THE ESCAPE.
There were not as many visitors as usual that season in Lintz, and those
who did come were mostly English or French, who did not spend their
money as freely as the Americans were accustomed to do, so that it was a
matter of rejoicing to the master of the Rother Krebs when one afternoon
in October the stage brought from the station two passengers whom, with
his quick eye, he set down as Americans, and bustled out to meet them,
deciding that they were people who would not stand for a few thalers
more or less. Beatrice was very tired, for they had not stopped at all
since landing in Liverpool, but had crossed at once to the Continent,
and traveled day and night until they reached Lintz, where Yulah was
waiting for them. She had sought and obtained the situation as
chambermaid in the hotel, and, like the master, had watched impatiently
for Americans, though from a very different reason. And when _her_
Americans came, she knew them as if by instinct, taking Mr. Morton,
however, for Everard, and feeling greatly disappointed when she learned
that it was a Mr. and Mrs. Morton, who were occupying No. —, the great
room in the house where princes had dined and slept. Still, something
told her that Beatrice was the lady she was looking for, and when the
latter retired to her room after dinner she found a sad-faced woman
pretending to be busy with something about the washstand, though
everything seemed in its place. Suddenly she faced about, and the eyes
of the two women met and looked into each other with an eager,
questioning gaze.
“You are Yulah,” Beatrice said, in German, and the girl answered with a
cry of joy, “Yes, and you are the Lady Beatrice she talks so much about,
and he is not Mr. Everard.”
“No, my husband, Mr. Morton. We were married just before we sailed.
Where is she? When did you see her last, and how soon can we have her?
Will they let her go without any trouble, and what are we to do?”
Beatrice asked her questions so rapidly as to confuse and bewilder the
girl, who shook her head, and answered in English:
“You ask so many, I don’t know quite all. But I go to-morrow and tell
her, and see how we can do best. He will never let her go, there is too
much money in her. That doctor pay big sums. We must take her, that’s
all, and be so careful. You stay here till I come or send some word: not
to-morrow, but next day, perhaps. I not talk more now. I be at my
duties.”
She left the room then, and Beatrice saw no more of her until the day
but one following, when about dark she came into the room, flushed and
excited, and evidently a little shaken out of her usual quiet, composed
manner. She had been to Haelder-Strauchsen; she had seen Rossie, but had
not told her of her friends’ arrival.
“I did not dare,” she said, “she’s so weak and sick, no heart, no
courage, but stands by the window all the day, looking to the west, and
whispering, sometimes, ‘Oh, Everard, why do you not come, and I waiting
so long?’ But we’ll get her sure. God fixed it for us, and he,—the
doctor, I mean,—is awful with something they think is cholera, and all
is fright and confusion, for the nurses is afraid and leaving, and Miss
Rossie’s attendant is glad to have me take her place. So I am going back
to-morrow, and you must go with me and stay in the town a mile away,
until I send or bring you word what you do next. You are not afraid of
cholera? Americans mostly is.”
Bee _was_ mortally afraid of it, but she would have faced death itself
for the sake of recovering Rossie, and it was arranged that they should
take the boat the next day for the little town near the _Maison de
Sante_, where Yulah told them there was a comfortable inn, where they
could remain in quiet as long as they liked. Travelers, especially
Americans, often stopped there, she said, and their being there would
awaken no suspicion. Accordingly, the next afternoon found them
occupants of a pleasant chamber in the inn, with an outlook to the river
and another to the road which led out to _La Maison de Sante_. Yulah had
come with them on the boat as a second-class passenger, and had held no
communication whatever with them, lest suspicion might in some way be
aroused; and immediately after landing had taken the road to the
Sanitarium, while Beatrice tried in vain to keep composed and quiet, and
await the turn of events. That she should actually see Rossie that night
she could not realize, and when about dark a note was brought her by a
little boy, her limbs trembled so violently, and she felt so faint and
giddy, as to be scarcely able to read it.
The note was as follows:
“Have a big carriage at the south gate, one little ways off, at eleven
to-night. Get Michel Fahen,—he my friend; this his little boy; he keep
the carriages.”
That seemed to bring Rossie very near, and Bee’s face was white as ashes
as she questioned the boy, who said Michael Fahen was his father, and
rented carriages to people, and if she liked he would bring him to the
room. Michel was a powerfully-built man, who looked as if he could keep
a whole army at bay by the sheer strength of his fists, and when told
what was wanted of him, or rather that he was to wait with them near the
south gate of the _Maison de Sante_ at eleven that night, shot at them a
keen, quick glance of intelligence and comprehension which made Beatrice
sick with fear, lest, after all, they should fail. But his words and
manner were reassuring. He could guess what they wanted, and he was the
man to do it. He did not believe in the place; there were many there who
ought to be out. Yes, he’d help her; he’d drive them to Vienna, if
necessary; he knew the south gate, in the rear of the house, opening on
a lonesome and unfrequented road.
“And I shall succeed,” he said. “Michel Fahen never fails; arms strong,
horses fleet, and Yulah cunning as the very ——.”
His confidence in himself inspired them with confidence in him, and at
the time appointed they were in his carriage, and entering the narrow
road which lay to the rear of the _Maison de Sante_, and more than a
quarter of a mile distant. That portion of the grounds was filled with
trees and shrubbery, and was not often used either for convenience or
pleasure by the inmates of the house, the chimneys of which were by
daylight just perceptible through the tall, thick trees.
Bee could see nothing in the darkness except the occasional glimmer of a
light moving from point to point, as she sat, half-fainting with nervous
fear and impatience, while the clock in the tower told first the hour of
eleven, and then the quarter, and then the half, and then,—surely there
was a footstep in the direction of the gate, and a voice she recognized
as Yulah’s called softly, “Michel, Michel, are you there? Help me lift
her; she is dead, or fainted, and I’ve brought her all the way.”
“Can one of you hold my horses?” Michel asked, and in an instant
Beatrice was at their heads, patting, and caressing, and talking to them
in the language all brutes recognize, whether in English or German,
while Mr. Morton and Michel were at the gate, which was high and locked,
and over which they lifted bodily a figure which lay perfectly
motionless in the arms of Michel, who bore it to the carriage, and laid
it down gently, but not until Beatrice, with a woman’s forethought, had
made sure who it was.
She had risked too much to be disappointed now, and bidding Michel wait
a moment, she struck a match with which she had prepared herself, and
holding it close to the inanimate form in his arms, saw the face she
knew, but so white, and worn, and still, with the long, curling lashes
lasting on the pallid cheeks, where tears and suffering had left their
traces in dark, purplish rings, that with a gasping cry she said: “Oh,
Theo, it’s Rossie, but dead; I am sure she is dead.”
“Now, Michel, drive for your life!” Yulah exclaimed, as she sprang to
the box beside him, after having seen Rossie carefully lifted into the
carriage, where she lay supported mostly by Mr. Morton, though her head
was in Beatrice’s lap, and Beatrice’s hands were busy unfastening the
waterproof hood, and her tears were flowing like rain on the face which,
even in the darkness, looked ghostly white and corpse-like.
The manner of escape had been as follows: The doctor had died that
afternoon, and as his disease had undoubtedly been cholera in its most
malignant form, great consternation had prevailed in the building among
the employees, some of whom had left, and most of whom kept as far as
possible from the wing where he had died, and where Rossie’s room was
situated. Yulah alone was fearless, and came and went as usual, in her
capacity of attendant in place of Margotte, who had fled to the town. To
prevent contagion, it was thought best to bury the body at midnight,
with as little ceremony as possible, and thus everything was in
confusion, of which Yulah took advantage. She was very popular in the
house, and when she asked permission to go out for the evening and take
one of the nurses with her, it was readily granted her, with the
injunction that she should wait until her patient was asleep, or at
least quiet for the night. To this she readily assented, saying that she
would lock her in the room so as to prevent the possibility of her
venturing into the hall while the body was being removed. This arranged,
her next business was to prepare Rossie, who had recently sunk into a
state of despondency amounting almost to insanity itself, and who spent
most of her time sitting or standing by the window, with her face toward
the setting sun, and such a hopeless, weary expression upon it as was
very touching to see. She was standing thus, although it was already too
dark to see more than the lights in the distant town, when Yulah came
hurriedly in, and, bolting the door, went up to her and said, in broken
English:
“Cheer up, petite, joy and glad at last. They are come; they here for
you!”
“Not Everard! Oh, has he come?” and a low cry broke from Rossie’s
quivering lips.
But Yulah stifled it at once by putting her hand over her mouth, and
saying:
“Careful, much careful. They must not hear. I fix it for you, and you be
still and listen.”
Very rapidly she told her that Mrs. Morton and her husband, whom she
called anything but Morton, were at the inn waiting for them, and
detailed her plan of escape, to which Rossie listened in a kind of
apathetic way, which showed that she did not clearly comprehend what was
meant, or who was waiting for her. Certainly she never thought of
Beatrice, but she understood that all she had to do was to obey orders,
and taking the seat which Yulah bade her take, she sat as immovable as a
stone, with her great, black eyes following every movement of her nurse,
who, alarmed at last at their expression and the rigid attitude of the
figure, which scarcely seemed to breathe, tried to rouse her to
something like sense and feeling, but all in vain.
One idea and one alone had possession of Rossie. If she would escape she
must be _still_, and she sometimes held her breath lest she should be
heard by the men, who, at the far end of the long hall, were passing in
and out of the room where the dead body lay. No one came near No. —, or
paid any attention when, about half-past ten, two female figures emerged
from the door,—one wrapped in a blue waterproof, with the hood drawn
closely over the face; the other unmistakably Yulah, who, locking the
door behind her and putting the key in her pocket, hurried with her
companion down the two long flights of stairs, and through a back,
winding piazza, to the rear of the house, where the door she had
unfastened an hour before stood partly open, and through which she went,
dragging her companion after her. It was literally dragging until the
safety of the thick shrubbery was reached, when Rossie gave out and sank
down at Yulah’s feet unconscious, and fainted entirely away. To add to
Yulah’s alarm, there was a sound of footsteps near. Somebody was in the
wood besides herself, and she waited breathlessly until the sound ceased
in the distance, as the person or persons, for there seemed to be two,
hurried on. Then, taking Rossie in her arms, she made what progress she
could, groping through the dark and underbrush, as she dared not keep to
the path. But the gate was reached at last, and with Michel’s strong
hands to help, Rossie was lifted over it and into the carriage, which
was driven rapidly in the direction of the nearest railway station.