AN AERIAL JOURNEY.
More fortunate than Andrea, Gilbert had in lieu of an ordinary
practitioner, a light of medical science to attend to his ails. The
eminent Dr Jussieu, a friend of Rousseau’s, though allied to the Court,
happened to call in the nick to be of service. He promised that the
young man would be on his legs in a week.
Moreover, being a botanist like Rousseau, he proposed that on the coming
Sunday they should give the youth a walk with them in the country, out
Marly way. Gilbert might rest while they gathered the curious plants.
With this prospect to entice him, the invalid returned rapidly to
health.
But while Rousseau believed that his ward was well, and his wife Therese
told the gossips that it was due to the skill of the celebrated Dr.
Jussieu, Gilbert was running the worst danger ever befalling his
obstinacy and perpetual dreaming.
Gilbert was the son of a farmer on the land of Baron Taverney. The
master had dissipated his revenue and sold his principal to play the
rake in Paris. When he returned to bring up his son and daughter in
poverty in the dilapidated manor house, Gilbert was a hanger-on, who
fell in love with Nicole as a stepping-stone to becoming infatuated with
her mistress. As at the fireworks, the youth never thought of anything
but this mad love.
From the attic of Rousseau’s house he could look down on the garden
where the summerhouse stood in which Andrea was also in convalescence.
He did not see her, only Nicole carrying broth as for the invalid. The
back of the little house came to the yard of Rousseau’s in another
street.
In this little garden old Taverney trotted about, taking snuff greedily
as if to rouse his wits--that was all Gilbert saw.
But it was enough to judge that a patient was indoors, not a dead woman.
“Behind that screen in the room,” he mused, “is the woman whom I love to
idolatry. She has but to appear to thrill my every limb for she holds my
existence in her hand and I breathe but for us two.”
Merged in his contemplation he did not perceive that in another window
of an adjoining house in his street, Plastriere Street, a young woman in
the widow’s weeds, was also watching the dwelling of the Taverneys. This
second spy knew Gilbert, too, but she took care not to show herself when
he leaned out of the casement as to throw himself on the ground. He
would have recognized her as Chon, the sister of Jeanne, Countess
Dubarry, the favorite of the King.
“Oh, how happy they are who can walk about in that garden,” raved the
mad lover, with furious envy, “for there they could hear Andrea and
perhaps see her in her rooms. At night, one would not be seen while
peeping.”
It is far from desire to execution. But fervid imaginations bring
extremes together; they have the means. They find reality amid fancies,
they bridge streams and put a ladder up against a mountain.
To go around by the street would be no use, even if Rousseau had not
locked in his pet, for the Taverneys lived in the rear house.
“With these natural tools, hands and feet,” reasoned Gilbert, “I can
scramble over the shingles and by following the gutter which is rather
narrow, but straight, consequently the shortest path from one point to
another, I will reach the skylight next my own. That lights the stairs,
so that I can get out. Should I fall, they will pick me up, smashed at
her feet, and they will recognize me, so that my death will be fine,
noble, romantic--superb!
“But if I get in on the stairs I can go down to the window over the yard
and jump down a dozen feet where the trellis will help me to get into
her garden. But if that worm-eaten wood should break and tumble me on
the ground that would not be poetic, but shameful to think of! The baron
will say I came to steal the fruit and he will have his man Labrie lug
me out by the ear.
“No, I will twist these clotheslines into a rope to let me down straight
and I will make the attempt to-night.”
From his window, at dark, Gilbert was scanning the enemy’s grounds, as
he qualified Taverney’s house-lot, when he spied a stone coming over the
garden-wall and slapping up against the house-wall. But though he leaned
far out he could not discry the flinger of the pebble.
What he did see was a blind on the ground floor open warily and the
wide-awake head of the maid Nicole show itself. After having scrutinized
all the windows round, Nicole came out of doors and ran to the espalier
on which some pieces of lace were drying.
The stone had rolled on this place and Gilbert had not lost sight of
it. Nicole kicked it when she came to it and kept on playing football
with it till she drove it under the trellis where she picked it up under
cover of taking off the lace. Gilbert noticed that she shucked the stone
of a piece of paper, and he concluded that the message was of
importance.
It was a letter, which the sly wench opened, eagerly perused and put in
her pocket without paying any more heed to the lace.
Nicole went back into the house, with her hand in her pocket. She
returned with a key which she slipped under the garden gate, which would
be out in the street beside the carriage-doorway.
“Good, I understand,” thought the young man: “it is a love letter.
Nicole is not losing her time in town--she has a lover.”
He frowned with the vexation of a man who supposed that his loss had
left an irreparable void in the heart of the girl he jilted, and
discovered that she had filled it up.
“This bids fair to run counter to my plans,” thought he, trying to give
another turn to his ill-humor. “I shall not be sorry to learn what happy
mortal has succeeded me in the good graces of Nicole Legay.”
But Gilbert had a level mind in some things; he saw that the knowledge
of this secret gave him an advantage over the girl, as she could not
deny it, while she scarcely suspected his passion for the baron’s
daughter, and had no clew to give body to her doubts.
The night was dark and sultry, stifling with heat as often in early
spring. From the clouds it was a black gulf before Gilbert, through
which he descended by the rope. He had no fear from his strength of
will. So he reached the ground without a flutter. He climbed the garden
wall but as he was about to descend, heard a step beneath him.
He clung fast and glanced at the intruder.
It was a man in the uniform of a corporal of the French Guards.
Almost at the same time, he saw Nicole open the house backdoor, spring
across the garden, leaving it open, and light and rapid as a
shepherdess, dart to the greenhouse, which was also the soldier’s
destination. As neither showed any hesitation about proceeding to this
point, it was likely that this was not the first appointment the pair
had kept there.
“No, I can continue my road,” reasoned Gilbert; “Nicole would not be
receiving her sweetheart unless she were sure of some time before her,
and I may rely on finding Mdlle. Andrea alone. Andrea alone!”
No sound in the house was audible and only a faint light was to be seen.
Gilbert skirted the wall and reached the door left open by the maid.
Screened by an immense creeper festooning the doorway, he could peer
into an anteroom, with two doors; the open one he believed to be
Nicole’s. He groped his way into it, for it had no light.
At the end of a lobby, a glazed door, with muslin curtains on the other
side, showed a glimmer. On going up this passage, he heard a feeble
voice.
It was Andrea’s.
All Gilbert’s blood flowed back to the heart.