CHAPTER IV - THE CAPTIVE HAWK
"Altho' his back be at the wa',Another was the fautor;Altho' his back be at the wa',Yet here's his health in waterHe gat the skaith, he gat the scorn,I lo'e him but the better;Tho' in the muir I hide forlorn,I'll drink his health in water.Altho' his back be at the wa',Yet here's his health in water!"Jacobite Ballad.
"Altho' his back be at the wa',Another was the fautor;Altho' his back be at the wa',Yet here's his health in waterHe gat the skaith, he gat the scorn,I lo'e him but the better;Tho' in the muir I hide forlorn,I'll drink his health in water.Altho' his back be at the wa',Yet here's his health in water!"Jacobite Ballad.
"Altho' his back be at the wa',
Another was the fautor;
Altho' his back be at the wa',
Yet here's his health in water
He gat the skaith, he gat the scorn,
I lo'e him but the better;
Tho' in the muir I hide forlorn,
I'll drink his health in water.
Altho' his back be at the wa',
Yet here's his health in water!"
Jacobite Ballad.
"In short, sir, though you can be infernally provoking, it has been a pleasure to serve you."STEVENSON,St. Ives.
"In short, sir, though you can be infernally provoking, it has been a pleasure to serve you."STEVENSON,St. Ives.
"In short, sir, though you can be infernally provoking, it has been a pleasure to serve you."
STEVENSON,St. Ives.
M. Perrelet, followed by an orderly with an armful of pillows, came briskly down the corridor one afternoon ten days later, and entered a certain guarded room.
"Well, my children, and what are you doing now?" he demanded benignantly of its inhabitants.
"I am having my knowledge of English extended, sir," responded one of them from the bed, smiling faintly. "M. de Courtomer found an English book on the shelf there, and he is reading it to me. . . . Are those the pillows you promised me this morning?"
He still looked extraordinarily bloodless, and even thinner, but there was more life about him. Laurent had got up, and stood glancing from M. Perrelet to L'Oiseleur with an air of being rather proud of his charge. Indeed, to-day was an important milestone; having, a couple of days ago, been promoted from his recumbent position to about three pillows, La Rocheterie was now going to be propped up with many into a sitting posture for an hour or two—hence the orderly's load. And in a few minutes the little doctor and Laurent proceeded so to prop him.
"You may feel a trifle giddy at first," remarked the former, surveying him critically. "When you are tired, ask your nurse to take them away again. . . . And this is your English book? H'm.Le Vicaire de Vackfeel. What is this Vackfeel—a place or a person? Once I could read English, though not speak it. I read the poet Shackspeer."
"Monsieur Perrelet," observed Laurent, "you are a mine of knowledge, and of everything desirable. And, as you have brought M. de la Rocheterie all those plump pillows, you could no doubt bring me what I want."
"And what is that, my boy?" asked the surgeon, looking up from the pages of Goldsmith which, sitting on the edge of his patient's bed, he was turning over, his lips very much pursed.
"A letter," responded M. de Courtomer. "A letter from a lady—from my mother, in short. Though I do not know why you should play postman. I suppose that if I get a reply to mine, which I wrote—oh, a fortnight ago—it will come through the same channel, those gentlemen downstairs?"
"You had left yours open, I suppose?"
"Yes, but I contrived to put in a good deal of what I wanted to say. And now I wish to hear how my dear mother is bearing my loss."
"I cannot tell you that," replied the little doctor, twinkling, "but any ordinary—or extraordinary—outside news I can supply you with, if you are pining for it. To-day, however, I have heard nothing in particular."
"But might you not get into trouble for telling us, if there were?"
The bounce which M. Perrelet gave shook the bed. "Sacrebleu, young man, am I a soldier? I thank God, no! Do I care, either, whether King or Emperor rules this distracted country, provided he makes haste and does it, and I get my drugs delivered when I order them? If I could hope that those confounded diligence-robbing Chouans of yours had swallowed what I was having sent last week I might feel consoled, for in that event some of those long-haired gentry would still be suffering from stomach-ache. But I have not forgiven the Imperialists either for opening a case because they pretended to think it contained smuggled ammunition. There's nothing to choose between the adherents of either side. No; I am like a character in one of le Shackspeer's plays—I forget which, but this book brings back my little English. He says, à propos of some quarrel (and I say it with him), 'A pla-gué on bot' your 'ousses!'"
The linguist making of the first noun a dissyllable with, as was natural, the continental "a", and of the second the French word which means a horse-cloth, Laurent stooped hurriedly to the floor after nothing in particular, and even L'Oiseleur bit his lip.
"Is not M. Perrelet's pronunciation of English rather singular?" he enquired after the doctor had gone. "You are not always very polite about mine, but even I had not the faintest idea what he was saying just now."
"I should not have known myself, but that it was a quotation," confessed his instructor, laughing. "Are you comfortable like that—not too high?"
"Quite comfortable—but a little out of my bearings. Still, I was coming to know the geography of the ceiling rather overwell. . . . And now that I am thus erected, I suppose you will insist on my reading that book to myself? I wonder, de Courtomer, what is the next reformation that you will try to work on me, after my health and my English?"
And, as he held out his blanched hand with its seamed wrist for theVicar of Wakefield, he suddenly gave his companion a brief glimpse of his once enchanting smile.
Laurent went red with pleasure. Yes, this was indeed a day to be remembered—the first time that L'Oiseleur had smiled in earnest since he was brought to Arbelles. He gave him the book, and said that he did not really expect him to struggle with it.
"But," said his charge, "I shall like to read more about this pastor who has his living wife's epitaph framed over his mantelpiece to encourage her in virtue! It seems to me that he must be a person of humour."
Highly pleased at this unwonted manifestation of interest, Laurent sat down by the window. Captivity had hardly yet had time to be irksome; he had been too much occupied. But, even if La Rocheterie's life no longer depended on his care, he had no visions of escape, though obviously the climb down from the unbarred window presented only one difficulty to a young and vigorous man—the sentry below. Laurent's heart, however, was chained for the present in this room, where he had acquired something personally more precious than what he had lost. It still seemed strange and wonderful to him that his hero had been given over to him like a child—like an infant, indeed, at one stage, requiring to be fed from a spoon. He was not so helpless now, though he was still very weak. But, since the day when they had come to an understanding, it was nothing but a pleasure to do things for him. And L'Oiseleur was so good, so patient, so grateful!
All at once L'Oiseleur's own voice, with the lightness gone out of it, broke in on these reflections. "You were speaking just now about having written a letter, Comte. Have you writing materials there, and if so might I——"
"Of course," replied Laurent, jumping and fetching them.
M. de la Rocheterie did not get on very fast, however—whether from physical or mental disabilities was not clear. At last his pencil ceased its labours altogether, and the writer put his head back against his high pillows. Perhaps the letter was a difficult one; it might well be!
After a few minutes' inaction he tried again; added a word or two, and desisted a second time. Then he looked in Laurent's direction.
"I am so sorry, de Courtomer," he said rather breathlessly. "I suppose it is these pillows . . . it's ridiculous, but I feel . . ."
What he felt was pretty obvious now. Laurent grabbed away M. Perrelet's erection and laid him flat again where, after a little, he got the better of his faintness. On this, rather to Laurent's surprise, he asked if he might dictate the rest of his letter, as he wanted to finish it.
So Laurent retrieved the pencil and paper and sat down by the bed. Very little was on the paper.
"Please read it over to me," said the writer. And Laurent read these words aloud:
"MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER,—You will, I expect, have heard that my little force was almost annihilated about three weeks ago, and you may have been wondering——"
Laurent looked enquiringly at the bed.
"—'Why you have had no news from me,'" finished its occupant slowly. And Laurent completed the sentence, trying to guess what the next would be. What would he—what could he—tell his grandmother about his plight?
"'I was slightly wounded,'" resumed Aymar in a colourless tone (Laurent involuntarily raising his eyebrows as he transcribed this statement) "'and am now a prisoner, but I have been and am very well looked after.'" He let his eyes dwell for a second on his amanuensis as he dictated this, and his voice had a different inflection though his expression did not change. "'There is therefore no need for anxiety on my behalf.'"
In the pause that followed Laurent wondered whether it were of set purpose that he had not mentioned his place of captivity. L'Oiseleur resumed:
"'Please tell Avoye that her letter reached me just before I—'" he paused again—"'before I was captured. She will understand that I cannot answer it at present as I should have wished. And do not be uneasy if you do not hear from me again for some time.'"
"That is all," said the letter-writer, suddenly appearing exhausted. "If you will kindly give it to me I will sign it."
"Well, there could hardly be a balder letter of reassurance," thought Laurent. "Shall I address it?" he asked.
"If you please," said L'Oiseleur. "'Madame la Vicomtesse de la Rocheterie, Château de Sessignes, près Merléac.' I am going to ask M. Perrelet to post it. If he does not feel justified in doing so I shall tear it up. It is not going through their hands downstairs!"
And, as Laurent assented sympathetically, he added, "But I am afraid you will think that I am not a very candid person, de Courtomer! It would hardly be kind, however, to tell my grandmother the truth about my 'capture,' would it? And there is no actual lie, as you can see, in that letter."
Laurent grew hot in a moment. A faint, half-tortured amusement showed in the red-brown eyes. "Well, perhaps M. Perrelet will refuse to take it, and that will end the matter," said their owner. And Laurent had the strange idea that, on the whole, he would be glad of it.
But M. Perrelet, when asked next morning, made no bones about it at all, merely repeating his Shackspeer quotation rather more execrably than before.
It was, indeed, M. Perrelet who reigned supreme over the affairs of the two prisoners, and, thanks to him, L'Oiseleur had the best of everything. Aubert, the impassive Major, remained in command of the garrison during this fortunately prolonged absence of Colonel Guitton—Aubert who, according to Laurent, was a mere shell of a man and did not really exist. Certainly they never saw him, nor wished to do so. But with Lieutenant Rigault Laurent was striking up quite a friendship.
In these last ten days M. de Courtomer had ceased to exercise himself deeply over the problem of Pont-aux-Rochers, though he had by no means ceased entirely to think about it. And even if speculation had quite died down it would have been revived by two nocturnal surprises which occurred about this time.
The first was a perfectly unheralded and abrupt ejaculation made by L'Oiseleur in his sleep one night. Laurent was lying wide awake when his companion's voice suddenly cut the silence with—"Tell the truth, de Fresne!"—that, and no more. After a second or two's amazement, Laurent tiptoed over to his bed to discover that he was, undoubtedly, talking in his sleep. But that clueless fragment—more like a command than an entreaty—out of the brain which held the secret, which was busy with it, evidently, in dreams, had it given the name of the man whom L'Oiseleur was shielding at such cost . . . or had it not? Nor, having heard it as he did, dared Laurent ask.
But two nights later he was wakened out of a very sound slumber to hear a thick and agonized voice saying in the darkness, "I shall never be there in time now! . . . Get on, you brute! . . . Six miles yet . . . O God! O God!" Then came actual sounds of struggle, and Laurent jumped half terrified out of bed and struck a light, to find Aymar writhing about, repeating between clenched teeth, "I can't get my hands free—I can't get my hands free!" and then, gasping, "Make them be quick about it, for God's sake!"
Laurent set down the candle and laid hold of the scarred wrists. "La Rocheterie, La Rocheterie, wake up!"
"How dare you touch me!" cried the sleeper excitedly, trying to throw off the grasp, his eyes still shut. Then the bonds of nightmare suddenly loosed, and he opened his eyes and lay there panting.
After a moment he put his hand to his damp forehead. "I was dreaming," he got out confusedly. "It was nothing . . . I am so sorry I disturbed you . . . if you would just take these ropes away—no, what am I talking about! I am awake now . . . go back to bed, de Courtomer."
But he could not, surely, have been thoroughly awake, for when Laurent, with an exclamation of "I believe you have started your shoulder bleeding!" tore open his shirt and began to repair the slight mischief caused by the bandages having slipped, Aymar, with a sudden gleam in his eyes, seized his wrists and tried mutely but passionately to hold him off. And Laurent could not bear to master him by force, as he might so easily have done.
"La Rocheterie!" he said, looking down at him almost sternly, "this is not worthy of you! Take your hands away!"
For a second the weak, half-frenzied grip tightened, then it relaxed altogether, and L'Oiseleur obeyed him—to Laurent's secret amazement—and turned his unhappy face away while measures were taken that the dressings should not slip a second time.
In fact, when M. Perrelet came next morning he exclaimed at his assistant's bandaging. "You might have been lashing something to a mast!" he observed, and asked why his patient had not complained. But Aymar said gravely, "I should not dare to question anything M. de Courtomer did to me. He is too commanding." And he gave the confused Laurent a look oddly compounded of sadness, mischief, and affection.
Another week passed. Laurent received a letter from his mother, containing sympathetic messages to L'Oiseleur, and the information that the Aunts considered Laurent honoured as sharing his captivity, both of which announcements L'Oiseleur had received very stiffly. And for the rest of the day he had looked . . . Laurent had seen that look before, but he had never put a name to it . . . he had looked haunted.
That night, after Laurent was in bed, his fellow-captive suddenly asked, "What was M. Perrelet saying to you this morning about Napoleon's despatching troops to the west?"
"That something like twenty-five battalions of the line are being sent against Brittany and Vendée, besides cavalry and what not. It is flattering . . . if only one were free!"
"Ifyouwere—yes!"
"But I was only an aide-de-camp," faltered Laurent.
"The more lucky you!Youhad no men to throw away!"
He was tormenting himself about those miserable "Eperviers" of his, then—those scoundrels who did not deserve it! It was not easy for Laurent to realize that L'Oiseleur's lost legion consisted of two parts—the victims of the disaster at the bridge, and those who had subsequently made their leader a victim, too—and he tended to confound them both in one burning horror and hatred.
"Eveno, for instance," went on the sad voice in the darkness, "Eveno, who used to follow me like a dog—you remember, perhaps, my speaking of him in England—I do not know whether he is killed or a prisoner; he is just missing, like so many others . . ."
"I remember about Eveno," said Laurent gently. The name brought the "fairy tale" back to him at once. "I suppose," he proceeded, almost without reflecting, "that thejartieris now in the possession of our friends downstairs—much good may it do them! I noticed long ago, of course, that it was not on your arm."
"Thejartier!" exclaimed its late possessor, and gave a harsh little laugh. "No, the Imperialists have not got it, nor my men either. I once told you that I put no faith in it, de Courtomer. Nevertheless, if I had it now, I should not be lying here, despised even by my enemies. . . . No, I do not refer to the running water legend; I should rather say again—did I believe in the amulet at all—that thejartierhad carried me safely through that river of yours. . . .I wish it had not!. . . Good-night."
Laurent lay silent after that, looking from his bed at the summer stars. Yes, there could be no doubt that Aymar was bitterly regretting the too-heavy sacrifice he had made. If only, only he would throw down the burden he had assumed! . . . But what if hecouldnot throw it down—what if he were entangled in a situation from which it was no longer in his power to extricate himself at will, if, by some trick of Fate not anticipated when he took his generous resolution, he were a prisoner indeed, in the most terrible kind of captivity . . . and knew it!
The idea came on Laurent like a blow over the heart, and Arcturus, pulsating out there in the limitless heavens, had passed out of sight before he made any effort after slumber.
But whatever truth there might be in Laurent's most unwelcome theory, L'Oiseleur's relapses into gloom and bitterness were separated by periods when someone resembling the old and charming Aymar was visible once more. After all, he was young, and Laurent, too, was young—younger still—and at times the youth of both of them surged up and over. Such a time was that day when, returning from his promenade on the terrace, Laurent announced to his companion that their captivity would henceforth be shared by a third individual—and then, at sight of his dismayed face, burst out laughing, and told him to wait until he had shown him the individual in question. He thereupon fetched a drinking-glass, turned his back, and after a moment deposited on the bed, in this transparent prison, an enormous grasshopper, as green as a leaf.
"Take it away!" said L'Oiseleur, recoiling. "It will get out . . . and I don't want it on me!"
Laurent sat himself down on the bed, too. "No, it won't. Besides, I'm going to tame it. You know that it is de rigueur for prisoners to tame mice and spiders, and this is better—of such a pleasing sylvan colour. I found him on the terrace. We will call him Vert-Vert; the parrot in the poem could not have been greener.—'Il était beau, brillant, leste et volage.' Look how he is feeling about with those enormous horns!"
"Poor devil!" said Aymar, studying the captive. "I should let it go again if I were you, de Courtomer."
"Very well," quoth Laurent and lifted the glass.
"Nothere, you imbecile!" But Vert-Vert, after one second's reflection, had vanished into space. Yet, as his colour quickly betrayed him on the white quilt, he was recaptured without much difficulty at the foot of the bed, amid protests from its occupant, who did not, however, seem really annoyed—rather on the verge of being amused.
And indeed it was through Vert-Vert's agency that the next day was rendered remarkable; for it was the day on which L'Oiseleur actually laughed.
Laurent had been racking his brains for the most striking means of introducing Vert-Vert to M. Perrelet's notice, the great difficulty, however, being that the lively insect would not stay where he was put. All at once an idea came to him.
"I have it, Aymar!" he exclaimed . . . and pulled himself up short as the name slipped out. "—I beg your pardon!"
"Why?" asked L'Oiseleur, smiling. "I should like it. May I venture to do the same?"
"Yes, indeed!" said Laurent, colouring. And he added ingenuously, "I only wish my name were as beautiful as yours."
"Is it beautiful?" asked its possessor, raising his eyebrows. "I never thought of it. There have been so many in our family since the first, who was a Crusader.—But go on with your plan for introducing M. Perrelet to Vert-Vert."
Laurent was staring at him. That vivid impression of his own on his first entry to this room had justification then . . . He came back with a jump to his proposal. It needed some argument to get Aymar to agree to it, but when M. Perrelet came into the room half an hour later Laurent was chuckling to think how little one would have imagined that the grave young man who greeted him so demurely from his pillows was cherishing under the bedclothes, like any schoolboy, a large green grasshopper to let fly in his physician's face when he started to dress his wounds.
Not only, indeed, had L'Oiseleur entered into this childishness, but he had, as the event showed, planned an improvement upon it. For he withheld the insect enclosed in his hand from M. Perrelet altogether, and launched it instead, at an unexpected moment during the dressing of his shoulder, at his partner in guilt on the other side of the bed. Laurent started back with an exclamation as the ill-starred acrobat blundered against his chin and then fell into the little bowl of water which he held, and Aymar buried his face in the pillow, laughing like a boy.
A slow smile came over M. Perrelet's countenance as the situation dawned upon him. "Ah!" he said to himself in a tone of satisfaction. "But if there are any more of theLocustidaein your bed, Monsieur de la Rocheterie——"
"Do forgive me, sir!" pleaded Aymar, emerging from the pillow. "It was this follower of Buffon here. . . . Oh, it's gone again . . . it's onme!"
"Locusta viridissima, extremely agile," commented M. Perrelet. "For goodness' sake get the insect under control again, Monsieur de Courtomer, if I'm ever to finish this dressing!"
But Vert-Vert, who was to have enlivened their captivity, stayed with them only three days. On the third he sprang through the open window by Aymar's bed and was no more seen. Aymar blamed Laurent for letting him loose on the counterpane, Laurent retorted that the person under the counterpane was in charge. He was always in hopes of finding another on the terrace, but he did not succeed.
The days went on. It was June now. Aymar was slowly gaining strength, but he had not yet left his bed. Almost every day Laurent would read to him a little, but though he always had a courteous appearance of attention, the reader sometimes wondered whether he were really listening. He would occasionally read himself, but never for long; if one turned round after a while the book had invariably slipped from his hands, and he was lying absorbed in thought . . . and looking haunted.
It was impossible to pretend that L'Oiseleur was an exhilarating comrade of captivity. And though he made efforts, as was plain—rather pathetic efforts—to be cheerful, the gaiety which is pumped up from the depths of a heavy heart lacks sparkle. In fact, even ordinary conversation was often extremely difficult, for with a man under such a cloud and so sensitive, there was scarcely a subject in the past, present, or future which was not capable of wounding. Laurent's own short and uneventful history had always seemed an innocuous topic, but one day he wished he had not dilated even on that.
He had been describing an incident in his childhood, when he thought he had lost his mother during a game of hide-and-seek in the garden, when Aymar suddenly began, "My last recollection of my mother is of looking for her in a garden—at least I suppose you would call it a garden, though it had high walls round, and no flowers. But I did not find her . . . ever."
Laurent looked over at him with a kind of catch at the heart. Aymar had taken out a spray of wallflower from the glass by his bed, and was holding it in his bloodless fingers.
"I was in the prison Port Libre, you know," he went on, his eyes fixed on the flower, "with my mother and father—and my uncle—in '94. I was five years old then. My mother could not bear to leave me behind in our house in Paris when my father and she were arrested. She must have thought that they would not be detained long. . . . My father was just my age when he was guillotined. Yes, I used to play in that flowerless garden when it was fine—and the summer of '94, I have been told since, was very fine. . . . But the day they left me it was too hot to play; I think I must have had a headache, for I remember my mother dipping her handkerchief in water and putting it round my head, and kissing me a great many times. She was only a girl. I have the handkerchief still. . . . And I looked for her that day in the garden, all round the great acacia tree that was there—I can see its rough, channelled bark now—I looked every day . . . and I asked everybody. . . . A week's delay would have saved them; they were executed on the second of Thermidor."
"And you . . . afterwards?" asked Laurent with some difficulty.
"After Robespierre's fall I was taken to my uncle's widow, who had not been arrested. She had one little girl, my cousin, now Mme de Villecresne. I was with my young aunt till she died—of grief, as I know now—two years later, and then my cousin and I went to our grandmother at Sessignes.—So you can imagine that a man with memories like mine——" And there he stopped and relapsed into silence, his hand closing convulsively over the wallflower, which Laurent found, later, on the floor, a mere crushed ball of petals.
All the rest of the day he was haunted by a picture of a forlorn little auburn-haired boy in a prison, ceaselessly asking and looking for the mother who had left it for a narrower. And now he who had been that little boy was once more a captive, and once more robbed of the most precious thing he had.
But Laurent was a captive, too, and often found it far from amusing to be cooped up summer day after summer day, when history was being made and battles fought without him. For that, as he gathered from M. Perrelet, was precisely what was happening in Vendée, where, since mid-May, when the Marquis Louis de la Rochejaquelein had arrived from England and assumed the leadership, things had really been moving. And Brittany, L'Oiseleur's Brittany, where they were held fast, was full of activity, too. Even if, as seemed likely, the decisive conflict would take place on the northeastern frontier, it was very bitter to be debarred from playing any part in this local struggle which, after all, was occupying many thousands of troops which Napoleon could well have utilized elsewhere for that great decision.
—But not so bitter for him, Laurent recognized, as for his fellow-captive. At times, for Aymar's sake, he really dreaded M. Perrelet's jovial, "Well, so your brigands have taken Redon!" or, "I hear that your general-in-chief is in straits for want of ammunition," since both good and bad tidings had almost equal power to stab the leader whose men had already been so uselessly sacrificed.
On June 9th, more than five weeks after he had been brought to the château, Aymar was at last allowed to leave his bed, and sat in an armchair looking, so Laurent privately thought, ten times as gaunt and hollow-eyed as he had done between the sheets. Indeed his quite natural state of weakness was a considerable disappointment to L'Oiseleur as well as to his nurse, since at first his legs would not support him for an instant. However, on the second day he managed to walk round the room between M. Perrelet and Laurent, and shortly afterwards was clad in a suit of clothes belonging to the absent owner of Arbelles, for every garment of his own, except his boots, had had to be destroyed. Though this did not fit him, in cut and texture it was well enough, and to Laurent it was a great thing to see his charge clothed. He cherished visions of taking him before long for a walk on the terrace.
But on the whole L'Oiseleur was even more depressed than he had been while in bed, and Laurent wondered whether this was due to the disappointment of finding himself so unexpectedly weak. He had hoped that his friend was getting the better of these periods of gloom, and now the haunted look was more apparent than ever.
"I wish to goodness that he would tell me the whole story and have done with it!" he thought, almost in despair, after a few days of this, as he went down one afternoon for his constitutional. "He half promised that he would, some day; it would be so much better if he talked about it instead of eternally brooding over it. Two heads might perhaps see a way out."
Personal matters apart, Laurent himself had really more cause for depression at the moment than La Rocheterie. For only this morning had M. Perrelet brought them the news of the death of the Marquis de la Rochejaquelein in a skirmish—a calamitous loss to the Vendean Royalists. It had indeed greatly shocked the late Vendean aide-de-camp. On the other hand, the good doctor reported a victory of Sol de Grisolles, the Breton general-in-chief, on June 10th, which had opened for him the way to the sea, and to the reception of much-needed arms from England. But this had not cheered L'Oiseleur.
Rigault and another young officer were already strolling on the terrace when his guard deposited Laurent there. The former hailed him; the latter he had met once or twice, and the three took a turn up and down together.
"Pleasant weather," remarked Rigault. "I'm glad, Monsieur de Courtomer, that you get at least this taste of it. He's a very thoughtful old boy, the Sieur Perrelet.—By the way, I hear that Saint Sebastian is out of bed at last."
Laurent stopped dead and looked him in the face. "I don't know to whom you are referring, Monsieur!" he said sharply. But the red which had mounted to his cheek showed that he had at any rate a very good idea.
"No offence!" said Rigault lightly. "The name is not of my originating."
"Though, parbleu, it is, from all accounts, strikingly appropriate," murmured the other officer.
"It is in strikingly bad taste!" retorted Laurent, turning upon him. And as the culprit did not appear penitent, but had a subdued grin on his face, he added, "I did not come out here to listen to offensive conversation," and began to move haughtily away. But Rigault came after him.
"It is I who ought to apologize, Monsieur de Courtomer," he said hastily. "I do apologize, sincerely. It slipped out without my meaning it."
Laurent writhed. Evidently the officers of the garrison were in the habit of referring to Aymar by this title; and it was, horribly, appropriate. Therein lay its offensiveness. The other officer made a half-laughing apology, too, and saluting, went off. Laurent looked after him, frowning.
"I must say you are a staunch champion," came Rigault's voice in his ear. "Please don't think I am insincere when I say that I admire you for it! Really, I hope I should be the same in your place. Saint Se—— La Rocheterie is your friend, and if a man does not believe his friend when he assures him that he is innocent, well . . ."
But Lieutenant Rigault's magnanimous attempt to take another's point of view fell disappointingly flat. For Laurent, biting his lip, was now frowning at the gravel of the terrace. It was an odd moment for the thought to strike him for the first time in all these weeks, that that was exactly what his friend had never done. Aymar never had assured him, in so many words, that he was innocent.
He shook off the impression in a moment—for why should Aymar have told him a thing of which, as he knew, Laurent was already convinced? And when he returned to their joint apartment he had forgotten it.
Aymar, lying back in his armchair by the window, doing nothing, exactly as he had left him, appeared so averse to conversation that Laurent gave up the attempt, and took up insteadThe Vicar of Wakefield, which he himself was rereading at odd moments, for the English lessons had soon been discontinued. It had not taken Laurent long to find out that his pupil's interest in them was only simulated—probably for his sake.
The innocent and amiable volume now opened of itself at the beginning of Chapter xxii, and Laurent found himself reading these words in large type, "NONE BUT THE GUILTY CAN BE LONG AND COMPLETELY MISERABLE."
They were only one of Goldsmith's sententious chapter-headings, but they might have been the inscription on Belshazzar's palace wall. Laurent was suddenly mesmerized, and remained staring at them. . . . He did not ask whether what they stated was axiomatically true; it was only that it fitted in so diabolically with—well, with all the profound depression of the last few days, with the whole attitude, even, of that silent figure now leaning its head on its nerveless hand, not even looking out of the window at the allurements of June. . . . And the page cast up at him further accusing scraps: "grief seemed formed for continuing . . . anxiety had taken strong possession . . . nothing gave her ease . . . in company she dreaded contempt, in solitude she only found anxiety. . . ."
—"Long and completely miserable . . . none but the guilty . . ." Good God, what was he thinking! Hot and cold by turns Laurent flungThe Vicar of Wakefieldviolently on his bed. His action had at least the result of rousing Aymar, for it made him jump.
Next day, when Laurent came back from the terrace, he walked into an empty room. Aymar was not there.
One pang of wild dismay and, turning quickly, he inserted his foot into the closing door. "Where is M. de la Rocheterie?" he demanded fiercely of the sentry.
"A guard came and took him downstairs about half an hour ago," replied the man. "I must shut this door, sir."
"Took him downstairs!" ejaculated Laurent. "Downstairs!In Heaven's name, why?"
"The Colonel is back, and wished to see him—some kind of a council, I think. I shall get into trouble, sir, if you don't allow me——"
"I have a good mind to go down after him," declared Laurent, the light of combat coming into his eyes. "—No, all right," he added, as the empty-handed sentry thereupon made a grab for his musket. And he turned away.
Guitton back—and sending for L'Oiseleur! What could it mean? The cipher business again? No, that was all over. Oh, damn that scoundrel, why did he come back—why did he not die of that ball in his leg? And, as to making Aymar go downstairs in his present condition, when he had never done more than walk a little about this room—well, they would certainly have to carry him up again. It would set him back for ages, and M. Perrelet was away for a couple of days, too.
Thus Laurent fumed. But Aymar was not carried back, though when at last he came in he looked scarcely able to stand, and leant against the door for a moment with closed eyes, clutching the handle. Laurent, thinking he was going to fall, hurried to him.
"Aymar——" he began, putting out an arm.
But Aymar brushed aside his proffered assistance with small courtesy, and, staggering past him to his own bed, sat down, gripping the edge of it with both hands. Laurent took one glance at him and poured out brandy.
"Those stairs!" he muttered furiously. "Madness. . . . Drink this, and lie down quickly."
But Aymar did not seem to see the glass he held out. He was staring in front of him with eyes like live coals, his breath coming very fast; and in a moment Laurent realized that, as well as being physically spent, he was quivering with rage.
"You must take this, Aymar," he repeated.
The eyes blazed at him then. "You are becoming a veritable old woman, de Courtomer! There are times when one would really prefer to be allowed to lie down and perish in peace." After which ungracious remark he took the brandy from the slightly stunned Laurent, drank it off impatiently, and, pulling himself completely on to the bed, subsided there.
Laurent went and looked out of the window, undeniably wounded, but telling himself that something extremely unpleasant had been taking place downstairs, and that a man on the border-line of endurance will sometimes strike out at the very person he would least desire to hurt, if that person be on the spot. Nor had he ever judged Aymar's to be a very patient nature. He stole a look at him now, and saw that he was lying face downwards. For the first time he realized what an affliction it must be never to have solitude in hours of strain. But as he could not take himself off he tried to bury himself in a book.
It might have been ten minutes later, or twenty, that Aymar suddenly turned over and raised himself on an elbow.
"I want to ask your pardon for the way I spoke to you just now, Laurent," he said, in a voice not quite free from constraint. "I hope you know that I did not mean it for an instant. I was . . . annoyed . . . but not, God knows, with you."
The blood seemed to come back to Laurent's heart again. "Of course I knew that you did not mean it," he replied cheerfully. "I saw that you were . . . annoyed . . ." And, longing to ask why, but not quite daring, he took refuge in a triviality. "Convalescents are allowed to be irritable. So, if it means that you are getting stronger, you are welcome to call me an old woman as much as you like."
Aymar struggled off the bed back to his sitting posture on the edge. "Did I really say that? I deserve to be——" He stopped abruptly, and a wave of red passed over his colourless face. It became still more sombre; he shut his mouth tight, and dragging himself to his feet went over to the window, stood a moment looking out, and then let himself fall into the big chair there.
"Laurent," he said presently, "as an excuse for my rudeness and ingratitude I will tell you why they had me down." But there was struggle in his voice, and with one hand he was twisting a tassel of the chair. "It was the same thing over again. Colonel Guitton asked me what I meant to do henceforward, since I could hope for no mercy from my own side. He was therefore kind enough to promise me a commission with his." And, as Laurent made an angry exclamation, he went on, "But that is nothing new. Have you forgotten his visit here that day? Only this time it was much more public"—he caught his breath for a second—"and this time he did not, I think, really expect me to accept. . . . Then they went through my few papers at great length, and questioned me about them. That's all. Don't ask me any more about it."
He put his head back in the chair; his arms fell to his sides. Laurent, kneeling by him, carried away on far too deep a tide of anger and pity to remember his own recent repulse, began to chafe the cold hands, cursing under his breath the man who had devised so public an indignity.
For a moment Aymar roused himself.
"Coals of fire," he said, looking at him with a world of expression in his tragic eyes. "Yes, as Guitton announced just now, shootingistoo good for me!"
They were nearer to each other that evening than they had ever been before. Afterwards, Laurent thought that had Aymar not been so spent in body and so quivering in soul he would probably have told him his secret. As it was, he lay silent on his bed and watched the sky through the window, and Laurent watched him, and had a kind of happiness from it.
But at the same time he was deeply uneasy. What would that devil do next, now that he was back? He had not waited long to strike. But, short of imprisoning them in different rooms—a most distasteful possibility—the young man did not see what he could do.
It was about two o'clock next afternoon, a little before the time when Laurent usually took his walk on the terrace, that steps outside the door roused him from the book he was reading.
"My escort," he said with a yawn. "The fellows are early."
But there entered instead—Colonel Guitton.
Laurent's heart descended to his boots. Aymar immediately pulled himself out of his chair, and stood looking out of the window.
"Good afternoon, Monsieur de Courtomer," said the Bonapartist, taking on his side no notice of L'Oiseleur. "A pleasant day, is it not?" He came forward into the room, limping a little, as Laurent was delighted to see. "You have not yet gone out for your constitutional, then? It was really à propos of that that I came—to suggest that you should, if you wished, have liberty to extend it."
"You are very kind, Monsieur le Colonel," murmured Laurent, taken aback.
"In fact, I have been reflecting that it would perhaps be more agreeable for you to become a prisoner on parole altogether now."
"But why should I suddenly become a prisoner on parole?"
"Because," responded the Colonel, showing his teeth in his false smile, "you will henceforward be alone in captivity, and, as an alleviation, I thought——"
"Alone!" exclaimed Laurent, glancing at the figure against the window. Hedidmean to separate them, then!
"Yes," said the Imperialist. "You are going to lose your patient to-day. I am afraid that we cannot keep him any longer.—Monsieur de la Rocheterie!"
Aymar was forced to turn round. He wore an icy and disdainful face.
"Here, Monsieur," said the Colonel, advancing to the table, "are most of the papers and all the money and other effects found on you after . . . after your unfortunate experience in the Bois des Fauvettes. We had the pleasure of going through the former together yesterday. Here, in particular, is a letter which I am sure you will be very glad to recover. There is now nothing to keep you longer from the fair writer—unless, of course, she has rather stricter views on honour than yours!" And, with his eyes on him, he laid a purse, a leather case, and a stained letter on the table.
Aymar had not moved from the window. But at the last words Laurent saw his hands shut themselves with a jerk. After a very tense second he demanded curtly, "Why are you giving me back those things?"
"Because it is usual to return his effects to a liberated prisoner—and you are free, Monsieur de la Rocheterie."
"Free!" exclaimed L'Oiseleur, taking a step forward.
"Free!" echoed Laurent, not believing his ears.
"You are surprised, Monsieur de Courtomer," enquired the Colonel suavely, turning to him. "But of what advantage can it be to us to house, feed, and give medical attendance to this gentleman any longer? After yesterday's interview we have no choice but to ask him to seek lodging elsewhere. As it is highly improbable that he will find it among his own friends we do not run any risk in this step.—I regret, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, that with these possessions I cannot return to you your sword. You had, I fancy, already been deprived of it before your . . . accident."
And at that Aymar strode forward to the table.
"If you were only a gentleman I would call you out for that!" he said, in a voice of intense and quiet fury; and he looked so dangerous that Laurent all but made a movement to intervene.
"Any gentleman would hold me absolved from accepting your challenge if you sent it," retorted the Bonapartist, undisturbed. "I think you will realize that state of affairs when you are free, Monsieur le Vicomte!—Be ready, please, to leave this room in a quarter of an hour."
In the stunned silence brought about by his last words he turned as if to go, then, apparently remembering something, swung round again, and, putting his hand into his pocket, took out a small object.
"'The reward of martial valour,' if I mistake not," he said drily, looking down at it and evidently reading off the phrase. Then he lifted his eyes to his released prisoner, and, taking the little object from the palm of one hand, held it out dangling from the finger and thumb of the other. Laurent then saw what it was—Aymar's Cross of St. Louis, held out to its owner in silence, but with a look and a smile which made a more hateful commentary than any words. Colonel Guitton, who had come in person to announce his decree, intended that L'Oiseleur should be made to receive his dishonoured decoration from him in person; and that, in fact, was what did happen, for after a moment or two of waiting Aymar was obliged to advance and take the order from the outstretched hand. And, having forced him to this, the Colonel turned away with a broadening of his contemptuous smile.
But Laurent managed to intercept him before he got to the door.
"Monsieur le Colonel," he protested, "you cannot do such an inhuman thing! It is unheard of! M. de la Rocheterie is only just out of a sick-bed where he has lain, as you know, in danger of his life—he can hardly stand . . . he is not fit to travel. It is little short of murder!"
The dragoon shrugged his shoulders. "That is not my business, Monsieur de Courtomer. We have returned him his money; it is open to him to procure further medical care. I do not think, however," he added with a sneer, "that he will go to the nearest Royalist headquarters for it; that might lead him to a beech tree again! Anyhow, Monsieur le Comte, I am sorry to deprive you of his society, as you seem to like it. So, if you care to give me your parole——"
"I'll see you in hell first!" cried Laurent, exploding. And the force of his passion was such that he barely heard the Colonel, with a darkened and furious face, saying something, as he went out, about the place in whichhewould shortly find himself. . . .
And Aymar? Aymar had laid down the cross near his other little possessions, and with bowed head was supporting himself, close to the table, by the back of a chair. As soon as he heard the door close he dropped into the chair, put his elbows on the table, and covered his face. The next moment his hands slid, locked, from his face, and his head went down on his outstretched arms.
"Aymar," said Laurent in an almost awe-struck voice, "he cannot mean this—it's impossible!"
No answer—except that given by the objects lying on the table near the humiliated head. The obscurest soldier would have been too valuable to the other side to release, but L'Oiseleur was henceforth worthless; they could safely afford themselves the satisfaction of flinging him out. And the realization of this had beaten him to his knees.
"It is impossible," repeated Laurent, but with less assurance. "Did he—did he threaten this yesterday?"
The bronze head stirred, and then raised itself. But Aymar's expression was dazed, and after staring at him a moment he dropped his face again on his arms.
A wave of fierce, indignant pity surged over Laurent. Yes, that butcher and devil had knocked him out of time. Mercifully he could not witness his achievement. He knelt down and threw an arm across the bowed shoulders.
"Aymar," he said desperately, "let us think what is to be done. There is not very long."
But Aymar said in a choked voice, "I wonder you can bring yourself to touch me."
As an answer to that Laurent put his arm closer about him. "Do you think I pay a moment's heed to what that blackguard said? I have your secret. But, Aymar, the cost is too heavy!"
The locked hands twisted a moment. "The cost—my God!—the cost!" said the voice brokenly. Then L'Oiseleur lifted his head, his eyes fixed on the window. "You still think that of me? You will not think it much longer!"
"Am I so changeable?" asked Laurent gently. He possessed himself of a hand. "Yes, Aymar, the costistoo heavy. It is more than one man ought to pay for another . . . it is not right. I do implore you to reconsider, now, and—clear yourself!"
There was no answer for a moment. L'Oiseleur's hand lay impassive in his. He put his other over his eyes. Then, between a gasp and a sigh, he said, "I cannot. I cannot clear myself."
Laurent set his teeth. His fingers closed on the faintly scarred wrist. "I have thought that sometimes," he answered. "You have got entangled in another's dishonour. Then, as I am a living man, that other shall clear you.—Tell me, who is this de Fresne who would not admit the truth?"
Aymar's hand dropped from his eyes. He looked at the speaker with haggard astonishment. "De Fresne—where did you hear his name?" And without giving him time to reply he went on, "Oh, my dear Laurent, you are on the wrong road! No, no; de Fresne was . . . the victim, not the culprit. The truth . . ." A little shudder went through him, and he withdrew his hand from Laurent's grasp. "I have no one but myself to thank for my situation—that is the truth. I ought to have told you everything before this . . . and now there is no time . . ." He took a deep breath. "How much longer? I must be ready."
"Only a few minutes more," faltered Laurent, glancing away to the clock.—No one but myself to thank. . . . If he would only give him the clue! . . . But this was not the moment. If in a few instants Aymar de la Rocheterie was to be thrust out from the shelter of a roof, some preparation must be made—but what preparation? He had nothing but the ill-fitting clothes he wore. And as to provisions, there were none in the room. Laurent sprang up from his knees.
"You must take my cloak. There is brandy in the flask, I think."
"Your cloak?" repeated Aymar tonelessly. "It is uniform—I cannot wear it." He pulled himself to his feet and stood looking down at his returned possessions. "What am I to do with these?" he said, as though to himself, touching them stupidly. But as he took up the letter a spasm of pain came over his face. "I know what I will do with this. . . . Have you a tinderbox there?"
Laurent gave him his. With hands whose shaking he tried vainly to control Aymar at last obtained a light, set fire to the stained letter, and held it flaming till it fell in flakes on the table, till his own hand was almost burned. And Laurent stood dumb before an agony of soul which he felt to be as consuming as the mounting flame that was so strange in the daylight . . . and before the immediate vision of his own great loss. In a few moments—unless it were a cruel jest of authority—his friend would be torn from him. It was quite possible that he should never see him again. . . . And in that second he took his resolve: if he got a bullet in him, if he broke his neck over it, he would leave the château Arbelles himself that night.
"Aymar," he said abruptly, "tell me quickly in what direction you will go, for I mean to follow you."
"Direction?" repeated Aymar, staring at the ashes of the letter. "Direction—I don't know. Just away somewhere—where they do not know me. . . . A firing-party would have been so much more merciful," he added to himself.
He slowly put his money and the wallet into one pocket, while Laurent, with smarting eyes, slipped the brandy-flask into the other. The cross, with the laurel-encircled sword uppermost, still lay on the table by the ashes of the letter, only a small piece of its red ribbon, oddly jagged and torn, still adhering to it. Aymar looked down at it.
"Perhaps you would rather not have any remembrance of me—a man who can be insulted with impunity," he said, his lip curling. "But, if you care to, will you take this?" And he suddenly held out the decoration to his companion.
Laurent was staggered. Aymar was too stunned, of course, to realize what he was doing. He caught him by the arm.
"No!" he cried fervently. "What, take what you won so gloriously, and will wear again as gloriously some day! Put it in your pocket, Aymar. I want no remembrance of you, for we shall not long be separated. I mean to escape from Arbelles to-night and follow you. But I must know in what direction you intend to go."
L'Oiseleur did mechanically put the order into a pocket, but to the question he shook his head. "Have you not heard that neither side will give me shelter?"
"For God's sake don't talk like that!" cried Laurent. "Do you not realize that in your state you cannot walk half a mile? Will you go to the inn in the village, and we can arrange——No, I have a better idea! Of course you will go to M. Perrelet—why did I not think of that before? Then you will be properly cared for. Aymar, go there at once; any one will direct you to his house."
But Aymar once more shook his head. "He is away. I would not ask such a favour of him if he were at home. I cannot install myself there in his absence."
"Very well, then, the inn; and we must arrange quickly how I am to meet you when I escape——"
For the first time Aymar showed animation. "When you escape! My dear Laurent, you are much more likely to find yourself a prisoner in earnest to-night! That man will not forgive your outburst. Oh, Laurent, why did you do it?"
"For Heaven's sake, listen, Aymar! Will you go to the village till I——"
"The village! To face the soldiers? Enough that I shall have to face them here . . . and now," he added, as a heavy tread was audible along the corridor. They both listened for a second.
"It does not matter where I go," went on Aymar. "You will never see me again, Laurent. So much the better. I would not have you touched with the shadow of my disgrace. . . . For what you have been to me I cannot even thank you." He held out his hand rather blindly. "I have taken so much from you . . . and repaid it so ill. . . ."
There throbbed in the last words a veritable naked nerve of pain, more than Laurent could comprehend. All he knew was that he had enough pain of his own. . . . As the tread stopped, and voices were heard outside the door, he caught his friend by the shoulders. "Ishallsee you again—I shall find you! I am coming after you—to-night! This is only au revoir, L'Oiseleur!" And he kissed him on both cheeks.
"No, it is adieu," replied Aymar, his hands on the hands that held him, as if to disengage himself. But all at once Laurent felt himself pulled closer, his friend's, his hero's head was down for a moment on his shoulder, and he heard, close to his ear, the whispered words, "Try to go on believing that I am not a traitor!"—farewell and appeal in one. Then the clasp loosened, and he himself turned to see four soldiers with fixed bayonets coming through the door. He was dully surprised; had they expected resistance?
Aymar drew himself up, and looked at them gravely. The quiet personal dignity which it seemed impossible for him ever quite to lose shone out the more clearly, as he braced himself to meet fresh humiliation—so clearly, in fact, that the escort, rather surprisingly, saluted him. But to Laurent the scene was horribly that of a man going out to execution. Had La Rocheterie's father, "just my age when he was guillotined," worn an air like that? But no one had thrown mud athim! Aymar gave his friend an unforgettable look and held out his hand once more. "Adieu!" he said again. Laurent wrung the hand hard. "I shall follow!" he repeated, slowly and clearly, in English.
The next moment the door was locked again, the tramp of feet was dying away, and Laurent was alone—alone in the room which never yet, save for a short space yesterday, had he known destitute of Aymar's presence.