men lifted Caroline tenderly and reverently upon the sheet. They gazed at her for a minute in solemn silence, before shrouding her fair face and slender form in their last winding-sheet. Bigot was overpowered with his feelings, yet strove to master them, as he gulped down the rising in his throat which at times almost strangled him.
Cadet, eager to get his painful task over, took from the slender finger of Caroline a ring, a love-gift of Bigot, and from her neck a golden locket containing his portrait and a lock of his hair. A rosary hung at her waist; this Cadet also detached, as a precious relic to be given to the Intendant by and by. There was one thread of silk woven into the coarse hempen nature of Cadet.
Bigot stooped down and gave her pale lips and eyes, which he had tenderly closed, a last despairing kiss, before veiling her face with the winding-sheet as she lay, white as a snow-drift, and as cold. They wrapped her softly in the blankets, and without a word spoken, lowered the still, lissom body into its rude grave.
The awful silence was only broken by the spasmodic sobs of Bigot as he leaned over the grave to look his last upon the form of the fair girl whom he had betrayed and brought to this untimely end. "Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!" said he, beating his breast. "Oh, Cadet, we are burying her like a dog! I cannot, I cannot do it!"
The Intendant's feelings overcame him again, and he rushed from the chamber, while Cadet, glad of his absence for a few moments, hastily filled up the grave and, replacing with much care the stone slabs over it, swept the debris into the passage and spread the carpet again smoothly over the floor. Every trace of the dreadful deed was obliterated in the chamber of murder.
Cadet, acutely thinking of everything at this supreme moment, would leave no ground of suspicion for Dame Tremblay when she came in the morning to visit the chamber. She should think that her lady had gone away with her master as mysteriously as she had come, and no further inquiry would be made after her. In this Cadet was right.
It was necessary for Cadet and Bigot now to depart by the secret passage to the tower. The deep-toned bell of the chateau struck three.
"We must now be gone, Bigot, and instantly," exclaimed Cadet. "Our night work is done! Let us see what day will bring forth! You must see to it to-morrow, Bigot, that no man or woman alive ever again enter this accursed chamber of death!"
Cadet fastened the secret door of the stair, and gathering up his spades and bar of iron, left the chamber with Bigot, who was passive as a child in his hands. The Intendant turned round and gave one last sorrowful look at the now darkened room as they left it. Cadet and he made their way back to the tower. They sallied out into the open air, which blew fresh and reviving upon their fevered faces after escaping from the stifling atmosphere below.
They proceeded at once towards their horses and mounted them, but Bigot felt deadly faint and halted under a tree while Cadet rode back to the porter's lodge and roused up old Marcele to give him some brandy, if he had any, "as of course he had," said Cadet. "Brandy was a gate-porter's inside livery, the lining of his laced coat which he always wore. Cadet assumed a levity which he did not really feel.
Marcele fortunately could oblige the Sieur Cadet. "He did line his livery a little, but lightly, as his Honor would see!" said he, bringing out a bottle of cognac and a drinking-cup.
"It is to keep us from catching cold!" continued Cadet in his peculiar way. "Is it good?" He placed the bottle to his lips and tasted it.
Marcele assured him it was good as gold.
"Right!" said Cadet, throwing Marcele a louis d'or. "I will take the bottle to the Intendant to keep him from catching cold too! Mind, Marcele, you keep your tongue still, or else--!" Cadet held up his whip, and bidding the porter "good-night!" rejoined Bigot.
Cadet had a crafty design in this proceeding. He wanted not to tell Marcele that a lady was accompanying them; also not to let him perceive that they left Beaumanoir without one. He feared that the old porter and Dame Tremblay might possibly compare notes together, and the housekeeper discover that Caroline had not left Beaumanoir with the Intendant.
Bigot sat faint and listless in his saddle when Cadet poured out a large cupful of brandy and offered it to him. He drank it eagerly. Cadet then filled and gulped down a large cupful himself, then gave another to the Intendant, and poured another and another for himself until, he said, he "began to feel warm and comfortable, and got the damnable taste of grave-digging out of his mouth!"
The heavy draught which Cadet forced the Intendant to take relieved him somewhat, but he groaned inwardly and would not speak. Cadet respected his mood, only bidding him ride fast. They spurred their horses, and rode swiftly, unobserved by any one, until they entered the gates of the Palace of the Intendant.
The arrival of the Intendant or the Sieur Cadet at the Palace at any untimely hour of the night excited no remark whatever, for it was the rule, rather than the exception with them both.
Dame Tremblay was not surprised next morning to find the chamber empty and the lady gone.
She shook her head sadly. "He is a wild gallant, is my master! No wilder ever came to Lake Beauport when I was the Charming Josephine and all the world ran after me. But I can keep a secret, and I will! This secret I must keep at any rate, by the Intendant's order, and I would rather die than be railed at by that fierce Sieur Cadet! I will keep the Intendant's secret safe as my teeth, which he praised so handsomely and so justly!"
The fact that Caroline never returned to the Chateau, and that the search for her was so long and so vainly carried on by La Corne St. Luc and the Baron de St. Castin, caused the dame to suspect at last that some foul play had been perpetrated, but she dared not speak openly.
The old woman's suspicions grew with age into certainties, when at last she chanced to talk with her old fellow servant, Marcele, the gatekeeper, and learned from him that Bigot and Cadet had left the Chateau alone on that fatal night. Dame Tremblay was more perplexed than ever. She talked, she knew not what, but her talk passed into the traditions of the habitans.
It became the popular belief that a beautiful woman, the mistress of the powerful Intendant Bigot, had been murdered and buried in the Chateau of Beaumanoir.