CHAPTER XXXI.
UNDER THE GREENWOOD.
To escape from my companions on some pretext, which should enable meto ensure their safety without arousing their fears, was the onethought which possessed me on the subsidence of my first alarm.Probably it answered to that instinct in animals which bids them getaway alone when wounded or attacked by disease; and with me it had thefuller play as the pain prevailed rather by paroxysms than inpermanence, and, coming and going, allowed intervals of ease, in whichI was able to think clearly and consecutively, and even to sit firmlyin the saddle.
The moment one of these intervals enabled me to control myself, I usedit to think where I might go without danger to others; and at once andnaturally my thoughts turned to the last place we had passed; whichhappened to be the house in the gorge where we had received news ofBruhl's divergence from the road. The man who lived there alone hadhad the plague; therefore he did not fear it. The place itself wassolitary, and I could reach it, riding slowly, in half an hour. On theinstant and without more delay I determined on this course. I wouldreturn, and, committing myself to the fellow's good offices, bid himdeny me to others, and especially to my friends--should they seek me.
Aware that I had no time to lose if I would put this plan intoexecution before the pains returned to sap my courage, I drew bridleat once, and muttered some excuse to madame; if I remember rightly,that I had dropped my gauntlet. Whatever the pretext--and my dread wasgreat lest she should observe any strangeness in my manner--it passedwith her; by reason, chiefly, I think, of the grief which monopolisedher. She let me go, and before anyone else could mark or miss me I wasa hundred yards away on the back-track, and already sheltered fromobservation by a turn in the road.
The excitement of my evasion supported me for a while after leavingher; and then for another while, a paroxysm of pain deprived me of thepower of thought. But when this last was over, leaving me weak andshaken, yet clear in my mind, the most miserable sadness anddepression that can be conceived came upon me; and, accompanyingme through the wood, filled its avenues (which doubtless were fairenough to others' eyes) with the blackness of despair. I saw but thecharnel-house, and that everywhere. It was not only that the horrorsof the first discovery returned upon me and almost unmanned me; noronly that regrets and memories, pictures of the past and plans for thefuture, crowded thick upon my mind, so that I could have wept at thethought of all ending here. But in my weakness mademoiselle's faceshone where the wood was darkest, and, tempting and provoking me toreturn--were it only to tell her that, grim and dull as I seemed, Iloved her--tried me with a subtle temptation almost beyond my strengthto resist. All that was mean in me rose in arms, all that was selfishclamoured to know why I must die in the ditch while others rode in thesunshine; why I must go to the pit, while others loved and lived!
And so hard was I pressed that I think I should have given way had theride been longer or my horse less smooth and nimble. But in the midstof my misery, which bodily pain was beginning to augment to such adegree that I could scarcely see, and had to ride gripping the saddlewith both hands, I reached the mill. My horse stopped of its ownaccord. The man we had seen before came out. I had just strength leftto tell him what was the matter, and what I wanted; and then a freshattack came on, with sickness, and overcome by vertigo I fell to theground.
I have but an indistinct idea what happened after that; until I foundmyself inside the house, clinging to the man's arm. He pointed to abox-bed in one corner of the room (which was, or seemed to my sickeyes, gloomy and darksome in the extreme), and would have had me liedown in it. But something inside me revolted against the bed, anddespite the force he used, I broke away, and threw myself on a heap ofstraw which I saw in another corner.
'Is not the bed good enough for you?' he grumbled.
I strove to tell him it was not that.
'It should be good enough to die on,' he continued brutally. 'There'sfive have died on that bed, I'd have you know! My wife one, and my sonanother, and my daughter another; and then my son again, and adaughter again. Five! Ay, five in that bed!'
Brooding in the gloom of the chimney-corner, where he was busied abouta black pot, he continued to mutter and glance at me askance; butafter a while I swooned away with pain.
When I opened my eyes again the room was darker. The man still satwhere I had last seen him, but a noise, the same, perhaps, which hadroused me, drew him as I looked to the unglazed window. A voiceoutside, the tones of which I seemed to know, inquired if he had seenme; and so carried away was I by the excitement of the moment that Irose on my elbow to hear the answer. But the man was staunch. I heardhim deny all knowledge of me, and presently the sound of retreatinghoofs and the echo of voices dying in the distance assured me I wasleft.
Then, at that instant, a doubt of the man on whose compassion I hadthrown myself entered my mind. Plague-stricken, hopeless as I was, itchilled me to the very heart; staying in a moment the feeble tears Iwas about to shed, and curing even the vertigo, which forced me toclutch at the straw on which I lay. Whether the thought arose from asickly sense of my own impotence, or was based on the fellow's moroseair and the stealthy glances he continued to cast at me, I am asunable to say as I am to decide whether it was well-founded, or thefruit of my own fancy. Possibly the gloom of the room and the man'ssurly words inclined me to suspicion; possibly his secret thoughtsportrayed themselves in his hang-dog visage. Afterwards it appearedthat he had stripped me, while I lay, of everything of value; but hemay have done this in the belief that I should die.
All I know is that I knew nothing certain, because the fear diedalmost as soon as it was born. The man had scarcely seated himselfagain, or I conceived the thought, when a second alarm outside causedhim to spring to his feet. Scowling and muttering as he went, hehurried to the window. But before he reached it the door was dashedviolently open, and Simon Fleix stood in the entrance.
There came in with him so blessed a rush of light and life as in amoment dispelled the horror of the room, and stripped me at one andthe same time of fear and manhood. For whether I would or no, at sightof the familiar face, which I had fled so lately, I burst into tears;and, stretching out my hands to him, as a frightened child might havedone, called on him by name. I suppose the plague was by this time soplainly written on my face that all who looked might read; for hestood at gaze, staring at me, and was still so standing when a handput him aside and a slighter, smaller figure, pale-faced and hooded,stood for a moment between me and the sunshine. It was mademoiselle!
That, I thank God, restored me to myself, or I had been for evershamed. I cried to them with all the voice I had left to take heraway; and calling out frantically again and again that I had theplague and she would die, I bade the man close the door. Nay,regaining something of strength in my fear for her, I rose up,half-dressed as I was, and would have fled into some corner to avoidher, still calling out to them to take her away, to take her away--ifa fresh paroxysm had not seized me, so that I fell blind and helplesswhere I was.
For a time after that I knew nothing; until someone held water to mylips, and I drank greedily, and presently awoke to the fact that theentrance was dark with faces and figures all gazing at me as I lay.But I could not see her; and I had sense enough to know and bethankful that she was no longer among them. I would fain have biddenMaignan begone too, for I read the consternation in his face. But Icould not muster strength or voice for the purpose, and when I turnedmy head to see who held me--ah me! it comes back to me still indreams--it was mademoiselle's hair that swept my forehead and her handthat ministered to me; while tears she did not try to hide or wipeaway fell on my hot cheek. I could have pushed her away even then, forshe was slight and small; but the pains came upon me, and with a sobchoking my voice I lost all knowledge.
I am told that I lay for more than a month between life and death, nowburning with fever and now in the cold fit; and that but for thetendance which never failed nor faltered, nor could h
ave been outdonehad my malady been the least infectious in the world, I must have dieda hundred times, as hundreds round me did die week by week in thatyear. From the first they took me out of the house (where I think Ishould have perished quickly, so impregnated was it with the plaguepoison) and laid me under a screen of boughs in the forest, with avast quantity of cloaks and horse-cloths cunningly disposed towindward. Here I ran some risk from cold and exposure and the fall ofheavy dews; but, on the other hand, had all the airs of heaven toclear away the humours and expel the fever from my brain.
Hence it was that when the first feeble beginnings of consciousnessawoke in me again, they and the light stole in on me through greenleaves, and overhanging boughs, and the freshness and verdure of thespring woods. The sunshine which reached my watery eyes was softenedby its passage through great trees, which grew and expanded as I gazedup into them, until each became a verdant world, with all a world'sdiversity of life. Grown tired of this, I had still long avenues ofshade, carpeted with flowers, to peer into; or a little woodedbottom--where the ground fell away on one side--that blazed and burnedwith red-thorn. Ay, and hence it was that the first sounds I heard,when the fever left me at last, and I knew morning from evening, andman from woman, were the songs of birds calling to their mates.
Mademoiselle and Madame de Bruhl, with Fanchette and Simon Fleix, layall this time in such shelter as could be raised for them where I lay;M. Francois and three stout fellows, whom Maignan left to guard us,living in a hut within hail. Maignan himself, after seeing out a weekof my illness, had perforce returned to his master, and no news hadsince been received from him. Thanks to the timely move into thewoods, no other of the party fell ill, and by the time I was able tostand and speak the ravages of the disease had so greatly decreasedthat fear was at an end.
I should waste words were I to try to describe how the peace andquietude of the life we led in the forest during the time of myrecovery sank into my heart; which had known, save by my mother'sbedside, little of such joys. To awake in the morning to sweet soundsand scents, to eat with reviving appetite and feel the slow growth ofstrength, to lie all day in shade or sunshine as it pleased me, andhear women's voices and tinkling laughter, to have no thought of theworld and no knowledge of it, so that we might have been, for anythingwe saw, in another sphere--these things might have sufficed forhappiness without that which added to each and every one of them asweeter and deeper and more lasting joy. Of which next.
I had not begun to take notice long before I saw that M. Francois andmadame had come to an understanding; such an one, at least, aspermitted him to do all for her comfort and entertainment withoutcommitting her to more than was becoming at such a season. Naturallythis left mademoiselle much in my company; a circumstance which wouldhave ripened into passion the affection I before entertained for her,had not gratitude and a nearer observance of her merits alreadyelevated the feeling into the most ardent worship that even theyoungest lover ever felt for his mistress.
In proportion, however, as I and my love grew stronger, andmademoiselle's presence grew more necessary to my happiness--so thatwere she away but an hour I fell a-moping--she began to draw off fromme, and absenting herself more and more on long walks in the woods,by-and-by reduced me to such a pitch of misery as bid fair to completewhat the fever had left undone.
If this had happened in the world I think it likely that I should havesuffered in silence. But here, under the greenwood, in commonenjoyment of God's air and earth, we seemed more nearly equal. She wasscarce better dressed than a sutler's wife; while recollections of herwealth and station, though they assailed me nightly, lost much oftheir point in presence of her youth and of that fair and patientgentleness which forest life and the duties of a nurse had fostered.
So it happened that one day, when she had been absent longer thanusual, I took my courage in my hand and went to meet her as far as thestream which ran through the bottom by the redthorn. Here, at a placewhere there were three stepping-stones, I waited for her; first takingaway the stepping-stones, that she might have to pause, and, being ata loss, might be glad to see me.
She came presently, tripping through an alley in the low wood, withher eyes on the ground, and her whole carriage full of a sweetpensiveness which it did me good to see. I turned my back on thestream before she saw me, and made a pretence of being taken up withsomething in another direction. Doubtless she espied me soon, andbefore she came very near; but she made no sign until she reached thebrink, and found the stepping-stones were gone.
Then, whether she suspected me or not, she called out to me, not once,but several times. For, partly to tantalise her, as lovers will, andpartly because it charmed me to hear her use my name, I would not turnat once.
When I did, and discovered her standing with one small foot dallyingwith the water, I cried out with well-affected concern; and in a greathurry ran towards her, paying no attention to her chiding or thepettish haughtiness with which she spoke to me.
'The stepping-stones are all on your side,' she said imperiously. 'Whohas moved them?'
I looked about without answering, and at last pretended to find them;while she stood watching me, tapping the ground with one foot thewhile. Despite her impatience, the stone which was nearest to her Itook care to bring last--that she might not cross without myassistance. But after all she stepped over so lightly and quickly thatthe hand she placed in mine seemed scarcely to rest there a second.Yet when she was over I managed to retain it; nor did she resist,though her cheek, which had been red before, turned crimson and hereyes fell, and bound to me by the link of her little hand, she stoodbeside me with her whole figure drooping.
'Mademoiselle,' I said gravely, summoning all my resolution to my aid,'do you know of what that stream with its stepping-stones reminds me?'
She shook her head but did not answer.
'Of the stream which has flowed between us from the day when I firstsaw you at St. Jean,' I said in a low voice. 'It has flowed betweenus, and it still does--separating us.'
'What stream?' she murmured, with her eyes cast down, and her footplaying with the moss. 'You speak in riddles, sir.'
'You understand this one only too well, mademoiselle,' I answered.'Are you not young and gay and beautiful, while I am old, or almostold, and dull and grave? You are rich and well-thought-of at Court,and I a soldier of fortune, not too successful. What did you think ofme when you first saw me at St. Jean? What when I came to Rosny? That,mademoiselle,' I continued with fervour, 'is the stream which flowsbetween us and separates us; and I know of but one stepping-stone thatcan bridge it.'
She looked aside, toying with a piece of thorn-blossom she had picked.It was not redder than her cheeks.
'That one stepping-stone,' I said, after waiting vainly for any wordor sign from her, 'is Love. Many weeks ago, mademoiselle, when I hadlittle cause to like you, I loved you; I loved you whether I would ornot, and without thought or hope of return. I should have been mad hadI spoken to you then. Mad, and worse than mad. But now, now that I oweyou my life, now that I have drunk from your hand in fever, and,awaking early and late, have found you by my pillow--now that, seeingyou come in and out in the midst of fear and hardship, I have learnedto regard you as a woman kind and gentle as my mother--now that I loveyou, so that to be with you is joy, and away from you grief, is itpresumption in me now, mademoiselle, to think that that stream may bebridged?'
I stopped, out of breath, and saw that she was trembling. But shespoke presently. 'You said one stepping-stone?' she murmured.
'Yes,' I answered hoarsely, trying in vain to look at her face, whichshe kept averted from me.
'There should be two,' she said, almost in a whisper. 'Your love, sir,and--and mine. You have said much of the one, and nothing of theother. In that you are wrong, for I am proud still. And I would notcross the stream you speak of for any love of yours!'
'Ah!' I cried in sharpest pain.
'But,' she continued, looking up at me on a sudden with eyes that toldme all, 'because I
love you I am willing to cross it--to cross it oncefor ever, and live beyond it all my life--if I may live my life withyou.'
I fell on my knee and kissed her hand again and again in a rapture ofjoy and gratitude. By-and-by she pulled it from me. 'If you will,sir,' she said, 'you may kiss my lips. If you do not, no man everwill.'
After that, as may be guessed, we walked every day in the forest,making longer and longer excursions as my strength came back to me,and the nearer parts grew familiar. From early dawn, when I brought mylove a posy of flowers, to late evening, when Fanchette hurried herfrom me, our days were passed in a long round of delight; being filledfull of all beautiful things--love, and sunshine, and ripplingstreams, and green banks, on which we sat together under scentedlimes, telling one another all we had ever thought, and especially allwe had ever thought of one another. Sometimes--when the light was lowin the evening--we spoke of my mother; and once--but that was in thesunshine, when the bees were humming and my blood had begun to runstrongly in my veins--I spoke of my great and distant kinsman, Rohan.But mademoiselle would hear nothing of him, murmuring again and againin my ear, 'I have crossed, my love, I have crossed.'
Truly the sands of that hour-glass were of gold. But in time they ranout. First M. Francois, spurred by the restlessness of youth, andconvinced that madame would for a while yield no farther, left us, andwent back to the world. Then news came of great events that could notfail to move us. The King of France and the King of Navarre had met atTours, and embracing in the sight of an immense multitude, hadrepulsed the League with slaughter in the suburb of St. Symphorien.Fast on this followed the tidings of their march northwards with anoverwhelming army of fifty-thousand men of both religions, bent,rumour had it, on the signal punishment of Paris.
I grew--shame that I should say it--to think more and more of thesethings; until mademoiselle, reading the signs, told me one day that wemust go. 'Though never again,' she added with a sigh, 'shall we be sohappy.'
'Then why go?' I asked foolishly.
'Because you are a man,' she answered with a wise smile, 'as I wouldhave you be, and you need something besides love. To-morrow we willgo.'
'Whither?' I said in amazement.
'To the camp before Paris,' she answered. 'We will go back in thelight of day--seeing that we have done nothing of which to beashamed--and throw ourselves on the justice of the King of Navarre.You shall place me with Madame Catherine, who will not refuse toprotect me; and so, sweet, you will have only yourself to think of.Come, sir,' she continued, laying her little hand in mine, and lookinginto my eyes, 'you are not afraid?'
'I am more afraid than ever I used to be,' I said trembling.
'So I would have it,' she whispered, hiding her face on my shoulder.'Nevertheless we will go.'
And go we did. The audacity of such a return in the face of Turenne,who was doubtless in the King of Navarre's suite, almost took mybreath away; nevertheless, I saw that it possessed one advantage whichno other course promised--that, I mean, of setting us right in theeyes of the world, and enabling me to meet in a straightforward mannersuch as maligned us. After some consideration I gave my assent, merelyconditioning that until we reached the Court we should ride masked,and shun as far as possible encounters by the road.
Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Page 83