Far on in the night there were voices outside reached us in our
hiding-place; an angry knocking at the door, and we saw through the
chinks the old woman rouse herself up to go and open it for her master,
who came in, evidently half drunk. To my sick horror, he was followed
by Lefebvre, apparently as sober and wily as ever. They were talking
together as they came in, disputing about something; but the miller
stopped the conversation to swear at the old woman for having fallen
asleep, and, with tipsy anger, and even with blows, drove the poor
old creature out of the kitchen to bed. Then he and Lefebvre went on
talking—about the Sieur de Poissy’s disappearance. It seemed that
Lefebvre had been out all day, along with other of my husband’s men,
ostensibly assisting in the search; in all probability trying to blind
the Sieur de Poissy’s followers by putting them on a wrong scent, and
also, I fancied, from one or two of Lefebvre’s sly questions, combining
the hidden purpose of discovering us.
Although the miller was tenant and vassal to the Sieur de Poissy, he
seemed to me to be much more in league with the people of M. de la
Tourelle. He was evidently aware, in part, of the life which Lefebvre
and the others led; although, again, I do not suppose he knew or
imagined one-half of their crimes; and also, I think, he was seriously
interested in discovering the fate of his master, little suspecting
Lefebvre of murder or violence. He kept talking himself, and letting
out all sorts of thoughts and opinions; watched by the keen eyes of
Lefebvre gleaming out below his shaggy eyebrows. It was evidently not
the cue of the latter to let out that his master’s wife had escaped
from that vile and terrible den; but though he never breathed a word
relating to us, not the less was I certain he was thirsting for our
blood, and lying in wait for us at every turn of events. Presently he
got up and took his leave; and the miller bolted him out, and stumbled
off to bed. Then we fell asleep, and slept sound and long.
The next morning, when I awoke, I saw Amante, half raised, resting on
one hand, and eagerly gazing, with straining eyes, into the kitchen
below. I looked too, and both heard and saw the miller and two of
his men eagerly and loudly talking about the old woman, who had not
appeared as usual to make the fire in the stove, and prepare her
master’s breakfast, and who now, late on in the morning, had been
found dead in her bed; whether from the effect of her master’s blows
the night before, or from natural causes, who can tell? The miller’s
conscience upbraided him a little, I should say, for he was eagerly
declaring his value for his housekeeper, and repeating how often she
had spoken of the happy life she led with him. The men might have their
doubts, but they did not wish to offend the miller, and all agreed
that the necessary steps should be taken for a speedy funeral. And
so they went out, leaving us in our loft, but so much alone, that,
for the first time almost, we ventured to speak freely, though still
in a hushed voice, pausing to listen continually. Amante took a more
cheerful view of the whole occurrence than I did. She said that, had
the old woman lived, we should have had to depart that morning, and
that this quiet departure would have been the best thing we could have
had to hope for, as, in all probability, the housekeeper would have
told her master of us and of our resting-place, and this fact would,
sooner or later, have been brought to the knowledge of those from whom
we most desired to keep it concealed; but that now we had time to rest,
and a shelter to rest in, during the first hot pursuit, which we knew
to a fatal certainty was being carried on. The remnants of our food,
and the stored-up fruit, would supply us with provision; the only thing
to be feared was, that something might be required from the loft, and
the miller or some one else mount up in search of it. But even then,
with a little arrangement of boxes and chests, one part might be so
kept in shadow that we might yet escape observation. All this comforted
me a little; but, I asked, how were we ever to escape? The ladder was
taken away, which was our only means of descent. But Amante replied
that she could make a sufficient ladder of the rope lying coiled among
other things, to drop us down the ten feet or so—with the advantage of
its being portable, so that we might carry it away, and thus avoid all
betrayal of the fact that any one had ever been hidden in the loft.
During the two days that intervened before we did escape, Amante made
good use of her time. She looked into every box and chest during the
man’s absence at his mill; and finding in one box an old suit of man’s
clothes, which had probably belonged to the miller’s absent son, she
put them on to see if they would fit her; and, when she found that they
did, she cut her own hair to the shortness of a man’s, made me clip her
black eyebrows as close as though they had been shaved, and by cutting
up old corks into pieces such as would go into her cheeks, she altered
both the shape of her face and her voice to a degree which I should not
have believed possible.
All this time I lay like one stunned; my body resting, and renewing
its strength, but I myself in an almost idiotic state—else surely I
could not have taken the stupid interest which I remember I did in all
Amante’s energetic preparations for disguise. I absolutely recollect
once the feeling of a smile coming over my stiff face as some new
exercise of her cleverness proved a success.
But towards the second day, she required me, too, to exert myself; and
then all my heavy despair returned. I let her dye my fair hair and
complexion with the decaying shells of the stored-up walnuts, I let her
blacken my teeth, and even voluntarily broke a front tooth the better
to effect my disguise. But through it all I had no hope of evading my
terrible husband. The third night the funeral was over, the drinking
ended, the guests gone; the miller put to bed by his men, being too
drunk to help himself. They stopped a little while in the kitchen,
talking and laughing about the new housekeeper likely to come; and
they, too, went off, shutting, but not locking the door. Everything
favoured us. Amante had tried her ladder on one of the two previous
nights, and could, by a dexterous throw from beneath, unfasten it from
the hook to which it was fixed, when it had served its office; she
made up a bundle of worthless old clothes in order that we might the
better preserve our characters of a travelling pedlar and his wife;
she stuffed a hump on her back, she thickened my figure, she left her
own clothes deep down beneath a heap of others in the chest from which
she had taken the man’s dress which she wore; and with a few francs
in her pocket—the sole money we had either of us had about us when we
escaped—we let ourselves down the ladder, unhooked it, and passed into
the cold darkness of night again.
We had discussed the route which it would be well for us to take while
we lay perdues in our loft. Amante had told me then that her reason for
inquiring, when we first left Les Rochers, by which way I had first
been brought to it, was to avoid the pursuit which she was sure would
first be made in the direction of Germany; but that now she thought we
might return to that district of country where my German fashion of
speaking French would excite least observation. I thought that Amante
herself had something peculiar in her accent, which I had heard M. de
la Tourelle sneer at as Norman patois; but I said not a word beyond
agreeing to her proposal that we should bend our steps towards Germany.
Once there, we should, I thought, be safe. Alas! I forgot the unruly
time that was overspreading all Europe, overturning all law, and all
the protection which law gives.
How we wandered—not daring to ask our way—how we lived, how we
struggled through many a danger and still more terrors of danger, I
shall not tell you now. I will only relate two of our adventures before
we reached Frankfort. The first, although fatal to an innocent lady,
was yet, I believe, the cause of my safety; the second I shall tell
you, that you may understand why I did not return to my former home, as
I had hoped to do when we lay in the miller’s loft, and I first became
capable of groping after an idea of what my future life might be. I
cannot tell you how much in these doubtings and wanderings I became
attached to Amante. I have sometimes feared since, lest I cared for
her only because she was so necessary to my own safety; but, no! it
was not so; or not so only, or principally. She said once that she was
flying for her own life as well as for mine; but we dared not speak
much on our danger, or on the horrors that had gone before. We planned
a little what was to be our future course; but even for that we did
not look forward long; how could we, when every day we scarcely knew
if we should see the sun go down? For Amante knew or conjectured far
more than I did of the atrocity of the gang to which M. de la Tourelle
belonged; and every now and then, just as we seemed to be sinking into
the calm of security, we fell upon traces of a pursuit after us in
all directions. Once I remember—we must have been nearly three weeks
wearily walking through unfrequented ways, day after day, not daring
to make inquiry as to our whereabouts, nor yet to seem purposeless
in our wanderings—we came to a kind of lonely roadside farrier’s and
blacksmith’s. I was so tired, that Amante declared that, come what
might, we would stay there all night; and accordingly she entered the
house, and boldly announced herself as a travelling tailor, ready to
do any odd jobs of work that might be required, for a night’s lodging
and food for herself and wife. She had adopted this plan once or
twice before, and with good success; for her father had been a tailor
in Rouen, and as a girl she had often helped him with his work, and
knew the tailors’ slang and habits, down to the particular whistle
and cry which in France tells so much to those of a trade. At this
blacksmith’s, as at most other solitary houses far away from a town,
there was not only a store of men’s clothes laid by as wanting mending
when the housewife could afford time, but there was a natural craving
after news from a distance, such news as a wandering tailor is bound
to furnish. The early November afternoon was closing into evening, as
we sat down, she cross-legged on the great table in the blacksmith’s
kitchen, drawn close to the window, I close behind her, sewing at
another part of the same garment, and from time to time well scolded by
my seeming husband. All at once she turned round to speak to me. It was
only one word, “Courage!” I had seen nothing; I sat out of the light;
but I turned sick for an instant, and then I braced myself up into a
strange strength of endurance to go through I knew not what.
The blacksmith’s forge was in a shed beside the house, and fronting
the road. I heard the hammers stop plying their continual rhythmical
beat. She had seen why they ceased. A rider had come up to the forge
and dismounted, leading his horse in to be re-shod. The broad red light
of the forge-fire had revealed the face of the rider to Amante, and she
apprehended the consequence that really ensued.
The rider, after some words with the blacksmith, was ushered in by him
into the house-place where we sat.
“Here, good wife, a cup of wine and some galette for this gentleman.”
“Anything, anything, madame, that I can eat and drink in my hand while
my horse is being shod. I am in haste, and must get on to Forbach
to-night.”
The blacksmith’s wife lighted her lamp; Amante had asked her for
it five minutes before. How thankful we were that she had not more
speedily complied with our request! As it was, we sat in dusk shadow,
pretending to stitch away, but scarcely able to see. The lamp was
placed on the stove, near which my husband, for it was he, stood and
warmed himself. By-and-by he turned round, and looked all over the
room, taking us in with about the same degree of interest as the
inanimate furniture. Amante, cross-legged, fronting him, stooped over
her work, whistling softly all the while. He turned again to the stove,
impatiently rubbing his hands. He had finished his wine and galette,
and wanted to be off.
“I am in haste, my good woman. Ask thy husband to get on more quickly.
I will pay him double if he makes haste.”
The woman went out to do his bidding; and he once more turned round to
face us. Amante went on to the second part of the tune. He took it up,
whistled a second for an instant or so, and then the blacksmith’s wife
re-entering, he moved towards her, as if to receive her answer the more
speedily.
“One moment, monsieur—only one moment. There was a nail out of the
off-foreshoe which my husband is replacing; it would delay monsieur
again if that shoe also came off.”
“Madame is right,” said he, “but my haste is urgent. If madame knew
my reasons, she would pardon my impatience. Once a happy husband, now
a deserted and betrayed man, I pursue a wife on whom I lavished all
my love, but who has abused my confidence, and fled from my house,
doubtless to some paramour; carrying off with her all the jewels and
money on which she could lay her hands. It is possible madame may have
heard or seen something of her; she was accompanied in her flight by
a base, profligate woman from Paris, whom I, unhappy man, had myself
engaged for my wife’s waiting-maid, little dreaming what corruption I
was bringing into my house!”
“Is it possible?” said the good woman, throwing up her hands.
Amante went on whistling a little lower, out of respect to the
conversation.
“However, I am tracing the wicked fugitives; I am on their track” (and
the handsome, effeminate face looked as ferocious as any demon’s).
“They will not escape me; but every minute is a minute of misery to me,
till I meet my wife. Madame has sympathy, has she not?”
He drew his face into a hard, unnatural smile, and then both went out
to the forge, as if once more to hasten the blacksmith over his work.
Amante stopped her whistling for one instant.
“Go on as you are, without change of an eyelid even; in a few minutes
he will be gone, and it will be over!”
It was a necessary caution, for I was on the point of giving way, and
throwing myself weakly upon her neck. We went on; she whistling and
stitching, I making semblance to sew. And it was well we did so; for
almost directly he came back for his whip, which he had laid down and
forgotten; and again I felt one of those sharp, quick-scanning glances,
sent all round the room, and taking in all.
Then we heard him ride away; and then, it had been long too dark to see
well, I dropped my work, and gave way to my trembling and shuddering.
The blacksmith’s wife returned. She was a good creature. Amante told
her I was cold and weary, and she insisted on my stopping my work,
and going to sit near the stove; hastening, at the same time, her
preparations for supper, which, in honour of us, and of monsieur’s
liberal payment, was to be a little less frugal than ordinary. It
was well for me that she made me taste a little of the cider-soup
she was preparing, or I could not have held up, in spite of Amante’s
warning look, and the remembrance of her frequent exhortations to
act resolutely up to the characters we had assumed, whatever befel.
To cover my agitation, Amante stopped her whistling, and began to
talk; and, by the time the blacksmith came in, she and the good woman
of the house were in full flow. He began at once upon the handsome
gentleman, who had paid him so well; all his sympathy was with him,
and both he and his wife only wished he might overtake his wicked
wife, and punish her as she deserved. And then the conversation took
a turn, not uncommon to those whose lives are quiet and monotonous;
every one seemed to vie with each other in telling about some horror;
and the savage and mysterious band of robbers called the Chauffeurs,
who infested all the roads leading to the Rhine, with Schinderhannes
at their head, furnished many a tale which made the very marrow of my
bones run cold, and quenched even Amante’s power of talking. Her eyes
grew large and wild, her cheeks blanched, and for once she sought by
her looks help from me. The new call upon me roused me. I rose and
said, with their permission my husband and I would seek our bed, for
that we had travelled far and were early risers. I added that we would
get up betimes, and finish our piece of work. The blacksmith said we
should be early birds if we rose before him; and the good wife seconded
my proposal with kindly bustle. One other such story as those they had
been relating, and I do believe Amante would have fainted.
As it was, a night’s rest set her up; we arose and finished our work
betimes, and shared the plentiful breakfast of the family. Then we had
to set forth again; only knowing that to Forbach we must not go, yet
believing, as was indeed the case, that Forbach lay between us and
that Germany to which we were directing our course. Two days more we
wandered on, making a round, I suspect, and returning upon the road
to Forbach, a league or two nearer to that town than the blacksmith’s
house. But as we never made inquiries I hardly knew where we were,
when we came one night to a small town, with a good large rambling
inn in the very centre of the principal street. We had begun to feel
as if there were more safety in towns than in the loneliness of the
country. As we had parted with a ring of mine not many days before to a
travelling jeweller, who was too glad to purchase it far below its real
value to make many inquiries as to how it came into the possession of a
poor working tailor, such as Amante seemed to be, we resolved to stay
at this inn all night, and gather such particulars and information as
we could by which to direct our onward course.
We took our supper in the darkest corner of the _salle-à-manger_,
having previously bargained for a small bedroom across the court, and
over the stables. We needed food sorely; but we hurried on our meal
from dread of any one entering that public room who might recognize us.
Just in the middle of our meal, the public diligence drove lumbering
up under the _porte-cochère_, and disgorged its passengers. Most of
them turned into the room where we sat, cowering and fearful, for the
door was opposite to the porter’s lodge, and both opened on to the
wide-covered entrance from the street. Among the passengers came in a
young, fair-haired lady, attended by an elderly French maid. The poor
young creature tossed her head, and shrank away from the common room,
full of evil smells and promiscuous company, and demanded, in German
French, to be taken to some private apartment. We heard that she and
her maid had come in the coupé, and, probably from pride, poor young
lady! she had avoided all association with her fellow-passengers,
thereby exciting their dislike and ridicule. All these little pieces of
hearsay had a significance to us afterwards, though, at the time, the
only remark made that bore upon the future was Amante’s whisper to me
that the young lady’s hair was exactly the colour of mine, which she
had cut off and burnt in the stove in the miller’s kitchen in one of
her descents from our hiding-place in the loft.
As soon as we could, we struck round in the shadow, leaving the
boisterous and merry fellow-passengers to their supper. We crossed the
court, borrowed a lantern from the ostler, and scrambled up the rude
steps to our chamber above the stable. There was no door into it; the
entrance was the hole into which the ladder fitted. The window looked
into the court. We were tired and soon fell asleep. I was wakened by
a noise in the stable below. One instant of listening, and I wakened
Amante, placing my hand on her mouth, to prevent any exclamation in
her half-roused state. We heard my husband speaking about his horse
to the ostler. It was his voice. I am sure of it. Amante said so too.
We durst not move to rise and satisfy ourselves. For five minutes or
so he went on giving directions. Then he left the stable, and, softly
stealing to our window, we saw him cross the court and re-enter the
inn. We consulted as to what we should do. We feared to excite remark
or suspicion by descending and leaving our chamber, or else immediate
escape was our strongest idea. Then the ostler left the stable, locking
the door on the outside.
“We must try and drop through the window—if, indeed, it is well to go
at all,” said Amante.
With reflection came wisdom. We should excite suspicion by leaving
without paying our bill. We were on foot, and might easily be pursued.
So we sat on our bed’s edge, talking and shivering, while from across
the court the laughter rang merrily, and the company slowly dispersed
one by one, their lights flitting past the windows as they went
upstairs and settled each one to his rest.
We crept into our bed, holding each other tight, and listening to every
sound, as if we thought we were tracked, and might meet our death
at any moment. In the dead of night, just at the profound stillness
preceding the turn into another day, we heard a soft, cautious step
crossing the yard. The key into the stable was turned—some one came
into the stable—we felt rather than heard him there. A horse started
a little, and made a restless movement with his feet, then whinnied
recognition. He who had entered made two or three low sounds to the
animal, and then led him into the court. Amante sprang to the window
with the noiseless activity of a cat. She looked out, but dared not
speak a word. We heard the great door into the street open—a pause for
mounting, and the horse’s footsteps were lost in distance.
Then Amante came back to me. “It was he! he is gone!” said she, and
once more we lay down, trembling and shaking.
This time we fell sound asleep. We slept long and late. We were wakened
by many hurrying feet, and many confused voices; all the world seemed
awake and astir. We rose and dressed ourselves, and coming down we
looked around among the crowd collected in the court-yard, in order to
assure ourselves _he_ was not there before we left the shelter of the
stable.
The instant we were seen, two or three people rushed to us.
“Have you heard?—Do you know?—That poor young lady—oh, come and see!”
and so we were hurried, almost in spite of ourselves, across the court,
and up the great open stairs of the main building of the inn, into a
bed-chamber, where lay the beautiful young German lady, so full of
graceful pride the night before, now white and still in death. By her
stood the French maid, crying and gesticulating.
“Oh, madame! if you had but suffered me to stay with you! Oh! the
baron, what will he say?” and so she went on. Her state had but just
been discovered; it had been supposed that she was fatigued, and was
sleeping late, until a few minutes before. The surgeon of the town had
been sent for, and the landlord of the inn was trying vainly to enforce
order until he came, and, from time to time, drinking little cups of
brandy, and offering them to the guests, who were all assembled there,
pretty much as the servants were doing in the court-yard.
At last the surgeon came. All fell back, and hung on the words that
were to fall from his lips.
“See!” said the landlord. “This lady came last night by the diligence
with her maid. Doubtless a great lady, for she must have a private
sitting-room——”
“She was Madame the Baroness de Roeder,” said the French maid.
—“And was difficult to please in the matter of supper, and a
sleeping-room. She went to bed well, though fatigued. Her maid left
her——”
“I begged to be allowed to sleep in her room, as we were in a strange
inn, of the character of which we knew nothing; but she would not let
me, my mistress was such a great lady.”
—“And slept with my servants,” continued the landlord. “This morning
we thought madame was still slumbering; but when eight, nine, ten, and
near eleven o’clock came, I bade her maid use my pass-key, and enter
her room——”
“The door was not locked, only closed. And here she was found—dead is
she not, monsieur?—with her face down on her pillow, and her beautiful
hair all scattered wild; she never would let me tie it up, saying it
made her head ache. Such hair!” said the waiting-maid, lifting up a
long golden tress, and letting it fall again.