At midnight there was no mistaking the palpable uneasiness with which
Mr. Percy, faithful sentry, regarded the behaviour of Miss Elliott and
myself as we sat conversing upon the veranda of the pavilion. It was
not fear for the security of his prisoner which troubled him, but the
unseemliness of the young woman's persistence in remaining to this hour
under an espionage no more matronly than that of a sketch-book
abandoned on the table when we had come out to the open. The youth had
veiled his splendours with more splendour: a long overcoat of so
glorious a plaid it paled the planets above us; and he wandered
restlessly about the garden in this refulgence, glancing at us now and
then with what, in spite of the insufficient revelation of the
starlight, we both recognised as a chilling disapproval. The lights of
the inn were all out; the courtyard was dark. The Spanish woman and
Monsieur Rameau had made their appearance for a moment, half an hour
earlier, to exchange a word with their fellow vigilant, and, soon
after, the extinguishing of the lamps in their respective apartments
denoted their retirement for the night. In the "Grande Suite" all had
been dark and silent for an hour. About the whole place the only sign
of life, aside from those signs furnished by our three selves, was a
rhythmical sound from an open window near the kitchen, where
incontrovertibly slumbered our maitre d'hotel after the cares of the
day.
Upon the occasion of our forest meeting Mr. Percy had signified his
desire to hear some talk of Art. I think he had his fill to-night--and
more; for that was the subject chosen by my dashing companion, and
vivaciously exploited until our awaited hour was at hand. Heaven knows
what nonsense I prattled, I do not; I do not think I knew at the time.
I talked mechanically, trying hard not to betray my increasing
excitement.
Under cover of this traduction of the Muse I served, I kept going over
and over the details of Louise Harman's plan, as the girl beside me had
outlined it, bending above the smudgy sketch-book. "To make them think
the flight is for Paris," she had urged, "to Paris by way of Lisieux.
To make that man yonder believe that it is toward Lisieux, while they
turn at the crossroads, and drive across the country to Trouville for
the morning boat to Havre."
It was simple; that was its great virtue. If they were well started,
they were safe; and well started meant only that Larrabee Harman should
leave the inn without an alarm, for an alarm sounded too soon meant
"racing and chasing on Canoby Lea," before they could get out of the
immediate neighbourhood. But with two hours' start, and the pursuit
spending most of its energy in the wrong direction--that is, toward
Lisieux and Paris--they would be on the deck of the French-Canadian
liner to-morrow noon, sailing out of the harbour of Le Havre, with
nothing but the Atlantic Ocean between them and the St. Lawrence.
I thought of the woman who dared this flight for her lover, of the
woman who came full-armed between him and the world, a Valkyr winging
down to bear him away to a heaven she would make for him herself.
Gentle as she was, there must have been a Valkyr in her somewhere, or
she could not attempt this. She swept in, not only between him and the
world, but between him and the destroying demons his own sins had
raised to beset him. There, I thought, was a whole love; or there she
was not only wife but mother to him.
And I remembered the dream of her I had before I ever saw her, on that
first night after I came down to Normandy, when Amedee's talk of
"Madame d'Armand" had brought her into my thoughts. I remembered that I
had dreamed of finding her statue, but it was veiled and I could not
uncover it. And to-night it seemed to me that the veil had lifted, and
the statue was a figure of Mercy in the beautiful likeness of Louise
Harman. Then Keredec was wrong, optimist as he was, since a will such
as hers could save him she loved, even from his own acts.
"And when you come to Monticelli's first style--" Miss Elliott's voice
rose a little, and I caught the sound of a new thrill vibrating in
it--"you find a hundred others of his epoch doing it quite as well, not
a BIT of a bit less commonplace--"
She broke off suddenly, and looking up, as I had fifty times in the
last twenty minutes, I saw that a light shone from Keredec's window.
"I dare say they ARE commonplace," I remarked, rising. "But now, if you
will permit me, I'll offer you my escort back to Quesnay."
I went into my room, put on my cap, lit a lantern, and returned with it
to the veranda. "If you are ready?" I said.
"Oh, quite," she answered, and we crossed the garden as far as the
steps.
Mr. Percy signified his approval.
"Gunna see the little lady home, are you?" he said graciously. "I was
THINKIN' it was about time, m'self!"
The salon door of the "Grand Suite" opened, above me, and at the sound,
the youth started, springing back to see what it portended, but I ran
quickly up the steps. Keredec stood in the doorway, bare-headed and in
his shirt-sleeves; in one hand he held a travelling-bag, which he
immediately gave me, setting his other for a second upon my shoulder.
"Thank you, my good, good friend," he said with an emotion in his big
voice which made me glad of what I was doing. He went back into the
room, closing the door, and I descended the steps as rapidly as I had
run up them. Without pausing, I started for the rear of the courtyard,
Miss Elliott accompanying me.
The sentry had watched these proceedings open-mouthed, more mystified
than alarmed. "Luk here," he said, "I want t' know whut this means."
"Anything you choose to think it means," I laughed, beginning to walk a
little more rapidly. He glanced up at the windows of the "Grande
Suite," which were again dark, and began to follow us slowly. "What you
gut in that grip?" he asked.
"You don't think we're carrying off Mr. Harman?"
"I reckon HE'S in his room all right," said the youth grimly; "unless
he's FLEW out. But I want t' know what you think y're doin'?"
"Just now," I replied, "I'm opening this door."
This was a fact he could not question. We emerged at the foot of a lane
behind the inn; it was long and narrow, bordered by stone walls, and at
the other end debouched upon a road which passed the rear of the Baudry
cottage.
Miss Elliott took my arm, and we entered the lane.
Mr. Percy paused undecidedly. "I want t' know whut you think y're
doin'?" he repeated angrily, calling after us.
"It's very simple," I called in turn. "Can't I do an errand for a
friend? Can't I even carry his travelling-bag for him, without going
into explanations to everybody I happen to meet? And," I added,
permitting some anxiety to be marked in my voice, "I think you may as
well go back. We're not going far enough to need a guard."
Mr. Percy allowed an oath to escape him, and we heard him muttering to
himself. Then his foot-steps sounded behind us.
"He's coming!" Miss Elliott whispered, with nervous exultation, looking
over her shoulder. "He's going to follow."
"He was sure to," said I.
We trudged briskly on, followed at some fifty paces by the perturbed
watchman. Presently I heard my companion utter a sigh so profound that
it was a whispered moan.
"What is it?" I murmured.
"Oh, it's the thought of Quesnay and to-morrow; facing them with THIS!"
she quavered. "Louise has written a letter for me to give them, but
I'll have to tell them--"
"Not alone," I whispered. "I'll be there when you come down from your
room in the morning."
We were embarked upon a singular adventure, not unattended by a certain
danger; we were tingling with a hundred apprehensions, occupied with
the vital necessity of drawing the little spy after us--and that was a
strange moment for a man (and an elderly painter-man of no mark, at
that!) to hear himself called what I was called then, in a tremulous
whisper close to my ear. Of course she has denied it since;
nevertheless, she said it--twice, for I pretended not to hear her the
first time. I made no answer, for something in the word she called me,
and in her seeming to mean it, made me choke up so that I could not
even whisper; but I made up my mind that, after THAT if this girl saw
Mr. Earl Percy on his way back to the inn before she wished him to go,
it would be because he had killed me.
We were near the end of the lane when the neigh of a horse sounded
sonorously from the road beyond.
Mr. Percy came running up swiftly and darted by us.
"Who's that?" he called loudly. "Who's that in the cart yonder?"
I set my lantern on the ground close to the wall, and at the same
moment a horse and cart drew up on the road at the end of the lane,
showing against the starlight. It was Pere Baudry's best horse, a stout
gray, that would easily enough make Trouville by daylight. A woman's
figure and a man's (the latter that of Pere Baudry himself) could be
made out dimly on the seat of the cart.
"Who is it, I say?" shouted our excited friend. "What kind of a game
d'ye think y're puttin' up on me here?"
He set his hand on the side of the cart and sprang upon the hub of the
wheel. A glance at the occupants satisfied him.
"Mrs. Harman!" he yelled. "Mrs. Harman!" He leaped down into the road.
"I knowed I was a fool to come away without wakin' up Rameau. But you
haven't beat us yet!"
He drove back into the lane, but just inside its entrance I met him.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"Back to the pigeon-house in a hurry. There's devilment here, and I
want Rameau. Git out o' my way!"
"You're not going back," said I.
"The hell I ain't!" said Mr. Percy. "I give ye two seconds t' git out
o' my--TAKE YER HANDS OFFA ME!"
I made sure of my grip, not upon the refulgent overcoat, for I feared
he might slip out of that, but upon the collars of his coat and
waistcoat, which I clenched together in my right hand. I knew that he
was quick, and I suspected that he was "scientific," but I did it
before he had finished talking, and so made fast, with my mind and
heart and soul set upon sticking to him.
My suspicions as to his "science" were perfervidly justified. "You
long-legged devil!" he yelled, and I instantly received a series of
concussions upon the face and head which put me in supreme doubt of my
surroundings, for I seemed to have plunged, eyes foremost, into the
Milky Way. But I had my left arm around his neck, which probably saved
me from a coup de grace, as he was forced to pommel me at half-length.
Pommel it was; to use so gentle a word for what to me was crash, bang,
smash, battle, murder, earthquake and tornado. I was conscious of some
one screaming, and it seemed a consoling part of my delirium that the
cheek of Miss Anne Elliott should be jammed tight against mine through
one phase of the explosion. My arms were wrenched, my fingers twisted
and tortured, and, when it was all too clear to me that I could not
possibly bear one added iota of physical pain, the ingenious fiend
began to kick my shins and knees with feet like crowbars.
Conflict of any sort was never my vocation. I had not been an
accessory-during-the-fact to a fight since I passed the truculent age
of fourteen; and it is a marvel that I was able to hang to that dynamic
bundle of trained muscles--which defines Mr. Earl Percy well
enough--for more than ten seconds. Yet I did hang to him, as Pere
Baudry testifies, for a minute and a half, which seems no
inconsiderable lapse of time to a person undergoing such experiences as
were then afflicting me.
It appeared to me that we were revolving in enormous circles in the
ether, and I had long since given my last gasp, when there came a great
roaring wind in my ears and a range of mountains toppled upon us both;
we went to earth beneath it.
"Ha! you must create violence, then?" roared the avalanche.
And the voice was the voice of Keredec.
Some one pulled me from underneath my struggling antagonist, and, the
power of sight in a hazy, zigzagging fashion coming back to me, I
perceived the figure of Miss Anne Elliott recumbent beside me, her arms
about Mr. Percy's prostrate body. The extraordinary girl had fastened
upon him, too, though I had not known it, and she had gone to ground
with us; but it is to be said for Mr. Earl Percy that no blow of his
touched her, and she was not hurt. Even in the final extremities of
temper, he had carefully discriminated in my favour.
Mrs. Harman was bending over her, and, as the girl sprang up lightly,
threw her arms about her. For my part, I rose more slowly, section by
section, wondering why I did not fall apart; lips, nose, and cheeks
bleeding, and I had a fear that I should need to be led like a blind
man, through my eyelids swelling shut. That was something I earnestly
desired should not happen; but whether it did, or did not--or if the
heavens fell!--I meant to walk back to Quesnay with Anne Elliott that
night, and, mangled, broken, or half-dead, presenting whatever
appearance of the prize-ring or the abattoir that I might, I intended
to take the same train for Paris on the morrow that she did.
For our days together were not at an end; nor was it hers nor my desire
that they should be.
CHAPTER XXII
It was Oliver Saffren--as I like to think of him--who helped me to my
feet and wiped my face with his handkerchief, and when that one was
ruined, brought others from his bag and stanched the wounds gladly
received, in the service of his wife.
"I will remember--" he said, and his voice broke. "These are the
memories which Keredec says make a man good. I pray they will help to
redeem me." And for the last time I heard the child in him speaking: "I
ought to be redeemed; I must be, don't you think, for her sake?"
"Lose no time!" shouted Keredec. "You must be gone if you will reach
that certain town for the five-o'clock train of the morning." This was
for the spy's benefit; it indicated Lisieux and the train to Paris. Mr.
Percy struggled; the professor knelt over him, pinioning his wrists in
one great hand, and holding him easily to earth.
"Ha! my friend--" he addressed his captive--"you shall not have cause
to say we do you any harm; there shall be no law, for you are not hurt,
and you are not going to be. But here you shall stay quiet for a little
while--till I say you can go." As he spoke he bound the other's wrists
with a short rope which he took from his pocket, performing the same
office immediately afterward for Mr. Percy's ankles.
"I take the count!" was the sole remark of that philosopher. "I can't
go up against no herd of elephants."
"And now," said the professor, rising, "good-bye! The sun shall rise
gloriously for you tomorrow. Come, it is time."
The two women were crying in each other's arms. "Good-bye!" sobbed Anne
Elliott.
Mrs. Harman turned to Keredec. "Good-bye! for a little while."
He kissed her hand. "Dear lady, I shall come within the year."
She came to me, and I took her hand, meaning to kiss it as Keredec had
done, but suddenly she was closer and I felt her lips upon my battered
cheek. I remember it now.
I wrung her husband's hand, and then he took her in his arms, lifted
her to the foot-board of the cart, and sprang up beside her.
"God bless you, and good-bye!" we called.
And their voices came back to us. "God bless YOU and good-bye!" They
were carried into the enveloping night. We stared after them down the
road; watching the lantern on the tail-board of the cart diminish;
watching it dim and dwindle to a point of gray;--listening until the
hoof-beats of the heavy Norman grew fainter than the rustle of the
branch that rose above the wall beside us. But it is bad luck to strain
eyes and ears to the very last when friends are parting, because that
so sharpens the loneliness; and before the cart went quite beyond our
ken, two of us set out upon the longest way to Quesnay.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Guest of Quesnay, by Booth Tarkington