EPILOGUE
(From the travellers notebook)
THEsuppressed excitement of the past two days has more than made up for the stillness of the two months that preceded them. Against these forty-eight hours of trembling anticipation and surmise, the long weeks of undisturbed and pleasant converse and childish chatter make a background of placid years, instead of weeks.
I see them filled with fireside talks, dips into musty volumes, walks in a long gallery, to the murmured music of water, and in frosty starlight, with the lamps of Beaufort lending cheerfulness to the scene. Sometimes an expedition to some castellated town, southward, and wanderings through vividly coloured streets, or among lovely hills, where winter flowers grew and sweetened the air, and the grey of the river was shot with blue, as it glided into sunnier regions. And then the friendly greetingsupon return, and a child’s excited demand to know what I had seen, how far I had travelled, perhaps since morning, or the day before; above all, what I had brought back for her.
Beautiful calm days, already remembered regretfully as part of the for ever past! They will outlive, I hope, recent events, though they have sent them to slumber a while in the cemetery of the mind. For perturbation fell upon us, from the hour Mademoiselle and I stood watching a party of riders bear down toward us along the great road, like a picture sharply evoked from the time of postchaise and tragedy carried upon the momentous clatter of hoofs.
I had met Dr. Vermont, had spoken to him, and found he did not realise in any way my expectations. He was a well-bred man, as far as the superficialities of the drawing-room permitted me to judge. But his face was inexplicable and tormenting. It may once have been a strong face, but its strength was almost effaced by life. And yet there was no weakness about it—only an indifference that saps at strength. It could look daring and reckless, was never without a smile of quiet irony, and there was surely enough humorous observation in the mildbrown eyes to fill his days with easy pleasure and interest. But was there not something worse than sadness behind this good-humoured mask? I thought so from the first, and my impression was soon justified by an incredible episode. I also believed that before the Doctor had been twenty-four hours in the house, he had fallen in love with Mademoiselle Lenormant. But why he should have wanted Anatole to marry her, I cannot understand. Surely, surely, he knew that she loved him! must have known it all along.
When he and his companions left the salon on that last evening, I said good-night at once to Mademoiselle. I almost reproached myself with seeing so much, divining so much that remained untold. I sat in my room with a pen in my hand, unable to write from excess of interest in what was going on around me. Why should peaceable modern men start off upon a midnight expedition in this mediæval fashion? Neither my own imagination could devise an adequate explanation, nor did I receive any assistance from the objects that surrounded me in Monsieur Lenormant’s room, which I attentively examined. How heavily,drearily the rain fell, and what an awful darkness outside! I stood at the window and listened to the midnight chimes from the cathedral and churches of Beaufort. On New Year’s Eve most people feel sentimental at this hour, and recall the various places and circumstances in which they have listened to the peal of bells upon the death of the old year. But this I felt to be a sadder occasion than any other New Year’s Eve, because a whole century was dying with it, the only century I was familiar with, and I rather shrank from trial of the new.
An extraordinary sound followed at once upon the last peal of the bells. It seemed so close, that it jerked me back from the window, quite shaken with the reverberation. There could be no doubt either of its nature or of the fact that it rose from some near point upon the island. It was more than a single pistol-shot. Now, the washerwomen could not have devised that singular method of saluting the new-born century. Neither could the chaplain of the Benedictines, who occupied an old, dark house at the end of the island upon our side. The wine-shop of Geraud always closed at nine o’clock, and on such a wet night no living soulwould have crossed the bridge for the sake of his bad liquids.
I went to Mademoiselle’s room, anxious to hear what opinion she would have upon the startling occurrence.
‘Somebody has been murdered near us,’ she cried excitedly, when I entered.
‘Good heavens! what ought we to do?’
‘I don’t know what we ought to do, but what I should like to do would be to go and see for myself,’ she said, and looked questioningly at me.
‘You are a brave woman, Mademoiselle; I should have feared to propose it, but I will gladly accompany you.’
‘Let us go and call up the chaplain of the Benedictines. He and I are almost the lords of this island, and if any one were wounded, or in need of our help, it is our duty to be on the spot. We will take Joséphine’s big umbrella and her lantern.’
The rain was awful, and the darkness of the night was so thick that we seemed to cleave a way through it as we buffeted with the driving downpour. To my troubled ear, our steps, along the deluged pavement, carried a portentousmessage into the silent night. There was a light in the priest’s house, and the sound of our footsteps approaching brought him to the door even before we had knocked.
‘Who is it? What is it?’ he whispered.
‘It is I, Mademoiselle Lenormant, father. We want you to come and examine the island with us. There is shooting somewhere, and somebody may have been murdered or dying.’
‘You have a lamp. Wait a moment, and I will join you.’ Outside he said, ‘Let us try the cemetery. Phew! how it rains. It is a deluge. I am not surprised at your courage, Mademoiselle, for it is not since yesterday that I know you. But your friend—ah, I forgot, she is English, and the Englishwoman, I have always heard, is capable of anything.’
I doubt not the little compliment of the good chaplain was as welcome to my friend as to myself, and warmed us both upon that dreary adventure. In silence we beat our way round to the cemetery, and then only remembered, what we should not have forgotten, that it was locked. Seeing how unlikely it was that any one should have contrived to get inside without the key for any black purpose whatsoever, thechaplain thought it unnecessary to go back for it. So we then decided to examine the rocks along as far as the tower, and afterwards go over the ruin.
There was nothing about the rocks but an occasional water-rat, that ran into hiding as soon as the gleam of the lantern revealed him. Nothing along the pavement under the low wall. We bent under the nearest broken arch of the tower, and entered it upon the river side. At first our lantern only served to accentuate the darkness, and show the deeper masses of shadow in the walls. We groped forward, and held our breath, in mingled fear and expectation. Nothing stirred; only the rain fell heavily with the noise of splashing when it touched the water below. I advanced foremost, and my foot brushed something that was not jagged stone or bramble.
‘Bring your lamp here, Monsieur, whoever you are,’ a familiar voice cried out, in an imperious tone.
I started, and stood to let the priest and Mademoiselle approach, wondering what it could mean. The priest held the lantern down low, and we at once recognised Dr. Vermont’s paleface looking up from a tangled heap of black against his knee.
‘We stopped before crossing the bridge to fire a shot in welcome to the new century, and this unstrung boy must needs topple off his balance, and faint away in sheer fright,’ he hurriedly explained.
‘A very strange proceeding, Monsieur,’ said the priest, frowning.
I knelt down and touched poor Anatole’s chill face, but Mademoiselle had no word. She could only stand and stare in haggard amazement.
‘I have not asked your opinion, Monsieur. It is your help I desire,’ said Dr. Vermont, with an unabated ferocity of pride.
‘Am I not shot?’ asked Anatole vaguely, opening his eyes and glancing about in terror.
He made an instinctive gesture to feel for the wound on his forehead, and sat up straight. He was wild and giddy, and, seeing me first, could not take his eyes off my face; he even stretched out his hand in awe to touch me.
‘But for that confounded darkness, we might have had him in shelter long ago,’ muttered Dr. Vermont. ‘Julien and Gaston have goneto look for a lamp. Can you stand, Anatole?’ he asked the bewildered youth.
Anatole stood up quite promptly, without any assistance. The rain fell from every part of his form in rills, and, as he shook himself free, he breathed a deep, happy sigh.
‘Great God! I am saved,’ he murmured, and staggered forward.
‘Will nobody explain this hideous mystery?’ shouted the chaplain, like ourselves on the verge of hysterics from emotion.
Dr. Vermont, standing with the lantern in his hand, shrugged impertinently, and a ray of light glancing off his pale face, revealed its enigmatic smile.
‘Take my arm, Henriette,’ he said, very gently, approaching Mademoiselle, who throughout the scene was silent. ‘My poor girl,’ I heard him add, in quite an altered tone, as he gathered her trembling frame to him.
At an end for me the quiet studies and the pleasant talks upon the lovely long terrace of that old house by the grey river. At an end for Mademoiselle the waiting; at an end the long shadow of deferred hope stretched like apall upon the backward years. I know not if the defence of the Emperor Julian has been concluded. When last I heard from her she was in Italy with Joséphine, Gabrielle, and Gabrielle’s strange father. She stands clear before me in her new home, the snow gathering early upon her head, and the mark of the silent, tragic years deepening the austerity that autumnal joys could never melt from sensitive lips and shadowed glance. I frame her image against some old Italian palace in the blackened arches of its balcony, and see her, when the stars are out, and regret throbs more poignantly, gazing across the blue waters that wash her beloved land, the mirthful, sunlit waters, into which flows her own grey river.
The old house beyond the broken arches of the bridge, that leads to the desolate island, has been sold. Who now sits upon the terrace that overlooks the towers and spires of Beaufort? I cherish the hope that it is some one with a bosom not insusceptible to the thrill of romance, some one with a heart that still can beat to the swift measure of fear.
Anatole I have since seen in Paris. He is working steadily at some profession, and sharpillness has made a saner and stronger man of him. Upheaval, after a while, when the elements quiet down again, generally brings reform. The Café Lander knows him no more, I have ascertained, and while he shrinks from mention of Dr. Vermont’s name, he is ever glad and grateful to talk of Henriette Lenormant. He bore his dismissal bravely, after she had so devotedly nursed him through that heavy shock, and he is generous enough to give thanks for the cherishing friendship of the woman he loved in vain.
Gaston Favre has accepted an official post in the provinces, and Julien Renaud is an industrious journalist.