Day of the Arrow

by Philip Loraine

  Philippe said, ‘It’s only a sedative; I’ve had it myself dozens of times.’

  The old woman grinned at the face which he pulled after drinking the stuff; then, her work done, she turned to Philippe, bobbed a sort of curtsey, crossed herself, and scurried out of the room.

  Philippe and the Abbé Luchard were obviously amused by the expression on Lindsay’s face.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the abbé, ‘she’s a witch, all right. Never underestimate the knowledge of a witch; mankind has forgotten more things, and more important things, than he will ever learn.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Three o’clock. High time I was in bed.’ He bowed to Philippe and then to Lindsay and turned to the door. Christian still slept on the floor, holding his guitar.

  Luchard paused for a moment looking down at the sleeping youth. ‘I often wonder,’ he said, ‘what is innocence? Good night. God be with you.’

  Philippe de Montfaucon turned and looked at Lindsay, a wary, thoughtful look; then he went over to the young man, knelt beside him and passed his fingers lightly over the guitar. Christian woke up at once, without fuss; he sat up, yawning.

  Philippe said, ‘Go to bed. It’s three o’clock.’

  The boy nodded, stood up, slung the guitar over his shoulder and yawned again, stretching like a young animal. ‘Couldn’t we go out?’ he said. ‘Couldn’t we ride up to the waterfall?’

  Philippe shook his head, smiling. Christian looked across at Lindsay, shrugged and walked out of the room.

  The two men stared at each other for a time in silence. At length Lindsay said, ‘Obviously it wasn’t just chance that you were there.’

  ‘Why “obviously”?’

  ‘It was hardly the time of day the Lord of the Manor would choose to ride around his estates.’

  Philippe de Montfaucon looked at him, smiling. ‘My dear James, I don’t think you realize how big this place is—there are parts of it that I must leave at midday if I want to get back to the chateau by nightfall.’

  ‘I still don’t think it was chance,’ said Lindsay obstinately.

  The other man sat down at the chess table and began to make patterns with the pieces. ‘Tell me what you do think then, James.’

  ‘I think—God knows how—that you . . . you knew what those men meant to do. I think you followed them.’

  Philippe nodded. There was a kind of sadness about his face that Lindsay found touching; he remembered suddenly that he owed his life to this man, whatever the circumstances. He said, ‘I haven’t thanked you. Another couple of minutes . . .’

  He remembered the rank smell of the dog’s breath, the whiteness of those teeth that might have found a hold on his throat.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ he said, ‘what have they got against me?’

  Philippe de Montfaucon picked up a white knight and examined it carefully. ‘I imagine,’ he said, ‘that they think you are being too inquisitive about things which . . . which they hold to be private and perhaps sacred.’

  The mixture that Mère Blossac had seen fit to put onto the wound felt as if it were slowly eating its way into his forehead. He would dearly have liked to rip off the dressing, yet, almost in spite of himself, he had an absolute trust in her methods; it was as if the sureness of those old fingers had stirred in him an ancient, long-lost belief. However he could no longer sit still. He pushed the blanket off his legs and swung them off the sofa; it was a far from easy matter getting to his feet, but after the initial dizziness, when he thought that he must surely fall flat on his face, he managed to perch on the arm. In this position he felt less helpless.

  Philippe, he noticed, respected his wish for independence; he did not scurry forward to help him as a woman would have done. But the look which he gave him said very clearly, You are on the brink of a discussion in which I don’t propose to take part.

  Lindsay said, ‘I wasn’t aware that I was being inquisitive about anything that remotely affected your peasants.’

  With a gentleness which could not hide the irony, the Frenchman replied, ‘But then you are aware of very little here, James; I think we should consider that fact.’

  Lindsay knew that he must feel his way carefully towards the center of this conversation, which would have been difficult enough if he had been in complete control of his faculties. He decided to approach from another angle.

  ‘I can’t deny that the whole thing was my fault; it isn’t as though I hadn’t been warned to keep my nose out of . . . out of your affairs.’

  ‘Warned!’ There was no doubt about the surprise in the other man’s voice.

  Lindsay told him about the Montfaucon history which had been so mysteriously transformed into a book of fairy tales. Philippe smiled. ‘I have . . . young friends who sometimes take me at my word a little too quickly. For a guest in my house, you have taken rather a lot upon yourself.’

  Lindsay said, ‘Don’t you think my reasons for doing so excuse me to a certain extent?’

  The handsome face clouded for a moment. ‘How should I know your reasons?’ he said.

  Lindsay leaned forward. ‘Would it surprise you to know that you are the best friends I ever had, you and Françoise?’

  ‘Long ago, James. Long ago.’

  ‘Does time have anything to do with it, Philippe? Do you think I didn’t suffer with you when you showed me your vines yesterday?’

  Suddenly the withdrawn, almost disinterested expression of the other man’s face infuriated him. He burst out. ‘All right. Maybe I am being curious—and I know it’s none of my business—but what about Françoise?’

  ‘Ah, Françoise . . .’ Philippe de Montfaucon put the white knight back onto the chessboard and stood up. He came across the room to where Lindsay still leaned, a trifle unsteadily, against the arm of the sofa, and stood looking at him.

  Lindsay, whose vision—what with sedatives and blows on the head—was none too clear that night, was amazed to see that Philippe had changed physically since their last meeting. He had thought then that the years had refined this face, giving to it an austerity, almost a beauty, which it had never possessed before; and now, only a few days later, he saw that this process was continuing: the skin was stretched a little too tightly over the fine bones, and the dark eyes seemed more brilliant, yet in some way set deeper under the sharply defined, black brows. He wondered again whether perhaps the answer to the whole problem was not indeed that most simple one—that this man was dying slowly of some wasting disease, and would not disclose the fact to his wife. And yet, at the same moment that he thought this, he knew that there was nothing simple about Philippe de Montfaucon, or about Bellac.

  ‘Yes, Françoise . . .’ He said it again, softly, not taking those deep-set eyes off the man in front of him. ‘You love her, don’t you, James? You always have.’

  ‘So did you—once.’

  ‘Yes. Once.’ And suddenly a terrible thing happened. That noble face, so fine-drawn, so austere, began to crumple before Lindsay’s appalled eyes; it was as if an invisible hand was pulling the bones away from inside it.

  Philippe de Montfaucon said, ‘Oh God, dear God . . . Show me, show me . . .’ And he turned away, pressing his hands over his face. He went to the window and stood, his forehead against the glass, while his body was racked with a succession of great shudders that seemed to come up out of the center of his being; but he made no sound.

  And Lindsay—his head threatening to split open, and his literally battered brain reeling in its effort to grasp what was happening—remembered what Françoise had said sitting under that willow tree beside the lake. With a passion of certainty she had said it: ‘I believe he needs help desperately; he needs friends . . . I know the moment will come when he’ll turn away from whatever it is that possesses him. At that moment—at that one moment—he will need help.’

  And this, Lindsay was horrified to realize, was that one moment. Françoise was not here, and he himself was not going to be able to grasp it; his limp, drugged brain and this agonizing pain in his
forehead were going to defeat him. Yet somehow he must try, he must reach this man’s heart and touch it, for the chance would certainly never return.

  He managed a few steps towards the window, and said, ‘Philippe, what is it? For God’s sake let me help you.’

  There was no answer. Philippe rolled his head from side to side against the windowpane; he was still shuddering.

  Lindsay said, ‘Whatever it is, it’s here at Bellac. Don’t you see that you must break with it? Get away, Philippe; get right away from Bellac—you could take Christian with you, if that’s what you want, and put a thousand miles between you and this place.’

  In the dead husk of a voice Philippe de Montfaucon said, ‘I once . . . once put half the world between myself and Bellac.’ He gripped the frame of the window in an effort to still that terrible shuddering. ‘And when I came at last, they . . . they said they were expecting me.’

  He turned suddenly then, and his eyes were quite wild, the eyes of a hunted man. ‘But I could go. Would you help me, James? Would you come with me and stay with me?’

  ‘You know I would.’ For a moment he really did think that he had triumphed over his own limitations—he really did think that in some way he had reached out a hand across the vast distances of the soul that separated him from this man. Then, to his bitter disappointment, he saw that fanatic light die out of the dark eyes. Philippe turned back to the window, shaking his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, no, no. What am I talking about?’

  Lindsay said, ‘Do it. Please do it. You could if you wanted to.’

  ‘I could—if I wanted to.’

  Lindsay knew then that the moment had passed, and that he had failed.

  Philippe said, ‘I have work to do here.’ It was a good imitation of his ordinary everyday voice. He turned from the window and went across to the fireplace, where there was a tray of drinks; he poured himself a brandy, looked up at Lindsay and said, ‘No, not for you. Doctor’s orders.’

  Lindsay shook his head. ‘Damn the doctor. Mère Blossac wouldn’t mind.’

  Philippe poured brandy into two glasses and gave him one.

  ‘Please,’ Lindsay said. ‘Don’t shut yourself off from . . .’

  The other overrode him, his voice steely. ‘I’m very tired; I don’t know what happened to me just now.’

  ‘You were afraid,’ said Lindsay, taking his courage in both hands. ‘Afraid of dying.’

  There was a sudden stillness in the room. Philippe de Montfaucon’s face hardened; fine-drawn in any case, it became now a face of stone.

  ‘We must all die,’ he said softly.

  ‘Afraid of dying,’ Lindsay said, ‘before September.’

  After a moment the other nodded. ‘Françoise again?’

  ‘Yes. Good God, can’t you understand what all this is doing to her?’

  ‘I thought that perhaps . . . I had stopped her loving me.’

  ‘You have—in one sense.’

  Philippe nodded. ‘She asked you down here, I know that. I suppose you met in Paris.’

  ‘We did—by chance.’

  ‘You can call it chance if you like; I would give it a bigger name. No matter.’ His voice now sounded unutterably weary; it was clear that he had passed through some kind of ordeal—the ordeal by temptation perhaps. He passed a hand over his eyes. ‘James, I was going to ask . . . no, demand that you go back to Paris first thing in the morning. No, don’t interrupt. What I have to say now is very difficult, but I see that it must be said. Sit down—you look ghastly.’

  Lindsay obeyed. Whatever it was that Mère Blossac had put on his wound, it was now doing its work. The pain had gone and a kind of warm, enveloping glow had taken its place.

  Philippe said, ‘A few hours ago you came within inches—or seconds, if you like—of meeting a very unpleasant end. I can’t guarantee that it won’t happen again.’

  ‘Oh yes, you can. Those men will do anything for you.’

  ‘Exactly. That’s the whole point. They will kill you—for me. Don’t ask questions because I shall not answer, but that is what they thought they were doing.’

  Lindsay could barely grasp the sense of this, but, dimly, he could see that there was sense there.

  ‘I was going to make you leave Bellac, James, because I don’t want you to be killed. I realize now that if you stop prying into . . . into what does not concern you, you will be safe; but only if you stop prying. Is that clear?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘Will you promise me that you’ll stop?’

  ‘No.’

  Philippe shook his head, eyeing his friend with a sort of humorous exasperation. ‘I think perhaps you will stop, though—if not for me, then for Françoise. Because you do love her, don’t you?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  The husband of Françoise put his fingertips to his forehead for a moment as if trying to still the thoughts that rioted there; then he said, ‘Would you still marry her—if she were free?’

  ‘She isn’t free.’

  ‘Would you, James?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Philippe nodded—and then, after a moment, he sighed; it was a deep, deep sigh. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was not chance that you met in Paris. I want you to stay here; and I want you to know—because this is important, James—that I . . . that it would make me very happy if I could think that you were going to marry her.’

  He saw Lindsay’s protest rising to the surface and waved it aside. ‘All right, then, since you force me to say it—not that it will make any difference—I want you to marry her when I am dead.’

  Somehow Lindsay managed to get to his feet again—found enough breath to actually shout, ‘For God’s sake . . .’

  But by that time Philippe de Montfaucon was at the door. ‘For God’s sake, if you like,’ he said. ‘I’ll send my man to take you to your room. Good night, James.’

  ‘But I can help you,’ Lindsay cried. ‘Don’t you see that? I can save you.’

  Philippe shook his head. ‘You can’t. Believe me, my dear old friend, you can’t. You don’t know, you see; you don’t know what is, so how can you know what will be?’

  Lindsay never knew what it was in these words that sparked off that quirk of memory; perhaps, indeed, there was an instinctive knowledge in him deeper than the knowledge of mere intelligence. He suddenly saw in his mind’s eye the black slab of marble, solitary in a clearing in a forest—and he remembered what was written on it. He said, ‘ “Whoso danceth not, knoweth not what cometh to pass.” Is that it?’

  Philippe de Montfaucon was very still, motionless in the doorway; it was as if the phrase had transfixed him there forever. Then at last, without another word, he crossed himself, and was gone.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Lindsay aloud to the empty room. ‘That is it.’

  10

  The Thirteen Days

  He knew that he had the answer; the answer was round and light like a bubble of glass, like a superfine goldfish bowl, and he was running through a forest of almost impenetrable undergrowth pursued by a pack of baying wolves, and he was carrying this delicate bubble of an answer, terrified that he would fall and drop it. Now the wolves were snapping at his heels; he tripped and fell, and the answer slipped from his fingers and went bouncing down the hillside towards the lake; and Philippe de Montfaucon was bending over him, slapping his face and saying, ‘You are not to sleep any more. Wake up now. You are not to sleep any more . . .’

  Then he was propped up in bed, in his own room at Bellac, and a red-faced man with a stethoscope hanging round his neck was slapping his face and swearing at him.

  ‘You are not to sleep any more. Can you hear me? Wake up at once. Come on, wake up . . .’

  Beyond him stood Françoise, biting the back of her forefinger, a look of distaste on her beautiful face.

  Lindsay said, ‘All right, all right, I’m awake.’

  ‘Then stay awake,’ said the doctor, shaking him by the shoulders.

  Lindsay became aware of the fa
ct that the room was filled with sunshine, and something about this struck him as vaguely unsatisfactory. At the same time he began to wonder what had happened to the glass bauble he had been carrying; he couldn’t remember seeing it actually hit the lake—so that now, the wolves having vanished for the time being, it might be a good idea to go and see if he could find it . . .

  Again the stethoscope began to wave about in front of his eyes, and again he woke up to find that his face was being rudely slapped. He said, ‘Do you mind? I’ve hurt my head, and you aren’t doing it any good.’

  Then Françoise was making him drink coffee, very strong black coffee. After four cups he began to feel better. The doctor was standing at the window in the sunshine. Ah yes, the sunshine; it never came into this room except during the afternoon. The afternoon! And the last thing he could remember was being escorted from Philippe’s private sanctum by a muscular manservant; that had been in the middle of the night.

  He said, ‘What’s the time?’

  Françoise stroked his hair back from his forehead. ‘Five o’clock; don’t worry about it.’

  At this the doctor turned from the window. ‘Worry about it to this extent, young man: don’t go swilling down any more of that Blossac woman’s potions.’

  Françoise said, ‘There was nothing he could do about it; I tell you he was unconscious.’ And to Lindsay, by way of explanation, she added. ‘I caught one of the servants giving you the stuff; you were still asleep.’

  ‘You mean they . . .’

  But Françoise, who had her back to the doctor, made an exceedingly savage grimace to him, and he shut his mouth quickly.

  The doctor said, ‘Your husband’s just like the rest of them; they’ve always had this trust in their wise old women.’ He came forward and tilted Lindsay’s head backwards so that he could look at his forehead. ‘I must say that in certain cases the hag gets some incredible results; if anyone had told me last night . . .’ He shook his head.

  Lindsay was, now that he came to think of it, aware that there was hardly any pain in the wound at all. As for the bruise on his shoulder, it felt no more than stiff.