FALSE PRETENSES.
BUT only for the merest breath did she permit her soul to stand
unveiled before me. Then she drew her hand away and fenced herself
again with that invulnerable armor.
“Come, my friend,” she said, and her voice sounded a trifle unsteady in
my ears, “we must be going on--we have a long journey still before us.”
I arose like a drunken man. I dared not believe what that glimpse of
glory had revealed to me; it seemed too wonderful, too stupendous to be
true. I had looked into her soul and seen love there--but was it really
there? Or was it merely the reflection of what my own soul disclosed?
I glanced down at her, but she was staring straight before her as
she walked steadily forward with a face so cold and impassive that
the doubt grew, enwrapped me, darkened to conviction. It was folly
to suppose that her eyes had really revealed their secret; it was
absurd to believe that such a secret lay behind them. Who was I that
I should hope to waken love in the breast of such a woman as this?
Pity, perhaps--sympathy, friendship, kindness--anything but the deep,
splendid passion I hungered for. She had been moved for the moment, but
plainly she already regretted her emotion. Well, I certainly would
never remind her of it.
So we went on through the night, taking at every forking of the road
the way which led nearest the west, for in the west lay safety. But
I knew we had ten leagues and more to cover ere we should reach the
Bocage, and the nearer we approached our destination the more closely
would danger encompass us. From south and east troops were being massed
to crush out by sheer weight of numbers the flame of insurrection which
had arisen so suddenly in the very heart of France. From every town
within fifty leagues the National Guard had been summoned. From Paris
itself levies were hastening--levies of Septembrists, cut-throats,
assassins, asking nothing better than permission to murder and pillage,
and commanded by a general determined not to fight but to destroy, not
to defeat but to exterminate--in a word, not to rest until all Vendée
had been made a wilderness, a barren waste. This line of enemies,
marching forward in this temper, we were forced to pierce in order to
reach our friends.
The moon rose high in the heavens, paused at the zenith, then started
on its course down the western sky. I thanked the fortune which gave us
her friendly light to guide us, for the road grew ever more wild and
rough. In one place indeed it was merely the bed of a torrent little
different from that over which we had already toiled so painfully. So
we left it, and breaking our way through the hedge which bordered the
road, followed along beside it.
Even I was beginning to feel fatigued and I could guess at my
companion’s weariness, yet she refused to listen to my suggestion that
we stop and rest. But dawn was not far distant and we must find some
safe hiding-place for the day. There were no houses in sight, nor had
we seen any for some time, but where there was a road, however bad,
there must also be people to travel it; and to seek rest, to resign
oneself to sleep, save in a safe covert, would be the height of folly.
The country had grown more open and level with only an occasional tree
here and there, and was evidently used for pasturage, though I saw no
sheep nor cattle; but at last along a ridge at our right I caught sight
of a thicket, and toward this we made our way. We found it a dense
growth of small saplings and underbrush and broke our way into it with
difficulty; but the event repaid the labor, for at last we came to a
little glade not over a rod across and carpeted with grass.
“Here is our resting-place,” I said, “and our home for another day.”
My companion sank down with a sigh of utter fatigue.
“I am very tired,” she murmured, and drew off the shoes which I had
slipped over her own.
“You are to sleep until you are quite rested,” I added. “We will remain
here until evening. Then, after darkness falls and before the moon is
up, we shall try to pierce the lines of the Republicans, which cannot
be far away. For that you must be fresh, for we may need to be fleet.”
“But you?” she broke in quickly. “You are going to sleep too?”
“Undoubtedly,” I answered. “Only first I wish to assure myself that
there is no house too near us. Good-night, mademoiselle.”
“Good-night, my friend,” she said, looking up at me with a little
tremulous smile full of sorrow and weariness.
I stood a moment gazing down at her, longing to gather her in my arms,
as one would a child, and caress and comfort her and hold her so until
she fell asleep. But I managed to crush the longing back and turn away
to the task which I had set myself.
The thicket crowned a low ridge which stretched between two gentle
valleys. That we had left was, as I have said, innocent of human
habitation. In the one to the north I fancied I could discern a group
of houses, but they were so far away that we need apprehend no danger
from them. To the westward, along the ridge, the thicket stretched as
far as I could see.
Assured that our hiding-place was as safe as could be hoped for, I made
my way back to it and walked softly to the dark figure on the grass.
She was lying on her side, her head pillowed on her arm, and as I bent
above her to make sure that she was protected from the chill of the
night, I knew by her regular breathing that she slept. That sleep,
so peaceful and trusting, consecrated the little glade--hallowed it,
transformed it into such a temple that I dared lay me down only upon
its margin, as though it were a holy place.
Long I lay staring up at the heavens, wondering if I might indeed hope
to win this superb creature; weaving a golden future which we trod arm
in arm. To possess her, to have her always at my side, the mistress
of my home, the mother of my children--the thought shook me with a
delicious trembling. But at last cold reason snatched me down from this
empyrean height. I told myself I was a fool, and so turned on my side,
closed my eyes resolutely, and in the end sank to sleep.
I awoke with the full sun staring me in the face and sat up with a
start to find my companion smiling at me across the little amphitheatre.
“Good-morning, monsieur,” she said.
“Good-morning,” I responded, and rose and went toward her.
In some magical way she had removed the stains of travel; to my eyes
she seemed to have stepped but this moment from her bath. A sudden
loathing of my own foul and hideous clothing came over me. How, in that
guise, could she regard me with anything but disgust?
“Mademoiselle,” I said, “I am ashamed to stand here before you in this
clear light, for you are sweet and fresh as the morning, while I----”
“Choose the harder part,” she interrupted, “in order to serve me
better.”
“But to be hideous----”
“Oh, I do not look at the clothes,” she said; “and as for the face----”
“Well,” I prompted, “as for the face----”
She stole a glance at me.
“As for the face,” she continued, “you will remember that I bathed it
last night, monsieur, while I was attempting to revive you, and so it
is nearly as attractive as nature made it.”
“A poor consolation,” I retorted.
“Well,” she said, looking at it critically, “I confess I have seen
handsomer ones.”
“Yes?” I encouraged, as she hesitated.
“But never one I liked better,” she added, a heavenly shyness in her
eyes.
“Mademoiselle,” I said, suddenly taking my courage in my hands, “last
night while I was unconscious I dreamed such a beautiful dream. I
wonder if it was true?”
She glanced again at me hastily and her cheeks were very red.
“Dreams are never true,” she said decidedly. “They go by contraries.
You will have to bedaub your face a little before you venture forth
again.”
“But the dream,” I insisted, refusing to be diverted. “Shall I tell you
what it was?”
“I have never been interested in dreams,” she responded calmly, and
brushed from her skirt an imperceptible speck of dust.
“But perhaps this one----”
“Not even this one, I am sure. How long are we to remain here, M. de
Tavernay?”
I surrendered in despair before the coldness of her glance.
“You are to remain till evening,” I replied. “But I must go at once. My
first task will be to get some food. Hunger is an enemy which always
returns to the attack no matter how often it is overcome.”
“And so is a foe to be respected and appeased rather than despised,”
she added smiling; “I came across some such observation in a book I was
reading not long ago. It had a most amusing old man in it called The
Partridge,[A] who was always hungry.”
“I can sympathize with him,” I said. “My own stomach feels particularly
empty at this moment; I must find something to fill it--and yours, too.”
“But I fear for you,” she protested. “I wish you would not go. I am
sure we can get through the day without starving. I should prefer to
try, rather than that you should again run such risks as you did last
night.”
“Those risks were purely the result of my own folly,” I pointed out. “I
shall not be such a fool a second time. There is a village down yonder
and I shall breakfast at the inn like any other traveller. It was my
haste last night which aroused suspicion. Besides,” I added, “I doubt
if any one could follow even me by daylight without my perceiving it.
You may have to wait an hour----”
“It will not be hunger which distresses me,” she interrupted earnestly,
“but fear for your safety. Let us do without the food.”
“It is true we shouldn’t starve,” I admitted, “but for to-night we
must be strong, ready for anything. A fast is bad preparation for the
kind of work we have before us. Besides, I must find where we are, how
the Republican forces are disposed, and the nearest point at which we
may find friends. We must guard against the possibility of blundering
haphazard into some trap and so failing at the last moment.”
“You are right, of course,” she agreed instantly, though her face was
very pale. “I will wait for you here, and pray for you.”
She gave me her hand and I bent and kissed it with trembling lips.
“There will be no danger,” I assured her again, waved my hand to her
and plunged into the thicket.
I made my way through it for some distance before venturing into the
open; then, under shelter of a hedge, I hastened down the slope,
gained the road and turned my face toward the village. Ten minutes
brought me to it--a straggle of sordid houses along each side the road
teeming with dirty children and with a slatternly woman leaning in
every doorway. There was an inn at either end to catch the traveller
going east or west and I entered the first I came to and asked for
breakfast. It was served by a pert and not uncomely maid,--bacon, eggs
and creamy biscuits,--and I fell to it with an appetite tempered only
by the thought that I must eat alone. There was at the time no other
guest, and as the maid seemed very willing to talk, I determined to
turn her to account.
“These are delicious biscuits,” I began. “I have tasted none so good
since I started on this journey.”
She dropped me a curtesy, flushing with pleasure.
“Have you come a long journey, monsieur?” she asked.
“What!” I cried. “You still say ‘monsieur’! Is it a royalist then with
whom I have to deal,--a _ci-devant_,--an aristocrat?”
“A royalist?” she repeated, visibly horrified. “Oh, no; but the habit
is an old one.”
“Yes,” I admitted, “old habits are hard to break; even my tongue slips
sometimes.”
“Besides,” she added, looking at me steadily, “there was about you
something which made me hesitate to call you citizen.”
It was my time to flush. I found myself unable to meet her clear eyes
and covered my confusion clumsily by a laugh which even I perceived did
not ring true. If my disguise was so easily penetrated it was time I
was getting back to my hiding-place.
“Nonsense!” I retorted. “It is proper to say citizen to any one. And,
by the way, citizen, what is the name of this village?”
“What, you don’t know!” she cried.
“Is that wonderful? It hardly seemed to me a second Paris.”
“Yet you come to it!”
“I pass through it because it happens to be in my way; I stop for
breakfast--I would wish to stop longer,” I added with an expressive
glance, “but the Nation needs me.”
“Needs you?”
“As she needs every man she can get to stamp out those cursed rebels in
Vendée.”
“Oh, so it is there you go?” she said, her face clearing. “Yes--you are
right. My father went yesterday to join the Blues; our guard marched
last night. There is scarcely a man left in the village.”
“And now perhaps you will tell me its name,” I suggested.
“It is called Dairon.”
“And where is the nearest Republican force?”
“There is a small one at Airvault and another at Moncontour; but if it
is fighting you are looking for, citizen, you will press on to Thouars.”
“How far is Thouars?”
“Four leagues, and this road will lead you there.”
“Then it is this road I will take. So there is to be fighting at
Thouars?”
“Our officers dined here last night,” she explained, “and I heard them
talking. It seems that the brigands are gathering at Coulonges and
expect to take Thouars. Bah! The Blues will fall upon them, surround
them, exterminate them! For do you know what it is that they are
planning, those scoundrels? They are planning to hold a place where
that ogre of a Pitt may land his troops upon the sacred soil of France!”
Her eyes were blazing. I sprang to my feet.
“Then I must be off!” I cried. “I can’t afford to miss that fun. But
first, citizen, can you put me up a lunch for the road--a big one, for
I have the devil of an appetite. Ransack your larder--I can pay for
it;” and I laid a golden louis on the table. “In the vicinity of an
army there is never anything to eat. I shall no doubt meet plenty of
poor fellows with nothing in their bellies, and two or three bottles of
wine would not be amiss.”
“Just so,” she nodded, and flew to the kitchen, where I heard her and
another woman talking vigorously together to the accompaniment of a
clatter of knives and dishes.
I walked to the door and looked down the village street. It was still
deserted, save for the women and children. Evidently the men had all
been caught in the dragnet of the Blues, or had hurried into hiding for
fear they would be drafted to the front. How these poor creatures, left
here to their own resources, managed to exist I could not imagine.
“Well, citizen,” asked a voice, “how is this?”
I turned to find the maid smiling up at me and in her hand a hamper
filled to the brim and covered with a cloth through which the necks of
three bottles protruded.
“Excellent!” I cried as I took it. “That will make me welcome, at any
rate. A thousand thanks, my dear.”
“There is one more thing I can do for you,” she said. “Your disguise is
a poor one, citizen.”
“Disguise!” I echoed, my heart in my throat.
“Because the face does not match the clothes,” she went on
imperturbably. “Any fool could see that these rags do not belong to
you. Sit here a moment.”
I sat down obediently, not daring to disobey. Whereupon she produced a
greasy rag and rubbed it over my face, retiring a step or two from time
to time to admire the effect, and then returning to add another touch,
much in the manner of an artist engaged upon a masterpiece. At last she
was satisfied.
“There,” she said, “I defy any one to detect you now. And remember,
as long as you wear those rags you are not to wash face or hands.
Your business is none of mine, but you are too pretty a fellow to be
permitted to run your head into a noose.”
“Thank you, my dear!” I said again, and rose and took up my hamper.
She came to me and stood on tiptoe.
“A salute for the Nation, citizen,” she said, and kissed me on either
cheek. “If you return this way you are to stop here and inquire for
Ninette. She will be glad to see you. Adieu--and may the good God have
you in His keeping.”
I turned westward along the street, unheeding the curious glances cast
at me, with a conscience not wholly at peace. I had secured these
generous provisions under false pretenses. I had not merited those pure
kisses.