AFTERWARDS
The last generous glow of October had passed into the first chill of
November; the white haze of an early frost lay over the fields as Luc,
but a few days after the fête, rode across the fields where he had
walked with Clémence on his way home from the house of the Comte de
Séguy.
He noted, even in his happy mood, a certain sadness in the deserted
spot that had been so gay. The fair was over, the travelling players
had gone, leaving behind them worn grass, scattered rubbish, and
trampled bushes; in one corner of the field a ragged tent still
stood with a long blue and scarlet streamer fluttering above it. Luc
wondered at that, for there was no indication of anyone having been
left behind; but he rode on briskly towards the gates of Aix, and was
striking out of the fields into the high road when round the group of
elms, where the stage had been but so short a time before, rode Carola
Koklinska.
It seemed as if she would have passed him without a word, but he drew
rein, and then she checked her horse also.
“You wonder to see me in Aix,” she said.
It was sunless and near to twilight. She wore a dark dress and hat,
and in her whole person was no colour whatever; her face was pallid,
and the blood only showed faintly in her lips; her mount was a fine
white horse--an animal such as she had ridden when she came round the
silver firs in Bohemia.
“Certainly; I thought you were in Austria, Madame,” said Luc with a
grave smile.
She looked at him steadily through the cold, uncertain light.
“I have been a failure in Austria,” she answered. “Perhaps you have
not heard, Monsieur, that I have been a failure altogether.”
“No,” said the Marquis; “I have heard nothing of you. I was surprised
to see you the other day--here, at the fête.”
“I came,” she replied, still gazing at him, “because I shall not be
likely to ever hear music or see gaiety again--not even this little
simple country merry-making.”
The wind blew sharply between them and a few dead leaves fell from the
elm on to Carola’s lap.
“Is M. de Richelieu in Paris?” asked Luc.
“M. de Richelieu”--she spoke without heat or bitterness--“is now the
servant of Madame de la Poplinière, and M. Amelot, who was my friend,
has fallen. The Marquise de Pompadour has changed the face of the
Court; every post is now filled by her creatures. Besides, I was very
stupid in Austria--I was found out.”
Her horse shook his head and the bridle silver twinkled in the
stillness.
Luc asked her what she had once asked him--
“What are you going to do with your life?”
“I have made my choice.” Her answer was ready. “M. de Richelieu is
generous--he gives one--alternatives. I have an estate in Poland, my
husband’s estate. I could go there, with a pension--I could die--like
Madame de Chateauroux--I could go into a convent. I have decided on
the last.”
“Why?” asked Luc, leaning a little forward on his saddle.
“Because I am tired.” Her dark, heavy-lidded eyes were still clear
and steady. “You must not think that I am more holy than I ever was.
I have simply done what I meant to--come to the usual end--and I am
tired.”
“Will your religion console you for the loss of the world?” smiled Luc.
“Yes,” she answered swiftly. “Do you remember me in the chapel of St.
Wenceslas? I _believe_.”
“Are you putting this resolve in practice--at once?”
She answered in her old precise tones.
“I am journeying to a convent near Avignon which is under a certain
obligation to me. I was generous to them and they will be generous to
me.”
“Alone?” asked Luc gently. “You are travelling alone?”
She smiled.
“I had my page. He left me yesterday with most of my jewels. Yes, I am
alone. As you may remember, Monsieur, I am not afraid--of such things
as travelling alone.”
He did remember her in Bohemia, and a glow came into his heart.
“I think you have a fine courage, Madame.”
“Yes?” she assented indifferently. “There are so many kinds of
courage, are there not? I,” she added, “have been cowardly enough in
some things.”
Luc sat silent, looking down at the dark mane of his patient horse.
“You are to have your chance in the spring,” continued Carola. “I
am glad--and about Mademoiselle de Séguy. In great sincerity I
congratulate you. I believe and hope this lady will not disappoint
you.”
“I believe so also, Madame,” said Luc proudly.
Carola sighed.
“I am leaving Aix to-night,” she said. “Good-bye, Monsieur le Marquis.”
Luc took off his hat.
“Good-bye, Madame. I shall still think of our journey to Eger as
an--inspiration.”
“Thank you,” answered Carola.
She touched up her horse; and so it seemed that they were about to
part for ever, he journeying towards the dark gates of the town and
his brilliant future, she towards her convent and her obscure end. So
they would have parted had not a sudden sound checked them, made them
pause, drawn them once more together.
It was the imploring, weak wail of a child rising out of the empty
dusk. They both listened, and it was repeated.
“O God!” cried Carola, with sudden passion. “I have heard that cry in
dreams!”
“Some child is lost,” said Luc.
“And in pain,” she added quickly.
He turned his horse’s head, and went back with her along the way he
had come, across the worn grass of the fair ground, which was strewn
with confetti, torn paper, and ragged muslin roses.
The crying continued. It sounded near, yet very feeble; it could
scarcely rise above the sound of the horses’ hoofs or the jingle of
the harness.
The twilight seemed to have descended very rapidly; it was now almost
dark, but the clouds were breaking above a rising moon, and the last
glow of daylight was mingled with a cold, unearthly radiance. Luc felt
chilly even beneath his riding mantle; the memory of the march from
Prague seemed to linger in the faintly bitter air.
Carola paused and looked over her shoulder at the man, who was a
little behind her.
“Stop,” she said. “You had better ride home, Monsieur.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you not heard about the plague?”
“The plague?”
“The smallpox,” she said intensely. “They say it will be bad in
Provence this winter. They wish to keep it from the towns. I was told,
at my inn, that they suspected it among the players, and had ordered
them away suddenly.”
“Well?” questioned Luc keenly.
Carola pointed her whip towards the corner of the field where the
solitary tent stood.
“The crying comes from there,” she said. “They have left somebody
behind.”
“Ah!” cried Luc, “some one infected--some one ill!”
“I think so--at least it is possible.”
Luc had heard of such things often enough. The smallpox was the dread
and the scourge of the country; his father had earned recognition from
the Court by his heroic fight with an epidemic in Aix many years ago.
Luc had heard him speak of how the sick and dying had been cast out by
their own kin.
“I will see if there is anyone abandoned in the tent,” he said.
Carola laid her hand on his bridle.
“No,” she cried, with energy. “Return home, Monsieur. You have others
to think of--remember, reflect. You must not risk it.”
Luc smiled.
“Am I to watch you go--and then ride away?”
“Ah,” she answered, “what does it matter about me? There is a _maison
de Dieu_ at my convent; the nuns would take in the sick.”
“Madame, simply because there may be some danger, I cannot leave you.”
“You have never had the smallpox?”
“No.”
“Then,” she said, in great agitation, “you must not come. Think of
Mademoiselle de Séguy.”
“She would bid me go,” smiled Luc. “And we make much out of
nothing--maybe it is not the plague.”
He took her hand gently from his reins and rode across to the tent.
By the time he had dismounted and fastened his horse to a little
broken elm tree she was on foot also and beside him, leading her horse.
“If you were to ride into the town, could you not find some one who
would come?” she asked.
“Many,” he answered; “but why should I? This has come my way. Do you
ride on, Madame.”
“O God!” cried Carola desperately, “supposing it is the plague?”
Luc lifted the tent flap and entered. The air was heavy and foul; it
was completely dark. Luc stepped cautiously; he could hear nothing.
He began to think Carola had been mistaken, and that the tent was
empty, when she appeared behind him with the lantern from her saddle,
lit, in her hand. The beautiful beams disclosed the sagging canvas,
the tipping centre pole, a confusion of articles, clothes, cooking
utensils, stools, and paper hats and crowns cast over the ground.
Carola held the lantern higher.
In one corner a child lay along a pile of garments, staring at the
light with glazed eyes; her face was white and disfigured with purple
stains like bruises, her lips were covered with blood. Seeing these
two looking at her, she began to wail incoherently.
Both Luc and Carola recognized her by her apple-green bodice and red
and white skirts: she was the little dancer on the tight-rope at the
fête.
Luc made a step forward, but Carola caught his arm.
“It _is_ the smallpox!” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”
Luc looked at her.
“You should not be here,” he said.
The child began to talk in some kind of patois.
“She is saying her prayers,” said Luc, who knew the dialect of the
district. He shook his arm free from Carola, went to the humble bed,
and took the small, cold, heavy hand of the sick child in his. “What
is the matter, eh?” he asked, in a tone of great tenderness. “You are
not alone now.”
“You have done a mad thing,” said Carola, in a quivering voice. “You
cannot return to Aix now.”
He lifted his calm, beautiful face, round which the soft locks of
hazel hair had loosened.
“No,” he said, very gravely--“not until I know if this is the smallpox
or not.”
He put his arm round the child, and, taking his laced handkerchief
from his pocket, wiped the blood from the sore lips. The little
creature drooped her swollen face against the silk muslin and lace on
his bosom.
Carola set the lantern on a stool and looked round the tent.
“Here is nothing,” she said. “What can we do.” Luc looked up.
“Your convent, Madame. You say they would take in the sick?”
“Yes--that is our only chance to save the child.”
“And to avoid Aix,” added the Marquis quietly. “How far is this
convent?”
“Twenty miles, perhaps.”
She came to the other side of the couch and knelt down.
“Give _me_ the child,” she said passionately. “You do not know what
you are doing--what it means. For God’s sake----!”
“Hush,” answered Luc gently. “I know very well--hush.”
The little girl lay in a stupor in his arms; as the blood came to her
mouth he wiped it away. His face was utterly pale, but serene; he was
thinking of Clémence and the beggar on the Paris quay.
Carola looked at him, and controlled herself with an effort.
“You sacrifice so much,” she said, in a very low voice; “I nothing.
You were wrong not to let me undertake this.”
“Could you have carried her?” he asked, with a little smile.
And to both of them came the thought of the child she had borne over
the Bohemian mountains.
“That was younger,” she murmured.
And in the strangeness of their being alone again with the dying,
isolated alone again from the world, they looked at each other in
silence.
“What shall I do?” whispered Carola.
“We will go to your convent. I think the moon will hold. There is no
other way, and perhaps we may prevent the plague spreading to Aix. All
this”--he looked round the tent--“must be burnt.” He rose from his
knees, lifting the child, who cried bitterly when her aching body was
moved.
“We will go at once,” he said, with his simple air of decision. “Some
one might find us here.”
Two slender figures in their long dark cloaks, they left the tent--he
carrying the child, she the lantern. When they breathed the clear air
again both gave a deep sigh of relief.
It was now dark, but the moon was abroad though swimming behind a
feeble veil of clouds; the cold was insidious, keen, mysterious; the
grey and silver sky seemed very remote, the trees still as a painted
fantasy; the little wind had utterly died away. Luc’s face was a pale
oval above the mantle that wrapt his burden, which he carried easily
enough for all his slight look.
Carola glanced at him and bit her lower lip.
“It is going to be a cold night,” she said. She went back into the
tent and brought out a woollen cloak, a tawdry striped thing of blue
and yellow. “Wrap her in this, Monsieur.”
Luc gave up the child, who coughed and muttered deliriously; between
them they rolled her in the player’s mantle. Luc wiped her face and
her lips with his stained handkerchief.
Both were silent now; like creatures in the grip of fate, they seemed
to act almost mechanically.
Leaving the child under the trees, they collected the paper roses, the
card-board hats and crowns, and piling them together in front of the
tent, lit them from a ragged brand of paper turned into a torch by the
lantern flame.
The first attempts were fruitless, but presently the muslin began to
flare and the fire rose up strong and clear.
Luc and Carola stepped back; the ragged edges of the tent caught; in
a few moments a fantastic bonfire lit the dark and lonely field, and
illuminated the steadfast faces of the man and woman who watched their
work. When the flames were sweeping untroubled over the infected spot,
the two, still without a word, turned to their horses. When they had
unfastened them, Luc spoke.
“Can you lift her up if I mount?” he asked.
“I will try.”
He carried the child to his horse’s side, then gave her to Carola as
he sprang into the saddle; then as he stooped to her, Carola felt his
bare cold hands touch hers as the little girl, not without difficulty,
was lifted on to his saddle-bow.
“You know the way; you must lead,” he said.
She stood for a second, looking up at him. The glow of the fire
brought out every line of his face, so fine and true and serene,
and yet the face of a man who knew what he had undertaken, what was
before him, for there was a kind of awe in his expression, and yet
an exaltation; his lips were delicately compressed, his nostrils
delicately distended, and his eyes were wild and dark. He was looking
over the huddled form of the child in front of him that he held to his
bosom with his right hand; his gaze went beyond Carola and beyond the
flames. She thought he had forgotten she was there.
She mounted and brought her horse alongside his.
“Ah, Madame,” he murmured, with a start.
They rode together out of the light of the flames.