Mauprat Part 8

"Some other time."

"Amen," he answered, shrugging his shoulders.

Marca.s.se had picked himself up with much composure, and shaking off the ashes with which he was covered, instead of finding fault with me, he tried, after his fashion to lecture Patience. This was in reality by no means easy to do; yet nothing could have been less irritating than that monosyllabic censure throwing out its little note in the thick of a quarrel like an echo in a storm.

"At your age," he said to his host; "not patient at all. Wholly to blame--yes--wrong--you!"

"How naughty you are!" Edmee said to me, putting her hand on my shoulder; "do not begin again, or I shall go away and leave you."

I willingly let myself be scolded by her; nor did I realize that during the last minutes we had exchanged parts. The moment we crossed the threshold of Gazeau Tower she had given evidence of that superiority over me which was really hers. This wild place, too, these strange witnesses, this fierce host, had already furnished a taste of the society into which I had entered, and whose fetters I was soon to feel.

"Come," she said, turning to Patience, "we do not understand each other here; and, for my part, I am devoured by anxiety about my poor father, who is no doubt searching for me, and wringing his hands at this very moment. My good Patience, do find me some means of rejoining him with this unfortunate boy, whom I dare not leave to your care, since you have not sufficient love for me to be patient and compa.s.sionate with him."

"What do you say?" said Patience, putting his hand to his brow as if waking from a dream. "Yes, you are right; I am an old brute, an old fool. Daughter of G.o.d, tell this boy, this n.o.bleman, that I ask his pardon for the past, and that, for the present, my poor cell is at his disposal. Is that well said?"

"Yes, Patience," answered the cure. "Besides, everything may be managed.

My horse is quiet and steady, and Mademoiselle de Mauprat can ride it, while you and Marca.s.se lead it by the bridle. For myself, I will remain here with our invalid. I promise to take good care of him and not to annoy him in any way. That will do, won't it, Monsieur Bernard? You don't bear me any ill-will, and you may be very sure that I am not your enemy."

"I know nothing about it," I answered; "it is as you please. Look after my cousin; take her home safely. For my own part, I need nothing and care for no one. A bundle of straw and a gla.s.s of wine, that is all I should like, if it were possible to have them."

"You shall have both," said Marca.s.se, handing me his flask, "but first of all here is something to cheer you up. I am going to the stable to get the horse ready."

"No, I will go myself," said Patience; "you see to the wants of this young man."

And he pa.s.sed into another lower hall, which served as a stable for the cure's horse during the visits which the good priest paid him. They brought the animal through the room where we were; and Patience, after arranging the cure's cloak on the saddle, with fatherly care helped Edmee to mount.

"One moment," she said, before letting them lead her out. "Monsieur le Cure, will you promise me on the salvation of your soul not to leave my cousin before I return with my father to fetch him?"

"I promise solemnly," replied the cure.

"And you, Bernard," said Edmee, "will you give me your word of honour to wait for me here?"

"I can't say," I answered; "that will depend on the length of your absence and on my patience; but you know quite well, cousin, that we shall meet again, even if it be in h.e.l.l; and for my part, the sooner the better."

By the light of the brand which Patience was holding to examine the horse's harness, I saw her beautiful face flush and then turn pale. Then she raised her eyes which had been lowered in sorrow, and looked at me fixedly with a strange expression.

"Are we ready to start?" said Marca.s.se, opening the door.

"Yes, forward," said Patience, taking the bridle. "Edmee, my child, take care to bend down while pa.s.sing under the door."

"What is the matter, Blaireau?" said Marca.s.se, stopping on the threshold and thrusting out the point of his sword, gloriously rusted by the blood of the rodent tribe.

Blaireau did not stir, and if he had not been born dumb, as his master said, he would have barked. But he gave warning as usual by a sort of dry cough. This was his most emphatic sign of anger and uneasiness.

"There must be something down there," said Marca.s.se; and he boldly advanced into the darkness, after making a sign to the rider not to follow. The report of firearms made us all start. Edmee jumped down lightly from her horse, and I did not fail to notice that some impulse at once prompted her to come and stand behind my chair. Patience rushed out of the tower. The cure ran to the frightened horse, which was rearing and backing toward us. Blaireau managed to bark. I forgot my sprain, and in a single bound I was outside.

A man covered with wounds, and with the blood streaming from him, was lying across the doorway. It was my Uncle Laurence. He had been mortally wounded at the siege of Roche-Mauprat, and had come to die under our eyes. With him was his brother Leonard, who had just fired his last pistol shot at random, luckily without hitting any one. Patience's first impulse was to prepare to defend himself. On recognising Marca.s.se, however, the fugitives, far from showing themselves hostile, asked for shelter and help. As their situation was so desperate no one thought that a.s.sistance should be refused. The police were pursuing them.

Roche-Mauprat was in flames; Louis and Peter had died fighting; Antony, John, and Walter had fled in another direction, and, perhaps, were already prisoners. No words would paint the horror of Laurence's last moments. His agony was brief but terrible. His blasphemy made the cure turn pale. Scarce had the door been shut and the dying man laid on the floor than the horrible death-rattle was heard. Leonard, who knew of no remedy but brandy, s.n.a.t.c.hed Marca.s.se's flask out of my hand (not without swearing and scornfully reproaching me for my flight), forced open his brother's clinched teeth with the blade of his hunting-knife, and, in spite of our warning, poured half the flask down his throat. The wretched man bounded into the air, brandished his arms in desperate convulsions, drew himself up to his full height, and fell back stone dead upon the blood-stained floor. There was no time to offer up a prayer over the body, for the door resounded under the furious blows of our a.s.sailants.

"Open in the King's name!" cried several voices; "open to the police!"

"Help! help!" cried Leonard, seizing his knife and rushing towards the door. "Peasants, prove yourselves n.o.bles! And you, Bernard, atone for your fault; wash out your shame; do not let a Mauprat fall into the hands of the gendarmes alive!"

Urged on by native courage and by pride, I was about to follow his example, when Patience rushed at him, and exerting his herculean strength, threw him to the ground. Putting one knee on his chest, he called to Marca.s.se to open the door. This was done before I could take my uncle's part against his terrible a.s.sailant. Six gendarmes at once rushed into the tower and, with their guns pointed, bade us move at our peril.

"Stay, gentlemen," said Patience, "don't harm any one. This is your prisoner. Had I been alone with him, I should either have defended him or helped him to escape; but there are honest people here who ought not to suffer for a knave; and I did not wish to expose them to a fight.

Here is the Mauprat. Your duty, as you know, is to deliver him safe and sound into the hands of justice. This other is dead."

"Monsieur, surrender!" said the sergeant of the gendarmes, laying his hand on Leonard.

"Never shall a Mauprat drag his name into the dock of a police court,"

replied Leonard, with a sullen expression. "I surrender, but you will get nothing but my skin."

And he allowed himself to be placed in a chair without making any resistance.

But while they were preparing to bind him he said to the cure:

"Do me one last kindness, Father. Give me what is left in the flask; I am dying of thirst and exhaustion."

The good cure handed him the flask, which he emptied at a draught. His distorted face took on an expression of awful calm. He seemed absorbed, stunned, incapable of resistance. But as soon as they were engaged in binding his feet, he s.n.a.t.c.hed a pistol from the belt of one of the gendarmes and blew his brains out.

This frightful spectacle completely unnerved me. Sunk in a dull stupor, no longer conscious of what was happening around me, I stood there as if turned to stone, and it was only after some minutes that I realized that I was the subject of a serious discussion between the police and my hosts. One of the gendarmes declared that he recognised me as a Hamstringer Mauprat. Patience declared that I was nothing but M. Hubert de Mauprat's gamekeeper, in charge of his daughter. Annoyed at the discussion, I was about to make myself known when I saw a ghost rise by my side. It was Edmee. She had taken refuge between the wall and the cure's poor frightened horse, which, with outstretched legs and eyes of fire, made her a sort of rampart with its body. She was as pale as death, and her lips were so compressed with horror that at first, in spite of desperate efforts to speak, she was unable to express herself otherwise than by signs. The sergeant, moved by her youth and her painful situation, waited with deference until she could manage to make herself understood. At last she persuaded them not to treat me as a prisoner, but to take me with her to her father's chateau, where she gave her word of honour that satisfactory explanations and guarantees would be furnished on my account. The cure and the other witnesses, having pledged their words to this, we set out all together, Edmee on the sergeant's horse, he on an animal belonging to one of his men, myself on the cure's, Patience and the cure afoot between us, the police on either side, and Marca.s.se in front, still impa.s.sive amid the general terror and consternation. Two of the gendarmes remained behind to guard the bodies and prepare a report.

VIII

We had travelled about a league through the woods. Wherever other paths had crossed our own, we had stopped to call aloud; for Edmee, convinced that her father would not return home without finding her, had implored her companions to help her to rejoin him. To this shouting the gendarmes had been very averse, as they were afraid of being discovered and attacked by bodies of the fugitives from Roche-Mauprat. On our way they informed us that this den had been captured at the third a.s.sault. Until then the a.s.sailants had husbanded their forces. The officer in command of the gendarmes was anxious to get possession of the keep without destroying it; and, above all, to take the defenders alive. This, however, was impossible on account of the desperate resistance they made. The besiegers suffered so severely in their second attempt that they found themselves compelled to adopt extreme measures or to retreat.

They therefore set the outer buildings on fire, and in the ensuing a.s.sault put forth all their strength. Two Mauprats were killed while fighting on the ruins of their bastion; the other five disappeared. Six men were dispatched in pursuit of them in one direction, six in another.

Traces of the fugitives had been discovered immediately, and the men who gave us these details had followed Laurence and Leonard so closely that several of their shots had hit the former only a short distance from Gazeau Tower. They had heard him cry that he was done for; and, as far as they could see, Leonard had carried him to the sorcerer's door. This Leonard was the only one of my uncles who deserved any pity, for he was the only one who might, perhaps, have been encouraged to a better kind of life. At times there was a touch of chivalry in his brigandage, and his savage heart was capable of affection. I was deeply moved, therefore, by his tragic death, and let myself be carried along mechanically, plunged in gloomy thoughts, and determined to end my days in the same manner should I ever be condemned to the disgrace he had scorned to endure.

All at once the sound of horns and the baying of hounds announced the approach of a party of huntsmen. While we, on our side, were answering with shouts, Patience ran to meet them. Edmee, longing to see her father again, and forgetting all the horrors of this b.l.o.o.d.y night, whipped up her horse and reached the hunters first. As soon as we came up with them, I saw Edmee in the arms of a tall man with a venerable face. He was richly dressed; his hunting-coat, with gold lace over all the seams, and the magnificent Norman horse, which a groom was holding behind him, so struck me that I thought I was in the presence of a prince. The signs of love which he was showing his daughter were so new to me that I was inclined to deem them exaggerated and unworthy of the dignity of a man.

At the same time they filled me with a sort of brute jealousy; for it did not occur to my mind that a man so splendidly dressed could be my uncle. Edmee was speaking to him in a low voice, but with great animation. Their conversation lasted a few moments. At the end of it the old man came and embraced me cordially. Everything about these manners seemed so new to me, that I responded neither by word nor gesture to the protestations and caresses of which I was the object. A tall young man, with a handsome face, as elegantly dressed as M. Hubert, also came and shook my hand and proffered thanks; why, I could not understand. He next entered into a discussion with the gendarmes, and I gathered that he was the lieutenant-general of the province, and that he was ordering them to set me at liberty for the present, that I might accompany my uncle to his chateau, where he undertook to be responsible for me. The gendarmes then left us, for the chevalier and the lieutenant-general were sufficiently well escorted by their own men not to fear attack from any one. A fresh cause of astonishment for me was to see the chevalier bestowing marks of warm friendship on Patience and Marca.s.se. As for the cure, he was upon a footing of equality with these seigneurs. For some months he had been chaplain at the chateau of Saint-Severe, having previously been compelled to give up his living by the persecutions of the diocesan clergy.

All this tenderness of which Edmee was the object, this family affection so completely new to me, the genuinely cordial relations existing between respectful plebeians and kindly patricians--everything that I now saw and heard seemed like a dream. I looked on with a sensation that it was all unintelligible to me. However, soon after our caravan started my brain began to work; for I then saw the lieutenant-general (M. de la Marche) thrust his horse between Edmee's and my own, as if he had a right to be next to her. I remembered her telling me at Roche-Mauprat that he was her betrothed. Hatred and anger at once surged up within me, and I know not what absurdity I should have committed, had not Edmee, apparently divining the workings of my unruly soul, told him that she wanted to speak to me, and thus restored me to my place by her side.

"What have you to say to me?" I asked with more eagerness than politeness.

"Nothing," she answered in an undertone. "I shall have much to say later. Until then will you do everything I ask of you?"

"And why the devil should I do everything you ask of me, cousin?"

For a moment she hesitated to reply; then, making an effort, she said:

"Because it is thus that a man proves to a woman that he loves her."

"Do you believe that I don't love you?" I replied abruptly.