Chapter XIII The Return of Pamphile
“Ah, there is mine host of La Folie,” said Mère Tabeau, in a loud voice, as Jean, in a brown study, dead to the world, was passing her place on his way home.
“Jean, Jean Baptiste!” she called, but still he gave no heed.
“Monsieur Jean, Monsieur Jean Baptiste, Monsieur Giroux, Monseigneur! Why the deuce does not his lordship stop? I must run after him, I see.”
The old woman, with surprising agility, ran after Jean, plucked him by the sleeve, and immediately resumed her cringing attitude, leaning heavily upon her staff.
“There he goes,” she whined. “His lordship does not see his old friends, does not hear them, even, when they speak.”
“Oh, pardon me, Madame Tabeau,” said Jean, politely. “I was seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Of late I have become absent-minded, I think.”
“Quite natural,” said Mère Tabeau. “The very young are absent-minded, and the very old, but also those who are immersed in affairs and those who are in love. They are most absorbing, those affairs of the heart. I remember well my last case, now many years ago. Some day I will tell you the story. Perhaps you could listen to it now.”
“But no, Madame, I am in haste this evening. Another time, if you please. You had something else to say, had you not?”
“Not at all, Monseigneur. The poor old woman has nothing to say—nothing. Another time, when his lordship has a few minutes to spare for such trifles—his own affairs, moreover—I will wait upon him.”
“Oh, Madame, do not be angry. I will listen, to be sure, all the afternoon, if I can be of service to you.”
“Service to yourself, my friend. But no matter. I accept your apologies. I am well disposed, as you will see, and I wish to help you out of your troubles.”
“My troubles?” said Jean, with a puzzled frown. “I do not understand. You speak in mysterious language, it seems. All of us have our little troubles, I suppose.”
“Monsieur does not understand—will not, rather. Mysterious? Not at all. Does not everybody know that Monsieur Giroux would effect an alliance with one of the most prominent families in the parish? Is it possible that he has not yet heard what is common report?”
“Madame Tabeau, if that is all I had better go. I am really very busy.”
“But, but, Monsieur, these affairs can be arranged, no matter how complicated, involved, entangled. I have charms, herbs, love potions, and all that, and there are other means still more efficacious. Besides, my charges are very moderate, a little commission, a mere bagatelle when compared with a dowry so magnificent, a connection so advantageous. If Mademoiselle——”
“Madame, that will do. The neighbours may gossip, if they please, but I will not. Allow me to leave you at this time.”
“Go then, stupid! Sacrée tête de mouton! The fool will not listen. Well, he will suffer, he will pay; and I will offer my services to some one else. His lordship is not the only eligible young man in the parish of St. Placide.”
“If that is all, Madame, I bid you good evening.”
“No, there is something else. My friend, do not mind the ravings of an old woman, an old, old woman, poor and infirm. Old people like to talk, as you know, and say more than they should, at times. But it is their only pleasure. When one talks to a good listener like yourself one forgets. It is good to forget, Jean, to extinguish the fires of memory, if only for a moment. It is like a cup of cold water to a soul in purgatory.”
“Madame.”
“Yes, yes, I know. You are sorry for me, but not as I am sorry for myself. When I think of what I might have been and what I am, I could cry—and curse. But let us change the subject. You remember my nephew, Pamphile Lareau, do you not? A playmate of yours, I believe, some years ago.”
“Remember Pamphile? Certainly. But I did not know that he was your nephew.”
“You do not know everything, Jean, wise as you are. Pamphile is my nephew, as I have said, although I have never seen him. His mother thought herself more respectable than I. Can you believe it? After her death I came to St. Placide. For what purpose? Ah, that is my affair. You do not know that either, Monsieur the scholar. There is a lot of useful information that you do not obtain from books, I assure you. But Pamphile is coming to see me this very day. Do you see that little cloud of dust down the road? It is he, I am sure. Wait a moment and you will see him.”
“That will be interesting,” said Jean. “He has changed much, no doubt, in all these years.”
“No doubt. He also has become a great lord, evidently. See, he comes in great style, in a carriage, all the way from Quebec. It will cost at least five dollars, that equipage, for so long a drive. Where the deuce did my nephew get all that money? He never sent me any of it. He will give some to his poor old aunt before he leaves, let us hope. There, he arrives. Dieu, what a dash! What grandeur! Speak to him, Jean, I cannot.”
“Bonjour, Madame. Bonjour, Monsieur,” said an imposing personage, as the carriage pulled up suddenly in a cloud of dust. “It is here, is it not, that Madame Tabeau lives? They told me, there below, that I should find the place at the crossroads.”
“It is here, Monsieur,” said Madame Tabeau, quite humbly. “If Monsieur will be so kind as to alight.”
“With the greatest pleasure, Madame. How good it is to come to the end of a drive of four hours! Yes, four hours and ten minutes, by the watch. It is now four o’clock, is it not, Monsieur?”
“By the sun I should call it six o’clock, at least,” said Jean. “You see, Monsieur the stranger, that we do not carry gold watches in St. Placide.”
“No, to be sure. I had forgotten. A primitive place, truly. Is it possible that I spent my early years in St. Placide? But six o’clock? Surely not. Ah, I have it. Ha! Ha! How curious! It is that I have not set my watch since I left Elko, and there is a difference of two hours—or is it three?”
“Two hours,” said Jean, with confidence. “You have mountain time there, I believe, and here we have eastern time. Yes, two hours.”
The stranger’s eyes narrowed as he looked sharply at Jean.
“Eh, what? You know that? What the deuce? Who is this? The little priest, as I live! Monseigneur! And as learned as ever, always wishing to teach one something, always casting away pearls of knowledge. Well met, my ancient friend, after all these years. This is too much pleasure. Your hand, my brave one, for the sake of old times.”
The stranger extended a long, slender hand that closed about Jean’s fingers like a vice of steel; but Jean understood the trick of the thumb as well as he, and it was Pamphile’s hand that was the first to relax.
“Enough, enough, my brave one. It is the same Jean Baptiste that I see and feel. Dieu, but you have a loving clasp of the hand. It brings tears to the eyes. Well, my friend the cabby, you seem impatient. What can I do for you?”
“My fare, if you please, Monsieur—the little five dollars that we spoke of.”
“Ah, yes, assuredly,” said Pamphile, drawing out of his pocket a roll of bills, not one of a lower denomination than twenty dollars. “You can change American money, no doubt.”
“Certainly, Monsieur. Anything less than twenty dollars.”
“Not twenty dollars, cabby? What a country! We are not in Nevada, evidently. Well, my friend, this is unfortunate. What are we to do?”
“I will take the twenty dollars, Monsieur.”
“You will take it all, my friend? How good of you! Sacré! I have a mind to give it to you as a reward of merit. It is seldom that one meets a cabby so obliging, so resourceful. You will go far, my Jehu. Yes, I am thinking of giving you the twenty dollars. Do you still feel that you could accept it?”
“No, no, Monsieur,” broke in Mère Tabeau. “Mon Dieu, what would you do? Give him twenty dollars? Two dollars and fifty cents would have been quite enough if only you had made a bargain. What can we do? Let us think. I could perhaps find the money. Yes, Monsieur Giroux, I have a little store laid by, even I, for my funeral. Wait a moment. I will get it at once.”
In her excitement Mère Tabeau forgot both rheumatism and stick, as one who had been cured at the shrine of Bonne Ste. Anne, ran into the house and presently returned with a little leathern bag, out of which she counted silver and copper coins until the cabby had a handful of small change equal to the amount of his fare.
“That is a bad penny, Madame,” said the cabby, returning a much-worn coin.
“But no, it is perfectly good, perfectly good,” said the old woman, angrily. “It goes, I tell you. I received it, did I not? Well, you shall take it in your turn, and if you don’t like it you may pass it on. No, not another sou. You are a shark, a robber!”
“Let him have another, Madame,” drawled Pamphile with a grand air. “Give him his five dollars in full and a quarter for drink. The twenty-dollar bill? Oh, it is back in my pocket. To-morrow we will arrange all that. And you are Madame Tabeau, no doubt, the aunt whom I have never seen until this blessed moment. Well, my aunt, it is a pleasure to meet you. But where is the little priest who was here a moment since?”
“He is gone, Monsieur Lareau. His lordship has marched away. He would not wait the pleasure of any man. Rich habitants, notaries, priests, bishops, American millionaires—they are all the same to him. It is a great lord, that. One cannot but admire him for his strength, his capacity, but I should like, I should like to slap him in the face.”
“And I,” drawled Pamphile, “I should like to meet him in Elko, Nevada, in the middle of the street, at twenty paces, or forty, even. Cric! Crac! Jean Baptiste falls in the dust, and there is one monseigneur less in the world. But that would not do in St. Placide, perhaps.”
“For the love of God, Monsieur, do not speak so loud. Come into the house, if you please, where we can talk. Enter, Monsieur. It is not a palace, nor is it a hovel, altogether. See, all is very proper—the dining-room and kitchen in one, the sleeping apartment of Monsieur over there in the corner, and my own little boudoir in the attic. No, Monsieur, do not fear to be alone with an old woman like me. There was a time—but let us not speak of it. It is past, the golden age, and now there is nothing but rheumatism, broken bones, and the hobble to the grave.
“But before that one may have some pleasure still. One may gossip with the neighbours as they pass, frighten the women and the children, tell a few lies now and then, and, best of all, one may have revenge. Yes, life is worth living yet. We will live for that, you and I. You also have your little scores to pay, it would seem. How glad I am that you have come! What luck! But how did it happen that you left Nevada, Monsieur my nephew?”
“Oh, a little unpleasantness,” said Pamphile, evasively. “One cannot stay always in the same place. One outlives one’s usefulness. So it occurred to me that I might visit the scenes of my childhood, and when your letter came I decided to take a change and a rest, for the good of my health.”
“And a little adventure as well,” said Mère Tabeau, significantly. “A little expedition in search of gold, perhaps.”
“Possibly,” said Pamphile, with a smile, “if it could easily be done and without danger.”
“Monsieur my nephew, listen to me. Directly east from this spot, through the forest and beyond the mountain, ten miles as the crow flies but twenty by the road, lies the village of Chateau Richer, where I was born many years ago—yes, more than sixty years. It was there that I passed my early years, and when I arrived at the age of love I was there still, in my little house by the shore, where I could see the bateaux pass up the river with the rising tide and pass down again with the ebb.
“Did the sailors stop sometimes on the way? Possibly. At least the smugglers came to see my brother Ovide. They were brave people, those smugglers, and rich as well. There were two who had a great treasure, obtained from the trade, in part, but chiefly from a wreck. They were wreckers too, of course. When the good God sends a storm, when a ship runs on the rocks, when all on board are drowned, does not the wreck belong to those who find it? Assuredly. So Michel Gamache and Toussaint Giroux found the wreck and the treasure on Anticosti, there below. They burned the wreck, brought the treasure home to the island, and hid it in a cave in the side of the hill by the long marsh.
“How do I know? Did I not see it on that night when Michel rowed me across the river at high tide when the moon was full. What a night it was! How bright the moon shone in the sky and in the still water beneath! How the grass rustled under the keel of the boat as we ran up into the little cove! I can hear it still. How dark it was in that cave, but how the gold coins glistened! Yes, gold coins, Napoleons, sovereigns, hundreds of them, in an iron box. Heavy? I could not lift it. Of what value? How should I know? Ten, twenty, thirty thousand pounds, perhaps. Oh, a great treasure. See, there is one of those coins, a love token which he gave me, he, Michel Gamache, and which I keep until the day of reckoning. I have a grudge against him? Yes, a little grudge, a slight affair of the heart which I have nourished for some forty years, for which I would kill him if I could be sure that he would go to the place of eternal fire.”
“Well, my aunt,” said Pamphile, with a yawn, “it is a fine story, but to what purpose? Was it to tell me this that you brought me from Elko?”
“But no, my nephew. Do you not know that Michel Gamache lives in this parish?”
“No.”
“And the treasure, I tell you, those Napoleons and sovereigns, all that gold, is here in St. Placide, in the same iron box, of a weight more than you could lift, my strong nephew. No, you could do it, with some assistance, and that is why I have asked you to come. Eh, Pamphile, would not an adventure like this be as good as gambling in Nevada? Not so amusing, perhaps, but quite as profitable.”
“Quite so, my aunt. And where, if I may ask, is this wonderful treasure to be found?”
“All in good time, my nephew, when everything is arranged. You will help me, will you not? We will divide the spoils. You shall have two-thirds of the treasure. I shall have the rest, and my revenge. Are the terms satisfactory?”
“More than satisfactory, my dear aunt. And the little priest, what of him?”
“Oh, that will explain itself. You will get even with him very soon, never fear. It is my little secret for the present. Yes, a fine little secret. It will reveal itself before long. If not, I will tell you.”
“My aunt,” said Pamphile, impatiently, “I don’t give a hoot for your little secret. Keep it to yourself as long as you like, but give me something to eat.”
“Well! well! Such are men—always eating. Nothing can satisfy them, neither gold, nor love, nor revenge—only meat, potatoes, soup and all that. Well, my nephew, I was expecting you, and presently we shall have a little repast together—soup of peas, fried trout, strawberries, cream, tea. How will that do? Ah, Pamphile, what a fine, tall man you are! What arms, shoulders, legs! More than a match for that Jean Baptiste, surely.”
“No, my aunt; he is a giant, that little priest. My fingers tingle still from that grip of his. No, but I shall punish him all the same. There are other ways.”
“Ha! Ha!” cackled the old crone, in glee. “There are other ways. Yes, indeed. Ah, my little secret, my dear little secret.”