CHAPTER XXXI. UNDER THE GREENWOOD.
To escape from my companions on some pretext, which should enable me toensure their safety without arousing their fears, was the one thoughtwhich possessed me on the subsidence of my first alarm. Probably itanswered to that instinct in animals which bids them get away alone whenwounded or attacked by disease; and with me it had the fuller play asthe pain prevailed rather by paroxysms, than in permanence, and, comingand going, allowed intervals of ease, in which I was able to thinkclearly and consecutively, and even to sit firmly in 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 had hadthe 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 instantand without more delay I determined on this course. I would return,and, committing myself to the fellow's good offices, bid him deny me toothers, and especially to my friends--should they seek me.
Aware that I bad no time to lose if I would put this plan into executionbefore the pains returned to sap my courage, I drew bridle at once,and muttered some excuse to madame; if I remember rightly, that I haddropped my gauntlet. Whatever the pretext--and my dread was great lestshe should observe any strangeness in my manner--it passed with her; byreason, chiefly, I think, of the grief which monopolised her. She let mego, and before anyone else could mark or miss me I was a hundred yardsaway on the back-track, and already sheltered from observation by a turnin 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 powerof thought. But when this last was over, leaving me weak and shaken, yetclear in my mind, the most miserable sadness and depression that can beconceived came upon me; and, accompanying me through the wood, filledits avenues (which doubtless were fair enough to others' eyes) with theblackness of despair. I saw but the charnel-house, and that everywhere.It was not only that the horrors of the first discovery returned upon meand almost unmanned me; nor only that regrets and memories, pictures ofthe past and plans for the future, crowded thick upon my mind, so thatI could have wept at the thought of all ending here. But in my weaknessmademoiselle's face shone where the wood was darkest, and, tempting andprovoking me to return--were it only to tell her that, grim and dull asI seemed, I loved her--tried me with a subtle temptation almost beyondmy strength to resist. All that was mean in me rose in arms, all thatwas selfish clamoured to know why I must die in the ditch while othersrode in the sunshine; why I must go to the pit, while others loved andlived!
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 midst ofmy misery, which bodily pain was beginning to augment to such a degreethat I could scarcely see, and had to ride gripping the saddle with bothhands, I reached the mill. My horse stopped of its own accord. The manwe had seen before came out. I had I just strength left to tell him whatwas the matter, and what I wanted and then a fresh attack came on, withsickness, and overcome by vertigo I fell to the ground.
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 sick eyes,gloomy and darksome in the extreme), and would have had me lie down init. But something inside me revolted against the bed, and despite theforce he used, I broke away, and threw myself on a heap of straw which Isaw 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 a daughteragain. Five! Ay, five in that bed!'
Brooding in the gloom of the chimney-corner, where he was busied about ablack pot, he continued to mutter and glance at me askance; but after awhile I swooned away with pain.
When I opened my eyes again the room was darker. The man still sat whereI had last seen him, but a noise, the same, perhaps, which had rousedme, drew him as I looked to the unglazed window. A voice outside, thetones of which I seemed to know, inquired if he had seen me; and socarried away was I by the excitement of the moment that I rose on myelbow to hear the answer. But the man was staunch. I heard him deny allknowledge of me, and presently the sound of retreating hoofs and theecho of voices dying in the distance assured me I was left.
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 I wasabout to shed, and curing even the vertigo, which forced me to clutch atthe straw on which I lay. Whether the thought arose from a sickly senseof my own impotence, or was based on the fellow's morose air and thestealthy glances he continued to cast at me, I am as unable to say as Iam 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 meto suspicion; possibly his secret thoughts portrayed themselves in hishang-dog visage. Afterwards it appeared that he had stripped me, whileI lay, of everything of value; but he may have done this in the beliefthat I should die.
All I know is that I knew nothing certain, because the fear died almostas soon as it was born. The man had scarcely seated himself again, or Iconceived the thought, when a second alarm outside caused him to springto his feet. Scowling and muttering as he went, he hurried to thewindow. But before he reached it the door was dashed violently open, andSimon 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 and thesame time of fear and manhood. For whether I would or no, at sight ofthe 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 plainlywritten 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 anda slighter, smaller figure, pale-faced and hooded, stood for a momentbetween 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; andcalling out frantically again and again that I had the plague and shewould die, I bade the man close the door. Nay, regaining something ofstrength in my fear for her, I rose up, half-dressed as I was, and wouldhave fled into some corner to avoid her, still calling out to them totake 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 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. ButI could not see her; and I had sense enough to know and be thankful thatshe was no longer among them. I would fain have bidden Maignan to begonetoo, for I read the consternation in his face. But I could not musterstrength or voice for the purpose, and when I turned my head to seewho held me--ah me! it comes back to me still in dreams--it wasmademoiselle's hair that swept my forehead and her hand that ministeredto me; while tears she did not try to hide or wipe away fell on my hotcheek. I could have pushed her away even then, for she was slight andsmall; but the pains came upon me, and with a sob choking my voice Ilost 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 thetendance which never failed nor faltered, nor could have 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 that year.From the first they took me out of the house (where I think I shouldhave perished quickly, so impregnated was it with the plague poison) andlaid me under a screen of boughs in the forest, with a vast quantity ofcloaks and horse-cloths cunningly disposed to windward. Here I ran somerisk from cold and exposure and the fall of heavy dews; but, on theother hand, had all the airs of heaven to clear away the humours andexpel 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 softened byits 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 avenuesof shade, carpeted with flowers, to peer into; or a little woodedbottom--where the ground fell away on one side--that blazed and burnedwith redthorn. Ay, and hence it was that the first sounds I heard, whenthe fever left me at last, and I knew morning from evening, and man fromwoman, 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 usliving in a hut within hail. Maignan himself, after seeing out a week ofmy illness, had perforce returned to his master, and no news had sincebeen received from him. Thanks to the timely move into the woods, noother of the party fell ill, and by the time I was able to stand andspeak the ravages of the disease had so greatly decreased that fear wasat 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 my recoverysank into my heart; which had known, save by my mother's bedside, littleof such joys. To awake in the morning to sweet sounds and scents, to eatwith reviving appetite and feel the slow growth of strength, to lie allday in shade or sunshine as it pleased me, and hear women's voices andtinkling laughter, to have no thought of the world and no knowledgeof it, so that we might have been, for anything we saw, in anothersphere--these things might have sufficed for happiness without thatwhich added to each and every one of them a sweeter and deeper and morelasting 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, as permittedhim to do all for her comfort and entertainment without committingher to more than was becoming at such a season. Naturally this leftmademoiselle much in my company; a circumstance which would haveripened into passion the affection I before entertained for her, hadnot gratitude and a nearer observance of her merits already elevated myregard into the most ardent worship that even the youngest lover everfelt 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 common enjoymentof God's air and earth, we seemed more nearly equal. She was scarcebetter dressed, than a sutler's wife; while recollections of her wealthand station, though they assailed me nightly, lost much of their pointin presence of her youth and of that fair and patient gentleness whichforest 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 streamwhich ran through the bottom by the redthorn. Here, at a place wherethere were three stepping-stones, I waited for her; first taking awaythe 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 hereyes on the ground, and her whole carriage full of a sweet pensivenesswhich it did me good to see. I turned my back on the stream before shesaw me, and made a pretence of being taken up with something in anotherdirection. Doubtless she espied me soon, and before she came verynear; but she made no sign until she reached the brink, and found thestepping-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 the pettishhaughtiness 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 careto bring last--that she might not cross without my assistance. But afterall she stepped over so lightly and quickly that the hand she placedin mine seemed scarcely to rest there a second. Yet when she was overI managed to retain it; nor did she resist, though her cheek, which hadbeen red before, turned crimson and her eyes fell, and bound to me bythe link of her little hand, she stood beside me with her whole figuredrooping.
'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 sawyou at St. Jean,' said in a low voice. 'It has flowed between us, and itstill 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. 'Areyou 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 asoldier of fortune, not too successful. What did you think of mewhen 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 word orsign from her, 'is Love. Many weeks ago, mademoiselle, when I had littlecause to like you, I loved you; I loved you whether I would or not, andwithout thought or hope of return. I should have been mad had I spokento you then. Mad, and worse than mad. But now, now that I owe you mylife, now that I have drunk from your hand in fever, and, awaking earlyand late, have found you by my pillow--now that, seeing you come in andout in the midst of fear and hardship, I have learned to regard you asa woman kind and gentle as my mother--now that I love you, so that to bewith 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 spokepresently. '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 the other.In that you are wrong, for I am proud still. And I would not cross thestream 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 to 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 ever will.'
After that, as may be guessed, we walked every day in the forest, makinglonger and longer excursions as my strength came back to me, and thenearer parts grew familiar. From early dawn, when I brought my love aposy of flowers, to late evening, when Fanchette hurried her from me,our days were passed in a long round of delight; being filled full ofall beautiful things--love, and sunshine, and rippling streams, andgreen banks, on which we sat together under scented limes, telling oneanother all we had ever thought, and especially all we had ever thoughtof one another. Sometimes--when the light was low in the evening--wespoke of my mother; and once--but that was in the sunshine, when thebees were humming and my blood had begun to run strongly in my veins--Ispoke of my great and distant kinsman, Rohan. But mademoiselle wouldhear nothing of him, murmuring again and again in my ear, 'I havecrossed, my love, I have crossed.'
Truly the sands of that hour-glass were of gold. But in time theyran out. First M. Francois, spurred by the restlessness of youth, andconvinced that madame would for a while yield no further, 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, had repulsedthe League with slaughter in the suburb of St. Symphorien. Fast on thisfollowed the tidings of their march northwards with an overwhelming armyof fifty-thousand men of both religions, bent, rumour had it, on thesignal 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 will go.'
'Whither?' I said in amazement.
'To the camp before Paris,' she answered. 'We will go back in the lightof day--seeing that we have done nothing of which to be ashamed--andthrow ourselves on the justice of the King of Navarre. You shall placeme with Madame Catherine, who will not refuse to protect me; andso, sweet, you will have only yourself to think of. Come, sir,' shecontinued, 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 breathaway; nevertheless, I saw that it possessed one advantage which no othercourse promised--that, I mean, of setting us right in the eyes of theworld, and enabling me to meet in a straightforward manner suchas maligned us. After some consideration I gave my assent, merelyconditioning that until we reached the Court we should ride masked, andshun as far as possible encounters by the road.
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