A Gentleman of France

S >> Stanley Weyman >> A Gentleman of France

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Thankful that we had escaped contagion, we nevertheless still
proposed to observe for a time such precautions in regard to the
others as seemed necessary; riding in the rear and having no
communication with them, though they showed by signs the pleasure
they felt at seeing us. From the frequency with which
mademoiselle turned and looked behind her, I judged she had
overcome her pique at my strange conduct; which the others should
by this time have explained to her. Content, therefore, with the
present, and full of confidence in the future, I rode along in a
rare state of satisfaction; at one moment planning what I would
do, and at another reviewing what I had done.

The brightness and softness of the day, and the beauty of the
woods, which in some places, I remember, were bursting into leaf,
contributed much to establish me in this frame of mind. The
hateful mist, which had so greatly depressed us, had disappeared;
leaving the face of the country visible in all the brilliance of
early spring. The men who rode before us, cheered by the happy
omen, laughed and talked as they rode, or tried the paces of
their horses, where the trees grew sparsely; and their jests and
laughter coming pleasantly to our ears as we followed, warmed
even madame's sad face to a semblance of happiness.

I was riding along in this state of contentment when a feeling of
fatigue, which the distance we had come did not seem to justify,
led me to spur the Cid into a brisker pace. The sensation of
lassitude still continued, however, and indeed grew worse; so
that I wondered idly whether I had over-eaten myself at my last
meal. Then the thing passed for awhile from my mind, which the
descent of a steep hill sufficiently occupied.

But a few minutes later, happening to turn in the saddle, I
experienced a strange and sudden dizziness; so excessive as to
force me to grasp the cantle, and cling to it, while trees and
hills appeared to dance round me. A quick, hot pain in the side
followed, almost before I recovered the power of thought; and
this increased so rapidly, and was from the first so definite,
that, with a dreadful apprehension already formed in my mind, I
thrust my hand inside my clothes, and found that swelling which
is the most sure and deadly symptom of the plague.

The horror of that moment--in which I saw all those things on the
possession of which I had just been congratulating myself, pass
hopelessly from me, leaving me in dreadful gloom--I will not
attempt to describe in this place. Let it suffice that the world
lost in a moment its joyousness, the sunshine its warmth. The
greenness and beauty round me, which an instant before had filled
me with pleasure, seemed on a sudden no more than a grim and
cruel jest at my expense, and I an atom perishing unmarked and
unnoticed. Yes, an atom, a mote; the bitterness of that feeling
I well remember. Then, in no long time--being a soldier--I
recovered my coolness, and, retaining the power to think, decided
what it behoved me to do.

CHAPTER XXXI.

UNDER THE GREENWOOD.

To escape from my companions on some pretext, which should enable
me to ensure their safety without arousing their fears, was the
one thought which possessed me on the subsidence of my first
alarm. Probably it answered to that instinct in animals which
bids them get away alone when wounded or attacked by disease; and
with me it had the fuller play as the pain prevailed rather by
paroxysms, than in permanence, and, coming and going, allowed
intervals of ease, in which I was able to think clearly and
consecutively, and even to sit firmly in the saddle.

The moment one of these intervals enabled me to control myself, I
used it to think where I might go without danger to others; and
at once and naturally my thoughts turned to the last place we had
passed; which happened to be the house in the gorge where we had
received news of Bruhl's divergence from the road. The man who
lived there alone had had the plague; therefore he did not fear
it. The place itself was solitary, and I could reach it, riding
slowly, in half an hour. On the instant and without more delay I
determined on this course. I would return, and, committing
myself to the fellow's good offices, bid him deny me to others,
and especially to my friends--should they seek me.

Aware that I bad no time to lose if I would put this plan into
execution before the pains returned to sap my courage, I drew
bridle at once, and muttered some excuse to madame; if I remember
rightly, that I had dropped my gauntlet. Whatever the pretext--
and my dread was great lest she should observe any strangeness in
my manner--it passed with her; by reason, chiefly, I think, of
the grief which monopolised her. She let me go, and before
anyone else could mark or miss me I was a hundred yards away on
the back-track, and already sheltered from observation by a turn
in the road.

The excitement of my evasion supported me for a while after
leaving her; and then for another while, a paroxysm of pain
deprived me of the power of thought. But when this last was
over, leaving me weak and shaken, yet clear in my mind, the most
miserable sadness and depression that can be conceived came upon
me; and, accompanying me through the wood, filled its avenues
(which doubtless were fair enough to others' eyes) with the
blackness of despair. I saw but the charnel-house, and that
everywhere. It was not only that the horrors of the first
discovery returned upon me and almost unmanned me; nor only that
regrets and memories, pictures of the past and plans for the
future, crowded thick upon my mind, so that I could have wept at
the thought of all ending here. But in my weakness
mademoiselle's face shone where the wood was darkest, and,
tempting and provoking me to return--were it only to tell her
that, grim and dull as I seemed, I loved her--tried me with a
subtle temptation almost beyond my strength to resist. All that
was mean in me rose in arms, all that was selfish clamoured to
know why I must die in the ditch while others rode in the
sunshine; 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 the ride been longer or my horse less smooth and nimble. But
in the midst of my misery, which bodily pain was beginning to
augment to such a degree that I could scarcely see, and had to
ride gripping the saddle with both hands, I reached the mill. My
horse stopped of its own accord. The man we had seen before came
out. I had I just strength left to tell him what was the matter,
and what I wanted and then a fresh attack came on, with sickness,
and overcome by vertigo I fell to the ground.

I have but an indistinct idea what happened after that; until I
found myself inside the house, clinging to the man's arm. He
pointed to a box-bed in one corner of the room (which was, or
seemed to my sick eyes, gloomy and darksome in the extreme), and
would have had me lie down in it. But something inside me
revolted against the bed, and despite the force he used, I broke
away, and threw myself on a heap of straw 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's five have died on that bed, I'd have you know! My wife
one, and my son another, and my daughter another; and then my son
again, and a daughter again. Five! Ay, five in that bed!'

Brooding in the gloom of the chimney-corner, where he was busied
about a black pot, he continued to mutter and glance at me
askance; but after a while I swooned away with pain.

When I opened my eyes again the room was darker. The man still
sat where I had last seen him, but a noise, the same, perhaps,
which had roused me, drew him as I looked to the unglazed window.
A voice outside, the tones of which I seemed to know, inquired if
he had seen me; and so carried away was I by the excitement of
the moment that I rose on my elbow to hear the answer. But the
man was staunch. I heard him deny all knowledge of me, and
presently the sound of retreating hoofs and the echo of voices
dying in the distance assured me I was left.

Then, at that instant, a doubt of the man on whose compassion I
had thrown myself entered my mind. Plague-stricken, hopeless as
I was, it chilled me to the very heart; staying in a moment the
feeble tears I was about to shed, and curing even the vertigo,
which forced me to clutch at the straw on which I lay. Whether
the thought arose from a sickly sense of my own impotence, or was
based on the fellow's morose air and the stealthy glances he
continued to cast at me, I am as unable to say as I am to decide
whether it was well-founded, or the fruit of my own fancy.
Possibly the gloom of the room and the man's surly words inclined
me to suspicion; possibly his secret thoughts portrayed
themselves in his hang-dog visage. Afterwards it appeared that
he had stripped me, while I lay, of everything of value; but he
may have done this in the belief that I should die.

All I know is that I knew nothing certain, because the fear died
almost as soon as it was born. The man had scarcely seated
himself again, or I conceived the thought, when a second alarm
outside caused him to spring to his feet. Scowling and muttering
as he went, he hurried to the window. But before he reached it
the door was dashed violently open, and Simon Fleix stood in the
entrance.

There came in with him so blessed a rush of light and life as in
a moment dispelled the horror of the room, and stripped me at one
and the same time of fear and manhood. For whether I would or
no, at sight of 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 have done, called on him by name. I
suppose the plague was by this time so plainly written on my face
that all who looked might read; for he stood at gaze, staring at
me, and was still so standing when a hand put 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 ever
shamed. I cried to them with all the voice I had left to take
her away; and calling out frantically again and again that I had
the plague 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 avoid her, still calling out to them to take her away, to take
her away--if a fresh paroxysm had not seized me, so that I fell
blind and helpless where I was.

For a time after that I knew nothing; until someone held water to
my lips, and I drank greedily, and presently awoke to the fact
that the entrance 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 be thankful that she was no longer among them. I would
fain have bidden Maignan to begone too, for I read the
consternation in his face. But I could not muster strength or
voice for the purpose, and when I turned my head to see who held
me--ah me! it comes back to me still in dreams--it was
mademoiselle's hair that swept my forehead and her hand that
ministered to me; while tears she did not try to hide or wipe
away fell on my hot cheek. I could have pushed her away even
then, for she was slight and small; but the pains came upon me,
and with a sob choking my voice I lost all knowledge.

I am told that I lay for more than a month between life and
death, now burning with fever and now in the cold fit; and that
but for the tendance which never failed nor faltered, nor could
have been outdone had my malady been the least infectious in the
world. I must have died a hundred times, as hundreds round me
did die week by week in that year. From the first they took me
out of the house (where I think I should have perished quickly,
so impregnated was it with the plague poison) and laid me under a
screen of boughs in the forest, with a vast quantity of cloaks
and horse-cloths cunningly disposed to windward. Here I ran some
risk from cold and exposure and the fall of heavy dews; but, on
the other hand, had all the airs of heaven to clear away the
humours and expel the fever from my brain.

Hence it was that when the first feeble beginnings of
consciousness awoke in me again, they and the light stole in on
me through green leaves, and overhanging boughs, and the
freshness and verdure of the spring woods. The sunshine which
reached my watery eyes was softened by its passage through great
trees, which grew and expanded as I gazed up into them, until
each became a verdant world, with all a world's diversity of
life. Grown tired of this, I had still long avenues of shade,
carpeted with flowers, to peer into; or a little wooded bottom
--where the ground fell away on one side--that blazed and burned
with redthorn. Ay, and hence it was that the first sounds I
heard, when the fever left me at last, and I knew morning from
evening, and man from woman, were the songs of birds calling to
their mates.

Mademoiselle and Madame de Bruhl, with Fanchette and Simon Fleix,
lay all 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 week of my illness, had perforce returned to
his master, and no news had since been received from him. Thanks
to the timely move into the woods, no other of the party fell
ill, and by the time I was able to stand and speak the ravages of
the disease had so greatly decreased that fear was at an end.

I should waste words were I to try to describe how the peace and
quietude of the life we led in the forest during the time of my
recovery sank into my heart; which had known, save by my mother's
bedside, little of such joys. To awake in the morning to sweet
sounds and scents, to eat with reviving appetite and feel the
slow growth of strength, to lie all day in shade or sunshine as
it pleased me, and hear women's voices and tinkling laughter, to
have no thought of the world and no knowledge of it, so that we
might have been, for anything we saw, in another sphere--these
things might have sufficed for happiness without that which added
to each and every one of them a sweeter and deeper and more
lasting joy. Of which next.

I had not begun to take notice long before I saw that M. Francois
and madame had come to an understanding; such an one, at least,
as permitted him to do all for her comfort and entertainment
without committing her to more than was becoming at such, a
season. Naturally this left mademoiselle much in my company; a
circumstance which would have ripened into passion the affection
I before entertained for her, had not gratitude and a nearer
observance of her merits already elevated my regard into the most
ardent worship that even the youngest lover ever felt for his
mistress.

In proportion, however, as I and my love grew stronger, and
mademoiselle's presence grew more necessary to my happiness--so
that were she away but an hour I fell a-moping--she began to draw
off from me, 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 complete what the fever had left undone,

If this had happened in the world I think it likely that I should
have suffered in silence. But here, under the greenwood, in
common enjoyment of God's air and earth, we seemed more nearly
equal. She was scarce better dressed, than a sutler's wife;
while recollections of her wealth and station, though they
assailed me nightly, lost much of their point in presence of her
youth and of that fair and patient gentleness which forest life
and the duties of a nurse had fostered.

So it happened that one day, when she had been absent longer than
usual, I took my courage in my hand and went to meet her as far
as the stream which ran through the bottom by the redthorn.
Here, at a place where there were three stepping-stones, I waited
for her; first taking away the stepping-stones, that she might
have to pause, and, being at a loss, might be glad to see me.

She came presently, tripping through an alley in the low wood,
with her eyes on the ground, and her whole carriage full of a
sweet pensiveness which it did me good to see. I turned my back
on the stream before she saw me, and made a pretence of being
taken up with something in another direction. Doubtless she
espied me soon, and before she came very near; but she made no
sign until she reached the brink, 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, and partly because it charmed me to hear her use my name, I
would not turn at once.

When I did, and discovered her standing with one small foot
dallying with the water, I cried out with well-affected concern;
and in a great hurry ran towards her, paying no attention to her
chiding or the pettish haughtiness with which she spoke to me.

'The stepping-stones are all on your side,' she said imperiously.

'Who has 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 the while. Despite her impatience, the stone which was
nearest to her I took care to bring last--that she might not
cross without my assistance. But after all she stepped over so
lightly and quickly that the 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 her eyes fell, and bound to
me by the link of her little hand, she stood beside 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
first saw you at St. Jean,' said in a low voice. 'It has flowed
between us, and it still does--separating us.'

'What stream?' she murmured, with her eyes cast down, and her
foot playing 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 almost old, 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 of me when you first saw me at
St. Jean? What when I came to Rosny? That, mademoiselle,' I
continued with fervour, 'is the stream which flows between us and
separates us; and I know of but one stepping-stone that can
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
word or sign from her, 'is Love. Many weeks ago, mademoiselle,
when I had little cause to like you, I loved you; I loved you
whether I would or not, and without thought or hope of return. I
should have been mad had I spoken to you then. Mad, and worse
than mad. But now, now that I owe you 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, seeing you come in and out in
the midst of fear and hardship, I have learned to regard you as a
woman kind and gentle as my mother--now that I love you, so that
to be with you is joy, and away from you grief, is it presumption
in me now, mademoiselle, to think that that stream may be
bridged?'

I stopped, out of breath, and saw that she was trembling. But
she spoke presently. 'You said one stepping-stone?' she
murmured.

'Yes,' I answered hoarsely, trying in vain to look at her face,
which she 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 the other. In that you are wrong, for I am proud
still. And I would not cross 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
told me all, 'because I love you I am willing to cross it--to
cross it once for ever, and to live beyond it all my life--if I
may live my life with you.'

I fell on my knee and kissed her hand again and again in a
rapture of joy 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 ever will.'

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 my love a posy of flowers, to late evening, when
Fanchette hurried her from me, our days were passed in a long
round of delight; being filled full of all beautiful things--
love, and sunshine, and rippling streams, and green banks, on
which we sat together under scented limes, telling one another
all we had ever thought, and especially all we had ever thought
of one another. Sometimes--when the light was low in the
evening--we spoke of my mother; and once--but that was in the
sunshine, when the bees were humming and my blood had begun to
run strongly in my veins--I spoke of my great and distant
kinsman, Rohan. But mademoiselle would hear nothing of him,
murmuring again and again in my ear, 'I have crossed, my love, I
have crossed.'

Truly the sands of that hour-glass were of gold. But in time
they ran out. First M. Francois, spurred by the restlessness of
youth, and convinced that madame would for a while yield no
further, left us, and went back to the world. Then news came of
great events that could not fail to move us. The King of France
and the King of Navarre had met at Tours, and embracing in the
sight of an immense multitude, had repulsed the League with
slaughter in the suburb of St. Symphorien. Fast on this followed
the tidings of their march northwards with an overwhelming 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
these things; until mademoiselle, reading the signs, told me one
day that we must go. 'Though never again,' she added with a
sigh, 'shall we be so happy.'

'Then why go?' I asked foolishly.

'Because you are a man,' she answered with a wise smile, 'as I
would have you be, and you need something besides love. To-
morrow we will go.'

'Whither?' I said in amazement.

'To the camp before Paris,' she answered. 'We will go back in
the light of day--seeing that we have done nothing of which to
be ashamed--and throw ourselves on the justice of the King of
Navarre. You shall place me with Madame Catherine, who will not
refuse to protect me; and so, sweet, you will have only yourself
to think of. Come, sir,' she continued, laying her little hand
in mine, and looking into 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 my breath away; nevertheless, I saw that it possessed one
advantage which no other course promised--that, I mean, of
setting us right in the eyes of the world, and enabling me to
meet in a straightforward manner such as maligned us. After some
consideration I gave my assent, merely conditioning that until we
reached the Court we should ride masked, and shun as far as
possible encounters by the road.

CHAPTER XXXII.

A TAVERN BRAWL.

On the following day, accordingly, we started. But the news of
the two kings' successes, and particularly the certainty which
these had bred in many minds that nothing short of a miracle
could save Paris, had moved so many gentlemen to take the road
that we found the inns crowded beyond example, and were
frequently forced into meetings which made the task of concealing
our identity more difficult and hazardous than I had expected.
Sometimes shelter was not to be obtained on any terms, and then
we had to lie in the fields or in any convenient shed. Moreover,
the passage of the army had swept the country so bare both of
food and forage, that these commanded astonishing prices; and a
long day's ride more than once brought us to our destination
without securing for us the ample meal we had earned, and
required.

Under these circumstances, it was with joy little short of
transport that I recognised the marvellous change which had come
over my mistress. Bearing all without a murmur, or a frown, or
so much as one complaining word, she acted on numberless
occasions so as to convince me that she spoke truly--albeit I
scarcely dared to believe it--when she said that she had but one
trouble in the world, and that was the prospect of our coming
separation.

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