"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__.
(1)
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 the
_Vicar 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.
(2)
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.
(3)
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!"
"If _you_ were--yes!"
"But I was only an aide-de-camp," faltered Laurent.
"The more lucky you! _You_ had 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 the _jartier_ is 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."
"The _jartier_!" 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 the
_jartier_ had 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 he _could_ not 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.
(4)
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.
"Not _here_, 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 the _Locustidae_ in 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 on
_me_!"
"_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!"
(5)
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.
(6)
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 instead _The 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 flung _The
Vicar of Wakefield_ violently on his bed. His action had at least the
result of rousing Aymar, for it made him jump.
(7)
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, shooting _is_ too
good for me!"
(8)
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.
He _did_ mean 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
which _he_ would 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 cost _is_ too 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. "I _shall_ see 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 at
_him_! 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.