A NIGHT BY THE RIVER.
The Countess knew that her knees were shaking under her. The gaze,
too, of the men who watched was dreadful to her. She felt her feet
slipping from the shoes; she felt the kerchief, that, twined in her
hair, gave her height, shift with the movement; she felt her limbs
yielding. And she despaired. She was certain that she could not pass;
she must faint, she must fall. Then the scornful words of the woman
she had left recurred to her, stung her, whipped her courage once
more; and, before she was aware of it, she had reached the gateway.
She was conscious of a crowd of men about her, of all eyes fixed on
her, of a jeering voice that hummed:
"Amoureuse,
Malheureuse,
J'ai perdu mon gallant!"
and--and then she was beyond the gate! The cool air blowing in the
gorge between the two breasts fanned her burning cheeks--never breeze
more blessed!--and with hope, courage, confidence all in a moment
revived and active, she began to descend the winding road that led to
the town.
There were men lounging on the road, singly or in groups, who stared
at her as she passed; some with thinly-veiled insolence, others in
pure curiosity. But they did not dare to address her; though they
thought, looking after her, that she bore herself oddly. And she came
unmolested to the spot where the road passed under the drawbridge.
Here for an instant sick fear shook her anew. Some of the men in the
gateway had come out to watch her pass below; she thought that they
came to call her back. But save for a muttered jeer and the voice of
the jester repeating slyly:
"Malheureuse,
Amoureuse,
A perdu son gallant!"
no one spoke; and as pace by pace her feet carried her from them,
carried her farther and farther, her courage returned, she breathed
again. She came at the foot of the descent, to the carved stone
fountain and the sloping market-place. She took, as ordered, the road
that fell away to the right, and in a twinkling she was hidden by the
turn from the purview of the castle.
She ventured then--the town seemed to stifle her--to move more
quickly; as quickly as her clumsy shoes would let her move on stones
sloping and greasy. Here and there a person, struck by something in
her walk, turned to take a second glance at her; or a woman in a low
doorway bent curious eyes on her as she came and went. She could not
tell whether she bred suspicion in them or not, or whether she seemed
the same woman--but a trifle downcast--who had passed that way before.
For she dared not look back nor return their gaze. Her heart beat
quickly, and more quickly as the end drew near. Success that seemed
within her grasp impelled her at last almost to a run. And then--she
was round the corner in the side lane that had been indicated to her,
and she saw before her the horses and the men gathered before the
chapel gate. And Roger--yes, Roger himself, with a face that worked
strangely and words that joy stifled in his throat, was leading her to
a horse and lending his knee to mount her. And they were turning, and
moving back again into the street.
"There is only the gate now," he muttered, "only the gate! Courage,
mademoiselle! Be steady!"
And the gate proved no hindrance. Though not one moment of all she had
passed was more poignant, more full of choking fear, than that which
saw them move slowly through, under the gaze of the men on guard, who
seemed for just one second to be rising to question them. Then--the
open country! The open country with its air, its cool breezes, its
spacious evening light and its promise of safety. And quick on this
followed the delicious moment when they began to trot, slowly at first
and carelessly, that suspicion might not be awakened; and then more
swiftly, and more swiftly, urging the horses with sly kicks and
disguised spurrings until the first wood that hid them saw them
pounding forward at a gallop, with the Countess's robe flapping in the
wind, her kerchief fallen, her hair loosened. Two miles, three miles
flew by them; they topped the wooded hill that looked down on
Villeneuve. Then, midway in the descent on the farther side, they left
the path at a word from Roger, plunged into the scrub and rode at
risk--for it was dark--along a deer-trail with which he was familiar.
This brought them presently, by many windings and through thick brush,
to a spot where the brook was fordable. Thence, in silence, they
plodded and waded and jogged along damp woodland ways and through
watery lanes that attended the brook to its junction with the river.
Here, at length, in the lowest bottom of the Villeneuve valley, they
halted. For the time they deemed themselves safe; since night had
fallen and hidden their tracks, and Vlaye, if he followed, would take
the ordinary road. It had grown so dark indeed, that until the moon
rose farther retreat was impossible; and though the river beside which
they stood was fordable at the cost of a wetting, Roger thought it
better to put off the attempt. One of the servants, the man at the
Countess's bridle, would have had him try now, and rest in the
increased security of the farther bank. But Roger demurred, for a
reason which he did not explain; and the party dismounted where they
were, in a darkness which scarcely permitted the hand to be seen
before the face.
"The moon will be up in three hours," Roger said. "If we cannot flee
they cannot pursue. Mademoiselle," he continued, in a voice into which
he strove to throw a certain aloofness, "if you will give me your
hand," he felt for it, "there is a dry spot here. I will break down
these saplings and put a cloak over them, and you may get some sleep.
You will need it, for the moment the moon is up we must ride on."
The snapping of alder boughs announced that he was preparing her
resting-place. She felt for the spot, but timidly, and he had to take
her hand again and place her in it.
"I fear it is rough," he said, "but it is the best we can do. For
food, alas, we have none."
"I want none," she answered. And then hurriedly, "You are not going?"
"Only a few yards."
"Stay, if you please. I am frightened."
"Be sure I will," he answered. "But we are in little danger here."
He made a seat for himself not far from her, and he sat down. And if
she was frightened he was happy, though he could not see her. He was
in that stage of love when no familiarity has brought the idol too
near, no mark of favour has declared her human, no sign of preference
has fostered hope. He had done her, he was doing her a service; and
all his life it would be his to recall her as he had seen her during
their flight--battered, blown about, with streaming hair and draggled
clothes, the branches whipping colour into her cheeks, her small brown
hand struggling with her tangled locks. In such a stage of love to be
near is enough, and Roger asked no more. He forgot his sister's
position, he forgot des Ageaux' danger. Listening in the warm summer
night to the croaking of the frogs, he gazed unrebuked into the
darkness that held her, and he was content.
Not that he had hope of her, or even in fancy thought of her as his.
But this moment was his, and while he lived he would possess the
recollection of it. All his life he would think of her, as the monk in
the cloister bears with him the image of her he loved in the world; or
as the maid remembers blamelessly the lover who died between betrothal
and wedding, and before one wry word or one divided thought had risen
to dim the fair mirror of her future.
Alas, of all the dainty things in the world, too delicate in their
nature to be twice tasted, none is more evanescent than this first
worship; this reverence of the lover for her who seems rather angel
than woman, framed of a clay too heavenly for the coarse touch of
passion.
Once before, in the hay-field, he had tried to save her, and he had
failed. This time--oh, he was happy when he thought of it--he would
save her. And he fell into a dream of a life--impossible in those
days, however it might have been in the times of Amadis of Gaul, or
Palmerin of England--devoted secretly to her service and her
happiness; a beautiful, melancholy dream of unrequited devotion,
attuned to the solemnity of the woodland night with its vast spaces,
its mysterious rustlings and gurgling waters. Those who knew Roger
best, and best appreciated his loyal nature, would have deemed him
sleepless for the Lieutenant's sake--whose life hung in the balance;
or tormented by thoughts of the Abbess's position. But love is of all
things the most selfish; and though Roger ground his teeth once and
again as Vlaye's breach of faith occurred to him, his thoughts were
quickly plunged anew in a sweet reverie, in which she had part. The
wind blew from her to him, and he fancied that some faint scent from
her loosened hair, some perfume of her clothing came to him.
It was her voice that at last and abruptly dragged him from his dream.
"Are you not ashamed of me?" she whispered.
"Ashamed?" he cried, leaping in his seat.
"Once--twice, I have failed," she went on, her voice trembling a
little. "Always some one must take my place. Bonne first, and now your
other sister! I am a coward, Monsieur Roger. A coward!"
"No!" he said firmly. "No!"
"Yes, a coward. But you do not know," she continued in the tone of one
who pleaded, "how lonely I have been, and what I have suffered. I have
been tossed from hand to hand all my life, and mocked with great names
and great titles, and been with them all a puppet, a thing my family
valued because they could barter it away when the price was good--just
as they could a farm or a manor! I give orders, and sometimes they are
carried out, and sometimes not--as it suits," bitterly. "I am shown on
high days as Madonnas are shown, carried shoulder high through the
streets. And I am as far from everybody, as lonely, as friendless,"
her voice broke a little, "as they! What wonder if I am a coward?"
"You are tired," Roger answered, striving to control his voice,
striving also to control a mad desire to throw himself at her feet and
comfort her. "You will feel differently to-morrow. You have had no
food, mademoiselle."
"You too?" in a voice of reproach.
He did not understand her, and though he trembled he was silent.
"You too treat me as a child," she continued. "You talk as if food
made up for friends and no one was lonely save when alone! Think what
it must be to be always alone, in a crowd! Bargained for by one,
snatched at by another, fawned on by a third, a prize for the boldest!
And not one--not one thinking of me!" pathetically. And then, as he
rose, "What is it?"
"I think I hear some one moving," Roger faltered. "I will tell the
men!" And without waiting for her answer, he stumbled away. For, in
truth, he could listen no longer. If he listened longer, if he stayed,
he must speak! And she was a child, she did not know. She did not know
that she was tempting him, trying him, putting him to a test beyond
his strength. He stumbled away into the darkness, and steering for the
place where the horses were tethered he called the men by name.
One answered sleepily that all was well. The other, who was resting,
snored. Roger, his face on fire, hesitated, not knowing what to do. To
bid the man who watched come nearer and keep the lady company would be
absurd, would be out of reason; and so it would be to bid him stand
guard over them while they talked. The man would think him mad. The
only alternative, if he would remove himself from temptation, was to
remain at a distance from her. And this he must do.
He found, therefore, a seat a score of paces away, and he sat down,
his head between his hands. But his heart cried--cried pitifully that
he was losing moments that would never recur--moments on which he
would look back all his life with regret. And besides his heart,
other things spoke to him; the warm stillness of the summer night,
the low murmur of the water at his feet, the whispering breeze, the
wood-nymphs--ay, and the old song that recurred to his memory and
mocked him--
"Je ris de moi, je ris de toi,
Je ris de ta sottise!"
Here, indeed, was his opportunity, here was such a chance as few men
had, and no man would let slip. But he was not as other men--there it
was. He was crook-backed, poor, unknown! And so thinking, so telling
himself, he fixed himself in his resolve, he strove to harden his
heart, he covered his ears with his hands. For she was a child, a
child! She did not understand!
He would have played the hero perfectly but for one fatal thought that
presently came to him--a thought fatal to his rectitude. She would
take fright! Left alone, ignorant of the feeling that drove him from
her--what if she moved from the place where he had left her, and lost
herself in the wood, or fell into the river, or--and just then she
called him.
"Monsieur Roger! Where are you?"
He went back to her slowly, almost sullenly; partly in surrender to
his own impulse, partly in response to her call. But he did not again
sit down beside her. "Yes," he said. "You are quite safe,
mademoiselle. I shall not be out of earshot. You are quite safe."
"Why did you go away?"
"Away?" he faltered.
"Are you afraid of me?" gently.
"Afraid of you?" He tried to speak gaily.
"Pray," she said in a queer, stiff tone, "do not repeat all my words.
I asked if you were afraid of me, Monsieur Roger?"
"No," he faltered, "but--but I thought that you would rather be
alone."
"I?" in a tone that went to poor Roger's heart. "I, who have told you
that I am always alone? Who have told you that I have not"--her voice
shook--"a friend--one real friend in the world!"
"You are tired now," Roger faltered, finding no other words than those
he had used before.
"Not one real friend!" she repeated piteously. "Not one!"
He was not proof against that. He bent towards her in the
darkness--almost in spite of himself. "Yes, one," he said, in a voice
as unsteady as hers. "One you have, mademoiselle, who would die for
you and ask not a look in return! Who would set, and will ever set,
your honour and your happiness above the prizes of the world! Who asks
only to serve you at a distance, by day and dark, now and always! If
it be a comfort for you to know that you have a friend, know it!
Know----"
"I do not know," she struck in, in a voice both incredulous and
ironical, "where I am to find such an one save in books! In the Seven
Champions or in Amadis of Gaul--perhaps. But in the world--where?"
He was silent. He had said too much already. Too much, too much!
"Where?" she repeated.
Still he did not answer.
Then, "Do you mean yourself, Monsieur Roger?"
She spoke with a certain keenness of tone that was near to, ay, that
threatened offence.
He stood, his hands hanging by his side. "Yes," he faltered. "But no
one knows better than myself that I cannot help you, mademoiselle.
That I can be no honour to you. For the Countess of Rochechouart to
have a crook-backed knight at the tail of her train--it may make some
laugh. It may make women laugh. Yet----" he paused on the word.
"Yet what, sir?"
"While he rides there," poor Roger whispered, "no man shall laugh."
She was silent quite a long time, as if she had not heard him. Then,
"Do you not know," she said, "that the Countess of Rochechouart can
have but one friend--her husband?"
He winced. She was right; but if that was her feeling, why had she
complained of the lack of friends?
"Only one friend, her husband," the Countess continued softly. "If you
would be that friend--but perhaps you would not, Roger? Still, if you
would, I say, you must be kind to her ever and gentle to her. You must
not leave her alone in woods on dark nights. You must not slight her.
You must not,"--she was half laughing, half crying, and hanging
towards him in the darkness, her childish hands held out in a gesture
of appeal, irresistible had he seen it--but it was dark, or she had
not dared--"you must not make anything too hard for her!"
He stepped one pace from her, shaking.
"I dare not! I dare not!" he said.
"Not if I dare?" she retorted gently. "Not if I dare, who am a coward?
Are you a coward, too, that when you have said so much and I have said
so much you will still leave me alone and unprotected, and--and
friendless? Or is it that you do not love me?"
"Not love you?" Roger cried, in a tone that betrayed more than a
volume of words had told. And beaten out of his last defence by that
shrewd dilemma, he threw his pride to the winds; he sank down beside
her, and seized her hands and carried them to his lips--lips that were
hot with the fever of sudden passion. "Not love you, mademoiselle? Not
love you?"
"So eloquent!" she murmured, with a last flicker of irony. "He does
not even now say that he loves me. It is still his friendship, I
suppose, that he offers me."
"Mademoiselle!"
"Or is it that you think me a nun because I wear this dress?"
He convinced her by means more eloquent than all the words lovers'
lips have framed that he did not so think her; that she was the heart
of his heart, the desire of his desire. Not that she needed to be
convinced. For when the delirium of his joy began to subside he
ventured to put a certain question to her--that question which happy
lovers never fail to put.
"Do you think women are blind?" she answered. "Did you think I did not
see your big eyes following me in and out and up and down? That I did
not see your blush when I spoke to you and your black brow when I
walked with M. des Ageaux? Dear Roger, women are not so blind! I was
not so blind that I did not know as much before you spoke as I know
now."
And in the dark of the wood they talked, while the water glinted
slowly by them and the frogs croaked among the waving weeds, and in
the stillness under the trees the warmth of the summer night and of
love wrapped them round. It was an hour between danger and danger,
made more precious by uncertainty. For the moment the world held for
each of them but one other person. The Lieutenant's peril, Bonne's
suspense, the Abbess--all were forgotten until the moon rose above the
trees and flung a chequered light on the dark moss and hart's-tongue
and harebells about the lovers' feet. And with a shock of
self-reproach the two rose to their feet.
They gave to inaction not a moment after that. With difficulty and
some danger the river was forded by the pale light, and they resumed
their journey by devious ways until, mounting from the lower ground
that fringed the water, they gained the flank of the hills. Thence,
crossing one shoulder after another by paths known to Roger, they
reached the hill at the rear of the Old Crocans' town. In passing by
this and traversing the immediate neighbourhood of the peasants' camp
lay their greatest danger. But the dawn was now at hand, the moon was
fading; and in the cold, grey interval between dawn and daylight they
slipped by within sight of the squalid walls, and with the fear of
surprise on them approached the gate of the camp. Nor, though all went
well with them, did they breathe freely until the challenge of the
guard at the gate rang in their ears.
After that there came with safety the sense of their selfishness. They
thought of poor Bonne, who, somewhere in the mist-wrapped basin before
them, lay waiting and listening and praying. How were they to face
her? with what heart tell her that her lover, that des Ageaux, still
lay in his enemy's power. True, Vlaye had gone back on his word, and,
in face of the Countess's surrender, had refused to release him; so
that they were not to blame. But would Bonne believe this? Would she
not rather set down the failure to the Countess's faint heart, to the
Countess's withdrawal?
"I should not have come!" the girl cried, turning to Roger in great
distress. "I should not have come!" Her new happiness fell from her
like a garment, and, shivering, she hung back in the entrance and
wrung her hands. "I dare not face her!" she said. "I dare not,
indeed!" And, "Wait!" to the men who wished to hurry off and proclaim
their return. "Wait!" she said imperatively.
The grey fog of the early morning, which had sheltered their approach
and still veiled the lower parts of the camp, seemed to add to the
hopelessness of the news they bore. Roger himself was silent, looking
at the waiting men, and wondering what must be done. Poor Bonne! He
had scarcely thought of her--yet what must she be feeling? What had he
himself felt a few hours before?
"Some one must tell her," he said presently. "If you will not----"
"I will! I will!" she answered, her lip beginning to tremble.
Roger hesitated. "Perhaps she is sleeping," he said; "and then it were
a pity to rouse her."
But the Countess shook her head in scorn of his ignorance. Bonne would
not be sleeping. Sleeping, when her lover had not returned! Sleeping,
at this hour of all hours, the hour M. de Vlaye had fixed for--for the
end! Sleeping, when at any moment news, the best or the worst, might
come!
And Bonne was not sleeping. The words had scarcely passed Roger's lips
when she appeared, gliding out of the mist towards them, the Bat's
lank form at her elbow. Their appearance in company was, in truth, no
work of chance. Six or seven times already, braving the dark camp and
its possible dangers, she had gone to the entrance to inquire; and on
each occasion--so strong is a common affection--the Bat had appeared
as it were from the ground, and gone silently with her, learned in
silence that there was no news, and seen her in silence to her
quarters again. The previous afternoon she had got some rest. She had
lain some hours in the deep sleep of exhaustion; and longer in a heavy
doze, conscious of the dead weight of anxiety, yet resting in body.
Save for this she had not had strength both to bear and watch. As it
was, deep shadows under her eyes told of the strain she was enduring;
and her face, though it had not lost its girlish contours, was white
and woeful. When she saw them standing together in the entrance a
glance told her that they bore ill news. Yet, to Roger's great
astonishment, she was quite calm.
"He has not released him?" she said, a flicker of pain distorting her
face.
The Countess clasped her hand in both her own, and with tears running
down her face shook her head.
"He is not dead?"
"No, no!"
"Tell me."
And they told her. "When I said 'You will release him?'" the Countess
explained, speaking with difficulty, "he--he--laughed. 'I did not
promise to release him,' he answered. 'I said if you did not accept my
hospitality, I should hang him!' That was all."
"And now?" Bonne murmured. A pang once more flickered in her eyes.
"What of him now?"
"I think," Roger said, "there is a hope. I do indeed."
Bonne stood a moment silent. Then, in a voice so steady that it
surprised even the Bat, who had experience of her courage, "There is a
hope," she said, "if it be not too late. M. de Joyeuse, whose father's
life he would have saved--I will go to him! I will kneel to him! He
must save him. There must still be ways of saving him, and the Duke's
power is great." She turned to the Bat. "Take me to him," she said.
He stooped his rugged beard to her hand, and kissed it with reverence.
Then, while the others stood astonished at her firmness, he passed
with her into the mist in the direction of the Duke's hut.