the chapel at mirabel, of later date than the chateau itself, was one of those lofty, pompous, rococo edifices abounding in heavy wood-carving, and puffy-cheeked cherubs, and tribunes with bulged and gilded fronts almost suggestive of a theatre. but hostile hands, in stripping it of some of its exuberance, had bestowed the crown of martyrdom on its floridity, and the light of this early summer morning, streaming in through the red and purple clad saints of the apsidal eastern window, seemed a little to dispel its chill—the chill of a building long disused—though it could not replace the warm memory of incense and the winking light before the tabernacle.
the candles on the unvested marble altar, and those in the great carved candlesticks where the bier or catafalque should have stood, were of brown wax as usage demanded. valentine had found them, and in another place the black and gold vestments for the priest, stored away with the rest, and she had brought out from the sacristy and spread between the candlesticks on the floor itself—since there was no bier—the black pall with the arms of the house of trélan. everything was ready, and now she herself, the solitary worshipper, knelt with bowed head on a chair in the nave, though it wanted yet an hour to the priest’s coming. she was making her preparation for confession, for she was going to ask for communion at this mass. the resolve to do so had come to her during the night.
nearly half-past four already. valentine hurried back to her room. he was very punctual, the gardener priest, and prudent to boot, for he did not even wake any echoes by ringing, but tapped upon the outer door.
“everything is ready, mon père. i will take you straight to the chapel,” said mme de trélan.
m. chassin paused a moment when he got inside the building. this, then, was where his foster-brother had married the “beautiful and unfortunate lady” as m. de brencourt had justly called her. little as mme vidal had been able to do, the place had something the air of requiem; he saw the candles, the pall—and then the arms on the pall. surely she, a former domestic, would not have brought that out save for a member of the house! then he thought, wondering at his own slow-wittedness, that of course she wanted a mass said for the duchesse valentine. he was more than glad to say one here for the repose of that soul.
as he moved forward again mme vidal pointed out the sacristy. “i will light the candles while you vest, father,” she added. “but, before you begin mass, i should like to make my confession, for i wish to communicate. and then i will tell you for whose soul i am asking for this mass.”
m. chassin, feeling that he hardly needed now to be told, disappeared into the sacristy. valentine lit the candles on the altar and those round the pall. before she had finished the priest emerged in alb and stole, tying the girdle of the former round him as he came, for there was need of haste in all this business. he entered the confessional, whose elaborate carving bore scars from axe or hammer, and drew the curtain after him. she went and knelt down at the right-hand grille.
there was absolute silence when valentine had finished. all through the priest had hardly said a word or asked her a question, and from the beginning she had resolved to make no mysteries, but here, under the seal, to be perfectly frank about her identity. it would have meant, perhaps, evasions else.
but the silence was so prolonged that at last she raised her eyes, and could just see through the grille enough to gather that the abbé had covered his own eyes with his hand. it was not till then that valentine fully recognised how even to this man, unconnected, save as a political plotter, with the house of trélan, it must come as a shock to learn, in the very chapel of mirabel itself, her identity with its supposedly murdered mistress. she had not been thinking enough of herself to realise that; rather of her relations to gaston. she waited; and after a moment or two more her confessor seemed to collect himself, and in a shaken voice named her penance and gave her absolution.
bent under the weight of freedom valentine bowed her head, and so remained—till she suddenly heard the rungs of the curtain in front of the confessional rattle on their little pole, and it came to her that the priest, still so strangely silent, was preparing to leave the box. but there was still something for her to say.
“father, now you can guess for whose soul i wish this mass said—for that of my husband, gaston, duc de trélan.”
still silence. m. chassin had, in fact, only drawn aside the curtain because in the tumult of his emotions he felt that he was suffocating. he was not thinking of moving at that moment; he was incapable of it. what was he to do! what, in god’s name, was he to do! and there was no time to think, that was the terrible part of it. he could not knowingly enact a sacrilege. . . . and this, this was the murdered duchesse! it was incredible—yet obviously true, though his brain could hardly grasp it yet. . . . but the other side of the business! of course gaston’s repeated injunction to respect his secret to the uttermost, an injunction laid on him afresh not long ago at hennebont, did not apply to this case, which the duc could not have foreseen . . . no man could have imagined a resurrection like this! yet what was it, “nobody in the world,” “whatever you think might be gained by it.” he must have a little time to consider. . . . and he must say something now. . . .
“my child,” he managed to get out, “i cannot well say a requiem mass unless i have reason to . . . to know the person dead.”
“but i know it, father,” came the sad voice. “is not that enough?”
she had heard some rumour, of course. how to convey to her its falsity without betraying what he knew as fact—and without undue shock to her?
“i suppose, my daughter,” he said gently, “that you have had some private information. is it—forgive me—is it reliable?”
valentine caught her breath. “only too much so, i fear.” and then a light broke upon her. “surely, father, as you were sent from the marquis de kersaint about this business, and he knew of the duc’s death, you know it, too? or did he keep you in ignorance before he sent you to mirabel?”
“what!” exclaimed m. chassin, thinking he had not heard aright through the grille. “what did you say, my child? m. de kersaint knew that the duc was dead? who told you that?”
his astonishment set a mad hope tearing at valentine’s heart. “m. de brencourt,” she answered. “was he wrong, then?”
but m. chassin had flung himself out of the confessional, his stole in his hand. “m. de brencourt!” he exclaimed. once out he seemed on the verge of some expression better befitting his late employment as gardener or plotter than his present as priest. “m. de brencourt told you—my child, do not stay kneeling there . . . m. de brencourt . . . here, sit on this chair and let me hear more of this extraordinary . . . misunderstanding!—may i know this great matter—your identity—so long as to speak of it a little now?”
his face was mottled with emotions. valentine, her eyes fixed on him, had already risen from her knees and did sink down on the chair he indicated. in front of her the candles burnt round the pall and on the altar, ready for the funeral mass.
“yes, father—but—misunderstanding!” she caught at the word. “is it untrue, then, father, is it untrue?”
“i do not say that, but . . . tell me what m. de brencourt said to you!”
“but is it untrue—is it untrue?” she repeated piteously. “o god, is he alive after all?”
the secret knocked so hard at the door of the priest’s lips that it seemed to him it must force its way out. it was cruelty to keep her in this tension—and almost absurd, too. but he must have a little time to reflect if he were justified in breaking so solemn a promise.
“calm yourself, madame la duchesse,” he said, and, sufficiently agitated himself, sat down beside her. how extraordinary, how dizzying a sensation to be in the actual living presence of her whose loss had turned the whole current of his foster-brother’s being. “tell me first just what m. de brencourt said.”
valentine put her hands to her head in the effort to remember exactly.
“he said that m. de kersaint had told him it was useless to write to the duc de trélan for permission to search here because he had just heard that the duc was dead—had been dead some time.”
“and m. de brencourt told you that!”
valentine’s heart seemed to stand still. “it was false then?”
“i cannot say, madame, whether it was false or true,” responded m. chassin, “this only, that m. de brencourt must have strangely misunderstood m. de kersaint, for the marquis has certainly no grounds for asserting that the duc is dead. i do not say that it is not so, but he has no authority for asserting it . . . and i do not believe that he ever did.”
what was the mystery? the chapel, the lights, were beginning to dance round valentine. the priest guessed it.
“madame, this is too much for you. and for me, too. . . . to learn that you are alive—let us both try to be calm. i will do what i came here to do, and though cannot say a funeral mass for the duc de trélan because . . . because i am convinced that he is still alive, i will say one for his intention and for yours, and for your reunion . . . and for wisdom to know how to act,” he added almost to himself. “but you will give me leave to retain my knowledge of who you are, will you not? as you are aware, i must not, having learnt it as i did, unless you sanction it?”
“but not to use it, father, not to impart to any third person.”
“not even to——” he checked himself.
“not to anyone,” said valentine firmly. “i am no longer the duchesse de trélan. it was necessary, i thought, that you should know i once was. now i am mme vidal again.”
“then,” said the priest very solemnly, “i implore you, as your confessor, either to write without loss of time to m. de kersaint, telling him who you are, and asking for details about your husband which only he can give you, or, better still,” his voice shook with earnestness, “to go in person to brittany to see him. believe me, you will be more than thankful all your life if you do. i will give you directions afterwards. and now i will finish vesting.”
valentine slipped to her knees, and remained sunk on the kneeling-chair while m. chassin hastily rolled aside the pall, put out the great candles, and went into the sacristy.
yet in a moment or two he was hurrying out and bending over the kneeling figure. “madame, madame, i think it must be your bell which is ringing so furiously!”
he had to repeat it again; but, when once she had understood, mme de trélan was in full possession of her wits.
“i will go at once, father. it must be something unusual at this hour. but take off those vestments—leave the chapel! you must not be found here at any cost!”
fears only for him hurried her out of the chapel and along the corridor. it was true; her bell was ringing violently, and it could not be much later than five o’clock.
she expected to find outside the door soldiers, or at least the sentry. the only being there was a rather indignant small boy, who said reproachfully that he had been ringing for five minutes, and asked if the gardener were anywhere about. the child seemed so little the herald of danger that valentine said she thought that she could find him, and asked why he was wanted.
“tell him, please,” said the small messenger, sniffing, “that his mother in paris is very ill—dying—and that he must go at once if he wants to see her alive.” and as valentine gave an exclamation he added, “a man has come from paris to say this. the gardener must hurry. that’s all.” and he scampered up the steps again.
valentine hastened out into the passage, relieved to see in the distance the form of the abbé, once more a gardener, coming towards her.
“there is bad news for you, monsieur l’abbé, i am sorry to say,” she exclaimed when he came within hearing. “your mother in paris——”
“is dying, i suppose,” finished the priest with a strange mixture of concern and irritation. “do not be distressed, madame, for i have no mother. it means something quite different. i will come into your room for a moment—but i must leave mirabel at once. . . . it means, in fact,” he went on, once inside, “that the agent in paris who has the bulk of the treasure in his possession by now, and who has the task of transferring it to england, is in peril of some kind—has probably fallen under suspicion. there is not a moment to lose if i am to save the money. fortunately i had not begun mass . . . before i go, however . . .” he fumbled hastily in a pocket, and bringing out something wrapped in a scrap of faded silk, slid the contents out on to the table—a glittering, snake-like heap of blood and fire and tarnished gold.
“this is yours, madame, by every right. i cannot take it!”
valentine stared at it a moment. “but i do not need it, monsieur l’abbé. take it with the rest!”
“no. it would provide for the journey, madame, which i implore you to make,” returned m. chassin, looking at her hard. “and the directions i promised you—have you pencil and paper? m. de kersaint’s headquarters are now at an old manoir called le clos-aux-grives, near lanvennec in finistère. if you journey in person to lanvennec you should go by the route which i am writing down. in the end you will be directed to a little farm called the ferme des vieilles, not very far from his headquarters, and on saying there these words in bas-breton all will be made easy for you.” standing, he wrote for a moment or two, blessed her, and remained looking at her, for all his haste, with an expression valentine could not decipher—the expression of a man torn by perplexity. then he caught her hand, kissed it, and in a very little had been let out of the door and was hurrying up the steps.
and mme de trélan, who had meant to watch him safely past the sentry, stood oblivious with closed eyes. . . .
