IN THE HIDDEN CELLAR
The three of them stood there in the great, dark entrance hall, Henri
trying to speak through his sobs.
“You, Monsieur Lisle! You are safe. I can not believe my eyes. I am
glad, glad! You can not know—I was tempted. I was weak. They talked me
over, Tortot and his friend, and they promised me a big reward, but I
have known nothing but misery. Monsieur Lisle, you must believe me. I
have known only horror since I helped them plan to take you away, and
since the imprisonment of Madame, your mother, at the home of your
aunt.” Henri clasped his hands in his earnestness. “I am in despair. I
have known bad hours in this house. They have turned against me, Tortot
and the others. They say that I am working against them. I thought just
now that one of them had come to kill me. I promise now to do all I can
to help you and yours.”
Lisle’s face showed no signs of softening as he stood there facing
Henri. He was full of excitement. He had come from the hidden cellar,
and had found adventure before he reached the second story. He had no
pity for Henri.
“You saw to it that my mother was made a prisoner, and yet you dare to
whine before me,” he exclaimed.
Dian had stood silent during the words between Henri and Lisle. He saw
what Lisle did not see, that Henri’s repentance was real, and that, in
spite of his weakness and cowardice, Henri wanted now, most earnestly,
to atone! It was a blessed thing for them all, that Dian knew this to be
true. Henri was one of the people and he knew Paris well. Henri turned
to Dian.
“Tell the young master that it is so. Do not be mad enough to refuse my
aid. I have joined up with a battalion and am leaving the city shortly.
I did not mean them any real harm, only I was afraid——”
“You need not give your cowardice as an excuse. It is you and those like
you who are making this revolution a thing for fiends. It is you and
your kind who are taking all the beauty from the thought of brotherhood.
The Saint Frères have not shown you any kindness, you will say, and that
may be true; but they trusted you, a woman and two children, alone and
unprotected. They never did anything to deserve such rank disloyalty.”
Dian spoke very sternly and turned in the next breath and addressed
himself to Lisle. “You, too, are untrustworthy and disloyal,” he said,
and looked straight into Lisle’s eyes. Lisle’s eyes answered his, a
world of grieved astonishment in their depths.
Dian turned again to Henri.
“Prove your words by some deed that will show you to be less a coward. I
trust you now. I am taking this boy where he will be kept in safety.
You, in the meantime, can try to find some way to undo your evil work. I
can come and go by way of the broken window in the cellar. You know it
well. I can receive a message from you if you have anything of import to
tell me.”
Henri came nearer to Dian as he spoke, looking at him in a way he had
never looked at any human being before. It was as though he were seeing
himself for the first time. He put out both his hands toward Dian.
“You trust me?” he faltered.
Dian nodded. Then he turned and drew Lisle close to him. He knew that he
had spoken harshly. He had meant to do so.
“He saved your life, for I might have killed you!” Henri said to Dian
and the shepherd answered:
“He is like that first Lisle Saint Frère, his long-ago ancestor.”
Dian turned away after he had said these words. Then looking back at
Henri, he went on, “Leave any message for me, here in this hall, under
the carpet by the stairs.” He went on down the hall, Lisle beside him.
When they reached the cellar stairs he looked back. There was no sign or
sound of any one. Henri was not following, not spying.
When they reached the first cellar, they stood for a moment by the jam
shelf where the swinging lanthorn cast its light upon them. Lisle caught
hold of Dian’s arm and looked up at him.
“You said I was like the first Lisle Saint Frère. You said it after I
had disobeyed you. I’m sorry that I left the cellar when you trusted me
to stay,” he said.
Dian held him at arm’s length, smiling the smile that seemed to
transfigure him, bringing a radiance to his face.
“Yes, you did wrong. We all do. It is true that you are like the first
Lisle. Listen, my child, there are great things for you to know. Awake
to them! Think of the protection that has been with you and yours. You
will see.” As he spoke, Dian went to the panel, and kneeling, opened it.
It slid back and they descended backward into the depths.
As Lisle reached the last step, his first impression was of light, and
when he turned around, a blaze of candle radiance greeted him. He put
his hand to his forehead, leaning back for a moment against the rough
wall.
The lighted cellar seemed unreal and so did the two figures who stood by
the old, carved chest. One of the figures, with an odd cry that was half
a laugh, half a sob, sprang forward and caught him about the neck. She
was a wild-looking, dark child with rough black locks which flapped
against his face as she clung to him, but in spite of her rags and the
strangeness of her appearance, he knew, when she called his name, that
it was Marie Josephine!
He was bewildered and it was not to be wondered at. After weeks of
inaction in the bakery shop, the sudden wild rescue, the hidden cellar,
leaving it, the episode with Henri in the hall, and now, wonder of
wonders his sister, Marie Josephine! He felt her arms clinging to him
and looking over her shoulder he saw—could he believe his
senses?—little Jean Barbette, covered with dust and smiling out of his
black eyes!
“It is Jean!” he gasped.
Jean was so delighted at Lisle’s surprise, that he began to hop about on
one foot. “Yes, I came! I came all the way from Pigeon Valley to Paris!
I’m going to tell Petite Mère all about it!” Jean’s eyes seemed fairly
to blaze in his excitement.
“Let us go over to the chest and sit down!” said Lisle, who was trying
not to show his emotion and his unbounded surprise, but he failed in
this, for they could all see that he was fairly dazed. He sat down on
the chest with Marie Josephine beside him, and in spite of her dust and
grime, he kept his arm close about her. Then he beckoned to Jean. “Come
and sit on the other side, won’t you, Jean?” he said.
Dian had gone over to the heap of rugs, and coming back with a soft
brown one, put it on the floor in front of the chest. Jean sat down on
it with his legs crosswise.
“You sit down between us on the chest, Dian,” suggested Marie Josephine
excitedly. “We can talk and talk but I don’t know where to begin. There
are so many things I want to tell and to hear about!”
It was true. It was all so strange and unreal, the journey, their coming
through the gates meeting Dian, then the alley, an odd dark room, a
funny fat man, whose name was Humphrey Trail and who was Lisle’s friend,
and with him Rosanne! Then the walk through the noisy streets with Dian
to her own home, to the secret cellar!
Marie Josephine had to be the one to talk first. She talked so fast and
said so much that her words fairly tumbled over themselves, but her
hearers were so interested that they did not miss one of them! Jean sat
listening as eagerly as any one, nodding his head vigorously every now
and then, and blushing at Marie Josephine’s praise of him. They drank in
all she had to tell them of that spring night less than a week ago when
she had dressed herself in the disguise which she had been all winter in
procuring, and which she told them would furnish a story all of itself.
She told of the pitiful whine of Flambeau when she had come away and
left him, of the last glimpse of Mother Barbette’s cottage, and then of
her words to Grigge. She told of the run through the sweet, night air of
their dear Pigeon Valley, and finally of finding Jean just behind her!
When she reached this stage in her narrative she stopped for sheer lack
of breath and Dian stood up, saying:
“You both need food, Little Mademoiselle. I shall prepare it.”
At these words of Dian’s Jean cried, “Bravo!”
Marie Josephine gave a happy little laugh. “Yes, we do, and I’ll stop
talking altogether for a few minutes.” She turned toward her brother as
she spoke. He was sitting with his head thrown back against the grey
stone wall, his hands at his sides. He wore one of the dark velvet suits
which brought back memories of the schoolroom. Dian had found it
upstairs and had brought it down to him. Marie Josephine had only been
told that Lisle was safe in the hidden cellar. She knew nothing of the
baker shop. As she turned to look at him, he smiled back at her, the
first time since he had smiled at the bakery woman over the cake. He was
so astounded at what she had done, that he could scarcely believe it was
not all a dream. What was it Dian had said there by the panel, that
wonderful smile on his face?—“think of the protection that has been
with you.” Marie Josephine and Jean had come safely through to the heart
of Paris. His sister was sitting there beside him in a disguise which
she had thought of and carried out herself. She had known high
adventure, and she told it all simply as an interesting story, without a
trace of vainglory.
“Why did you come, Marie Josephine? Was it because of the hidden
cellar?” Lisle asked her, and Dian, as he bent over his cooking in a far
corner of the room, listened for her reply. He had built a small fire in
a rough hollow of the floor and he was brewing chocolate. The fire made
some smoke but not enough to cause discomfort, drifting off into the dim
recesses of the alcoves beyond.
“I came because of knowing about it, partly because of that and partly
because grandfather had told me that I was to tell about it if it were
to save a life. I thought and thought about it all winter. It seemed as
though the spring would never come. I knew no one would dream of letting
me come, of course, and I didn’t tell any one but Jean about what I was
going to do. If you want me to I’ll go right on telling some more while
we have the chocolate. There is so much to tell!”
Dian took off the red, brocaded cloth and brought out a white one from a
shelf in a sort of small cavern in the wall. He spread it on the table.
Marie Josephine jumped up, breaking off with, “I’ll set the table. I can
talk while I’m doing it. Bring the silver, and the horn drinking cups,
Jean. They’re there on the shelf. You see,” she looked across and smiled
at Jean as she spoke, “I—I’ve been here in the hidden cellar before!”
Lisle was still sitting with his head thrown back against the stone
wall, and as Marie Josephine looked over at him, a drinking cup in one
hand and a silver spoon in the other, she noticed suddenly that his face
was very white there in the candlelight and that there was something
different about it. It was always like him to keep things to himself.
She came across to him slowly.
“You have been always in my thoughts, and that is why I came—because of
maman and of you. She is safe at Great-aunt Hortense’s house and Dian
will take care of us, but there is something that makes you different.
What is it?”
Dian brought a loaf of bread on a blue plate and put it on the table. He
had already placed a dish of cheese by the jug of chocolate. Then
lifting the table, he brought it up close to the chest.
“Come and eat and drink. That is the best for now. There is much to tell
on each side, for you are not the only one who has had adventures,
Little Mademoiselle,” he said.
“Yes, yes, I know; Rosanne. I am thinking all the time about it, how
Humphrey Trail carried her through the snowstorm to that funny dark
alley room.” She looked across uncertainly at Lisle. “There is something
I do not know, something you have not told me,” she said slowly.
Lisle stood up and caught her about the waist.
“Come,” he said, “you are the worst little beggar as to looks I’ve ever
beheld, isn’t she, Dian? But we’d rather have her just as she is than
the greatest beauty in Paris as it was in the good old days!” He bowed
before her as he spoke and, to his surprise, she started the first steps
of the minuet. How she blessed those hours after dinner, practicing with
Bertran! She hummed the melody as she danced and she forgot everything,
even the hot chocolate for the moment. It was Lisle, with his same old
half-laughing, half-serious way. She was dancing with him in the secret
cellar and, of all the strange happenings of the past week, this seemed
the strangest and in all ways the most wonderful.
“Sometime I’ll tell you about a mouse,” he said as they went through the
graceful measures.
“A mouse! What do you mean?” she questioned merrily, smiling over her
shoulder at Dian and Jean.
“And a cake!” he went on.
“A cake! What do you mean?” she exclaimed again.
“Come, please, and have the very nice chocolate,” pleaded Jean, and they
both came running up to the table.
It was a strange supper there in the deep dim cavern in the heart of the
earth. Lisle and Jean brought the bed up to the table, and they sat down
on it, opposite Dian and Marie Josephine. The hot chocolate in the old
horn drinking cups was delicious, and it seemed to the two wayfarers
that they had never tasted anything so good as the bread and cheese.
“Tell me what you mean by a mouse and a cake, Lisle,” Marie Josephine
demanded, but her brother shook his head.
“I’m too hungry just now, and I want to know what happened when you
found that Jean had followed you. That’s where you left off in your
story,” he said.
Dian had told Marie Josephine that the good Yorkshire farmer had saved
Rosanne from men who had tried to abduct her. He had told her at once
that Lisle was safe in the hidden cellar and that her mother was in the
house of Great-aunt Hortense, but more than this she did not know. She
had taken for granted, in her fatigue and excitement, that her mother
was quite safe, being in the house of her great-aunt, and as Lisle sat
before her alive and well she could not but see that it was all right
with him.
“When I knew that Jean had really come, had followed me all the way, I
was so glad! I can’t tell you how I felt, but it was like flying. We ran
on and on through the woods, and we did not seem to be tired at all. We
would rest now and then, and once I told a story, but I didn’t dare to
stay still for very long, for fear Jean would fall asleep.”
Jean blushed at this, and Marie Josephine added hastily:
“It was hard for me to keep awake, too, for everything was asleep, even
the owls, I think. It was wonderful, wasn’t it, Jean, there in the still
night? I’d always wanted to be out in the woods in the middle of the
night, not just evening. When early morning came we were at the edge of
the forest, and we went right up to the old green mill-inn!” Marie
Josephine leaned forward eagerly as she went on, one hand stretched
across the table: “The minute I saw the dark woman, I recognized her as
the one who waited on us at lunch last summer, but of course I wasn’t a
bit frightened because she thought we were just little tramp children.
She was just going to tell us to be off when—what do you think?” She
paused impressively.
“What!” exclaimed Lisle.
He was listening eagerly, a bit of color in his cheeks. Dian watched
him, wondering if the first Lisle Saint Frère had been like him. Dian,
too, was listening with all his heart to everything that Marie Josephine
was saying.
“Why, all of a sudden, who should appear at the edge of the forest and
come running to us but Flambeau!”
They all laughed at this statement, but their laughter sounded so odd,
echoing through the long, low hollows and arches of the ancient place
that they stopped almost as soon as they began, and Marie Josephine went
on with her story. She told how the woman suddenly became very friendly
and ushered them inside, how she became suspicious of the woman, and how
Jean tried the door and found it bolted.
“I couldn’t be really sure it was the same woman I’d seen under our oak
at Les Vignes, but I was almost sure, and I knew when we found that we
were locked in.” They listened breathlessly while she told of the eave’s
trough and their escape.
“You talk for a while, Jean. Tell them the rest. Jean was so splendid.
It was all his idea about the trough and the tree.” Marie Josephine sat
back and rubbed her eyes, which smarted a little from the smoke of the
fast-dying fire.
Dian sat with his hands on his knees, his face almost stern in its
earnestness. The woman from the green mill had been spying. He had
always felt that it was a strange place, and so had Neville, though they
had had no real reason to suspect it. He hoped with all his heart that
the adventure of the green mill had been only an episode in the
children’s strange journey, and that there would not be anything further
to fear from that direction.
Jean told of the happy meeting with the man who drove the coach.
“There isn’t much to tell about it, for we went right to sleep and slept
all day. The driver was a very nice man, and when I woke up I went and
sat on the box with him, and we talked about all that’s going on. He
told me his brother was fighting with the army of the Revolution. He was
a kind man even if he was cross-eyed.”
“What was his name?” It was Dian who spoke.
Jean shook his head, and so did Marie Josephine.
“I ought to remember but I don’t. A farm boy came up to the cart and
gave him a letter to deliver on his way back, just as we were getting
out of the cart. The boy spoke his name but I’ve forgotten it,” answered
Jean.
A cross-eyed coach driver on the Calais road, a farm boy with a note for
him to deliver on his way back. Dian bowed his head over his hands and
sat quietly. As Jean went on Dian knew what he had so longed to know,
that the note for Grigge had fallen safely into the hands of Champar the
coach driver, who was his friend.
“He asked him if he went near Pigeon Valley, and the driver said, 'Yes,
sometimes in good weather,’ and that he was going that way on his route
back,” Jean said, thus giving Dian the knowledge he so longed to
possess.
“Do go on and tell how we walked all night because we had slept all
day,” put in Marie Josephine impatiently.
“You tell, Little Mademoiselle,” said Jean.
“It was the best time of all, I think, for though we were thrilled the
first night we were—well, not frightened, but sort of not used to it
all. We’d had a splendid rest all day and we were so excited. It was
such a warm night, and the wild lavender was so sweet that the whole
wood smelt of it. It was splendid out on the highroad, too, and we never
met anything to frighten us. We had the food we’d both brought, and we
ate it at dawn under a big flowering hawthorn tree. We kept on walking,
and we didn’t know how tired we were, until all of a sudden we couldn’t
go another step. We went to sleep in a sort of summer house in the
garden of an empty house. No one saw us, and in the afternoon we started
on.” Marie Josephine hesitated, and then said honestly:
“We were all tired out by that time and I was very cross.”
“It was my fault because I was homesick,” put in Jean.
“It wasn’t your fault any more than mine, for we were both homesick and
Flambeau was a great worry.”
“Where is Flambeau?” asked Lisle.
“We’ve left him with some people in a farmhouse. We knew we simply
couldn’t come through the gates with him,” answered his sister.
“The Little Mademoiselle was very good to me when I was homesick on the
third day. It was while the sun was going down, and we were sitting on a
mound near a river where we could see it. It made me think of how we
used to watch it sinking behind the woods when we used to come across
the meadow with Dian and the sheep, and—and—I cried.” Poor Jean
blushed as he admitted the last.
“So did I almost. There were tears in my eyes, and some you didn’t see
slid right down my cheeks, Jean. It was glorious, sitting there by the
river, watching the sun say good-by to it, making it all gold and pink.
I told Jean about the 'Song of Roland’ and we pretended to listen for
his horn echoing down from the hills, just the way it must have sounded
to the soldiers long ago when Roland blew the last blast as he was dying
in the hills. The next day we had a long ride in a farmer’s cart. He was
a fierce man with bristling moustaches even though he was a farmer. He
said he hoped the guillotine would put an end to every aristo in the
country. That ride helped a good deal, and when the farmer asked if we
were hungry and we said we were, he gave us some young radishes and a
half loaf of bread.” Marie Josephine stopped for a moment to draw a long
breath, and then said regretfully: “We didn’t really have any exciting
adventure except the one of the old green mill. We just trudged along
and everyone took us for poor tramp children, though they all stared and
asked questions about Flambeau. That was one reason why we left him with
some nice children who lived in a house near Melon. They promised to
take good care of him until we came for him, and to keep him locked up
until we were out of sight so he could not follow us. I knew that
Flambeau would make it much harder for us when we came to Paris, he
looks so——”
“Such an aristo,” suggested Lisle.
They all laughed.
“That’s it,” assented his sister. “He’s such an aristo.”
Dian stood up suddenly, and going over to the stairs, listened. Then he
started back a little, putting his hand out warningly toward the
children. The next instant a breathless voice came down to them:
“Tha said well when tha said the sliding was not large; an’ I live to
reach the cellar I shall never come back again!”
They all ran eagerly to the foot of the stairs. There, coming down
backward, was Humphrey Trail and in front of him, moving cautiously, her
hand on his shoulders, was Rosanne. Dian was up the stairs and had shut
the panel in a second. Then he waited a few minutes, listening. When he
returned Humphrey was surrounded by the children. Jean sat on his knee,
Marie Josephine stood on one side, Rosanne next her, the two friends
holding hands, and in front of him stood Lisle. Lisle was speaking and
Marie Josephine was more surprised at his words than at the arrival of
the farmer and Rosanne.
“Humphrey Trail, I am glad to see you. Humphrey Trail, you were right
and I was wrong. I did not take your warning. I kept on going to the
baker’s shop until it became my prison. I brought Rosanne into awful
danger and you rescued her. Humphrey, I—” He looked about the dim, bare
place, weird in the uncertain light of the fast melting candles. “You
are welcome here,” he ended simply.
Marie Josephine never knew, she said afterward, whether she was really
awake, it all seemed so fantastic, the half-dark cellar, all of them
there together, Lisle talking about a prison in a bakery shop, and a
note in a cake which Dian found at a spinner’s supper. She heard over
again of Humphrey’s wrapping Rosanne in the blue velvet mantle, of his
vain search for Lisle, of his meeting at the gates with Dian, of Vivi.
They talked on, as Dian went through the dim, rocky alcoves beyond,
making beds out of rugs and blankets and lighting candles, the striking
of the flint and tinder making an odd sound in the stillness.
Vivi had come in late that evening and had brought disquieting news.
This Humphrey told Dian in an aside. She had spent a good part of the
day roaming about, and had gone to the house of the Marquise du Ganne.
With other curious children of the street, she had looked through the
broken door at the comtesse. She had heard that there were other
prisoners hidden in the house and that in the course of a few days they
were to be taken to the prison of La Force. She had heard, too, among
the crowd that there was to be a general search for missing aristocrats
through the Saint Antoine district. She had come in tired and excited,
after Humphrey had searched for her in vain and had returned to the
alley, and she had told him all she knew. What he had not understood,
Rosanne had explained in English. They had thought it best that Vivi
should not know who they were, as much for her own safety as for theirs;
so, when they left, Humphrey put a mound of coins on the table and said
to her: “Th’art faithful. We ha’ trust in tha. I shall come back,” but
he did not tell her where they were all going.
Rosanne had put her arms around her friend and cried, and when Humphrey
carried her out of the door, she had said earnestly:
“I, too, shall see you again. We are friends, Vivi.”
It was a grave risk that Humphrey ran, for there was no friendly
snowstorm to cover their getting away, but the alley had been deserted
and he had concealed Rosanne completely with his cloak.
“Dian, I wish we had brought Vivi with us. I think all the time of
Vivi,” Rosanne said as he came up to her, a pillow for her bed and Marie
Josephine’s in his hands.
The shepherd smiled.
“You need not be afraid for the little Vivi, Mademoiselle. She is safe
in the only home she has ever known, and there are bright days ahead for
her. She is better off now than she knows. Have no thought for her but
one of love.” He paused a moment. “The good God who sent us Vivi loves
her, Mademoiselle,” he said.
Marie Josephine was half asleep, her funny, tangled shock of hair on
Rosanne’s shoulder, but her eyes, when she looked up at Dian, were
bright with excitement.
“I may go to maman to-morrow, promise me, Dian. I told you in the alley
room that I would be patient about not seeing her to-night, but
to-morrow early I must go straight to her and to Great-aunt Hortense. It
will be quite safe for me in the streets in my disguise.” She caught his
arm and looked up at him as she spoke.
Dian looked down at Marie Josephine and said to her simply:
“There is real work for you to do to-morrow. You have come just in time,
and you have not come in vain, Little Mademoiselle. I hope that you will
see your mother to-morrow.”