Jack (24 page)

“But your husband—it will kill him!”

“And me, too,” she replied, with haughty bitterness. “To die is a very simple matter; to live is far more difficult.”

She spoke of death with a tone of feverish longing in her voice.

“If your death could repair your fault,” returned the Director, gravely; “if it could restore the money to the poor girl, I could understand why you should wish to die. But—”

“What shall be done, then,” she asked, plaintively; and all at once she became the Clarisse of old. Her unwonted courage and determination failed her.

“First, we must know what has become of this money; he must have some of it still.”

Clarisse shook her head. She knew too well how madly that gambler played. She knew that he had thrust her aside, almost walked over her, to procure this money, and that he would play until he had lost his last sou.

The superintendent touched his bell. A gendarme entered:

“Go at once to Saint Nazarre,” said his chief; “say to Chariot that I require his presence here at once. You will wait for him.”

“Chariot is here, sir; I just saw him come out from Madame Rondic’s; he cannot be far off.”

“That is all right. Go after him quickly. Do not tell him, however, that Madame Rondic is here.”

The man hurried away. Neither the superintendent nor Clarisse spoke. She stood leaning against the corner of the desk. The jar of the machinery, the wild whistling of the steam, made a fitting accompaniment to the tumult of her soul. The door opened.

“You sent for me,” said Chariot, in a gay voice.

The presence of Clarisse, her pallor, and the stern look of his chief, told the story. She had kept her word. For a moment his bold face lost its color, and he looked like an animal driven into a corner.

“Not a word,” said the Director; “we know all that you wish to say. This woman has robbed her husband and her daughter for you. You promised to return her the money in two days. Where is it?”

Chariot turned beseechingly toward Clarisse. She did not look at him; she had seen him too well that terrible night.

“Where is the money?” repeated the superintendent.

“Here—I have brought it.”

What he said was true. He had kept his promise to Clarisse, but not finding her at home, had only too gladly carried it away again.

His chief took up the bills. “Is it all here?”

“All but eight hundred francs,” the other answered, with some hesitation; “but I will return them.”

“Now sit down and write at my dictation,” said the superintendent, sternly.

Clarisse looked up quickly. This letter was a matter of life and death to her.

“Write: ‘It is I who, in a moment of insane folly, took six thousand francs from the wardrobe in the Rondic house.’”

Chariot internally rebelled at these words, but he was afraid that Clarisse would establish the facts in all their naked cruelty.

The superintendent continued: “‘I return the money; it burns me. Release the poor fellows who have been suspected, and entreat my uncle to forgive me. Tell him that I am going away, and shall return only when, through labor and penitence, I shall have acquired the right to shake an honest man’s hand.’ Now sign it.”

Seeing that Chariot hesitated, the superintendent said, peremptorily, “Take care, young man! I warn you that if you do not sign this letter, and address it to me, this woman will be at once arrested.”

Chariot signed.

“Now go,” resumed the superintendent, “to Guιrigny, if you will, and try to behave well. Remember, moreover, that if I hear of you in the neighborhood of Indret, you will be arrested at once.”

As Chariot left the room, he cast one glance at Clarisse. But the charm was broken; she turned her head away resolutely, and when the door closed tried to express her gratitude to the superintendent.

“Do not thank me, madame,” he said; “it is for your husband’s sake that I have acted, with the hope of sparing him the most horrible torture that can overwhelm a man.”

“It is in my husband’s name that I thank you. I am thinking of him, and of the sacrifice I must make for him.”

“What sacrifice?”

“That of living, sir, when death would be so sweet. I am so weary.”

And in fact the woman looked so ill, so prostrated, that the superintendent feared some catastrophe. He answered compassionately, “Keep up your courage, madame, and remember that your husband loves you.”

And Jack? Ah, he had his day of triumph! The superintendent ordered a placard to be put up in all the buildings, announcing the boy’s innocence. He was fκted and caressed. One thing only was lacking, and that was news of Bιlisaire.

When the prison-doors were thrown open, the pedler disappeared. Jack was greatly distressed at this, but nevertheless breakfasted merrily with Zιnaοde and her soldier, and had forgotten all his woes, when D’Argenton appeared, majestic and clothed in black. It was in vain that they explained the finding of the money, the innocence of Jack, and that a second letter had been sent narrating all these facts; in vain did these good people treat Jack with familiar kindness: D’Argenton’s manner did not relax; he expressed in the choicest terms his regret that Jack had given so much trouble.

“But it is I who owe him every apology,” cried the old man.

D’Argenton did not condescend to listen: he spoke of honor and duty, and of the abyss to which such evil conduct must always lead. Jack was confused, for he remembered his journey to Nantes, and the stall in which Zιnaοde’s lover could testify to having seen him; he therefore listened with downcast eyes to the ponderous eloquence of the lecturer, who fairly talked Father Rondic to sleep.

“You must be very thirsty after talking so long,” said Zιnaοde, innocently, as she brought a pitcher of cider and a fresh cake. And the cake looked so nice, so fresh and crisp, that the poet—who was, as we know, something of an epicure—made a breach in it quite as large as that in the ham made by Bιlisaire at Aulnettes.

Jack had discovered one thing only from all D’Argenton’s long words,—he had learned that the poet had brought the money to rescue him from disgrace, and the child began to believe that he had done the man great injustice, and that his coldness was only on the surface. The boy, therefore, had never been so respectful. This, and the cordial reception of the Rondics, put the poet into the most amiable state of mind. You should have seen him with Jack as they trod the narrow streets of Indret!

“Shall I tell him that his mother is so near?” said D’Argenton, unwilling to introduce her boy to Charlotte in the character of hero and martyr; it was more than the selfish nature of the man could support. And yet, to deprive Charlotte and her son of the joy of seeing each other once more it was necessary to be provided with some reason; and this reason Jack himself soon furnished.

The poor little fellow, deluded by such extraordinary amiability, acknowledged to M. d’Argenton that he did not like his present life; that he should not be anything of a machinist; that he was too far from his mother. He was not afraid of work, but he liked brain work better than manual labor. These words had hardly passed the boy’s lips, when he saw a change in his hearer.

“You pain me, Jack, you pain me seriously; and your mother would be very unhappy did she hear you utter such opinions. You have forgotten apparently that I have said to you a hundred times that this century was no time for Utopian dreams, for idle fancies;” and on this text he wandered on for more than an hour. And while these two walked on the side of the river, a lonely woman, tired of the solitude of her room in the inn, came down to the other bank, to watch for the boat that was to bring her the little criminal,—the boy whom she had not seen for two years, and whom she dearly loved. But D’Argenton had determined to keep them apart. It was wisest—Jack was too unsettled. Charlotte would be reasonable enough to comprehend this, and would willingly make the sacrifice for her child’s interest.

And thus it came to pass that Jack and his mother, separated only by the river, so near that they could have heard each other speak across its waters, did not meet that night, nor for many a long day afterwards.

CHAPTER XVII.~~IN THE ENGINE-ROOM.

How is it that days of such interminable length can be merged into such swiftly-passing years? Two have passed since Zιnaοde was married, and since Jack’s terrible adventure. He has worked conscientiously, and loathes the thought of a wineshop. The house is sad and desolate since Zιnaοde’s marriage; Madame Rondic rarely goes out, and occupies her accustomed seat at the window, the curtain of which, however, is never lifted, for she expects no one now. Her days and nights are all alike monotonous and dreary. Father Rondic alone preserves his former serenity.

The winter has been a cold one. The Loire has overflowed the island, part of which remained under water four months, and the air was filled with fogs and miasma. Jack has had a bad cough, and has passed some weeks in the infirmary. Occasionally a letter has come for him, tender and loving when his mother wrote in secret, didactic and severe when the poet looked over her shoulder. The only news sent by his mother was, that her poet had had a grand reconciliation with the Moronvals, who now came on Sundays, with some of their pupils, to dine at Aulnettes.

Moronval, Mβdou, and the academy seemed far enough away to Jack, who thought of himself in those old days as of a superior being, and could see little resemblance between his coarse skin and round shoulders, and the dainty pink and white child whose face he dimly remembered.

Thus were Dr. Rivals’ words justified: “It is social distinctions that create final and absolute separations.”

Jack thought often of the old doctor and of Cιcile, and on the first of January each year had written them a long letter. But the two last had remained unanswered.

One thought alone sustained Jack in his sad life: his mother might need him, and he must work hard for her sake.

Unfortunately wages are in proportion to the value of the work, and not to the ambition of the workman, and Jack had no talent in the direction of his career. He was seventeen, his apprenticeship over, and yet he received but three francs per day. With these three francs he must pay for his room, his food, and his dress; that is, he must replace his coarse clothing as it was worn out; and what should he do if his mother were to write and say, “I am coming to live with you “?

“Look here,” said Pθre Rondic, “your parents made a great mistake in not listening to me. You have no business here; now how would you like to make a voyage? The chief engineer of the ‘Cydnus’ wants an assistant. You can have six francs per day, be fed, lodged, and warmed. Shall I write and say you will like the situation?”

The idea of the double pay, the love of travel that Mβdou’s wild tales had awakened in his childish nature, combined to render Jack highly pleased at the proposed change. He left Indret one July morning, just four years after his arrival. What a superb day it was! The air became more fresh as the little steamer he was on approached the ocean. Jack had never seen the sea. The fresh salt breeze inspired him with restless longing. Saint Nazarre lay before him,—the harbor crowded with shipping. They landed at the dock, and there learned that the Cydnus, of the Compagnie Transatlantique, would sail at three o’clock that day, and was already lying outside,—this being, in fact, the only way to have the crew all on board at the moment of departure.

Jack and his companion—for Father Rondic had insisted on seeing him on board his ship—had no time to see anything of the town, which had all the vivacity of a market-day.

The wharf was piled with vegetables, with baskets of fruit, and with fowls which, tied together, were wildly struggling for liberty. Near their merchandise stood the Breton peasants waiting quietly for purchasers. They were in no hurry, and made no appeal to the passers-by. In contrast to these, there was a number of small peddlers, selling pins, cravats, and portemonnaies, who were loudly crying their wares. Sailors were hurrying to and fro, and Rondic learned from one of them that the chief engineer of the Cydnus was in a very bad humor because he had not his full number of stokers on board.

“We must hasten,” said Rondic; and they hailed a boat, and rapidly threaded their way through the harbor. The enormous transatlantic steamers lay at their wharves as if asleep; the decks of two large English ships just arrived from Calcutta were covered with sailors, all hard at work. They passed between these motionless masses, where the water was as dark as a canal running through the midst of a city under high walls; then they saw the Cydnus lying, with her steam on. A wiry little man, in his shirt-sleeves, with three stripes on his cap, hailed Jack and Rondic as their boat came alongside the steamer.

His words were inaudible through the din and tumult, but his gestures were eloquent enough. This was Blanchet, the chief engineer.

“You have come, then, have you?” he shouted. “I was afraid you meant to leave me in the lurch.”

“It was my fault,” said Rondic; “I wished to accompany the lad, and I could not get away yesterday.”

“On board with you, quick!” returned the engineer; “he must get into his place at once.”

They descended first one ladder, then another, and another. Jack, who had never been on board a large steamer, was stupefied at the size and the depth of this one. They descended to an abyss where the eyes accustomed to the light of day could distinguish absolutely nothing. The heat was stifling, and a final ladder led to the engine-room, where the heavy atmosphere, charged with a smell of oil, was almost insupportable. Great activity reigned in this room; a general examination was being made of the machinery, which glittered with cleanliness. Jack looked on curiously at the enormous structure, knowing that it would soon be his duty to watch it day and night.

At the end of the engine-room was a long passage. “That is where the coal is kept,” said the engineer, carelessly; “and on the other side the stokers sleep.”

Jack shuddered. The dormitory at the academy, the garret-room at the Rondics, were palaces in comparison.

The engineer pushed open a small door. Imagine a long cave, reddened by the reflection of a dozen furnaces in full blast; men, almost naked, were stirring the fire, the sweat pouring from their faces.