WHAT HAPPENED AT THE GREY LEAP
There were four of us, then, who rode through the whin brakes, under
the pines and out upon the rocks beyond. Indeed, there were six, for
Hugues and the big Spanish fellow they called 'Tuco followed us, but
that we did not know at the time.
Brother Paulus led the way with Gaston; Mademoiselle followed, and I,
because the path was in places too narrow for two abreast, brought up
the rear. Of us all, I think Brother Paul was the merriest; though,
such is the alchemy of the hills, in us all the cares of life were
transmuted into gaiety. Brother Paul forgot the weariness of age,
Gaston the penalty of being born great, I that I was sworn to add to
his penalties for his own good, Mademoiselle, the sorrows and dangers
of Navarre. She went further, she even forgot that she was nothing
more than Suzanne D'Orfeuil, nurse and _gouvernante_ to the Count de
Foix, forgot everything but that the skies were blue, the sun warm, the
air thin and sweet. Care was behind us at Morsigny, and for that day
the troubled woman entered afresh into her too early lost heritage of
girlhood.
Woman! Man! We were neither one nor other. The horses had been left
behind in charge of a goat-herd under the shadow of the last pines, and
we were four children scrambling up the rocks with Gaston the oldest,
because the most gravely serious, of the four. In a child, the joy and
wonder of living are at times too great to find expression in laughter.
Up and up and up we climbed, a riot of life in our veins--up and up and
up, not so fast as to lose breath for merry-making, nor so slow as to
grow cold at the game--up and up and up, now by a goat-track, now by a
dead watercourse, now by a tumbled scree of stones, the young Count as
active as a kid, and Brother Paul, his black frock kilted to his knees,
always near him in front. Up and up and up, and then from behind a
jutted rock there came a cry, one only, but so fierce, so harsh, so
edged with agony and despair, that Mademoiselle turning, caught my
sleeve, gasping, "Jesu! What is that?" and we stood listening, but
there was a great silence.
"Paul's voice," said I at last.
"Paul's voice," she answered; "yes, Paul's voice, but--God in heaven!
what of Gaston?"
Loosening her hold she hastened on, I at her side, but below her lest
she should fall, for her limbs were shaking. The nerves that were not
afraid of Tristan for herself trembled at she knew not what for her
charge.
"Paul has fallen," said I, steadying her with my hand.
"Then Gaston would have come back or cried to us. No, no; it is my
boy, it is my boy."
The wail in her voice cut me to the heart. That she loved the lad I
knew, but that she loved him with the yearning tenderness of a woman
was new to me. Hitherto I had thought it was Navarre she loved in the
person of the little Count, loved him because, as Louis had made clear,
he stood for the peace and hope of her nation. That was greatness in
her--a greatness, a loftiness of mind, a patriotism that led her to
such heights of sacrifice as moved my admiration and worship. This was
less great, but at once more human and more divine. For the common
food of life we do not ask that our women shall be patriots, it is
enough that their love flows out full and sweet and strong to husband,
child, and kindred, and as this love of Suzanne's burst its bounds in
that bitter wail, I knew that it had gulfed me. It was not that I
loved her a little, I loved her as I had never dreamed it was possible
to love, and at the suddenness of the revelation the blood roared in my
ears with the roar of a winter's torrent thundering white into its
basin. Under the hand that lay upon my shoulder as we plunged along
the rocky slope I winced and trembled as if the fingers were a white
heat.
Amongst I do not know how many others, two thoughts were clear cut in
my mind; one, that not for my soul's salvation would I at that time
have dared to touch that hand, the other an execration, a bitter
loathing of myself that in a pretence of love I had ever kissed a
woman's lips. Later--but let the later speak for itself. I pray God
the divine measure of a man is what he is at his best, his highest; the
sorrowful thing is that for every such hilltop of reverence,
self-sacrifice, self-control, there is a valley, and the valleys burrow
through the darkness further and fuller than the mountains stretch
their pinnacles to the light.
Beyond the out-thrust of the cliff there was a shelving flat that
seemed to fall away sheer to the air, and as we turned the angle,
Mademoiselle ran forward with a cry. On the flat, breast down, lay
Brother Paulus, his hands, on either side his chest, gripping the lip
of the rock down which he peered. Stooping, Mademoiselle caught him by
the shoulder, shaking him roughly.
"Gaston? Where is Gaston?"
Without shifting his hold the monk looked up, his grey face
ashen-white, the mouth trembling like a frightened child.
"Oh!" he said, drawing a shivering sigh, "would to God it were I."
"Gaston?" repeated Mademoiselle, emphasizing her words with her nervous
hands; "where is Gaston? Not there, oh God! not there!" and kneeling,
she too peered down the cliff.
For answer, Brother Paulus stretched out a shaking hand.
"We were at play," he said hoarsely. "All day we were at play, and I
forgot that this was the Grey Leap. There was a loose stone, and he
slipped upon it. I think--I think--he is still alive."
What the fingers pointed at was plainly in sight, a little wisp of
white caught upon a point of rock behind the shelter of which grew a
stunted pine, but I readily comprehended how she had missed seeing him.
A moment back, under the revelation of her cry and the touch of her
hand, I, too, had gone blind as the sound as of many waters roared in
my ears. And now, as love staggered her, she could not see the little
bundle of white linen which might, as Brother Paul said, be alive, but
which showed no life.
"Gaston!" she cried, her voice shrill and harsh by turns. "Gaston!
Gaston!"
"I think he is alive," said Brother Paulus again, though what he
founded his thought on God knows, unless it was on pure faith, for
there was neither sound nor motion.
"Gaston! Gaston! Gaston!" she cried again, and then, rising, to my
terror she set herself to find a way down the face of the rock.
Rising also, but only to his knees, Brother Paulus caught her by the
skirt. He, too, had divined her intention, and saw its hopeless folly;
no cliff amongst the many in the hills had so evil a repute as the Grey
Leap.
"No, Suzanne, no," said he, "it is death; there is no way, I have
searched, and there is none, none."
"You have searched, you, who let him fall! Stay on your knees and
pray; that is your business; mine is to find a way down to my boy, or
if there is none, to make a way."
"Let him fall?" said he, with a gasp, and wincing as if she had struck
him with a whip. "How did I let him fall? Could I have helped it?"
"God knows," answered she; "but he was with you, and he fell."
I suppose love is cruel at heart, cruelly hard against whatever comes
between it and the thing it loves. That the priest was nowise to blame
Mademoiselle knew as well as I, but she could not give him the comfort
of saying so. That is why, I think, love is always feigned to be a
child, for in its ignorant singleness of purpose there is nothing so
ruthless. It was that same singleness of purpose that frightened me
now. Matched against the lad, Gaspard Hellewyl counted for nothing,
and never could count, and I dreaded lest, in seeking to hold her back,
I should drive her by the nearest and most desperate path. To try a
forced authority seemed the safest course; that, and a suggestion that
she could help me from above, might keep her out of danger.
"You!" said I, with a rough contempt that must have hurt her had her
heart not been in the bundle of linen twenty feet down the cliff.
"What can you do, cumbered by your skirts as you are? Nothing but add
to our trouble. Unless--yes! you may save us both by this, watch here
and direct me how to climb."
"You!" The contempt was yet rougher than my own, so rough that the
hurt she had escaped galled me bitterly. "We have trusted you so far,
trusted you in part and because we could not help ourselves, but do you
think we shall trust you there?" and with a sudden fierceness she
pointed down the ledge. "Day by day you have said to me, Wait! Has
your time come now, Monsieur the messenger of Louis of France? Has
your time come now, Monsieur, it may be, his catspaw? Was it for this
we have waited all these weeks? A touch of the foot by accident--by
accident, you understand, one little slip for which no man could openly
blame you--and the hope of Navarre would be where your master would
have it be. Stand back, Monsieur! Stand back! If you dare to hinder
me by so much as a finger, the monk and I, priest and woman though we
are, will fling you after the boy."
So swift, so unexpected, so bitter was the attack that I had no answer
ready, no exculpation, no assurance, no plea, and how the dead-lock
would have ended I do not know had Hugues and the big Spaniard 'Tuco
not come round the track at a panting trot. The group of but three
where four should have been, Brother Paulus on his knees as if in
prayer for a passing soul, Mademoiselle's white face blazing with
accusation, her arms thrust out in defence or threat, none could say
which, my own half-shrinking from the venom of her thought, not only
told the truth, but with the truth linked so plausible a lie that I
have never blamed them for their thought. I was of France, they of
Navarre; and if Mademoiselle, into whose life I had grown daily these
weeks past, could think so vilely of me, there was little wonder that
their suspicion and ignorant hate out-leaped reality.
Their wits worked together. Waiting for neither explanation nor
command they turned upon me, and I, taken unawares, was as a child in
their hands, hardly even grasping their intent. But Mademoiselle
understood, and it was not so much her shriek of No! No! No! as the
grasp of her hands upon my shoulders as we overhung the very lip of
descent that held us there, staggering. From the shoulders her hands
slipped forwards, inwards, till her fingers knit themselves under my
chin, drawing me back against her bosom; and there upon the edge we
hung a moment, too breathless and shaken for words.
"Not his fault," she said at last, very hoarsely; "not his fault; tell
them, Father Paul, for I cannot speak. Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur, forgive
them, pray forgive them!"