UNDER THE GREENWOOD.
To escape from my companions on some pretext, which should enable me
to ensure their safety without arousing their fears, was the one
thought which possessed me on the subsidence of my first alarm.
Probably it answered to that instinct in animals which bids them get
away alone when wounded or attacked by disease; and with me it had the
fuller play as the pain prevailed rather by paroxysms than in
permanence, and, coming and going, allowed intervals of ease, in which
I was able to think clearly and consecutively, and even to sit firmly
in the saddle.
The moment one of these intervals enabled me to control myself, I used
it to think where I might go without danger to others; and at once and
naturally my thoughts turned to the last place we had passed; which
happened to be the house in the gorge where we had received news of
Bruhl's divergence from the road. The man who lived there alone had
had the plague; therefore he did not fear it. The place itself was
solitary, and I could reach it, riding slowly, in half an hour. On the
instant and without more delay I determined on this course. I would
return, and, committing myself to the fellow's good offices, bid him
deny me to others, and especially to my friends--should they seek me.
Aware that I had no time to lose if I would put this plan into
execution before the pains returned to sap my courage, I drew bridle
at once, and muttered some excuse to madame; if I remember rightly,
that I had dropped my gauntlet. Whatever the pretext--and my dread was
great lest she should observe any strangeness in my manner--it passed
with her; by reason, chiefly, I think, of the grief which monopolised
her. She let me go, and before anyone else could mark or miss me I was
a hundred yards away on the back-track, and already sheltered from
observation by a turn in the road.
The excitement of my evasion supported me for a while after leaving
her; and then for another while, a paroxysm of pain deprived me of the
power of thought. But when this last was over, leaving me weak and
shaken, yet clear in my mind, the most miserable sadness and
depression that can be conceived came upon me; and, accompanying
me through the wood, filled its avenues (which doubtless were fair
enough to others' eyes) with the blackness of despair. I saw but the
charnel-house, and that everywhere. It was not only that the horrors
of the first discovery returned upon me and almost unmanned me; nor
only that regrets and memories, pictures of the past and plans for the
future, crowded thick upon my mind, so that I could have wept at the
thought of all ending here. But in my weakness mademoiselle's face
shone where the wood was darkest, and, tempting and provoking me to
return--were it only to tell her that, grim and dull as I seemed, I
loved her--tried me with a subtle temptation almost beyond my strength
to resist. All that was mean in me rose in arms, all that was selfish
clamoured to know why I must die in the ditch while others rode in the
sunshine; why I must go to the pit, while others loved and lived!
And so hard was I pressed that I think I should have given way had the
ride been longer or my horse less smooth and nimble. But in the midst
of my misery, which bodily pain was beginning to augment to such a
degree that I could scarcely see, and had to ride gripping the saddle
with both hands, I reached the mill. My horse stopped of its own
accord. The man we had seen before came out. I had just strength left
to tell him what was the matter, and what I wanted; and then a fresh
attack came on, with sickness, and overcome by vertigo I fell to the
ground.
I have but an indistinct idea what happened after that; until I found
myself inside the house, clinging to the man's arm. He pointed to a
box-bed in one corner of the room (which was, or seemed to my sick
eyes, gloomy and darksome in the extreme), and would have had me lie
down in it. But something inside me revolted against the bed, and
despite the force he used, I broke away, and threw myself on a heap of
straw which I saw in another corner.
'Is not the bed good enough for you?' he grumbled.
I strove to tell him it was not that.
'It should be good enough to die on,' he continued brutally. 'There's
five have died on that bed, I'd have you know! My wife one, and my son
another, and my daughter another; and then my son again, and a
daughter again. Five! Ay, five in that bed!'
Brooding in the gloom of the chimney-corner, where he was busied about
a black pot, he continued to mutter and glance at me askance; but
after a while I swooned away with pain.
When I opened my eyes again the room was darker. The man still sat
where I had last seen him, but a noise, the same, perhaps, which had
roused me, drew him as I looked to the unglazed window. A voice
outside, the tones of which I seemed to know, inquired if he had seen
me; and so carried away was I by the excitement of the moment that I
rose on my elbow to hear the answer. But the man was staunch. I heard
him deny all knowledge of me, and presently the sound of retreating
hoofs and the echo of voices dying in the distance assured me I was
left.
Then, at that instant, a doubt of the man on whose compassion I had
thrown myself entered my mind. Plague-stricken, hopeless as I was, it
chilled me to the very heart; staying in a moment the feeble tears I
was about to shed, and curing even the vertigo, which forced me to
clutch at the straw on which I lay. Whether the thought arose from a
sickly sense of my own impotence, or was based on the fellow's morose
air and the stealthy glances he continued to cast at me, I am as
unable to say as I am to decide whether it was well-founded, or the
fruit of my own fancy. Possibly the gloom of the room and the man's
surly words inclined me to suspicion; possibly his secret thoughts
portrayed themselves in his hang-dog visage. Afterwards it appeared
that he had stripped me, while I lay, of everything of value; but he
may have done this in the belief that I should die.
All I know is that I knew nothing certain, because the fear died
almost as soon as it was born. The man had scarcely seated himself
again, or I conceived the thought, when a second alarm outside caused
him to spring to his feet. Scowling and muttering as he went, he
hurried to the window. But before he reached it the door was dashed
violently open, and Simon Fleix stood in the entrance.
There came in with him so blessed a rush of light and life as in a
moment dispelled the horror of the room, and stripped me at one and
the same time of fear and manhood. For whether I would or no, at sight
of the familiar face, which I had fled so lately, I burst into tears;
and, stretching out my hands to him, as a frightened child might have
done, called on him by name. I suppose the plague was by this time so
plainly written on my face that all who looked might read; for he
stood at gaze, staring at me, and was still so standing when a hand
put him aside and a slighter, smaller figure, pale-faced and hooded,
stood for a moment between me and the sunshine. It was mademoiselle!
That, I thank God, restored me to myself, or I had been for ever
shamed. I cried to them with all the voice I had left to take her
away; and calling out frantically again and again that I had the
plague and she would die, I bade the man close the door. Nay,
regaining something of strength in my fear for her, I rose up,
half-dressed as I was, and would have fled into some corner to avoid
her, still calling out to them to take her away, to take her away--if
a fresh paroxysm had not seized me, so that I fell blind and helpless
where I was.
For a time after that I knew nothing; until someone held water to my
lips, and I drank greedily, and presently awoke to the fact that the
entrance was dark with faces and figures all gazing at me as I lay.
But I could not see her; and I had sense enough to know and be
thankful that she was no longer among them. I would fain have bidden
Maignan begone too, for I read the consternation in his face. But I
could not muster strength or voice for the purpose, and when I turned
my head to see who held me--ah me! it comes back to me still in
dreams--it was mademoiselle's hair that swept my forehead and her hand
that ministered to me; while tears she did not try to hide or wipe
away fell on my hot cheek. I could have pushed her away even then, for
she was slight and small; but the pains came upon me, and with a sob
choking my voice I lost all knowledge.
I am told that I lay for more than a month between life and death, now
burning with fever and now in the cold fit; and that but for the
tendance which never failed nor faltered, nor could have been outdone
had my malady been the least infectious in the world, I must have died
a hundred times, as hundreds round me did die week by week in that
year. From the first they took me out of the house (where I think I
should have perished quickly, so impregnated was it with the plague
poison) and laid me under a screen of boughs in the forest, with a
vast quantity of cloaks and horse-cloths cunningly disposed to
windward. Here I ran some risk from cold and exposure and the fall of
heavy dews; but, on the other hand, had all the airs of heaven to
clear away the humours and expel the fever from my brain.
Hence it was that when the first feeble beginnings of consciousness
awoke in me again, they and the light stole in on me through green
leaves, and overhanging boughs, and the freshness and verdure of the
spring woods. The sunshine which reached my watery eyes was softened
by its passage through great trees, which grew and expanded as I gazed
up into them, until each became a verdant world, with all a world's
diversity of life. Grown tired of this, I had still long avenues of
shade, carpeted with flowers, to peer into; or a little wooded
bottom--where the ground fell away on one side--that blazed and burned
with red-thorn. Ay, and hence it was that the first sounds I heard,
when the fever left me at last, and I knew morning from evening, and
man from woman, were the songs of birds calling to their mates.
Mademoiselle and Madame de Bruhl, with Fanchette and Simon Fleix, lay
all this time in such shelter as could be raised for them where I lay;
M. Francois and three stout fellows, whom Maignan left to guard us,
living in a hut within hail. Maignan himself, after seeing out a week
of my illness, had perforce returned to his master, and no news had
since been received from him. Thanks to the timely move into the
woods, no other of the party fell ill, and by the time I was able to
stand and speak the ravages of the disease had so greatly decreased
that fear was at an end.
I should waste words were I to try to describe how the peace and
quietude of the life we led in the forest during the time of my
recovery sank into my heart; which had known, save by my mother's
bedside, little of such joys. To awake in the morning to sweet sounds
and scents, to eat with reviving appetite and feel the slow growth of
strength, to lie all day in shade or sunshine as it pleased me, and
hear women's voices and tinkling laughter, to have no thought of the
world and no knowledge of it, so that we might have been, for anything
we saw, in another sphere--these things might have sufficed for
happiness without that which added to each and every one of them a
sweeter and deeper and more lasting joy. Of which next.
I had not begun to take notice long before I saw that M. Francois and
madame had come to an understanding; such an one, at least, as
permitted him to do all for her comfort and entertainment without
committing her to more than was becoming at such a season. Naturally
this left mademoiselle much in my company; a circumstance which would
have ripened into passion the affection I before entertained for her,
had not gratitude and a nearer observance of her merits already
elevated the feeling into the most ardent worship that even the
youngest lover ever felt for his mistress.
In proportion, however, as I and my love grew stronger, and
mademoiselle's presence grew more necessary to my happiness--so that
were she away but an hour I fell a-moping--she began to draw off from
me, and absenting herself more and more on long walks in the woods,
by-and-by reduced me to such a pitch of misery as bid fair to complete
what the fever had left undone.
If this had happened in the world I think it likely that I should have
suffered in silence. But here, under the greenwood, in common
enjoyment of God's air and earth, we seemed more nearly equal. She was
scarce better dressed than a sutler's wife; while recollections of her
wealth and station, though they assailed me nightly, lost much of
their point in presence of her youth and of that fair and patient
gentleness which forest life and the duties of a nurse had fostered.
So it happened that one day, when she had been absent longer than
usual, I took my courage in my hand and went to meet her as far as the
stream which ran through the bottom by the redthorn. Here, at a place
where there were three stepping-stones, I waited for her; first taking
away the stepping-stones, that she might have to pause, and, being at
a loss, might be glad to see me.
She came presently, tripping through an alley in the low wood, with
her eyes on the ground, and her whole carriage full of a sweet
pensiveness which it did me good to see. I turned my back on the
stream before she saw me, and made a pretence of being taken up with
something in another direction. Doubtless she espied me soon, and
before she came very near; but she made no sign until she reached the
brink, and found the stepping-stones were gone.
Then, whether she suspected me or not, she called out to me, not once,
but several times. For, partly to tantalise her, as lovers will, and
partly because it charmed me to hear her use my name, I would not turn
at once.
When I did, and discovered her standing with one small foot dallying
with the water, I cried out with well-affected concern; and in a great
hurry ran towards her, paying no attention to her chiding or the
pettish haughtiness with which she spoke to me.
'The stepping-stones are all on your side,' she said imperiously. 'Who
has moved them?'
I looked about without answering, and at last pretended to find them;
while she stood watching me, tapping the ground with one foot the
while. Despite her impatience, the stone which was nearest to her I
took care to bring last--that she might not cross without my
assistance. But after all she stepped over so lightly and quickly that
the hand she placed in mine seemed scarcely to rest there a second.
Yet when she was over I managed to retain it; nor did she resist,
though her cheek, which had been red before, turned crimson and her
eyes fell, and bound to me by the link of her little hand, she stood
beside me with her whole figure drooping.
'Mademoiselle,' I said gravely, summoning all my resolution to my aid,
'do you know of what that stream with its stepping-stones reminds me?'
She shook her head but did not answer.
'Of the stream which has flowed between us from the day when I first
saw you at St. Jean,' I said in a low voice. 'It has flowed between
us, and it still does--separating us.'
'What stream?' she murmured, with her eyes cast down, and her foot
playing with the moss. 'You speak in riddles, sir.'
'You understand this one only too well, mademoiselle,' I answered.
'Are you not young and gay and beautiful, while I am old, or almost
old, and dull and grave? You are rich and well-thought-of at Court,
and I a soldier of fortune, not too successful. What did you think of
me when you first saw me at St. Jean? What when I came to Rosny? That,
mademoiselle,' I continued with fervour, 'is the stream which flows
between us and separates us; and I know of but one stepping-stone that
can bridge it.'
She looked aside, toying with a piece of thorn-blossom she had picked.
It was not redder than her cheeks.
'That one stepping-stone,' I said, after waiting vainly for any word
or sign from her, 'is Love. Many weeks ago, mademoiselle, when I had
little cause to like you, I loved you; I loved you whether I would or
not, and without thought or hope of return. I should have been mad had
I spoken to you then. Mad, and worse than mad. But now, now that I owe
you my life, now that I have drunk from your hand in fever, and,
awaking early and late, have found you by my pillow--now that, seeing
you come in and out in the midst of fear and hardship, I have learned
to regard you as a woman kind and gentle as my mother--now that I love
you, so that to be with you is joy, and away from you grief, is it
presumption in me now, mademoiselle, to think that that stream may be
bridged?'
I stopped, out of breath, and saw that she was trembling. But she
spoke presently. 'You said one stepping-stone?' she murmured.
'Yes,' I answered hoarsely, trying in vain to look at her face, which
she kept averted from me.
'There should be two,' she said, almost in a whisper. 'Your love, sir,
and--and mine. You have said much of the one, and nothing of the
other. In that you are wrong, for I am proud still. And I would not
cross the stream you speak of for any love of yours!'
'Ah!' I cried in sharpest pain.
'But,' she continued, looking up at me on a sudden with eyes that told
me all, 'because I love you I am willing to cross it--to cross it once
for ever, and live beyond it all my life--if I may live my life with
you.'
I fell on my knee and kissed her hand again and again in a rapture of
joy and gratitude. By-and-by she pulled it from me. 'If you will,
sir,' she said, 'you may kiss my lips. If you do not, no man ever
will.'
After that, as may be guessed, we walked every day in the forest,
making longer and longer excursions as my strength came back to me,
and the nearer parts grew familiar. From early dawn, when I brought my
love a posy of flowers, to late evening, when Fanchette hurried her
from me, our days were passed in a long round of delight; being filled
full of all beautiful things--love, and sunshine, and rippling
streams, and green banks, on which we sat together under scented
limes, telling one another all we had ever thought, and especially all
we had ever thought of one another. Sometimes--when the light was low
in the evening--we spoke of my mother; and once--but that was in the
sunshine, when the bees were humming and my blood had begun to run
strongly in my veins--I spoke of my great and distant kinsman, Rohan.
But mademoiselle would hear nothing of him, murmuring again and again
in my ear, 'I have crossed, my love, I have crossed.'
Truly the sands of that hour-glass were of gold. But in time they ran
out. First M. Francois, spurred by the restlessness of youth, and
convinced that madame would for a while yield no farther, left us, and
went back to the world. Then news came of great events that could not
fail to move us. The King of France and the King of Navarre had met at
Tours, and embracing in the sight of an immense multitude, had
repulsed the League with slaughter in the suburb of St. Symphorien.
Fast on this followed the tidings of their march northwards with an
overwhelming army of fifty-thousand men of both religions, bent,
rumour had it, on the signal punishment of Paris.
I grew--shame that I should say it--to think more and more of these
things; until mademoiselle, reading the signs, told me one day that we
must go. 'Though never again,' she added with a sigh, 'shall we be so
happy.'
'Then why go?' I asked foolishly.
'Because you are a man,' she answered with a wise smile, 'as I would
have you be, and you need something besides love. To-morrow we will
go.'
'Whither?' I said in amazement.
'To the camp before Paris,' she answered. 'We will go back in the
light of day--seeing that we have done nothing of which to be
ashamed--and throw ourselves on the justice of the King of Navarre.
You shall place me with Madame Catherine, who will not refuse to
protect me; and so, sweet, you will have only yourself to think of.
Come, sir,' she continued, laying her little hand in mine, and looking
into my eyes, 'you are not afraid?'
'I am more afraid than ever I used to be,' I said trembling.
'So I would have it,' she whispered, hiding her face on my shoulder.
'Nevertheless we will go.'
And go we did. The audacity of such a return in the face of Turenne,
who was doubtless in the King of Navarre's suite, almost took my
breath away; nevertheless, I saw that it possessed one advantage which
no other course promised--that, I mean, of setting us right in the
eyes of the world, and enabling me to meet in a straightforward manner
such as maligned us. After some consideration I gave my assent, merely
conditioning that until we reached the Court we should ride masked,
and shun as far as possible encounters by the road.