“all nature is but art, unknown to thee!
all chance, direction which thou canst not see.”
it rained all night with a semi-tropical enthusiasm. the autumn rains are looked for in these latitudes at certain dates, and if by chance they fail, the whole winter will be disturbed and broken. with sunrise, however, the clouds broke on the western side of the island, and from the summit of the great perucca rock the blue and distant sea was visible through the grey confusion of mist and cloud. the autumn had been a dry one, so the whole mountain-side was clothed in shades of red and brown, rising from the scarlet of the blackberry leaves to the deep amber of the bare rock, where all vegetation ceased. the distant peeps of the valley of vasselot glowed blue and purple, the sea was a bright cobalt, and through the broken clouds the sun cast shafts of yellow gold and shimmering silver. the whole effect was dazzling, and such as dim northern eyes can scarce imagine.
mademoiselle brun, who had just risen from the table where she and denise had had their early breakfast of coffee and bread, was standing by the window that opened upon the verandah where old mattei perucca had passed so many hours of his life.
“one should build on this spot,” she began, “a convalescent home for atheists.”
she broke off, and staggered back. the room, the verandah, the whole world it seemed, was shaking and vibrating like a rickety steam-engine. for a moment the human senses were paralyzed by a deafening roar and rattle. mademoiselle brun turned to denise, and for a time they clung to each other; and then denise, whose strong young arms half lifted her companion from the ground, gained the open window. she held there for a moment, and then staggered across the verandah and down the steps, dragging mademoiselle with her.
there was no question of speech, of thought, of understanding. they merely stood, holding to each other, and watching the house. then a sudden silence closed over the world, and all was still. denise turned and looked down into the valley, smiling beneath them in its brilliant colouring. her hand was at her throat as if she were choking. mademoiselle, shaking in every limb, turned and sat down on a garden seat. denise would not sit, but stood shaking and swaying like a reed in a mistral. and yet each in her way was as brave a woman as could be found even in their own country.
mademoiselle brun leant forward, and held her head between her two hands, while she stared at the ground between her feet. at last speech caine to her, but not her natural voice.
“i suppose,” she said, passing her little shrivelled hand across her eyes, “that it was an earthquake.”
“no,” said denise. “look!” and she pointed with a shaking finger down towards the river.
a great piece of the mountain-side, comprising half a dozen vine terraces, a few olive terraces, and a patch of pinewood, had fallen bodily down into the river-bed, leaving the slope a bare and scarified mass of rock and red soil. the little guadelle river, a tributary of the aliso, was completely dammed. perucca was the poorer by the complete disappearance of one of its sunniest slopes, but the house stood unhurt.
“no more will fall,” said denise presently. “see; there is the bare rock.”
mademoiselle rose, and came slowly towards denise. they were recovering from their terror now. for at all events, the cause of it lay before them, and lacked the dread uncertainty of an earthquake. mademoiselle gave an odd laugh.
“it is the boundary-line between perucca and vasselot,” she said, “that has fallen into the valley.”
denise was thinking the same thought, and made no answer. the footpath from the chateau up to the casa by which gilbert had come on the day of mattei perucca's death, by which he had also ridden to the chateau one day, was completely obliterated. where it had crept along the face of the slope, there now rose a bare red rock. there was no longer a short cut from the one house to the other. it made perucca all the more inaccessible.
“curious,” whispered mademoiselle brun to herself, as she turned towards the house. she went indoors to get a hat, for the autumn sun was now glaring down upon them.
when she came out again, denise was sitting looking thoughtfully down into the valley where had once stood the old chateau, now gone, to which had led this pathway, now wiped off the face of the earth.
“there is assuredly,” she said, without looking round, “a curse upon this country.”
which seneca had thought eighteen hundred years before, and which the history of the islands steadily confirms.
mademoiselle was drawing on her gloves, and carried her umbrella.
“i am going down the pathway to look at it all,” she said.
there was nothing to be done. when nature takes things into her own hands, men can only stand by and look. denise was perhaps more shaken than the smaller, tougher woman. she made no attempt to accompany mademoiselle, but sat in the shade of a mimosa tree, and watched her descend into the valley, now appearing, now hidden, in the brushwood.
mademoiselle brun made her way to the spot where the pathway was suddenly cut short by the avalanche of rock and rubble and soil. it happened to be the exact spot where colonel gilbert's heavy horse had stumbled months before, where the footpath crossed the bed of a small mountain torrent. a few loosened stones had come bowling down the slope, set free by the landslip. these had fallen on to the pathway, and there shattered themselves into a thousand pieces. mademoiselle stood among the débris. she looked down in order to make sure of her foothold, and something caught her eye. she knelt down eagerly, and then, looking up, glanced round surreptitiously like a thief. she could not see the casa perucca. she was alone on this solitary mountain-side. slowly she collected the débris of the broken rock, which was mixed with a red powdery soil.
“ciel!” she whispered, “ciel! what fools we have all been!”
she rose from her knees with one clasped handful of rubble. slowly and thoughtfully she climbed the hill again. on the terrace, where she arrived hot and tired, the widow andrei met her. the woman had been to the village on an errand, and had returned during mademoiselle's absence.
“the abbé susini awaits you in the library,” she said. “he asked for you and not for mademoiselle, who has gone to her own garden.”
mademoiselle hurried into the library. the arrival of the abbé at this moment seemed providential, though the explanation of it was simple enough.
“i came,” he said, looking at her keenly, “on a fool's errand. i came to ask whether the ladies were afraid.”
mademoiselle gave a chilly smile.
“the ladies were not afraid, monsieur l'abbé,” she said. “they were terrified—since you ask.”
she went to a side-table and brought a newspaper; for even in her excitement she was scrupulously tidy. she laid it on the table in front of the abbé, rather awkwardly with her left hand, and then, holding her right over the newspaper, she suddenly opened it, and let fall a little heap of stones and soil. some of the stones had a singular rounded appearance.
the abbé treated her movements with the kindly interest offered at the shrine of childhood or imbecility. it was evident that he supposed that the landslip had unhinged mademoiselle brun's reason.
“what is that?” he asked soothingly, contemplating the mineral trophy.
“i think,” answered mademoiselle, “that it is the explanation.”
“the explanation of what, if one may inquire?”
“of your precious colonel,” said mademoiselle. “that is gold, monsieur l'abbé. i have seen similar dirt in a museum in paris.” she took up one of the pebbles. “scrape it with your knife,” she said, handing it to him.
the abbé obeyed her, and volunteered on his own account to bite it. he handed it back to her with the marks of his teeth on it, and one side of it scraped clean showing pure gold. then he walked pensively to the window, where he stood with his back turned to her in deep thought for some minutes. at length he turned on his heel and looked at her.
“it began,” he said, holding up one finger and shaking it slowly from side to side, which seemed to indicate that his hearer must be silent for a while, “long ago. i see it now.”
“part of it,” corrected mademoiselle, inexorably.
“he must have discovered it two years ago when he first surveyed this country for the proposed railway. i see now why that man from st. florent shot pietro andrei on the high-road. pietro andrei was in the way, and a little subtle revival of a forgotten vendetta secured his removal. i see now whence came the anonymous letter intended to frighten mattei perucca away from here. it frightened him into the next world.”
“and i see now,” interrupted the refractory listener, “why denise received an offer for the estate before she had become possessed of it, and an offer of marriage before we had been here a month. but he tripped and fell then,” she concluded grimly.
“and all for money,” said the abbé, contemptuously.
“wait,” said mademoiselle—“wait till you have yourself been tempted. so many fall. it must be greater than we think, that temptation. you and i perhaps have never had it.”
“no,” replied the abbé, simply. “there has never been more than a sou in my poor-box at the church. i see now,” continued susini, “who has been stirring up this old strife between the peruccas and the vasselots—offering, as he was, to buy from one and the other alternately. this dirt, mademoiselle, must lie on both estates.”
“it lies between the two.”
the priest was deep in thought, rubbing his stubbly chin with two fingers.
“i see so much now,” he said at length, “which i never understood before.”
he turned towards the window, and looked down at the rocky slope with a new interest.
“there must be a great quantity of it,” he said reflectively. “he has walked over so many obstacles to get to it, with his pleasant laugh.”
“he has walked over his own heart,” said mademoiselle, persistently contemplating the question from the woman's point of view.
the priest moved impatiently.
“i was thinking of men's lives,” he said. then he turned and faced her with a sudden gleam in his eye. “there is one thing yet unexplained—the burning of the chateau de vasselot. an empty house does not ignite itself. explain me that.”
mademoiselle shrugged her shoulders.
“that still remains to be explained,” she said. “in the mean time we must act.”
“i know that—i know that,” he cried. “i have acted! i am acting! de vasselot arrives in corsica to-morrow night. a letter from him crossed the message i sent to him by a special boat from st. florent last night.”
“what brings him here?”
the abbé turned and looked at her with scorn.
“bah!” he cried. “you know as well as i. it is the eyes of mademoiselle denise.”
he took his hat and went towards the door.
“on wednesday morning, if you do not see me before, at the office of the notary, in the boulevard du palais at bastia,” he said. “where there will be a pretty salad for mister the colonel, prepared for him by a woman and a priest—eh! both your witnesses shall be there, mademoiselle—both.”
he broke off with a laugh and an upward jerk of the head.
“ah! but he is a pretty scoundrel, your colonel.”
“he is not my colonel,” returned mademoiselle brun. “besides, even he has his good points. he is brave, and he is capable of an honest affection.”
the priest gave a scornful laugh.
“ah! you women,” he cried. “you think that excuses everything. you do not know that if it is worth anything it should make a man better instead of worse. otherwise it is not worth a snap of my finger—your honest affection.”
and he came back into the room on purpose to snap his finger, in his rude way, quite close to mademoiselle brun's parchment face.
