Véronique ran to the window. The ladder was floating on the part of the little pool which she was able to see, lying motionless in its frame of rocks. There was nothing to point to the place where Stéphane had fallen, not an eddy, not a ripple.
She called out:
“Stéphane! Stéphane! . . .”
No reply, nothing but the great silence of space in which the winds are still and the sea asleep.
“You villain, what have you done?” she cried.
“Don’t take on, missus,” he said. “Master Stéphane brought up your kid to be a duffer. Come it’s a laughing matter, it is, really. Give us a kiss, won’t you, daddy’s missus? But, I say, what a face you’re pulling! Surely you don’t hate me as much as all that?”
He went up to her, with his arms outstretched. Véronique swiftly covered him with her revolver:
“Be off, be off, or I’ll kill you as I would a mad dog! Be off!”
The boy’s face became more inhuman than ever. He fell back step by step, snarling:
“Oh, I’ll make you pay for this, my pretty lady! . . . What do you mean by it? I come up to give you a kiss . . . I’m full of kindly feelings . . . and you want to shoot me! You shall pay for it in blood . . . in nice red flowing blood . . . blood . . . blood . . . .”
He seemed to love the sound of the word. He repeated it time after time, then once more gave a burst of evil laughter and fled down the tunnel which led to the Priory, shouting:
“The blood of your son, Mother Véronique! . . . The blood of your darling François!”
CHAPTER X. THE ESCAPE
SHUDDERING, UNCERTAIN HOW to act next, Véronique listened till she no longer heard the sound of his footsteps. What should she do? The murder of Stéphane had for a moment turned her thoughts from François; but she now once more fell a prey to anguish. What had become of her son? Should she go to him at the Priory and defend him against the dangers that threatened him?
“Come, come,” she said, “I’m losing my head . . . . Let me think things out . . . . A few hours ago, François was speaking to me through the wall of his prison . . . for it was certainly he then, it was certainly François who yesterday took my hand and covered it with his kisses . . . . A mother cannot be deceived; and I was quivering with love and tenderness . . . . But since . . . since this morning has he not left his prison?”
She stopped to think and then said, slowly:
“That’s it . . . that’s what happened . . . . Stéphane and I were discovered below, on the floor underneath. The alarm was given at once. The monster, Vorski’s son, had gone up expressly to watch François. He found the cell empty and, seeing the opening which had been made, crawled out here. Yes, that’s it . . . . If not, by what way did he come? . . . When he got here, it occurred to him to run to the window, knowing that it overlooked the sea and suspecting that François had chosen it to make his escape. He at once saw the hooks of the ladder. Then, on leaning over, he saw me, knew who I was and called out to me . . . . And now . . . now he is on his way to the Priory, where he is bound to meet François . . . .”
Nevertheless Véronique did not stir. She had an instinct that the danger lay not at the Priory but here, by the cells. And she wondered whether François had really succeeded in escaping and whether, before his task was done, he had not been surprised by the other and attacked by him.
It was a horrible doubt! She stooped quickly and, perceiving that the hole had been widened, tried to pass through it herself. But the outlet, at most large enough for a child, was too narrow for her; and her shoulders became fixed. She persisted in the attempt, however, tearing her bodice and bruising her skin against the rock, and at last, by dint of patience and wriggling, succeeded in slipping through.
The cell was empty. But the door was open on the passages facing her; and Véronique had an impression — merely an impression, for the window admitted only a faint light — that some one was just leaving the cell through the open door. And from this confused impression of something that she had not absolutely seen she retained the certainty that it was a woman who was hiding there, in the passage, a woman surprised by her unexpected entrance.
“It’s their accomplice,” thought Véronique. “She came up with the boy who killed Stéphane, and she has no doubt taken François away . . . . Perhaps François is even there still, quite near me, while she’s watching me . . . .”
Meanwhile Véronique’s eyes were growing accustomed to the semidarkness and she distinctly saw a woman’s hand upon the door, which opened inwardly. The hand was slowly pulling.
“Why doesn’t she shut it at once,” Véronique wondered, “since she obviously wants to put a barrier between us?”
Véronique received her answer when she heard a pebble grating under the door and interfering with its movement. If the pebble were not there, the door would be closed. Without hesitating, Véronique went up, took hold of a great iron handle and pulled it towards her. The hand disappeared, but the opposition continued. There was evidently a handle on the other side as well.
Suddenly she heard a whistle. The woman was summoning assistance. And almost at the same time, in the passage, at some distance from the woman, there was a cry:
“Mother! Mother!”
Ah, with what deep emotion Véronique heard that cry! Her son, her real son was calling to her, her son, still a captive but alive! Oh, the superhuman delight of it!
“I’m here, darling!”
“Quick, mother! I’m tied up; and the whistle is their signal . . . they’ll be coming.”
“I’m here . . . . I shall save you before they come!”
She had no doubt of the result. It seemed to her as though her strength knew no limits and as though nothing could resist the exasperated tension of her whole being.
Her adversary was in fact weakening and giving ground by inches. The opening became wider; and suddenly the contest was over. Véronique walked through.
The woman had already fled down the passage and was dragging the boy by a rope in order to make him walk despite the cords with which he was bound. It was a vain attempt and she abandoned it forthwith. Véronique was close to her, with her revolver in her hand.
The woman let go the boy and stood up in the light from the open cells. She was dressed in white serge, with a knotted girdle round her waist. Her arms were half bare. Her face was still young, but faded, thin and wrinkled. Her hair was fair, interspersed with strands of white. Her eyes gleamed with a feverish hatred.
The two women looked at each other without a word, like two adversaries who have met before and are about to fight again. Véronique almost smiled, with a smile of mingled triumph and defiance. In the end she said:
“If you dare to lay a finger on my child, I’ll kill you. Go! Be off!”
The woman was not frightened. She seemed to be reflecting and to be listening in the expectation of assistance. None come. Then she lowered her eyes to François and made a movement as though to seize upon her prey again.
“Don’t touch him!” Véronique exclaimed, violently. “Don’t touch him, or I fire!”
The woman shrugged her shoulders and said, in measured accents:
“No threats, please! If I had wanted to kill that child of yours, I should have done so by now. But his hour has not come; and it is not by my hand that he is to die.”
Véronique, trembling all over, could not help asking:
“By whose hand is he to die?”
“By my son’s: you know . . . the one you’ve seen.”
“Is he your son, the murderer, the monster?”
“He’s the son of . . .”
“Silence! Silence!” Véronique commanded. She understood that the woman had been Vorski’s mistress and feared that she would make some disclosure in François’ presence. “Silence: that name is not to be spoken.”
“It will be when it has to be,” said the woman. “Ah, I’ve suffered enough through you, Véronique: it’s your turn now; and you’re only at the beginning of it!”
>
“Go!” cried Véronique, pointing her revolver.
“Once more, no threats, please.”
“Go, or I fire! I swear it on the head of my son.”
The woman retreated, betraying a certain anxiety in spite of herself. But she was seized with a fresh access of rage. Impotently she raised her clenched fists and shouted, in a raucous, broken voice:
“I will be revenged . . . You shall see. Véronique . . . . The cross — do you understand? — the cross is ready . . . . You are the fourth . . . . What, oh, what a revenge!”
She shook her gnarled, bony fists. And she continued:
“Oh, how I hate you! Fifteen years of hatred! But the cross will avenge me . . . . I shall string you up on it myself . . . . The cross is ready . . . you’ll see . . . the cross is ready for you! . . .”
She walked away slowly, holding herself erect under the threat of the revolver.
“Don’t kill her, mother, will you?” whispered François, suspecting the contest in his mother’s mind.
Véronique seemed to wake from a dream:
“No, no,” she replied, “don’t be afraid . . . . And yet perhaps I ought to . . .”
“Oh, please let her be, mother, and let us go away.”
She lifted him in her arms, even before the woman was out of sight, pressed him to her and carried him to the cell as though he weighed no more than a little child.
“Mother, mother,” he said.
“Yes, darling, your own mother; and no one shall take you from me again, that I swear to you.”
Without troubling about the wounds inflicted by the stone she slipped, this time almost at the first attempt, through the gap made by François, drew him after her and then, but not before, released him from his bonds.
“There is no danger here,” she said, “at least for the moment, because they can hardly get at us except by the cell and I shall be able to defend the entrance.”
Mother and son exchanged the fondest of embraces. There was now no barrier to part their lips and their arms. They could see each other, could gaze into each other’s eyes.
“How handsome you are, my darling!” said Véronique.
She saw no resemblance between him and the boy murderer and was astonished that Honorine could have taken one for the other. And she felt as if she would never weary of admiring the breeding, the frankness and the sweetness which she read in his face.
“And you, mother,” he said, “do you think that I ever pictured a mother as beautiful as you? No, not even in my dreams, when you seemed as lovely as a fairy. And yet Stéphane often used to tell me . . .”
She interrupted him:
“We must hurry, dearest, and take refuge from their pursuit. We must go.”
“Yes,” he said, “and above all we must leave Sarek. I have invented a plan of escape which is bound to succeed. But, first of all, Stéphane: what has become of him? I heard the sound of which I spoke to you underneath my cell and I fear . . .”
She dragged him along by the hand, without answering his question:
“I have many things to tell you, darling, painful things which I must no longer keep from you. But presently will do . . . . For the moment we must take refuge in the Priory. That woman will go in search of help and come after us.”
“But she was not alone, mother, when she entered my cell suddenly and caught me in the act of digging at the wall. There was some one with her.”
“A boy, wasn’t it? A boy of your own size?”
“I could hardly see. He and the woman fell upon me, bound me and carried me into the passage. Then the woman left me for a moment and he went back to the cell. He therefore knows about this tunnel by now and about the exit in the Priory grounds.”
“Yes, I know. But we shall easily get the better of him; and we’ll block up the exit.”
“But there remains the bridge which joins the two islands,” François objected.
“No,” she said, “I burnt it down and the Priory is absolutely cut off.”
They were walking very quickly, Véronique pressing her pace, François a little anxious at the words spoken by his mother.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I see that there is a good deal which I don’t know and which you have kept from me, mother, in order not to frighten me. For instance, when you burnt down the bridge . . . . It was with the petrol set aside for the purpose, wasn’t it, and as arranged with Maguennoc in case of danger? So you were threatened too; and the first attack was made on you, mother? . . . And then there was something that woman said with such a hateful look on her face! . . . And then . . . and then, above all, what has become of Stéphane? They were whispering about him just now in my cell . . . . All this worries me . . . . Then again I don’t see the ladder which you brought . . . .”
“Please, dearest, don’t let us wait a moment. The woman will have found assistance . . . .”
The boy stopped short:
“Mother.”
“What? Do you hear anything?”
“Some one walking.”
“Are you sure?”
“Some one coming this way.”
“Oh,” she said, in a hollow voice, “it’s the murderer coming back from the Priory!”
She felt her revolver and prepared herself for anything that might happen. But suddenly she pushed François towards a dark corner on her left, formed by the entry to one of those tunnels, probably blocked, which she had noticed when she came.
“Get in there,” she said. “We shall be all right here: he will not see us.”
The sound approached.
“Stand well back,” she said, “and don’t stir.”
The boy whispered:
“What’s that in your hand? A revolver? Mother, you’re not going to fire?”
“I ought to, I ought to,” said Véronique. “He’s such a monster! . . . It’s as with his mother . . . I ought to have . . . we shall perhaps regret it.” And she added, almost unconsciously, “He killed your grandfather.”
“Oh, mother, mother!”
She supported him, to prevent his falling, and amid the silence she heard the boy sobbing on her breast and stammering:
“Never mind . . . don’t fire, mother . . . .”
“Here he comes, darling, here he comes; look at him.”
The other passed. He was walking slowly, a little bent, listening for the least sound. He appeared to Véronique to be the exact same size as her son; and this time, when she looked at him with more attention, she was not so much surprised that Honorine and M. d’Hergemont had been taken in, for there were really some points of resemblance, which would have been accentuated by the fact that he was wearing the red cap stolen from François.
He walked on.
“Do you know him?” asked Véronique.
“No, mother.”
“Are you sure that you never saw him?”
“Sure.”
“And it was he who fell upon you, with the woman, in your cell?”
“I haven’t a doubt of it, mother. He even hit me in the face, for no reason, with absolute hatred.”
“Oh,” she said, “this is all incomprehensible! When shall we escape this awful nightmare?”
“Quick, mother, the road’s clear. Let’s make the most of it.”
On returning to the light, she saw that he was very pale and felt his hand in hers like a lump of ice. Nevertheless he looked up at her with a smile of happiness.
They set out again; and soon, after passing the strip of cliff that joined the two islands and climbing the staircases, they emerged in the open air, to the right of Maguennoc’s garden. The daylight was beginning to wane.
“We are saved,” said Véronique.
“Yes,” replied the boy, “but only on condition that they cannot reach us by the same road. We shall have to bar it, therefore.”
“How?”
“Wait for me here; I’ll go and fetch some tools at the Priory.”
“Oh, don’t let us leave each other, Fr
ançois!”
“You can come with me, mother.”
“And suppose the enemy arrives in the meantime? No, we must defend this outlet.”
“Then help me, mother.”
A rapid inspection showed them that one of the two stones which formed a roof above the entrance was not very firmly rooted in its place. They found no difficulty in first shifting and then clearing it. The stone fell across the staircase and was at once covered by an avalanche of earth and pebbles which made the passage, if not impracticable, at least very hard to manage.
“All the more so,” said François, “as we shall stay here until we are able to carry out my plan. And be easy, mother; it’s a sound scheme and we have nearly managed it.”
For that matter, they recognized above all, that rest was essential. They were both of them worn out.
“Lie down, mother . . . look, just here: there’s a bed of moss under this overhanging rock which makes a regular nest. You’ll be as cosy as a queen there and sheltered from the cold.”
“Oh, my darling, my darling!” murmured Véronique, overcome with happiness.
It was now the time for explanations; and Véronique did not hesitate to give them. The boy’s grief at hearing of the death of all those whom he had known would be mitigated by the great joy which he felt at recovering his mother. She therefore spoke without reserve, cradling him in her lap, wiping away his tears, feeling plainly that she was enough to make up for all the lost affections and friendships. He was particularly afflicted by Stéphane’s death.
“But is it quite certain?” he asked. “For, after all, there is nothing to tell us that he is drowned. Stéphane is a perfect swimmer; and so . . . Yes, yes, mother, we must not despair . . . on the contrary . . . . Look, here’s a friend who always comes at the worst times, to declare that everything is not lost.”
All’s Well came trotting along. The sight of his master did not appear to surprise him. Nothing unduly surprised All’s Well. Events, to his mind, always followed one another in a natural order which did not disturb either his habits or his occupations. Tears alone seemed to him worthy of special attention. And Véronique and François were not crying.
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 229