I BURN MY BRIDGES
If I live to be a hundred, and it is not improbable since I am healthy,
I shall never forget that little garden at the inn at Bleau. It was a
vegetable garden too, which is not in itself romantic. I recall vaguely
that there were beds all about us, which in due course would doubtless
sprout into rows of pale green objects--peas and artichokes, or beans
and cabbages maybe; I don’t know, I am sure. But then, there was the
stream running just outside the wall of masonry; there was the sky,
flushing with that faint, very delicate, very lovely pink that an early
spring morning brings in France; there was the quaint building, wrapped
up in slumber, beside us; and in the air a silent, fragrant dimness, the
promise of the dawn.
And then there was the girl. I suppose that was the main thing. Not that
I felt sentimental. I should have scouted the notion. If I meant to fall
in love,--which, I should have said, I had no idea of doing,--I would
certainly not begin the process in this unheard-of spot. No; it was
simply that the whole business of caring for Miss Esme Falconer had
suddenly devolved upon my shoulders; and that instead of my feeling
bored, or annoyed, or exasperated at the prospect, my spirits rose
inexplicably to face the need.
Here, if ever, was the time for the questions I had planned last
evening. But I didn’t ask them; I knew I should never ask them. In those
few long unforgetable moments when I stood in the gallery and wondered
whether she were living, my point of view had altered. I was through
with suspecting her; I was prepared to laugh at evidence, however
damning. As for the men in the gray car and their detailed accusations,
I didn’t give--well, a loud outcry in the infernal regions for them. I
knew the standards of the land they served, and I had seen their work
this morning. If they were French officers, I would do France a service
by going after them with a gun.
The girl had sunk down on the ancient bench beside me. Her eyes, wide
and distressed, yet resolute, went to my heart. Not a figure, I thought
again, for this atmosphere of intrigue and secrecy and danger. Rather a
girl, beautiful, brilliant, spirited, to be shielded from every jostle
of existence; the sort of girl whom men hold it a test of manhood to
protect from even the most passing discomfiture!
But time was moving apace. We must settle on something in short order. I
spoke in the most matter-of-fact tones that I could summon, not, heaven
knows, out of a feeling of levity concerning what had happened, but to
try to lighten the grim business a degree or so and keep us sane.
“I think, Miss Falconer,” I began, standing before her, “that we
have got to thrash this matter out at last. You think I’ve behaved
unspeakably, trailing you everywhere, and I don’t deny I have, according
to your point of view. But the fact is, I didn’t follow you to annoy
you; I’m a half-way decent fellow. You have simply got to trust me until
I’ve seen you through this tangle. After that, if you like you need
never look at me again.”
Her troubled eyes rested on me, half bewildered.
“Why, I’d forgotten all that,” she murmured. “I do trust you, Mr. Bayne.
Of course I must have misunderstood you to some way last evening, and
I’m afraid I was disagreeable.”
“Naturally. You had to be. Now, if that’s all right and I’m forgiven,
may I ask a question? About those men who arrived last night and
apparently killed your chauffeur--can you guess who they are?”
“Yes,” she faltered, looking down at the pebbled walk. “They must have
been sent by the Government or the army or the police. If the French
knew what I was doing, they wouldn’t understand my motives. I’ve been
afraid from the first that they would learn.”
Another of my precious theories was going up in smoke. Not seeing why a
set of bonafide officers should gratuitously murder a chauffeur, I had
been wondering whether the quartet might not be impostors, tricked out
in uniforms to which they had no claim. Still, of course, I couldn’t
judge. If she would only confide in me! I was fairly aching to help her;
yet how could I, in this blindfold way?
“I don’t wish to be impertinent,” I ventured at length, meekly, “and I
give you my word I’m not trying to find out anything you don’t want
me to. Only, assuming I’ve got some sense,--in case you care to be so
amiable,--I’d like to put it at your service. Do you think you could
give me just a vague outline of your plans?”
She looked at me in a piteous, uncertain manner. I braced myself for
a “No.” Then, suddenly, she seemed to decide to trust me--in sheer
desperate loneliness, I dare say.
“I am going,” she whispered, “to a village in the war zone--where there
is a chateau. There are things in it--some papers; at least I believe
there are. It is just a chance, just a forlorn hope; but it means
all the world to certain people. I have to act in secret till I have
succeeded, and then every one in France, every one on earth may know all
that I have done!”
If I had not burned my bridges, this announcement might have worried me;
it was too vague, and what little I grasped tallied startlingly with Van
Blarcom’s rigmarole. However, having bowed allegiance, I didn’t blink an
eyelid.
“Yes,” I said encouragingly. “Is it very far?”
Her eyes went past me anxiously, watching the inn and its blank windows,
as she fumbled in her coat and brought forth a motor map.
“Take it,” she breathed, thrusting it toward me. “Look at it. Do you
see? The route in red!”
As I realized the astounding thing I choked down an exclamation. There,
beneath my finger, lay the village of Bleau, a tiny dot; and from it,
straight into the war zone, the traced line ran through Le Moreau and
Croix-le-Valois and St. Remilly; ran to--what was the name? I spelled it
out: P-r-e-z-e-l-a-y.
Though it was early in the game to be a wet blanket, I found myself
gasping.
“But,” I protested weakly, “you can’t do that! It’s in the war
country; it’s forbidden territory. One has to have safe-conducts,
_laissez-passers_, all sorts of documents to get into that part of
France.”
“I didn’t come unprepared,” she answered stubbornly. “Before I started
I knew just what I should need. I can get as far as the hospital at
Carrefonds; and Carrefonds is beyond Prezelay, ten miles nearer to the
Front!”
“But--” The monosyllable was distinctly tactless.
She straightened, challenging me with brave, defiant eyes.
“I know,” she flashed. “You mean it looks suspicious. Well, it does;
and if I told you everything, it would look more suspicious still. You
shouldn’t have followed me; when they learn that we both spent the night
here they will think you are my--my accomplice. The best advice I can
give you, Mr. Bayne, is to go away.”
“Perhaps we had better,” I agreed stolidly. I had deserved the outburst.
“Shall we be off at once, before the servants come downstairs?”
She drew back, her eyes widening.
“We?” she repeated.
“Naturally!” I replied, with some temper. “I _must_ have disgusted
you last night. What sort of a miserable, spineless, cowardly, caddish
travesty of a man do you take me for, to think I would let you go
alone?”
“Please don’t joke,” she urged. “It simply isn’t possible. You would get
into trouble with the French Government, and--”
“Do you know,” I grinned, “it is rather exhilarating to snap one’s
fingers at governments? Just see what success I made of it with Great
Britain and Italy, on the ship!”
“You don’t realize what you are laughing at,” she pleaded. “It is
dangerous.”
“I won’t disgrace you. I seldom tremble visibly, Miss Falconer, though I
often shake inside.”
Her great gray eyes were glowing mistily.
“Mr. Bayne, this is splendid of you. I--I shall go on more bravely
because you have been so kind. But I won’t let you make such a sacrifice
or mix in a thing that others may think disloyal, treacherous. You know
how it looks. Why, on the steamer and on the way up to France and even
last evening--you see I’ve guessed now why you followed me--you didn’t
trust me yourself.”
“I know it,” I confessed humbly. “I can’t believe I was such an idiot.
Somebody ought to perform a surgical operation on my brain. I apologize;
I’m down in the dust; I feel like groveling. Won’t you forgive me? I
promise you won’t have to do it twice.”
This time it was she who said: “But--” and paused uncertainly. I could
see she was wavering, and I massed my horse, foot, and dragoons for the
attack.
“You’ll please consider me,” I proclaimed firmly, “to be a tyrant. I
am so much bigger than you are that you can’t possibly drive me off. I
don’t mean to interfere or to ask questions, or to bother you. But I vow
I’m coming with you if I cling to the running-board!”
Her lashes fluttered as she racked her brains for new protests.
“The car is a French make,” she urged,--“which you couldn’t drive--”
“I can drive any car with four wheels!” I exclaimed vaingloriously.
“It’s kismet, Miss Falconer; it’s the hand of Providence, no less. Now,
we’ll leave these notes in the _salle a manger_ to pay for our lodging,
which would have been dear at twopence, and be off, if you please, for
Prezelay.”
She had yielded. We were standing side by side in the silence of the
morning, the dimness fading round us, the air taking a golden tinge.
My surroundings were plebeian; my costume was comic; yet I felt oddly
uplifted.
“Jolly old garden, isn’t it?” said I.