"Il est tard, nous voici dans la forêt; vois-tu comme elle est noire?
Nous aurons de la peine à nous en tirer."--_Le Mercure Galant_.
(1)
. . . Was that the cuckoo? No, it must be a gull . . . and that other
sound was the breaking waves. The voice had ceased.
So Laurent left the Bois des Fauvettes and woke, through the sense of
hearing, to his actual surroundings. He shivered, and withdrew his
hands from his face. Aymar, paler than he had yet seen him since he
left his bed, his eyes sunk in their sockets, was staring past him at
the wall of the cave. There could be no doubt that he also had been, in
spirit, in that ill-omened wood--with this difference, that two months
before he had likewise been there in the body. What could one say--what
could one say?
And it was Aymar who broke the silence now. "The rest you know," he
said. His voice was extremely quiet, but between his knees his hands
were so tightly clasped together that it looked as if they must break
each other.
_The rest!_ Why, the first thing of which he was really fully conscious,
after that dreadful finish in the wood, must have been Guitton's
nightmare visit. . . . "Yes. The rest I----" Laurent got out huskily,
and, for the life of him, could say no more. So, after a second or
two's silence, he got up with a gesture of absolute desperation and
went out of the cave.
His head was spinning with relief and horror and shame. Oh, how _could_
he have doubted him for an instant! Of course there was an explanation!
But what a story--what a tangle! There was no real culprit, after all.
L'Oiseleur's men had been betrayed by Fate; but Fate had used his hand
in so cruel a manner that he would never be able to deny the fact,
though the intention had been as remote as the farthest star. And,
across the midst of a relief so intense that Laurent's body almost
shook with it, cut the dismayed realization of how difficult it was
going to be for Aymar to avoid the stigma, if any one chose to fasten
it on him.
But what, for all his passion of sympathy, he never realized, was that
while he stood in the open regaining his composure--not more than three
or four minutes--Aymar himself was waiting for his verdict. In
Laurent's mind was rather the consciousness of his own need of pardon,
and, when the air had steadied him, he went in again with some idea of
seeking that forgiveness immediately.
But Aymar was no longer sitting on the rough bed. He lay face downwards
across the sailcloth and the seaweed, one arm crooked above his head,
the other, the injured one, flung out straight and stiffly. The hands
of both were tightly clenched. And his attitude held such an utter
despair that it took Laurent by the throat; this was what even the
telling of that story had cost him!
"Aymar," he began. There was no sign of movement in the prostrate
figure, except that the hands clenched themselves a little tighter
still. But a barely recognizable voice came from it. "If you are come
to take farewell of me . . . you are excused. Go quickly!"
And at that Laurent saw what he had done. He threw himself on his knees
and bent over him, seizing the rigid, outflung hand in a grip as tense
as its own.
"Aymar! Aymar! forgive me! How _could_ you think such a thing! I went
out--imbecile that I was--because I was afraid of making a fool of
myself . . . because I could not say what I felt. . . . Aymar, for
God's sake! What have you to reproach yourself with--except the most
damnable ill-luck? . . . Oh, mon ami, look at me, and you will see that
I am speaking the naked truth!"
But Aymar did not look at him. His shoulders moved suddenly, he brought
his bent left arm under his forehead as he lay there, and in a moment
more Laurent de Courtomer had the dubious satisfaction of accomplishing
what neither physical pain nor prolonged mental torture, neither the
catastrophe of the Bois des Fauvettes nor the contempt and insults of
the Château d'Arbelles had been able to bring about. L'Oiseleur had had
just one turn of the screw too much, and that from the hand which would
least have desired to hurt him. With its relaxation he broke down
completely.
(2)
Occasional glimpses taken over his shoulder, as Michel Royer pulled into
shore near the "Panier" that afternoon, conveyed to him the impression
of two forms lying on the beach between the cave and the edge of the
water; and when he had clambered out of his boat and pulled it up, he
found that his impression was perfectly correct. One of the young men
he had guided overnight--the fair-haired one who wore uniform--was half
sitting, half lying, against a small rock; the other was lying at full
length on the sand with his head propped against him. They seemed so
engrossed in conversation that they did not hear his approach.
He cleared his throat as he got nearer, and on that the young man
sitting against the rock did turn his head. The other made no movement.
"Here is our host--if that is the correct term," he heard the former
say. "Good afternoon, Monsieur Royer. To what do we owe this pleasure?"
"I remembered that there was no wine," said the fisherman, holding up a
piece of old fishing-net. "I have brought ye a bottle; and a rare good
ham, and another loaf or two. And I weren't easy in my mind about your
friend there--him that's hurt."
He that was hurt said quietly, "I am perfectly well this afternoon,
thank you, Monsieur Royer." And Michel saw the other look down at him
with a smile.
"I've come also, gentlemen," went on the old man, setting down his net,
and mysteriously dropping his voice, "because I've something to tell ye
which, if it's true--and mind ye, it mayn't be--will likely do ye both
a power of good. They are saying in Sarzeau, so we hear this morning,
that the Emperor's had a great defeat at some place I don't mind the
name of, and his army's all to bits, and retreating."
"But the last we heard was of a victory won by him on the sixteenth!"
cried the young officer. His friend had suddenly raised himself from
his recumbent position. But for all their questions Mercury could tell
them no more, and presently departed, as he came, by sea, himself only
half believing that his information was correct, and not knowing that
what he had just carried was the news of Waterloo.
"This may be true, or it may not," opined Laurent at length; "at any
rate, I am going to have a swim on the strength of it. Take care of my
clothes for me!"
He stripped them off hastily, ran down the beach, and plunged in. Aymar
looked after him with a smile. When the swimmer came back, laughing and
dripping, L'Oiseleur said thoughtfully, "There must be something in
this news. If it is true, perhaps we need not stay here long."
"Yes," agreed Laurent, rubbing his face with his handkerchief, "but we
can't move till we know something more definite. Meanwhile"--he hurried
into his clothes--"let us go and eat. I am hungry. We will even drink
to the news in the stuff Royer has brought."
Aymar's arm was over his shoulder as they went towards the cave. At the
entrance he suddenly removed it, and said in a rather unsteady voice,
". . . I find it so hard to believe. . . . Oh, mon ami, are you merely
trying to comfort me when you say you hold me justified, when you say
you would have done the same in my place? Is it true, Laurent, or is it
only your good heart?"
And, his face as pale as ivory against the darkness within, he looked at
him with eyes that pierced and supplicated at the same time. Laurent
threw down the net of provisions and seized his available hand in both
his own.
"Aymar, on my honour as a gentleman! Have I not said so enough? You have
brooded over this thing till you are morbid about it. I don't wonder.
But, given what went before, the almost completed plan on the one hand
and a woman's life at stake on the other, I should have done the same.
So would any man. If you will not believe me, what am I to do? Call you
out for it?"
Aymar freed his hand and put it on his shoulder. "Did I not say that no
man ever had a friend like you?"
"But it isn't friendship, it's common sense!" retorted Laurent stoutly.
". . . Oh, saints and angels, I have broken the bottle of wine!"
(3)
There was a moon that night. She had the air of sailing fast out to sea
like an enchanted ship, for light clouds were blowing inland at a great
rate, giving her all the effect of nimble motion. And after her, in a
lake of blue, swam Jupiter, following like a pinnace.
"What a night!" exclaimed Laurent, standing at the mouth of the cave.
"Aymar, go to bed!"
"Why should I?" demanded his friend, who was sitting there also. "Why
should I, too, not enjoy this spectacle? And I was thinking."
Laurent removed his gaze from the heavens.
"Thinking, for one thing," went on Aymar reflectively, "what a fool I
was not to have told you all this earlier. It is always a mistake to be
a coward, Laurent. But I could not bring myself to it. I could not tell
the story in a word or two without producing a false impression either
one way or the other, and . . . well, you see that in giving the
necessary details I have told you things about myself that I never
thought to tell any one in the world. . . . Yet I hated taking all you
did for me at Arbelles, and accepting your championship, when you did
not know the truth. Day after day I said to myself that
_to-morrow_--and then Guitton put an end to to-morrows."
"Not to speak of the fact," commented Laurent, "that at Arbelles you
were never within a mile of being fit to embark on that story. Nor at
La Baussaine either, if it comes to that."
"On the contrary, I nearly told you when we were sitting under the pear
tree. But this was too recent," he looked down at his bandaged arm,
"and you had taken it so ridiculously to heart. It would have given me
an unfair advantage."
"Oh, Aymar, you really are----" "_sans tache_, like your motto," was on
Laurent's lips, but he did not say it aloud.
"No," said L'Oiseleur, looking up with a smile, "in this case I was not
really a fool, as I suppose you were going to call me. You were too
émotionné that afternoon to be capable of judging anything
dispassionately. You admitted as much this morning."
"Perhaps so," replied Laurent, who had in fact made a clean breast of
everything. "But I was certainly not going to call you a fool just now.
I should never dare! Have you any idea, L'Oiseleur, how unapproachable
you can make yourself when you wish?"
"How intolerable, I suppose you mean? But I am not being that now, am I?
Those first days at Arbelles, however----" He broke off, and looked up
at him keenly. "Now, confess, Laurent, that I did not make your task
easy for you!"
"It was, perhaps, a little like nursing a porcupine," acknowledged the
nurse, smiling. "You _would_ not let me show what I felt. But now that
I know what you had just been through, I wonder you did not go out of
your mind."
Aymar looked away. "I think I was pretty near it once or twice," he said
after a moment, "or I could not have felt, as I did, that everyone in
the world was against me--even you. Sometimes I used to dream that it
was all a dream--a nightmare. Then I would wake up . . . still in the
nightmare. So--I suppose I wanted to hurt someone, too!" He turned his
eyes on Laurent again. "Yet you stayed, and put up with it--and with
all my subsequent tiresomeness, too! For though I know you have
forgiven me for those early days, what about yesterday evening?"
"Yesterday evening?" exclaimed Laurent. What had happened in that remote
epoch, yesterday evening?
"Yes, yesterday evening, when I sat in a ditch and refused to stir, and
you had to use . . . drastic measures! If I can be unapproachable as
you call it, you can certainly be severe, mon ami!"
"Oh, do let's forget about yesterday evening!" cried Laurent, flushing
in the moonlight.
"Agreed!" said Aymar, laughing. "As a matter of fact, I don't remember
much about the latter part of it. Between trying to come to a decision
about the future which I had not expected to have to take for days yet,
and the jolting of that infernal cart, I really had such a headache
that I could hardly see. You observe that I am not too proud to make
excuses--to _you_."
Laurent suddenly sat down by him. "And what excuses am I to make," he
said, averting his face, "for my horrible blindness of this morning?
When I saw what I had done, I could have beaten my head against the
cave wall."
Aymar put his hand over his. "Never mind. It is the only time you have
ever failed--and I daresay I should have made it clearer to you that I
was absolutely on the rack till I knew what you thought . . . I don't
mind telling you now--only do not let us talk of it again--that in
those few minutes, or hours, or whatever they were, when I thought you
had thrown me over, I saw a third and much simpler alternative to those
of leaving France or staying to face the future. If you had deserted me
I should have done what you did this afternoon, Laurent--I should have
gone for a swim. . . . But I should not have come back again."
Laurent, hearing the sincerity of that intention in the quiet voice,
turned rather pale. Had so much, then, hung on _his_ verdict? He was
very far indeed from elation; he had never felt more humble in his
life.
"But that would have seemed like a confession of guilt," he murmured,
hardly knowing what he said.
"Yes, I know. But I am guilty--in fact, if not in intention."
"My dear Aymar, don't let us go over all that again now! I am sleepy, if
you are not." He got up and held out his hand. "Do you think I had
better look at your arm again before we turn in?"
Aymar got up, too, shaking his head. "It is quite comfortable."
"You are such a confounded liar about yourself," retorted Laurent,
confronting him, "that I never know when to believe you! That worst
burn, when I looked at it this morning . . . I wish M. Perrelet----" He
stopped, seeing the swift pain on Aymar's face, and then plunged boldly
into the subject. "Aymar, what is to be done about Père Perrelet?"
Aymar pushed at the sand with his foot. "Nothing can be done. For him I
am condemned out of my own mouth." He sighed suddenly. "Let us go to
bed."
As they were both dropping off to sleep Laurent said, "Aymar, I have an
idea. Will you give me leave to write to M. Perrelet?"
"To write what?"
"To tell him that whatever he heard that night was not the whole truth.
That I know it all now, and can assure him that it is not a
dishonourable story, as he must have thought."
"And as he made you think," finished L'Oiseleur drily. Then, after a
little silence, he added, "My dear fellow, he would only conclude,
either that I had been telling you lies, or that you were very
impressionable."
"Aymar, he may be impulsive, but you know that he was extraordinarily
fond of you," said Laurent with reproach in his voice. "I think that
was why he was so upset."
"Well, write me a certificate then," replied Aymar. Then he dropped his
caustic tone, and said quite simply, "You can do whatever you think
best, my dear Laurent. I owe him so much that if it would be any
compensation to him to have a better opinion of me again I should be
glad." And he added, with a deep sigh, as if to himself, "There is a
letter that _I_ ought to have written many days ago."
Laurent woke about an hour later, when the moon was shining straight
into their refuge. He thought of last night, and gave a long sigh of
relief and contentment; and the next moment, though he had believed
Aymar asleep, a hand stole into his, and he gripped it in return. There
was no need of words, and none were spoken; but when Laurent went to
sleep again his friend's hand was still in his.
(4)
As even the most epoch-making news is not conveyed to the brain of man
by a special sense, but through the medium of other men and their
devices, the couple in the "Panier" remained for the next two days
ignorant not only of Wellington's and Blucher's victory, but of
Napoleon's brief visit to Paris, his abdication, the march of the
English and Prussians towards the capital, and all the doings which
were stirring their countrymen. For Royer had not visited them again.
In the meantime, however, they had plenty to occupy them--plenty of
points to debate. Aymar had quite made up his mind to remain in France,
and face whatever the future had to bring. For one thing, he felt that
he must set himself to repair, as best he could, the calamity which he
had brought on his men, by providing for the welfare of the maimed and
assisting the families of the killed. Laurent, whom the very mention of
the Eperviers roused to fury, soon realized, however, with relief, that
his purpose applied only to those actually captured or killed at
Pont-aux-Rochers or their kindred. Yet to supply their probable needs
alone he began rather alarmedly to foresee Aymar's all but ruining
himself--for he was not a rich man.
As for ruin in the other sense, Laurent contended that it was impossible
to imagine that their own side could believe the story about him,
L'Oiseleur, though the Bonapartists had naturally been only too glad to
have a handle against a foe. To any Royalist who asked for an
explanation Aymar could say, with perfect truth, that the scheme was a
ruse which had miscarried; Laurent only wondered that he had never made
this retort to his accusers at Arbelles. But Aymar had replied that on
"that horrible Friday" he had not the breath, and that when Guitton
sent for him he was not in the mood for justifying himself. ("No,"
thought Laurent, "you are rather too much inclined never to be in that
mood, my friend!")
The fact that the explanation had not satisfied his own lieutenant was
palpably because de Fresne knew that there was a bargain involved; so
long as the bargain idea did not get about, Laurent contended that the
explanation proposed ought to prove perfectly satisfactory. But, as
Aymar pointed out, there was no guarantee whatever that it would not
get about, that it had not already done so, in fact--and worse, that
the real nature of the bargain might not come out. That, objected
Laurent stoutly, did not make it, in his opinion, worse; it was not a
disreputable compact; it was to save a woman. And on that he elicited
from L'Oiseleur his deep desire to keep from Mme de Villecresne the
knowledge that she had been, most unwittingly, the cause of the whole
miserable business. That desire the young man could understand, but
when his friend asserted that she would further dislike the ethics of
the whole affair, and be horror-struck that he could take so great a
risk for any woman's life--even though it were hers--M. de Courtomer
privately disbelieved him.
But at any rate there could be no doubt that Aymar was willing to
sacrifice almost anything to keep the secret from coming to his
cousin's ears; what agitated him was the thought that she might already
have learnt it. To comfort him, Laurent pointed out that even "that
devil" at Arbelles had no idea of what the bargain was, and that he,
Laurent, had been told in early days that Richard's own officers had
not known it, which looked as if Richard had kept his mouth shut. But
Aymar's fervent wish that he could ensure Richard's keeping his mouth
shut in perpetuity he dismissed as a thing scarcely in the realm of the
practicable. And there was always the danger of the Marquis de
Vaubernier's letting out something. Although he had solemnly sworn
secrecy he was, as Aymar acknowledged, really more dangerous than
Richard, who had not. Over the possibility of Vaubernier's indiscretion
he worked himself up into such a fever that Laurent agreed to their
starting for Sessignes at the first possible moment. And they waited
with growing impatience for news from Port-Marie which might enable
them to leave the cave in safety, for if the tidings of the Emperor's
defeat had been confirmed, it might possibly have rid the district of
the Imperialists.
If this were so, it would make Laurent's contemplated journey to
Sessignes less risky (especially if he discarded his uniform), for to
accompany Aymar home he was determined. No arguments would move him
from his resolve, and when Aymar spoke of his military obligations in
Vendée, he shamelessly retorted, first, that they could not know, the
other side of the Loire, but that he was still a prisoner; secondly,
that d'Autichamp had prophesied he should never get back from Brittany,
and had given him leave, in that event, to join a Breton leader; and
thirdly, that in this respect he had obeyed d'Autichamp to the letter,
and was now going to carry out the duties of his position. So when, on
the afternoon of the second day, Royer brought them the authentic news
of the great victory of the 18th of June, they resolved to start on the
morrow, travelling by easy stages.
It was true that, though the period which they were afterwards to know
as the Hundred Days was over, hostilities were not. In the west neither
side had disbanded; they were watching each other; and in some
districts of Brittany fighting was still going on. But in others the
Imperialists were withdrawing, and Arbelles was said to have been
evacuated already. Royer undertook to procure a vehicle of some kind in
Port-Marie, but a change of attire such as M. de Courtomer would have
consented to wear was not to be had. However, they proposed in any case
not to start till the afternoon, and to travel only as far as the
little town of Sarzeau, where they would sleep the night, and where
Laurent could supply this want.
"So that we may hope you will be at Sessignes on Tuesday," he remarked
to Aymar. "And then, at last, you can be properly looked after."
"And I can also begin my campaign of deception," returned Aymar. "I
cannot tell them the whole truth, Laurent, so I shall have to lie . . .
and they will believe me." He stared at the sea--they were just outside
the cave--and added, "The person in the whole world whom I most abhor
the idea of lying to is just the one person to whom I can never tell
the real, the full truth."
Laurent said nothing, but he could not help wondering whether it would
not really be better for his friend to follow his own instincts and
conceal nothing from . . . that person. But in so delicate a matter he
could hardly proffer unsought advice.
(5)
When Laurent first saw that afternoon the ramshackle conveyance in the
similitude of a chaise which waited for them at the famous turning
under the chestnuts he thought--and said--that it would never take them
even as far as Sarzeau. And though the ancient postilion fixed Lyons or
Marseilles as the goal of which it was, on the contrary, capable,
Laurent was right. The wheel did not, it is true, actually leave the
axle, but its intention of shortly doing so was clear enough. Hence the
prophet of disaster found himself, towards dusk, a mile and a half out
from Sarzeau, trying to help the postilion render the last services to
the worn-out linch-pin, and to prevent Aymar from doing the same--Aymar
who would probably now have to walk into Sarzeau before he could sup.
"When this happens in romances," observed the amateur wheelwright
regretfully, "some kind Samaritan usually appears and offers
hospitality."
But it was not till a good twenty minutes later, when the wheel was on
the point of being pronounced good for the short distance, that an
oldish gentleman came walking briskly round the turn of the road, and,
to Laurent's surreptitiously manifested joy, did warmly press them to
sup with him. It seemed that he had witnessed their plight from an
upper window of his house, near by, and had issued forth with that
design, so that, had they wished, it would have been difficult to
reject his invitation.
So the postilion was despatched with the chaise to the inn at Sarzeau to
order them a room, and, as they walked away together, the old gentleman
made himself known to his guests--M. de Lanascol. Aymar and Laurent
named themselves in response, and as his friend did so a slight spasm
of apprehension shot across Laurent's mind: would not the name of La
Rocheterie be known to their host--what might he not have heard? But
either the name meant nothing or M. de Lanascol had heard nothing.
Some half-hour later, in a large room with faded rugs and old-fashioned
furniture, they were awaiting a supper which already announced itself
by an appetizing smell. M. de Lanascol had monarchical sympathies, as
he soon divulged; indeed, having regard to Laurent's unmistakable
uniform, he would hardly have bidden the travellers else. And very
shortly, after due elation over the Allied victory and speculation as
to its ultimate results (since, from what he said, it was by no means
obvious yet what was going to happen in France) he was sounding that
young man, in a well-bred manner, on the fighting he supposed him to
have seen.
"But I have seen none, sir," avowed M. de Courtomer frankly. "I have
been a prisoner since the first of May and have not very long escaped."
"Escaped!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "Ah, you must tell me about
that, Monsieur! A prisoner in Vendée, I suppose, for I am not wrong, I
think, in taking you for a Vendean officer?"
"No, you are quite right. But I was captured in Brittany, after carrying
despatches."
"And on the first of May, I think you said," observed M. de Lanascol.
"Then you had left Vendée before the arrival there of the lamented
Marquis de la Rochejaquelein? Ah, what a loss! There are rumours also,
that since Sunday the Vendeans have lost another fight and another
general. Yes, Vendée has been unfortunate throughout," he finished
regretfully. "Really we have done better here in Brittany. Of course
there have been set-backs, as for instance Sol de Grisolles' defeat at
Auray only five days ago--have you heard of that?--and just about the
time that you were captured, that horrible affair at the bridge of
Pont-aux-Rochers. (But that was due to treachery, as I expect you
know.) Still, Brittany has gathered, I think I may justly say, more
laurels than her sister."
At the mention of the fatal bridge Laurent felt the blood rushing to his
face. He did not look at his companion, and yet he knew that Aymar,
silent in his highbacked seventeenth-century chair, had suddenly gone
rigid. He himself wished with all his heart that they had not accepted
M. de Lanascol's hospitality. And the old gentleman had now transferred
his attention to his other guest.
"And you, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, is it indiscreet. . . ?"
"I have taken part in the campaign, Monsieur," replied Aymar. Even in
that uncomfortable moment Laurent noticed that he did not use the word
"fought." "But, like my friend, I had the misfortune to be made
prisoner near its commencement."
"Indeed!" said M. de Lanascol. "I condole with you. And . . . wounded,
too, I think?" For under his coat Aymar was still wearing his arm in a
sling.
"Yes," said his guest rather hesitatingly. And Laurent trusted that in
his zeal for exactitude he would not think it necessary to explain
further.
"Severely wounded, I am afraid," hazarded M. de Lanascol with
sympathetic interest. "For indeed, Monsieur, if you will pardon the
remark, you look like it. I regret that I did not offer you a glass of
wine on arrival, especially as our supper delays somewhat
unaccountably. May I ring for one now?"
"On no account, thank you, Monsieur. I am perfectly recovered."
His host had his eyes fixed on the clear, pale visage. The daylight
outside had now faded sufficiently to allow full play to the
candelabrum on the table at his elbow, whose radiance struck its own
unmistakable colour out of Aymar's hair.
M. de Lanascol moved suddenly. "Pardon me, again, Monsieur de la
Rocheterie, but if I might presume . . . pray do not take it amiss if I
suggest, that, with your appearance, you should be a little cautious
how you traverse the country round Locmélar. Feeling is very strong
there about the disaster at Pont-aux-Rochers, and though that man
L'Oiseleur was subsequently shot by his own troops for it, it is
rumoured that he is still alive. I once had a glimpse of him, and you
are so . . . you resemble him so strikingly--though, of course, with a
great difference--that I feel a warning. . . . Please believe that I
have no intention of being offensive."
In the arctic, aching silence which succeeded this speech Laurent knew
not whether his own heart-beats or the ticking of the clock were the
louder. Oh, that they were back on the high road, at the inn, anywhere!
Aymar was on his feet. He had not flushed; his colourless face was
unbetraying. "I _am_ . . . L'Oiseleur. As you would evidently not wish
to extend your hospitality to him, Monsieur, I will relieve you of the
necessity."
He made the slightest, most formal inclination of the head, and walked
towards the door. Laurent began hotly, "You are completely misinformed,
Monsieur! There was no----"
But Aymar stopped him with a look, and after a second he turned and
silently followed him out, leaving the old gentleman apparently
petrified in the act of rising from his chair.
The door of the hall stood open, for it was a very warm evening. Without
a word the two went through it, and down the steps and along the
straight wide path to the gates. Venus hung in the west, lovely and
indifferent to human hurts; an owl hooted in the distance. The silence
between them was like heavy metal; what was there in all the world to
say? Desperately Laurent cast about for the phrase that should break
it, but they were walking down the avenue before he brought it out.
"We must go to the inn," he said in an almost unnaturally matter-of-fact
manner. His companion did not reply for a moment. Then he said, still
walking on,
"They may think me too much like 'that man L'Oiseleur' there also." His
voice was curiously flat and toneless. Laurent braced himself to make
his next suggestion.
"Then I will go in and order supper. Our room is ordered."
"Do," replied Aymar in the same expressionless voice. "Supper for
yourself, I mean. I will follow a little later and order mine. You need
not know me."
"Do you really imagine that I----" began Laurent, and then stopped with
a great sigh, and, coming a little nearer as he walked, slid his arm
into Aymar's and gripped it close.
They were late for the table d'hôte supper at the inn, and were served
separately at the side of the room, attracting little notice. Laurent's
head at least was spinning from the blow. His own side! His own side
could believe a thing like that of L'Oiseleur, on hearsay, without
investigation. It had not taken long to give the lie to his own
arguments on that score a few days ago.
Once upstairs alone, in the room which had been reserved for them, Aymar
turned on his companion.
"Laurent, this has got to end! We must say good-bye."
Laurent, already unfastening his uniform, shook his head with a smile.
"I am not going to be dismissed like that!"
"You are not going to be exposed again to what happened this evening!"
"Probably not. It will not happen again. And at any rate I took no
harm."
"Did you enjoy it, then?" asked Aymar, suddenly flaring up. "What do you
think _I_ felt like, seeing you involved in my shame?"
Laurent ceased undressing and looked at him. "If you want me to leave
you on account of your own feelings," he said gently, "I suppose I must
consider it."
There was an oaken coffer standing at the foot of the fourposter bed.
Aymar sat down on it without a word, and covered his eyes with his
hand.
"Must I consider it, Aymar?" asked Laurent after a long pause. (He had
thought he could control his voice better than that.)
"Not if you can . . . bear with me," replied Aymar, in a voice still
less under his own management; and, turning, he hid his face for a
moment against the end of the bed.
Nothing more was said about parting.
(6)
But neither of them woke next day with any very pleasurable
anticipations. And Laurent, when he went out to buy himself some
civilian clothes, ordered a post-chaise for the rest of the journey
rather than face the diligence and the chance of L'Oiseleur's being
recognized; since, as Aymar had already sardonically remarked, "This
cursed red hair of mine makes me a little too conspicuous, does it not?
And if I meet any Royalist officers, who knows whether they may not try
to arrest me?"
The very idea turned Laurent cold. It was not, however, possible to
avoid travellers altogether. And when they took their places at midday
at the one long table in the inn at Piriac they were aware of more than
travellers--Imperialist, not Royalist, officers, three of them, all in
the blue with black facings of the engineers. But a moment's reflection
convinced Laurent that he and Aymar, in their civilian garb, had
nothing to fear from them. In any case, it was doubtful whether the
Bonapartists would have the wish to arrest them--even if they had the
means.
As the meal progressed Laurent found himself studying the face of the
senior officer, a spare, stern-looking man of about forty-five, a face
which, in spite of his thinking it at first somewhat dauntingly severe,
ended by attracting him.
"Rather a different type over there from our cherished host at
Arbelles," he whispered to Aymar. But Aymar did not reply, for as
Laurent spoke there came the comfortable voice of the innkeeper from
behind them, where he was carving at a buffet.
"Take this to Colonel Richard!" And, while Laurent gasped, a plate was
borne down the table and placed before the object of their criticism.
He hardly dared to look at Aymar beside him; but he was aware that the
latter had ceased any pretence at a meal. He sat for some time with his
head bent, crumbling his bread, very pale; after a while he leant back
in his chair, and looked at Colonel Richard with a scrutiny far more
intense than Laurent had bestowed upon him. The Bonapartist, now
finishing his wine, did not seem to notice it; yet Laurent had the
impression that very little escaped those keen eyes.
"Shall we go?" he whispered at last. But Aymar shook his head. And they
sat on, though many travellers had left the table.
Suddenly Aymar turned to him. "Will you wait for me here?" he whispered.
"I shall ask Colonel Richard for a few minutes' conversation. He may
refuse, of course, but if not----"
"Aymar, are you mad!" exclaimed Laurent. "He might do worse than refuse!
For Heaven's sake don't expose yourself to such possibilities!"
"I must," answered Aymar; but his lips seemed dry as he spoke. "It is an
opportunity such as I could not have dreamt of.--There he goes!"
And Laurent, scarcely believing his eyes, saw him get up and intercept
the colonel of engineers before he got to the door, and say something
to him. From the short but courteous assent which Colonel Richard
appeared to give, it was plain that, in spite of the "cursed red hair,"
he had no idea of the identity of the young man asking for an
interview. They left the room together.
How could Aymar do a thing like that in cold blood, even for _her!_--for
of course he was going to try to ensure his enemy's silence. The sheer
courage of it took Laurent's breath away. What might Colonel Richard
not say to him when he learnt who he was! Laurent was certain that no
woman, not even Mme de Villecresne, could grasp the depth of
self-abnegation involved in such an act to a spirit as proud and
sensitive as La Rocheterie's. But Aymar was like--what was that line in
Shakespeare about the Toledo blade . . . about the "sword of Spain"
that had "the ice-brook's temper" . . . ?
(7)
The adversaries who had never met went out together into the inn garden.
There was in it a tunnel-like arbour, such as is not uncommon in French
country hostelries; it was covered with a vine, and contained a rough
table with a bench on either side. Colonel Richard threw a glance
within, and saying, "We shall be undisturbed here, I think, Monsieur,"
led the way in.
The sun came greenly through the beautiful vine leaves behind the
Imperialist's severe, upright head. Aymar looked him in the face and
said, "I must tell you first who I am. You shall think it strange of me
to seek you out like this, but I will not keep you long. My name is La
Rocheterie."
The dry, rough-edged vine leaves seemed to twitter in the little breeze;
there was no other sound for a few seconds. Aymar did not see Colonel
Richard's face; it had vanished suddenly in a light green mist. But he
heard his voice saying curtly, "We might as well sit down, Monsieur de
la Rocheterie," and in a moment more he saw that the Imperialist had
done so. But he himself remained on his feet.
"It is not worth it, Monsieur. I have only to say----"
He broke off short. A paralyzing idea had just occurred to him. He was
going to ask a favour of this man, who must despise him from his heart,
who might not improbably have him thrown out of the place altogether.
And surely it would seem to the Bonapartist that he would never dare to
do such a thing had he not believed himself to have a claim on his
opponent . . . for the victory he had put within his grasp?
Even the clear vine leaves vanished this time. He felt some, however, in
his left hand. . . . And once more he heard Colonel Richard's voice
saying, "I think, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, that if we are to conduct
this interview to any purpose, you had better sit down!"
And to this, lest the whole conversation should continue in this curious
manner, with a person whom one heard but could not see, Aymar's brain
assented. He found himself sitting on the opposite bench, the table
between them, and in his left hand two vine leaves and a portion of a
third. He did not know how they had come there.
"That is better," said the Bonapartist, looking at him very hard indeed.
He had eyes like cold, clear water--eyes that would make short work of
treachery. "Well, what is it that you were going to say?"
The voice, the eyes, steadied Aymar. He began again and his own voice
was as cold as the other's.
"The letter addressed to me which was brought to you, Monsieur, at the
_Cheval Blanc_ near Saint-Goazec on the night of the 27th of April----"
"--Excuse me!" broke in the Imperialist, leaning forward, "but if you
have come to tell me that that letter never really came from you . . ."
He paused for a second, and Aymar went on quickly, "That was not in the
least my intention. If my messenger on that occasion tried to take on
himself any responsibility he was quite unjustified. I alone was
responsible for sending the letter."
There had been a light in the eyes looking at him. It died down now as
Colonel Richard said, "I was going on to remark that I have been
hoping, ever since Pont-aux-Rochers, that there had been some mistake,
and that some day I should hear it. I should not be very hard to
convince that there had been. . . . You say the responsibility for that
act, Monsieur, was yours alone. One has sometimes to shoulder unmerited
responsibility; any soldier knows that. I would so much rather think
that that had been the case."
Aymar met his gaze full. It was not entirely cold, after all.
"I am sorry," he answered steadily. "You are very kind. But . . . I sent
the letter--knowingly. I myself deciphered those passages." He had
taken his arm out of the sling, and began to arrange his three vine
leaves on the table, the broken fragment in the middle. "It is of my
motive in sending it that I wish to speak to you, if you will allow
it."
Colonel Richard had an elbow on the table now. Shading his eyes with his
hand, he motioned to him to proceed.
And Aymar left his pattern for the moment, gripping the edge of the
table instead. "Am I wrong in fancying, Monsieur, that you have kept
silence on that point, my motive? I have been a prisoner, and scarcely
know yet what reports are going about, but I was in the hands of those
who would not have scrupled to take full advantage of the knowledge, if
they had had it. They did not seem to have it. . . . Might I know that
I have not been deluding myself?"
For a moment the whole of existence seemed to turn on the answer to that
question. And instead of answering it his enemy might say, and with
justification, "Why should I tell you that? Are you trying to drive
another bargain with me?"
The almost unendurable tension ended at last. "No, you have not been
deluding yourself," said Colonel Richard slowly. "I promised your
emissary that the lady should know nothing. I kept that promise; but as
it happens I have done more. I mean, that no one else knows for whose
sake you made your disastrous venture--nor indeed that it was made for
the sake of any single person. And, as I have kept silence till now, I
shall continue to keep it."
"Thank you," said Aymar; and for the moment could say no more. The vine
leaves were in shreds by now. But after a silence he went on, "That is
almost more than I dared to hope. If that lady can be spared the
knowledge, I shall be . . . I am . . . most profoundly grateful to
you."
Under the shading hand he could see the older man's mouth contract.
Colonel Richard probably wished to get rid of him as soon as possible,
so Aymar took hold of the table to pull himself up.
The other instantly removed his hand. "Oblige me by staying a moment,
Monsieur de la Rocheterie! There are one or two things I should like to
say to you. Will you tell me what you had up your sleeve when you sent
that letter?"
Aymar did stay--and very still. "Why should I have had anything up my
sleeve, Monsieur?"
"Because it is quite incredible that you should have made me an
unconditional present of your men's lives! I thought so at the time--I
think so more than ever now. You had some counterplan connected with
their presence at the bridge; I am sure of it."
"What does that matter now?" asked Aymar with a long breath, and swept
the torn vine leaves into a heap.
Colonel Richard leant over the table. "But you would oblige me greatly
if you would answer my question. To me it seems that we have gone too
far to leave the business there." And, as Aymar still did not answer,
he said, half impatiently, half gently, "Well, then, as you seem
determined not to defend yourself, Monsieur de la Rocheterie, take a
further step still, and assure me that you intended your men to be
ambushed, that you did not do everything in your power to prevent it!
Come, now, why did your plan fail?"
Aymar lifted his head and met the keen, half-compassionate eyes for a
second. Then, very briefly, he told his story to his adversary.
There was a silence in which even the vine leaves did not stir.
"Monsieur de la Rocheterie," said the man on the other side of the table
at last, "will you allow me, as an old soldier with, I suppose, twenty
years the disadvantage of you, to give you a piece of advice?"
Aymar, who had put his head back against the trellis, nodded, a little
bewildered. This was fantastic--and yet very real.
"Ask for a court-martial, or rather, a court of enquiry!"
But at that the young man moved and flushed. "Impossible, sir."
"Why? Not, I am sure, that you would not face it? You seem to me, if I
may be allowed to judge from what you are doing now, to possess a very
rare kind of courage. Why do you say that a court-martial is
impossible?"
The flush was deeper this time. "You are much too generous," said Aymar
with some difficulty. "For a moment, after the disaster, a
court-martial did seem the only way out, and I gave up my sword for
that purpose to my second-in-command. But since then the case has been
. . . judged . . ." (his voice failed him entirely for a second) ". . .
and besides, I have had time to reflect. A court-martial would involve
telling the whole truth--my motive for sending you the information. It
would be absurd and odious to invite an enquiry and then to conceal a
vital fact. Yet if I tell the whole truth I do the thing I most want to
avoid--bring that lady's name into the business, so that she cannot
fail to learn just what I pray she may never learn. You see that,
Colonel, surely?"
"Perfectly. But have you reflected that, by concealing your motive for
doing what you did, you are laying yourself open to the imputation of
its being a far more disgraceful one than it was?"
"I have reflected." His mouth set itself. "The imputation has already
been made."
"And you are going on like that? What about other people's feelings? You
have a right, perhaps, to immolate your own, but you have kindred, I
expect?"
"I have not forgotten them," answered Aymar, and for a moment he looked
out of the green-framed doorway into the sunshine beyond. "I should
indeed be selfish if I refused any means, however nearly intolerable,
if they would clear me. But it is just my . . . motive, which seems to
me to render the case hopeless from the first. If I could go before a
court-martial and relate a story of a plan that miscarried, I might
hope to be believed and acquitted, even though . . . even though I have
since been shot by my own men. But to admit that the scheme was
directed to saving a woman's--a kinswoman's--life . . . how could I
hope, after its disastrous failure, to obtain acquittal on those
grounds?--Would you acquit me, Colonel Richard?"
The Imperialist was looking thoughtfully at the table, one thin sinewy
hand supporting his head, the fingers of the other drumming lightly on
the wood. "I don't know--I don't know. It is a difficult case.
Dispassionately considered I suppose--but hardly any tribunal is really
dispassionate. However, I do recognize that you are not condemning
yourself to obloquy entirely for the sake of sparing someone else's
feelings--which in the end would obviously be the last result you would
achieve by such a course. . . . I have seen that done with such fatal
results, Monsieur, that you must excuse my perhaps unwarrantable
interference in your private affairs. I hope you will excuse it in any
case?"
"Excuse it!" exclaimed Aymar rather hoarsely. "I have no words to thank
you for your kindness! I shall never forget it. I . . ." For an instant
he put a hand over his eyes, then, removing it, went on, "But I should
like to ask you a question in my turn. How was it that in your first
interview with my messenger, earlier on that evening, he gained from
you the impression that the lady was in serious danger, an impression
which was so much strengthened, immediately afterwards, by one of your
subalterns . . . to my cost?"
Colonel Richard abruptly got up and began to walk up and down the narrow
arbour.
"I would rather you asked me any question but that, Monsieur de la
Rocheterie."
"But I want to know," said Aymar faintly. "It has been such an enigma to
me, how the idea ever arose that you intended to shoot her."
"If you will be persuaded by me you will not insist on knowing now."
"It is my only chance of learning the truth," urged L'Oiseleur. He was
getting quite dazed with strain and fatigue.
But when Colonel Richard had finished it was not fatigue of which he was
conscious. His head was propped on his clenched fists, his face
invisible, and the elder man was leaning against the table with his
back to him.
"Now you know why I almost regretted Pont-aux-Rochers," said the latter,
looking at the floor, "and why I wished I had not let my officers know
from whom I had the information which led to it . . . and most of all
did I regret that I had allowed your lieutenant to have that letter
back again, when I heard----"
"What had happened to me in consequence," supplied Aymar in an almost
extinguished voice. He raised a face that matched it. "Yes, I
understand. But you are excessively punctilious, Colonel Richard.
Others will not judge so mercifully."
"They cannot, if you refuse to defend yourself."
"I have already explained to you why I cannot. And what you have just
told me will hardly render my defence more easy, will it?" He gave the
ghost of a laugh. "My God! it makes me almost a figure in a farce! But
I thank you--I thank you for everything." And this time he got
successfully to his feet.
"There is no need to thank me," said Colonel Richard almost curtly.
"Have I not to end with an apology? But of what use is it to be ashamed
when what is done is done?" He seemed to be struggling a trifle for his
own self-control; and then abruptly changed the subject. "You are not
travelling unaccompanied, I hope?"
"By no means. I have a friend with me."
"You have just been released, I presume?"
"Not precisely. It was ten days ago . . . if you can call it release."
"So long ago as that? Then I should say it was somewhat premature. But
for that very reason I must not keep you standing longer." He held out
his hand. "Will you shake hands with me?" And, as Aymar coloured and
hesitated, he added "--if you feel that you can do so, after the
confession I have just made you. Apart from that, there is no reason,
is there, why you should not take my hand?"
He had gone again--into that curious mist. But Aymar felt his grasp,
returned it, and heard him say, "I have never been so sorry about
anything in my life as about this business--I would offer you my arm to
the inn, but it might not, in the future, do you any good if we seemed
to be on terms of intimacy. But get your friend, I beg you, to give you
a glass of wine at once . . . I wish you--your sword again!"
Then Aymar himself was walking carefully up the inn garden.
"It was worth it," he said a few minutes later to Laurent in the
deserted dining-room, trying to smile. "He has told no one--will tell
no one now. And he was kind--wonderfully--gave me advice . . . even
shook hands with me. . . . Yes, incredibly kind."
Laurent drew a long breath of relief. "But after all, you are
L'Oiseleur! And what was the Moulin Brûlé to this?"
Aymar stared at the wine-glass he had just emptied. "But I got more out
of the interview than I bargained for; something that I think I would
rather not have had, after all."
"Not Colonel Richard's handshake, surely?"
"No. Colonel Richard's avowal."
(8)
That evening, as they took their places for supper in the inn at their
next stage, two gentlemen sitting at the neighbouring table finishing
their wine suddenly broke off their conversation, stared, and then,
after exchanging glances, got up and left the place altogether.
For a moment Aymar looked as though he had been struck in the face; the
next, he was showing an almost uncanny self-control. "I knew that man
quite well once," he observed quietly, and did not refer to the
incident again during the meal.
But that he hardly slept that night Laurent was aware. As they were
dressing next morning he suddenly remarked rather drily, "I imagine
that yesterday evening, Laurent, must have finally convinced you of the
baselessness of your optimistic views about Royalists. You see that
what damns me--what you overlooked, perhaps--is my own men's having
shot me." And as Laurent admitted that this rumour had, unfortunately,
had two months in which to spread uncontradicted, Aymar retorted,
"_Rumour!_ It is fact! And how, therefore, can it ever be
contradicted?"
So little answer could Laurent find to this observation that he resolved
to go to no inn at all that day--the last of their journey--but
procured instead a fowl and a bottle of wine to take with them. They
halted, therefore, at midday on the outskirts of a wood, and, leaving
their chaise, turned a little way up a grassy road which penetrated it.
Laurent, bearing the provisions, selected a suitable spot for their
consumption under a spreading tree. "You can lean your back against
this very comfortably," he announced to his friend, who was following
with bent head.
Aymar looked up--and advanced no more.
"Don't you like this place?" asked Laurent, surprised at his expression.
"It is . . . too much in the shade, don't you think?" replied L'Oiseleur
indistinctly. "If you don't mind--there--more in the open." And,
without waiting for consent, he turned and went back towards the grassy
road.
They ate and drank, and did not hurry to regain their vehicle. Aymar
indeed disposed himself on his face, his head on his bent left arm, and
Laurent settled himself against a fallen tree trunk, and pulled his hat
over his eyes. He was a little sleepy.
"I did that man who would not stay in the same room with me a service
once," came Aymar's voice suddenly. "He said that he should never
forget it. But I suppose the debt is liquidated by my death. For, as I
say, Laurent, it was not Pont-aux-Rochers which put an end to me, but
the Bois des Fauvettes. I shall erect a tombstone there one day to
L'Oiseleur.--But who, I wonder, am I?"
His tone was quiet and reflective; he pulled at a blade of grass as he
lay there. And Laurent, nearly as quietly, cursed in French and English
the man to whom Aymar had once rendered a service.
"That does no good," observed Aymar. "And if you want to swear at any
one . . . Tell me, Laurent, are you at all given to practical joking?
If so, let me relate to you the story of a very successful effort of
that kind; it is rather instructive."
"But I don't----" began Laurent. Aymar disregarded him.
"There was a young man the other day--a soldier, an officer, I don't
know his name--who had a great turn for that sort of thing, and a
tolerable gift of playing a part. Happening to be quartered with others
one evening at an inn, he was witness of the arrival of a somewhat
perturbed old gentleman, come to make enquiries about a lady of his
acquaintance, who had been forbidden for a short time to proceed on her
journey--as much for her own sake as for any other reason, since the
road was required for troops----"
"_Aymar!_"
"Don't interrupt me, please! The old gentleman came out from his
interview with the subaltern's major in a state of panic. He had
mistaken the major for the colonel in command, the major had been short
with him--bored by the old man's quite needless alarm about the lady,
who meanwhile was peaceably sitting in her room upstairs. It occurred
to this young officer that it would be excellent fooling to raise this
simple old gentleman's fears to an even higher pitch, and utilizing the
fact that a woman spy really had been shot by his own side a little
before, and making a vague statement about the lady's past which
happened to fit the case, he succeeded in so thoroughly terrifying his
victim into the belief of her imminent execution that-- . . . but
perhaps I need not go on."
"Aymar," came at last from Laurent in a tone of horror, "you do not mean
to say that this is the whole explanation of the mystery about Mme de
Villecresne's danger--the whole cause of . . . everything?"
"Yes," responded L'Oiseleur unemotionally. "Nothing but that; a
successful practical joke, helped out by circumstances, played in the
first place on a timid and credulous nature, and then, through him, on
one perhaps as credulous--too blind to hazards . . . too fond of them,
it may be . . ."
Laurent felt frozen in the sunshine. "Was this detestable tale Colonel
Richard's avowal of yesterday?"
"Yes. But of course he had no hand whatever in the imposture, and was
horrified when he discovered it, which did not happen fully till after
the fight. He was not at the _Cheval Blanc_ at all, you see; he was
quartered at the presbytère, where Vaubernier found him when he went
back with the letter and asked for him by name. But, naturally, when
information was offered him he was not going to refuse it. He could
well assent to the 'bargain,' promise not to shoot the lady of whose
detention at the inn he was not even aware! By sending any one as
stupid and gullible as the old Marquis into this business the gods may
have been looking for amusement. If so, I think they must have found
it."
His voice ceased, and he lay without moving as before. The sun streamed
down on the unprotected bronze head and Laurent saw the gleam of it all
iridescent, for there were tears in his eyes. All that, those terrible
and still unfinished consequences of ruin and suffering--and those not
to Aymar alone--the fruit of nothing more than a moment's heartless
jocularity . . . it was cruel, utterly and sickeningly cruel! If only
he had that inhuman young scoundrel here to shoot--steel was too good
for him! He would like to stand him up yonder against a tree, and began
fiercely selecting one for the purpose, pitching without reflection on
that which he had originally chosen for their own resting-place. . . .
And then, as he looked at it, it came to him why Aymar could not bring
himself to approach it. Blunderer that he had been . . . it was a beech
tree!
He stared at it with hostility. Would the spring ever mean again to
Aymar what the spring ought to mean, or would he never in his life see
its green leaves except through a mist of blood and shame? He looked
down at him again. His head was still pillowed on his arm, and he
seemed to be asleep. . . . And he could do nothing for him; indeed it
was now clear that, immediately he had got him safely to Sessignes, he
would have to leave him. M. de Lanascol's news of further misfortunes
in Vendée was confirmed--they had heard it this morning. And just
because all there was in such disarray Laurent felt it obligatory on
him to return, if he could, and Aymar concurred in this feeling. Yes,
he must leave him--to what?
A step on the green track made him look up from his contemplation, and
he saw that a man was coming out of the wood--a peasant with a bundle
slung on his shoulder, leaning on a long stick. He walked wearily, and
he was dusty; his face looked pinched and ill, and his left hand was
muffled in a bandage. He seemed about thirty-five.
As he came abreast his pace slackened, and Laurent saw that his left
hand was not bandaged--for he had no left hand at all. It was the stump
that was wound about. He looked so tired and forlorn that Laurent held
out the remains of the fowl and the loaf--without speaking, for he did
not want to disturb his friend.
But the wayfarer took no notice whatever of this proffered charity. His
eyes were fixed with an extraordinary eagerness on the prone form
beside the giver and, exactly at the moment when Laurent recognized
this, the man let his staff fall, and said hoarsely, pointing down at
the russet hair, "Who is that--for the love of the Virgin, Monsieur,
who is that?"
Into Laurent's mind leaped instantly M. de Lanascol's warning. He jumped
up, and got between the enquirer and his quarry.
"What do you want with him?" he asked rather roughly. "No," as the man
tried to move past him, "not till you tell me your business!" And he
seized him by the shoulders.
But Aymar, behind him, was already on his feet. "Let him go, mon ami; it
is a friend . . . and a friend I thought I had lost! Eveno!"
He held out his hand, his voice a little breathless. The peasant twisted
himself free from Laurent's hold, and dropping at Aymar's feet, kissed
them with a sob.
"I heard that you were wounded, L'Oiseleur, and a prisoner--and I was
going to Sessignes to ask. You are wounded . . . but free . . . and
alive . . . thank God, thank His Mother!"
The passionate devotion that throbbed through his words almost
disconcerted Laurent, no half-hearted adherent himself, but he could
see that Aymar accepted quite simply even this extreme manifestation.
Only, looking down at his follower with evident relief and pleasure,
his face suddenly changed. He touched him on the shoulder.
"Did you lose that hand at Pont-aux-Rochers, Eveno?" And there was the
sharpest pain in his tone.
"Afterwards, Monsieur le Vicomte. They cut it off at Saint-Goazec. It was
nothing; they were very kind to me. If we had won at the bridge--if
_you_ had been there--I would not give a sou for it . . . But _your_
arm . . . you are ill yet . . . have you not been very ill, Monsieur
Aymar?"
His hand slid caressingly along his leader's sound arm. Aymar stepped
back.
"Eveno, that hand of yours is my doing. I was responsible for
Pont-aux-Rochers--nobody else. I planned it, and the plan----" He
turned his head away.
The peasant's face lit up as he knelt there. "You planned it! We thought
it was a mistake of M. de Fresne's. But if it was your plan,
L'Oiseleur, there is nothing to regret. You could have had both my
hands!"
So the carriage, when they started again, contained Jacques Eveno also,
for in spite of his protests Aymar had insisted on conveying him to his
home, a plan which necessitated only a slight detour, since he lived
with his old father on the borders of a wood about seven miles from
Sessignes.
In the vehicle, therefore, he sat, dusty and abashed, answering his
leader's questions about his treatment and his comrades' fate, but
gazing all the while at L'Oiseleur with the eyes of idolatry. And,
mainly for his friend's sake, Laurent was relieved to gather from what
he said that the actual death-roll of Pont-aux-Rochers was much lighter
than might have been expected.
Just as Aymar was instructing Eveno to come to Sessignes in a day or two
to help him make a list of casualties, the chaise stopped. Aymar got
out as well as the Chouan, and Laurent followed their example. He saw
the smoke ascending blue from a thatched cottage against fir trees, a
path going into a wood, and two saddle-horses, one of them a beautiful
bay mare, tied to an oak. Aymar, saying farewell to Eveno, did not
appear to have noticed these; but suddenly the mare pricked her ears,
threw up her head, and whinnied.
Aymar turned. "Hirondelle!" he exclaimed, and made at once for the oak
tree, the mare, when she saw him coming, whinnying again and lifting up
a suppliant forefoot. But before he got up to her her master stopped,
perhaps only perceiving in that moment what Laurent had already
noticed, that it was a lady's saddle she was carrying.
At the same moment a man--a groom or servant of some kind--ran round the
chaise and gripped Eveno by the arm. "Jacques!" he exclaimed
breathlessly, "is it M. le Vicomte? Thank God! We have been so anxious,
and this very afternoon Mme la Comtesse has ridden over to see if by
chance your father had any news, but he has gone to the village, so she
is waiting . . . I beg your pardon, Monsieur; I did not see you!"
"Had you not better tell M. de la Rocheterie?" suggested Laurent.
But Hirondelle's saddle, evidently, had told Aymar already, or else he
had overheard. Laurent just saw him stooping his head to enter at the
low door.
(9)
It would be rather dark inside old Eveno's cottage; Aymar knew that. And
she would be sitting on the settle by the hearth, waiting for the old
man's arrival, and at the sound of the latch she would turn; and, not
expecting him, would not perhaps recognize him at once, so that he must
try not to startle her. And then . . . what came then? Not, at any
rate, what would have happened in the orchard last April, before the
lightning struck him down from the pinnacle of his happiness. Now there
could only be such difficult greeting as a disgraced man could offer
the woman he loved, who did not know the cloud upon him. . . . But
perhaps she did? It might be easier then.
All these considerations swam through Aymar's mind between lifting the
latch and pushing open the door.
Inside it was not quite as he had thought it would be. For Avoye was
kneeling by the hearth in her long riding-habit, trying to revive old
Eveno's dying fire for him, and in the creak and groan of the ancient
bellows the lifting of the latch was lost. He had a second or two to
contemplate that picture ere he stepped down the two uneven steps from
the door.
"Avoye!" he said gently.
The bellows fell, breathing their soul out; and his cousin, still
kneeling there, but with her head turned, made a little inarticulate
sound and clasped her hands together.
"I am afraid I startled you," he said after a moment; for he must speak
to steady his own composure. "I did not know that you were here till I
saw Hirondelle. I came to bring back Jacques Eveno, whom I met on the
road. He has been released, like . . . like me!"
And now she had got up, and was facing him, very pale. Still without
speaking she held out both her hands. Aymar came nearer and took and
kissed them.
"Tell me that I did not frighten you, my dear, coming in so suddenly?"
Two large tears brimmed slowly out of her wide eyes and slid down her
cheeks. "You did not frighten me then . . . but now . . . you do. Oh,
Aymar, to have you back, but . . . looking . . ." She put a hand to her
throat. "You must have been terribly wounded."
He held her other hand still. He might do that, surely! "No. Only it was
a long business, and needed nursing. I had that, unstintedly--from the
friend whom I am bringing now to Sessignes with me, and whom I want you
to know well, and like."
But whether she took this in he could not tell.
"To have you back, Aymar--to have you back!" But in her eyes the alarm
outshone the joy.
"Is Bonne-maman well?" he asked, dropping her hand at last. "I am afraid
that I have caused you both a great deal of anxiety . . . Will you
drive back with us, Avoye? I have a chaise outside."
"Yes, of course I will return with you. And Eveno is there, too? How
pleased the old man will be! But I thought that----" She broke off,
looking puzzled.
"No, we were not imprisoned at the same place," said Aymar quickly. "I
will explain about that afterwards. But I had better tell you now,
before you see him, that Eveno has lost a hand."
"Oh, poor Jacques! Was that . . . because of Pont-aux-Rochers?" He
nodded.
"Poor Jacques!" she said again, the tears in her eyes. "Still, he might
have been killed." And then, moved to it perhaps by what she saw in his
sad, changed face, she said, with some of Aymar's own occasional
vehemence, "And, anyhow, it is a thousand times worse for you--a
thousand times!"
He caught his breath. Yes, but for whom was it going to be worst of all
in the end--whom, at least, was he going to hurt most? The way, the
desolating way before him, over her tender and faithful heart.
She was gazing at him with eyes of such compassion that he could hardly
bear it; she was speaking, too. "Dearest, will you sit down for a
moment--only for a moment? There is something that I must ask you
before we start for home (especially if you have a companion) and I
cannot have you standing, looking as you do."
She indicated the settle. He sat down. God knew what she was going to
ask him; there would be so many things! She sat beside him and was
about to put her hand on his arm, saw that it was bandaged, touched it
instead with the lightest, most impalpable gesture of caress, and said,
"I only want you to tell me this, if you are free to tell it. We have
heard rumours . . . almost more than rumours . . . that your defeat at
Pont-aux-Rochers was due to treachery. Oh, Aymar, say that it is not
true!"
Aymar put his head back in the corner of the highbacked settle and
closed his eyes. But he answered firmly, "No, it is not true. There was
no treachery. But you will hear it said everywhere, Avoye." Should he
tell her more? She would have to know it--unless indeed she knew it
already. . . . It became for an instant a question as to whether he
could tell her. . . .
"What is the matter?" she asked, with alarm in her voice.
So then he had to go on. He opened his eyes. "And you will hear some say
that the treachery was . . . _mine!_"
"Aymar!"
"You had not heard that yet? . . . I will tell you the reason directly I
can. Only you will recognize, Avoye, that with this stain on my honour,
I cannot regard myself at present as . . . as what I was at no time
worthy to be. . . ."
His will uttered the words, because his will had always intended that
they should be uttered, but as he said them it seemed to him as if all
the blood left him was being drained out of his body.
Avoye had turned very pale, too. "But is not that rather a matter for me
to decide? You know what I should think of so wicked a slander."
He shook his head, because he could hardly speak, and her proximity was
getting more than his resolution could endure. So he slipped to one
knee on the hearth and took up the abandoned bellows. "This fire is
nearly out," he murmured. And as he blew the grey wood ashes stirred
and eddied like ghosts; there was no glimmer underneath. The fire was
out.
And on the settle Avoye de Villecresne, pressing her hands together, was
saying to herself, "You a traitor . . . _you!_ They _dare_ to say such
a thing!"
Aymar abruptly threw down the bellows and got to his feet.
"We must not tell Grand'mère. Are you ready to go, dear, or do you still
wish to see old Eveno?"
She rose. "I am ready to go with you, Aymar," she said, in the sweet
voice which sometimes held an echo of childhood. And she added, very
low, "Always." But the voice which pronounced that word was a woman's.
Aymar heard; he looked at her with eyes of agony and ardour, lit with
the flame of whose intensity she had never been quite aware, so
carefully had it been controlled. He said, "Yes . . . it might be
_always_ now--since April. . . . Oh, my God, that it could be April
again!"
And with that cry he caught her fiercely in his arms.
But the kiss was not fierce; it was the kiss that should have been given
and taken under the stars in the orchard, clean and passionate and
unprofaned. There was only one. Then Avoye dropped her head upon his
breast. "My heart!" she murmured to his heart. And Aymar said, in a
voice she had never heard from him before, "Beloved, your mouth is like
apple blossom." For he was conscious just then of nothing but what he
held in his arms. It was April again--for a few instants. All the
horror and the stain were swept away; he had his brief moment of
rapture, as intense as if she had come to him that spring evening, and
as pure.
But it was very brief. The truth surged back upon him ten times more
bitter for the ecstasy. He loosed his hold of her almost as if he were
suddenly paralyzed; but her little hands were holding him fast by the
lapels of his coat and all he could see was the top of her head, with
its crown of burnished hair. Yet, though they were so close to each
other, an icy stream seemed to Aymar to drive between them, of such a
deadly cold that it sucked the breath from his heart.
"Let me go, Avoye!" he said, putting his hands on hers that held him,
and the sharp change in his voice made her look up in alarm. Her arms
went about him very quickly, and, before he quite knew what had
happened, he was sitting once more at her side on the settle. But his
head, this time, was resting on her shoulder.
Even this he ought not to permit himself. But it was so paradisially
sweet, so unspeakably restful, and he was so tired.
"I should not have let you stand," the low voice like the song of a
brook was saying in his ear. "Oh, my dearest, now that you are
returned, and I can nurse you back to health . . ."
"I am tiring you," he murmured, and tried to move; but she held him.
"No, no, I am as strong as a rock. . . . You have a friend, you say, who
nursed you? Aymar, I envy him!"
"Little to envy," he got out, and tried again to move. But he seemed to
have neither strength nor will.
Avoye's glance fell on his attenuated hand, lying inert and open in her
lap. Her own closed on it. "Aymar, what a hand! And cold! Oh, my dear,
my dear!" She caught it to her breast as if to warm it. "And this
bandaged arm . . ."
He said nothing, and for a few moments they both sat in absolute silence
by the dead hearth. Then he made a great effort, lifted his head, and
drew himself away. It was like leaving the gates of Eden, for he knew
that he would never sit like that again with his head on her shoulder,
with that heavenly feeling of being cared for by her who had always
been his first care. And it was his own act which had shut those gates
. . . betrayed to it by just that care for her. If he had been a really
honourable man he would not have entered Eden now, even for these few
blessed moments.
And something was stabbing at his mind, so weary now that it was
difficult to discover what it was. At last he captured the thorn.
"Avoye, I have not yet asked after M. de Vaubernier? Is he . . . well?"
She gave a little soft, half-amused laugh, which showed instantly that
she had no sinister associations with him. "Poor Godfather! At the
beginning of May he suffered so from sciatica and rheumatism that he
went off to Aix-les-Bains, and he has not yet come back. I saw him just
before he left; he seemed very gloomy indeed, so I hope that Aix has
cheered him up."
Aymar's heart resumed beating. He got up slowly from the settle.
"You know, my darling, that we must be keeping the Evenos out of their
cottage, and there is M. de Courtomer waiting. We ought to go."
She seized her hat and riding-whip. "And you are tired to death, Aimé."
It was an old childish variant of his name. She slipped her hand into
his, in childhood's fashion, too, as he went to open the door. Just as
he unlatched it she said, glancing back at the dim interior, "I shall
come back here one day on pilgrimage."
But he whose kiss had sanctified the place for her was silent. A man did
not make a pilgrimage to the spot where he had broken his resolve.
(10)
Laurent, walking restlessly up and down by the chaise, saw them coming
at length--Aymar and the woman who was all the world to him . . . and
who must, by virtue of that distinction, be very specially set apart
from any of her sex. She was also the cause of all that had come upon
him; Laurent could almost wish that she knew it. And, plainly, she was
also the lady of the Tuileries garden. As she came nearer, holding up
her long habit, Laurent saw that she had a face that a man might die
for--a man like Aymar, at all events. . . .
Then Aymar himself was saying, "Avoye, this is Monsieur le Comte de
Courtomer, to whose care I owe my life," and Laurent had bowed over her
hand. She gave him a charming smile, a little grave, and said, "That is
too valuable a possession to us, Monsieur de Courtomer, to be paid for
in mere thanks. I am glad that you are at least accompanying us to
Sessignes." And while Laurent was answering rather confusedly that M.
de la Rocheterie owed his life, on the contrary, to their good doctor,
Aymar himself went off to give orders about the saddle-horses.
Directly he was out of earshot Mme de Villecresne came much closer.
"Monsieur de Courtomer, his appearance has horrified me! For God's sake
assure me that there is nothing which care cannot put right--no deadly
injury, nothing irreparable!"
"Nothing, on my honour as a gentleman," replied Laurent earnestly. "He
is very weak still, but that is all"--"save for mental torment," he
added to himself, as Aymar, returning, announced that Eveno had gone
off in search of his father, and that they could start.
It was soon blessedly plain to Laurent, as they drove along, that Mme de
Villecresne had no intention of asking any awkward questions, either of
or in front of L'Oiseleur. Whatever she had learnt in the cottage her
love, at least, had suffered no hurt there. Despite her visible
anxiety, there was a kind of submerged radiance about her which would
have told anybody that. As for Aymar, he gave the impression of having
been far away and of having incompletely returned. He said very little.
But Laurent was not conscious, as he had expected, of being de trop in
their company. The atmosphere of care and tenderness which Mme de
Villecresne gradually diffused seemed to include him, too, and the
perfectly unwarrantable bias which he cherished against her began to be
shaken.
He could study her more at his leisure now. She had much the same
colouring as Aymar, but otherwise the resemblance between them was not
striking. Her hair, where the riding-hat showed it, was brighter than
his, and her eyes were less unusual; they were grey . . . or violet? It
was not till later that he noticed in her, too, that free and noble
carriage of the head which was one of Aymar's most striking
characteristics. But he did observe, as she talked to him, both the
sweetness of her expression and the air of resolution which seemed
somehow to reside in her little pointed chin.
They were at their journey's end before Laurent realized the fact, or
had obtained that distant view of the château which he had promised
himself. By that time Aymar's extreme fatigue was so impossible to
disguise that his cousin decreed he should go straight to his room
before seeing his grandmother, and she would present M. de Courtomer.
But these plans were disordered, directly they entered the hall, through
the agency of the huge dog who first leapt upon his master with such an
impact that he sent him staggering, and then set up so tremendous a
paean of joy that the whole house seemed to reverberate with it. It was
hardly surprising that, by the time quiet was restored, an old lady
stood in a doorway, a little Dresden china image, saying, "Why has
Sarrasin been allowed out of the stables? . . . Good God, is
that--_Aymar!_"
L'Oiseleur dragged himself to kiss her hand. Laurent saw the delicate
colour go completely from her face, and he guessed that nobody there
existed for her at all in that moment save her grandson. She caught him
by the wrist.
"Go up to your room at once!" she said with a catch of the breath.
"Where is Anselme?"
"I have sent for him, Grand'mère," answered Mme de Villecresne. "Yes,
Aymar is very tired."
"_Tired!_" ejaculated Mme de la Rocheterie.
"Is it not allowed, Grand'mère?" interposed Aymar with the best smile
that he could muster. "However, I will go and rest a little, but
first--Monsieur de Courtomer!"
Laurent came forward, still feeling that he had no existence. But there
was nothing to complain of in the Vicomtesse de la Rocheterie's
reception of him, for all that. She belonged to an age which had valued
good breeding above anything else in the world . . . except the
privilege of dispensing with it at will.