A Fluttered Dovecote Part 19

"Oh," he gasped, in a thick voice, "mais je suis giddy. I 'ave puts my foot trou de loops, and cannot get him back."

"Oh, pray come in!" cried Clara, who had heard every word, and seemed quite horrified--"pray come in and shut the window. Let's go away."

"Oh, nonsense," I said, "he will be hung: he will die! His head is hanging down, and his leg sticking up in the rope. He has slipped.

Whatever shall we do?"

"Why don't you cut the rope?" said Patty; but of course no one took any notice of her.

"Let's unhook the things," whispered Clara, "and then drop him down into the laurustinus."

"Oh, how can you be so stupid!" I panted. "It would kill him: he's right above the first floor window-sill."

"Well, but we can't shut the window with those things there," said Clara; "and it will not do to be found out."

I looked again, and there he still was twirling round just as if he was being roasted, and the rope shaking so that I thought it must break. I kept whispering to him, but he did not hear me; and just dim and indistinctly as he was seen, I could make out that he was trying to double himself up and get his hands to the rope.

I never, I'm sure, felt anything so dreadful before in my life as those few moments when he was struggling there, and me unable to help him; for, in addition to the horror, there was the p.r.i.c.king of my conscience, as it told me that this was all my fault, and that if he was killed I should have murdered him. Which was very dreadful, you know, when that last affair of the cistern, which he escaped from with a fearful drenching, ought to have been a warning to me to have spared him from running any more risks on my behalf.

I declare that I should have tried to slide down the rope to help him, or else to share his fate, if Clara had not restrained me once more; but she kept tightly hold of my waist, till there came up a sound like the gnashing together of teeth, the rope gave a terrible shake, and the iron hooks fell jingling upon the floor.

There was a crashing and rustling of leaves and branches, as if a heavy body had fallen amongst trees, and then all was still, except for a deep groan--a French groan--which came up, thrilling us all horribly; for the rope had come unfastened, and had slipped through the round rings of the hooks.

We all stood aghast for a few minutes; but at last I summoned up courage enough to lean out, and whisper loudly--

"Achille! mon ami Achille!" when, as if in answer, came a most doleful "H-ooo, o-o-o, ho-o-o-o!" which made one's very blood run cold.

"That's only an owl," said Clara, the next minute.

"A howl!" said Patty; "that it wasn't, it was a groan, just the same as the pigs give when they're dying in our slaughter-house at home."

I leaned out of the window as far as I could, once more, and was trying to pierce the darkness below, when all at once I heard a window to the right opening very gently, and squeaking as it ran up, and that window, I felt sure, was the lady princ.i.p.al's; so, recollecting the night of the alarm from Clara's basin--agonised though I was--I felt obliged to close ours quietly, pick up the two hooks, and then we all three glided back to our room--my heart chiding me the while for forsaking poor Achille in such a time of dire distress. But what could I do? To stay or to raise an alarm was to be found out, and perhaps--ay, perhaps!--poor fellow, he was not hurt, after all.

It was just as well that we did slip back, for we had hardly closed the door before the alarm bell on the top of the house began to ring, and we heard the Fraulein spring out of bed with a regular b.u.mp upon the floor.

We were not many seconds scuffling into bed; and, just as we lay down, we heard the Fraulein's door open, and then there were voices talking and a good deal of buzzing about, for quite half an hour. But we thought it better not to go out; for, when Clara took a peep, Miss Furness was hunting several of the girls back into their rooms with--

"Nothing the matter, young ladies. Back to your dormitories."

So we lay quite still, and listened; while I essayed to allay my horrible fears about poor Achille, and tried to fancy that every sigh of the wind among the branches was him stealing--no, I won't say stealing, it looks so bad--hurrying away. Then we heard the Fraulein come in, and her bed creak loudly as she lay down; and once more all was quiet, and I felt sure that they could not have seen or heard anything, but I dared not get up once more to see. Clara said she was sure she heard Mrs Blunt talking to the policeman out of the window again. Perhaps she did, but I did not; though it was most likely, after the ringing of the alarm bell.

"What are you sobbing for?" said Clara, all at once.

"Oh, I know he's killed," I said.

"Pooh, nonsense," she replied, in her unfeeling way, "he only went plop among the bushes; and they say exiles always manage to fall on their feet when they come to England, just like cats. He is not hurt, unless he has scratched that beautiful face of his a little bit."

"Then you don't think he is killed, dear?" I said, seeking for comfort, alas! where I was but little likely to find it, I'm sorry to say.

"Not I," said Clara; "it was not far enough to fall."

"I sha'n't go no more," drawled Patty; "it ain't half such fun as I thought it was. Why didn't he come right up?"

"Don't be such a goose!" cried Clara to the noodle. "Why, didn't he get his leg caught, and then didn't the rope give way?"

"I'm sure I dunno," said Patty, yawning; and then, in spite of all the trouble, we all dropped off fast asleep.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

MEMORY THE NINETEENTH--OUR NEW GUARDIAN.

For a few moments after I woke I could not make out what made me feel so heavy and dull. Of course, it was partly owing to their ringing that stupid bell down in the hall so early, for fear we should have a morsel too much sleep; but all at once, as upon other occasions, I remembered about the previous night and poor Achille; when, of course, the first thing I did was to rush to the window and throw it up, to try and catch a glimpse of the scene of the last night's peril, when the first thing my eyes rested upon was that horrid Miss Furness taking her const.i.tutional, and, of course, as soon as she saw me she must shake her finger angrily, because I appeared at the window with my hair all tumbled. I never saw anything like that woman. I always did compare her to an old puss, for she seemed as if she could do without sleep, and always got up at such unnatural hours in the morning, even when the weather was cold and dark, and wet, when it seemed her delight to go out splashing and puddling about in her goloshes; and somehow, or another, she never seemed to catch cold as anybody else would if she had acted in the same way. It must have cost her half her salary for green silk umbrellas; for James generally managed to spoil every one's umbrella when they were given him to dry, and Miss Furness never would use any but the neatest and most genteel-looking parapluies, being the only thing in which she displayed good taste.

Of course I had a good look out as soon as I was quite ready to go down, when I could see that the flower bed was a great deal trampled, one of the bushes was quite crushed, so that I knew there would be a terrible to do about it as soon as it was noticed.

"Well, is he there?" said Clara, "or is it only his pieces? Do make haste down, and run and secure his heart, before they pick it up, and put it on a barrow to wheel away."

"La!" said wide-open-mouthed Patty, staring; "he would not break, would he?"

"Oh, yes," replied Clara. "French gentlemen are very fickle and brittle, so I should not at all wonder if he broke."

"Better break himself than the jam pots," I said, spitefully, when Clara coloured up terribly, as she always did when the Signor was in any way alluded to; for though I did not like to hurt her feelings about the jam when she was shut up, of course, she had not been at liberty long before she heard all about it I know it was mean on my part to retaliate as I did, but then she had no business to speak in that way; for it was too bad to make fun out of such trouble. Then, of course, she must turn quite huffy and cross, and go down without speaking; for some people never can bear to be joked themselves, even when their sole delight consists in tormenting other people.

I could not but think that poor Achille had escaped unhurt, though at times I went through the same suffering as I did on the morning after the discovery in the conservatory;--and really, when one comes to think of it, it is wonderful that no suspicion ever attached to either Achille or myself over that dreadful set-out. Breakfast over, I seemed to revive a little; though I must confess that what roused me more than anything was Miss Furness finding out that I looked pale and red-eyed, and saying that she thought I required medicine.

"For you know, Miss Bozerne, a little foresight is often the means of arresting a dangerous illness; so I think I shall call Mrs de Blount's attention to your state."

"Oh, please, don't, ma'am," I said. "I a.s.sure you that I feel particularly well this morning."

But she only gave one of her self-satisfied smiles and bows; when in came the tall footman to say that the gardener wished to speak with "missus."

"Missus" was not there, so the footman went elsewhere to find her; but the very mention of that gardener brought my heart to my mouth, as people say; though I really wonder whether that is true--I should like to know. Then I had a fit of trembling, for I made sure that he had found poor Achille, lying where he had crawled, with all his bones broken, in some out-of-the way corner of the garden; perhaps, possibly, to slake his fevered thirst in my favoured spot, close by the ferns, and the miserable fountain that never played, green and damp beneath the trees.

But I could not afford to think; for just then the door was opened, and Mrs Blunt stood with it ajar, talking to the gardener in the hall, and of course I wanted to catch what he said; when, just as if out of aggravation, the girls made a terrible buzzing noise. But I heard enough to tell me that it was all about the past night, and I caught a word here and there about bushes broken, and big footsteps, and trampled, and so on; while, as a conclusion to a conversation which had roused my spirits by telling me that poor Achille had not been found, Mrs Blunt placed a terrible damper upon all by saying--

"It must have been the policeman, gardener; and he shall be spoken to respecting being more careful. But for the future we'll have a big dog, and he shall be let loose in the garden every night."

I could have rained down tears upon my exercises, and washed out the ink from the paper, when I heard those words; for in imagination, like some gladiator of old, in the brutal arena, gazed upon by Roman maids and matrons, when battling with some fierce wild beast of the forest, I saw poor Achille struggling with a deep-mouthed, fang-toothed, steel-jawed bloodhound, fighting valiantly to have but a minute's interview with me; while, dissolving-view-like, the scene seemed to change, and I saw him, torn and bleeding, expiring fast, and blessing me with his last words as his eyes closed. Then I was planting flowers upon his grave, watering them with my tears, and plaiting a wreath of immortelles to hang upon one corner of the stone that bore his name, ere I departed for Guisnes to take the veil and shut myself for ever from a world that had been to me one of woe and desolation.

"Oh, Achille! beloved, martyred Achille!" I muttered, with my eyes closed to keep in the tears, when I was s.n.a.t.c.hed back to the realities of the present by the voice of Miss Furness, who snappishly exclaimed--

"Perhaps you had better go and lie down for an hour, Miss Bozerne, if you cannot get on with your exercise without taking a nap in between the lines."

I sighed--oh, so bitter and despairing a sigh!--and then went on with my task, sadly, sorrowfully, and telling myself that all was indeed now lost, and 'twere vain to battle with fate, and I must learn to sit and sorrow till the sun should shine upon our love.

The dog came.

Such a wretch! I'm sure no one ever before possessed such a horrible, mongrel creature. Instead of being a large, n.o.ble-looking mastiff or hound, or Newfoundland dog, it was a descendant, I feel convinced, of the celebrated Snarleyyow that used to bite poor Smallbones, and devour his dinner. It was one of those dogs that you cannot pet for love, because they are so disagreeable, nor from fear, because they will not let you; for every advance made was met by a display of teeth; while if you bribed it with nice pieces of bread, they were snapped from your hand, and the escapes of your fingers were miraculous. I should have liked to have poisoned the nasty, fierce thing; but, of course, I dared not attempt such a deed. And what surprised me was Mrs Blunt being able to get one so soon, though the reason was plain enough--the wretch had belonged to a neighbour who was only too glad to get rid of it, and hearing that Mrs Blunt wanted a dog, jumped at the chance, and I know he must have gone away laughing and chuckling. We used to call the horrid wretch Cyclops, for he had only one eye; but such an eye! a fiery red orb, that seemed to burn, while the wretch was as big almost as a calf. I knew that poor Achille would never dare any more adventures now for my sake; and it did seem such cruel work, for a whole fortnight had pa.s.sed since I had heard from or seen him, for when the lesson was due after our last adventure, there came a note from Mrs Jackney's, saying that Monsieur de Tiraille had been taken ill the night before, and was now confined to his bed.