CHAPTER XXII.
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 feetslipping from the shoes; she felt the kerchief, that, twined in herhair, gave her height, shift with the movement; she felt her limbsyielding. And she despaired. She was certain that she could not pass;she must faint, she must fall. Then the scornful words of the womanshe had left recurred to her, stung her, whipped her courage oncemore; 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 onher, 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 thegorge between the two breasts fanned her burning cheeks--never breezemore blessed!--and with hope, courage, confidence all in a momentrevived and active, she began to descend the winding road that led tothe town.
There were men lounging on the road, singly or in groups, who staredat her as she passed; some with thinly-veiled insolence, others inpure curiosity. But they did not dare to address her; though theythought, looking after her, that she bore herself oddly. And she cameunmolested to the spot where the road passed under the drawbridge.Here for an instant sick fear shook her anew. Some of the men in thegateway had come out to watch her pass below; she thought that theycame to call her back. But save for a muttered jeer and the voice ofthe 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 breathedagain. She came at the foot of the descent, to the carved stonefountain and the sloping market-place. She took, as ordered, the roadthat fell away to the right, and in a twinkling she was hidden by theturn from the purview of the castle.
She ventured then--the town seemed to stifle her--to move morequickly; as quickly as her clumsy shoes would let her move on stonessloping and greasy. Here and there a person, struck by something inher walk, turned to take a second glance at her; or a woman in a lowdoorway bent curious eyes on her as she came and went. She could nottell whether she bred suspicion in them or not, or whether she seemedthe same woman--but a trifle downcast--who had passed that way before.For she dared not look back nor return their gaze. Her heart beatquickly, and more quickly as the end drew near. Success that seemedwithin her grasp impelled her at last almost to a run. And then--shewas 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 thechapel gate. And Roger--yes, Roger himself, with a face that workedstrangely and words that joy stifled in his throat, was leading her toa horse and lending his knee to mount her. And they were turning, andmoving 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 hadpassed was more poignant, more full of choking fear, than that whichsaw them move slowly through, under the gaze of the men on guard, whoseemed for just one second to be rising to question them. Then--theopen country! The open country with its air, its cool breezes, itsspacious evening light and its promise of safety. And quick on thisfollowed the delicious moment when they began to trot, slowly at firstand carelessly, that suspicion might not be awakened; and then moreswiftly, and more swiftly, urging the horses with sly kicks anddisguised spurrings until the first wood that hid them saw thempounding forward at a gallop, with the Countess's robe flapping in thewind, her kerchief fallen, her hair loosened. Two miles, three milesflew by them; they topped the wooded hill that looked down onVilleneuve. Then, midway in the descent on the farther side, they leftthe path at a word from Roger, plunged into the scrub and rode atrisk--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, theyplodded and waded and jogged along damp woodland ways and throughwatery lanes that attended the brook to its junction with the river.
Here, at length, in the lowest bottom of the Villeneuve valley, theyhalted. For the time they deemed themselves safe; since night hadfallen and hidden their tracks, and Vlaye, if he followed, would takethe ordinary road. It had grown so dark indeed, that until the moonrose farther retreat was impossible; and though the river beside whichthey stood was fordable at the cost of a wetting, Roger thought itbetter to put off the attempt. One of the servants, the man at theCountess's bridle, would have had him try now, and rest in theincreased security of the farther bank. But Roger demurred, for areason which he did not explain; and the party dismounted where theywere, in a darkness which scarcely permitted the hand to be seenbefore the face.
"The moon will be up in three hours," Roger said. "If we cannot fleethey cannot pursue. Mademoiselle," he continued, in a voice into whichhe strove to throw a certain aloofness, "if you will give me yourhand," he felt for it, "there is a dry spot here. I will break downthese 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 herresting-place. She felt for the spot, but timidly, and he had to takeher hand again and place her in it.
"I fear it is rough," he said, "but it is the best we can do. Forfood, 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 ifshe was frightened he was happy, though he could not see her. He wasin that stage of love when no familiarity has brought the idol toonear, no mark of favour has declared her human, no sign of preferencehas fostered hope. He had done her, he was doing her a service; andall his life it would be his to recall her as he had seen her duringtheir flight--battered, blown about, with streaming hair and draggledclothes, the branches whipping colour into her cheeks, her small brownhand struggling with her tangled locks. In such a stage of love to benear is enough, and Roger asked no more. He forgot his sister'sposition, he forgot des Ageaux' danger. Listening in the warm summernight to the croaking of the frogs, he gazed unrebuked into thedarkness 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 therecollection of it. All his life he would think of her, as the monk inthe cloister bears with him the image of her he loved in the world; oras the maid remembers blamelessly the lover who died between betrothaland wedding, and before one wry word or one divided thought had risento dim the fair mirror of her future.
Alas, of all the dainty things in the world, too delicate in theirnature to be twice tasted, none is more evanescent than this firstworship; this reverence of the lover for her who seems rather angelthan woman, framed of a clay too heavenly for the coarse touch ofpassion.
Once before, in the hay-field, he had tried to save her, and he hadfailed. This time--oh, he was happy when he thought of it--he wouldsave her. And he fell into a dream of a life--impossible in thosedays, however it might have been in the times of Amadis of Gaul, orPalmerin of England--devoted secretly to her service and herhappiness; 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 Rogerbest, and best appreciated his loyal nature, would have deemed himsleepless for the Lieutenant's sake--whose life hung in the balance;or tormented by thoughts of the Abbess's position. But love is of allthings the mos
t selfish; and though Roger ground his teeth once andagain as Vlaye's breach of faith occurred to him, his thoughts werequickly plunged anew in a sweet reverie, in which she had part. Thewind blew from her to him, and he fancied that some faint scent fromher 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 alittle. "Always some one must take my place. Bonne first, and now yourother 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 onewho pleaded, "how lonely I have been, and what I have suffered. I havebeen tossed from hand to hand all my life, and mocked with great namesand great titles, and been with them all a puppet, a thing my familyvalued because they could barter it away when the price was good--justas they could a farm or a manor! I give orders, and sometimes they arecarried out, and sometimes not--as it suits," bitterly. "I am shown onhigh days as Madonnas are shown, carried shoulder high through thestreets. 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 andcomfort her. "You will feel differently to-morrow. You have had nofood, 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 foodmade up for friends and no one was lonely save when alone! Think whatit 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 herose, "What is it?"
"I think I hear some one moving," Roger faltered. "I will tell themen!" And without waiting for her answer, he stumbled away. For, intruth, 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 knowthat she was tempting him, trying him, putting him to a test beyondhis strength. He stumbled away into the darkness, and steering for theplace 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. Tobid the man who watched come nearer and keep the lady company would beabsurd, would be out of reason; and so it would be to bid him standguard over them while they talked. The man would think him mad. Theonly alternative, if he would remove himself from temptation, was toremain 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 thathe was losing moments that would never recur--moments on which hewould 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, thewood-nymphs--ay, and the old song that recurred to his memory andmocked 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 menhad, and no man would let slip. But he was not as other men--there itwas. He was crook-backed, poor, unknown! And so thinking, so tellinghimself, he fixed himself in his resolve, he strove to harden hisheart, he covered his ears with his hands. For she was a child, achild! She did not understand!
He would have played the hero perfectly but for one fatal thought thatpresently came to him--a thought fatal to his rectitude. She wouldtake fright! Left alone, ignorant of the feeling that drove him fromher--what if she moved from the place where he had left her, and lostherself in the wood, or fell into the river, or--and just then shecalled him.
"Monsieur Roger! Where are you?"
He went back to her slowly, almost sullenly; partly in surrender tohis own impulse, partly in response to her call. But he did not againsit 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 bealone."
"I?" in a tone that went to poor Roger's heart. "I, who have told youthat I am always alone? Who have told you that I have not"--her voiceshook--"a friend--one real friend in the world!"
"You are tired now," Roger faltered, finding no other words than thosehe had used before.
"Not one real friend!" she repeated piteously. "Not one!"
He was not proof against that. He bent towards her in thedarkness--almost in spite of himself. "Yes, one," he said, in a voiceas unsteady as hers. "One you have, mademoiselle, who would die foryou 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 asksonly to serve you at a distance, by day and dark, now and always! Ifit 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 andironical, "where I am to find such an one save in books! In the SevenChampions 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, thatthreatened offence.
He stood, his hands hanging by his side. "Yes," he faltered. "But noone knows better than myself that I cannot help you, mademoiselle.That I can be no honour to you. For the Countess of Rochechouart tohave a crook-backed knight at the tail of her train--it may make somelaugh. 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 canhave but one friend--her husband?"
He winced. She was right; but if that was her feeling, why had shecomplained of the lack of friends?
"Only one friend, her husband," the Countess continued softly. "If youwould be that friend--but perhaps you would not, Roger? Still, if youwould, I say, you must be kind to her ever and gentle to her. You mustnot leave her alone in woods on dark nights. You must not slight her.You must not,"--she was half laughing, half crying, and hangingtowards him in the darkness, her childish hands held out in a gestureof appeal, irresistible had he seen it--but it was dark, or she hadnot 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 saidso much you will still leave me alone and unprotected, and--andfriendless? Or is it that you do not love me?"
"Not love you?" Roger cried, in a tone that betrayed more than avolume of words had told. And beaten out of his last defence by thatshrewd dilemma, he threw his pride to the winds; he sank down besideher, and seized her hands and carried them to his lips--lips that werehot with the fever of sudden passion. "Not love you, mademoiselle? Notlove you?"
"So eloquent!" she murmured, with a last flicker of irony. "He doesnot even now say that he loves me. It is still his friendshi
p, Isuppose, 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 heartof his heart, the desire of his desire. Not that she needed to beconvinced. For when the delirium of his joy began to subside heventured to put a certain question to her--that question which happylovers never fail to put.
"Do you think women are blind?" she answered. "Did you think I did notsee your big eyes following me in and out and up and down? That I didnot see your blush when I spoke to you and your black brow when Iwalked with M. des Ageaux? Dear Roger, women are not so blind! I wasnot so blind that I did not know as much before you spoke as I knownow."
And in the dark of the wood they talked, while the water glintedslowly by them and the frogs croaked among the waving weeds, and inthe stillness under the trees the warmth of the summer night and oflove wrapped them round. It was an hour between danger and danger,made more precious by uncertainty. For the moment the world held foreach of them but one other person. The Lieutenant's peril, Bonne'ssuspense, the Abbess--all were forgotten until the moon rose above thetrees and flung a chequered light on the dark moss and hart's-tongueand harebells about the lovers' feet. And with a shock ofself-reproach the two rose to their feet.
They gave to inaction not a moment after that. With difficulty andsome danger the river was forded by the pale light, and they resumedtheir journey by devious ways until, mounting from the lower groundthat fringed the water, they gained the flank of the hills. Thence,crossing one shoulder after another by paths known to Roger, theyreached the hill at the rear of the Old Crocans' town. In passing bythis and traversing the immediate neighbourhood of the peasants' camplay their greatest danger. But the dawn was now at hand, the moon wasfading; and in the cold, grey interval between dawn and daylight theyslipped by within sight of the squalid walls, and with the fear ofsurprise on them approached the gate of the camp. Nor, though all wentwell with them, did they breathe freely until the challenge of theguard at the gate rang in their ears.
After that there came with safety the sense of their selfishness. Theythought of poor Bonne, who, somewhere in the mist-wrapped basin beforethem, lay waiting and listening and praying. How were they to faceher? with what heart tell her that her lover, that des Ageaux, stilllay 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; sothat they were not to blame. But would Bonne believe this? Would shenot rather set down the failure to the Countess's faint heart, to theCountess's withdrawal?
"I should not have come!" the girl cried, turning to Roger in greatdistress. "I should not have come!" Her new happiness fell from herlike a garment, and, shivering, she hung back in the entrance andwrung her hands. "I dare not face her!" she said. "I dare not,indeed!" And, "Wait!" to the men who wished to hurry off and proclaimtheir return. "Wait!" she said imperatively.
The grey fog of the early morning, which had sheltered their approachand still veiled the lower parts of the camp, seemed to add to thehopelessness of the news they bore. Roger himself was silent, lookingat the waiting men, and wondering what must be done. Poor Bonne! Hehad scarcely thought of her--yet what must she be feeling? What had hehimself 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 werea pity to rouse her."
But the Countess shook her head in scorn of his ignorance. Bonne wouldnot 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 theend! Sleeping, when at any moment news, the best or the worst, mightcome!
And Bonne was not sleeping. The words had scarcely passed Roger's lipswhen she appeared, gliding out of the mist towards them, the Bat'slank form at her elbow. Their appearance in company was, in truth, nowork of chance. Six or seven times already, braving the dark camp andits possible dangers, she had gone to the entrance to inquire; and oneach occasion--so strong is a common affection--the Bat had appearedas it were from the ground, and gone silently with her, learned insilence that there was no news, and seen her in silence to herquarters again. The previous afternoon she had got some rest. She hadlain some hours in the deep sleep of exhaustion; and longer in a heavydoze, 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 itwas, deep shadows under her eyes told of the strain she was enduring;and her face, though it had not lost its girlish contours, was whiteand woeful. When she saw them standing together in the entrance aglance told her that they bore ill news. Yet, to Roger's greatastonishment, she was quite calm.
"He has not released him?" she said, a flicker of pain distorting herface.
The Countess clasped her hand in both her own, and with tears runningdown 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 Countessexplained, speaking with difficulty, "he--he--laughed. 'I did notpromise to release him,' he answered. 'I said if you did not accept myhospitality, 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 itsurprised even the Bat, who had experience of her courage, "There is ahope," she said, "if it be not too late. M. de Joyeuse, whose father'slife he would have saved--I will go to him! I will kneel to him! Hemust save him. There must still be ways of saving him, and the Duke'spower 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 passedwith her into the mist in the direction of the Duke's hut.