THE ROVER & SUSPENSE (Napoleonic Novels). Джозеф Конрад
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them. So this name and my grey hair pleased you, Catherine? They gave you confidence in me, hein?”
“I wasn't sorry to see you come. Scevola too, I believe. He heard that patriots were being hunted down, here and there, and he was growing quieter every day. You roused the child wonderfully.”
“And did that please Scevola too?”
“Before you came she never spoke to anybody unless first spoken to. She didn't seem to care where she was. At the same time,” added Catherine after a pause, “she didn't care what happened to her either. Oh, I have had some heavy hours thinking it all over, in the daytime doing my work, and at night while I lay awake, listening to her breathing. And I growing older all the time, and, who knows, with my last hour ready to strike. I often thought that when I felt it coming I would speak to you as I am speaking to you now.”
“Oh, you did think,” said Peyrol in an undertone. “Because of my grey hairs, I suppose.”
“Yes. And because you came from beyond the seas,” Catherine said with unbending mien and in an unflinching voice. “Don't you know that the first time Arlette saw you she spoke to you and that it was the first time I heard her speak of her own accord since she had been brought back by that man, and I had to wash her from head to foot before I put her into her mother's bed.”
“The first time,” repeated Peyrol.
“It was like a miracle happening,” said Catherine, “and it was you that had done it.”
“Then it must be that some Indian witch has given me the power,” muttered Peyrol, so low that Catherine could not hear the words. But she did not seem to care, and presently went on again:
“And the child took to you wonderfully. Some sentiment was aroused in her at last.”
“Yes,” assented Peyrol grimly. “She did take to me. She learned to talk to — the old man.”
“It's something in you that seems to have opened her mind and unloosed her tongue,” said Catherine, speaking with a sort of regal composure down at Peyrol, like a chieftainess of a tribe. “I often used to look from afar at you two talking and wonder what she. . .”
“She talked like a child,” struck in Peyrol abruptly. “And so you were going to speak to me before your last hour came. Why, you are not making ready to die yet?”
“Listen, Peyrol. If anybody's last hour is near it isn't mine. You just look about you a little. It was time I spoke to you.”
“Why, I am not going to kill anybody,” muttered Peyrol. “You are getting strange ideas into your head.”
“It is as I said,” insisted Catherine without animation. “Death seems to cling to her skirts. She has been running with it madly. Let us keep her feet out of more human blood.”
Peyrol, who had let his head fall on his breast, jerked it up suddenly. “What on earth are you talking about?” he cried angrily. “I don't understand you at all.”
“You have not seen the state she was in when I got her back into my hands,” remarked Catherine. . . . “I suppose you know where the lieutenant is. What made him go off like that? Where did he go to?”
“I know,” said Peyrol. “And he may be back to-night.”
“You know where he is! And of course you know why he has gone away and why he is coming back,” pronounced Catherine in an ominous voice. “Well, you had better tell him that unless he has a pair of eyes at the back of his head he had better not return here — not return at all; for if he does, nothing can save him from a treacherous blow.”
“No man was ever safe from treachery,” opined Peyrol after a moment's silence. “I won't pretend not to understand what you mean.”
“You heard as well as I what Scevola said just before he went out. The lieutenant is the child of some ci-devant and Arlette of a man they called a traitor to his country. You can see yourself what was in his mind.”
“He is a chicken-hearted spouter,” said Peyrol contemptuously, but it did not affect Catherine's attitude of an old sibyl risen from the tripod to prophesy calmly atrocious disasters. “It's all his republicanism,” commented Peyrol with increased scorn. “He has got a fit of it on.”
“No, that's jealousy,” said Catherine. “Maybe he has ceased to care for her in all these years. It is a long time since he has left off worrying me. With a creature like that I thought that if I let him be master here . . . But no! I know that after the lieutenant started coming here his awful fancies have come back. He is not sleeping at night. His republicanism is always there. But don't you know, Peyrol, that there may be jealousy without love?”
“You think so,” said the rover profoundly. He pondered full of his own experience. “And he has tasted blood too,” he muttered after a pause. “You may be right.”
“I may be right,” repeated Catherine in a slightly indignant tone. “Every time I see Arlette near him I tremble lest it should come to words and to a bad blow. And when they are both out of my sight it is still worse. At this moment I am wondering where they are. They may be together and I daren't raise my voice to call her away for fear of rousing his fury.”
“But it's the lieutenant he is after,” observed Peyrol in a lowered voice. “Well, I can't stop the lieutenant coming back.”
“Where is she? Where is he?” whispered Catherine in a tone betraying her secret anguish.
Peyrol rose quietly and went into the salle, leaving the door open. Catherine heard the latch of the outer door being lifted cautiously. In a few moments Peyrol returned as quietly as he had gone out.
“I stepped out to look at the weather. The moon is about to rise and the clouds have thinned down. One can see a star here and there.” He lowered his voice considerably. “Arlette is sitting on the bench humming a little song to herself. I really wonder whether she knew I was standing within a few feet of her.”
“She doesn't want to hear or see anybody except one man,” affirmed Catherine, now in complete control of her voice. “And she was humming a song, did you say? She who would sit for hours without making a sound. And God knows what song it could have been!”
“Yes, there's a great change in her,” admitted Peyrol with a heavy sigh. “This lieutenant,” he continued after a pause, “has always behaved coldly to her. I noticed him many times turn his face away when he saw her coming towards us. You know what these epaulette-wearers are, Catherine. And then this one has some worm of his own that is gnawing at him. I doubt whether he has ever forgotten that he was a ci-devant boy. Yet I do believe that she does not want to see and hear anybody but him. Is it because she has been deranged in her head for so long?”
“No, Peyrol,” said the old woman. “It isn't that. You want to know how I can tell? For years nothing could make her either laugh or cry. You know that yourself. You have seen her every day. Would you believe that within the last month she has been both crying and laughing on my breast without knowing why?”
“This I don't understand,” said Peyrol.
“But I do. That lieutenant has got only to whistle to make her run after him. Yes, Peyrol. That is so. She has no fear, no shame, no pride. I myself have been nearly like that.” Her fine brown face seemed to grow more impassive before she went on much lower and as if arguing with herself: “Only I at least was never blood-mad. I was fit for any man's arms. . . . But then that man is not a priest.”
The last words made Peyrol start. He had almost forgotten that story. He said to himself: “She knows, she has had the experience.”
“Look here, Catherine,” he said decisively, “the lieutenant is coming back. He will be here probably about midnight. But one thing I can tell you: he is not coming back to whistle her away. Oh, no! It is not for her sake that he will come back.”
“Well, if it isn't for her that he is coming back then it must be because