The Abbess Of Vlaye Part 13

The Vicomte's nose twitched with rage; he was not a meek man. He understood M. de Vlaye's insinuation, he knew that M. de Vlaye knew; but he was helpless. On the threshold of his own house, on the spot where his ancestors' word had been law for generations--or a blow had followed the word--he stood impotent before this clever, upstart soldier who held him at mercy. And this the Abbess, had her affection for him been warm or her nature delicate, must have felt. Without a word spoken or a syllable of explanation, she must have perceived that she was witnessing her family's shame, and that her part in the scene was not with them.

But she, of them all, was the most in the dark, and her thoughts were otherwise bent. "You are very fearful for the young lady, M. de Vlaye," she said, turning to him, and speaking in a tone of mock offence. "I do not remember that you have ever been so over careful for me."

He bent his head and muttered something of which her sister caught not a word. Then, "But we must not waste time," he continued briskly. "Let us--with the Vicomte's permission--to the field! To the field!" And he turned his horse as he spoke into the sled-road that led around the courtyard wall; and by a gesture he bade his men follow. It was evident to Bonne, evident to her father, that he had had a spy on the house, and knew where his quarry harboured.

The girl wondered whether by flying through the house and dropping from the corner of the garden wall she could even now give the alarm.

Then M. le Vicomte spoke. "I will come with you," he said in a surly tone that betrayed his sense of his position. "The times are indeed out of joint, and persons out of their places, but--Solomon, my staff!

Daughter," to the Abbess, "a hold of your stirrup-leather! It is but a step, and I can still walk so far. If the field be unsafe for the guest,"--he added grimly--"it is fit the host should share the danger."

Bonne could have blessed him for the thought, for his offer bound the party to a walking pace, and something might happen. Vlaye, beyond doubt, had the same thought. But without breaking openly with the Vicomte--which for various reasons he was loth to do--he could not reject his company nor outpace him.

He raised no objection, therefore, and in displeased silence the Vicomte walked beside his daughter's horse, Bonne accompanying him on the other hand. She knew more than he, and had reason to fear more; she was almost sick with anxiety. But he, perhaps, suffered more.

Forced on his own ground to do that which he did not wish to do, forced to play a sorry farce, he felt, as he trudged in the van of the party, that he walked the captive in a Roman triumph. And he could have smitten the Captain of Vlaye across the face.

They pa.s.sed only too quickly from the shelter of the house to the open meadows and the hot sunshine, and so over the stone bridge. Bonne knew that at this point they must become visible to the workers in the hay-field, and she counted on an interval of a few minutes during which the fugitives might take steps to hide themselves, or even to get over the river and bury themselves in the woods. She could have cried, therefore, when, without apparent order, a party from the rear cantered past the leaders and, putting their horses into a sharp hand-gallop, preceded them in their advance upon the panic-stricken haymakers, in the midst of whom they drew rein in something less than a minute.

The Vicomte halted as the meaning of the man[oe]uvre broke upon him, and, striking his staff into the ground, he followed them with his eyes. "You seem fearful indeed," he growled, his high nose wrinkled with anger.

"Things happen very quickly at times," Vlaye answered, ignoring the tone.

"Take care, sir, take care!" the Abbess of Vlaye cried, addressing her lover. She little thought in her easy insouciance how near the truth she was treading. "If you show yourself so very anxious for the Countess's safety, I warn you I shall grow jealous."

"You have seen her," M. de Vlaye answered in a low tone, meant only for her ear; and he hung slightly towards her. "You know how little cause you have to fear."

"Fear?" the Abbess retorted rather sharply. "Know, sir," with a quick defiant glance, "that I fear no one!"

Apparently the handful of riders who had preceded the main body had no order but to stand guard over the workers. For having halted in the midst of the startled servants, who gazed on them in stupefaction, they remained motionless in their saddles. Meanwhile the Vicomte, with a surly face, was drawing slowly up to them. When no more than thirty or forty paces divided the two parties, the leader of the van wheeled about, and trotting to M. de Vlaye's side, saluted him.

"I do not see them, my lord," he muttered in a low tone.

The captain of Vlaye reined in his horse, and sitting at ease, cast an eagle glance over the terrified haymakers, who had instinctively fallen into three or four groups. In one part of the field the hay had been got into heaps, but these were of small size, and barely adequate to the hiding of a child. Nevertheless, look where he would--and his lowering brow bespoke his disappointment--he could detect no one at all resembling a Countess. A moment, and his glance pa.s.sed from the open meadow to the ruined buildings, which stood on the brink of the stream. It remained fixed on them.

"Search that!" he said in a low tone. And raising his hand he pointed to the old barn. "They must be there! Go about it carefully, Ampoule."

The man he addressed turned, and summoning his party, cantered across the sward--never so green as after mowing--towards the building. As the riders drew near the river, Bonne could command herself no longer.

She uttered a low groan. Her face bespoke her anguish.

M. de Vlaye did not see her face--it was turned from him--but he caught the sound and understood it. "The sun is hot," he said in a tone of polite irony. "You find it so, mademoiselle? Doubtless the Countess has sought protection from it--in the barn. She will be there, take my word for it!"

Bonne made no reply. She could not have spoken for her life; and he and they watched, shading their eyes from the sun, she, poor girl, with a hand which shook. The hors.e.m.e.n were by this time near the end of the building, and all but one proceeded to alight. The rest were in the act of delivering up their reins, and one had already vanished within the building, when in full view of the company, who were watching from the middle of the field, a man sprang from an opening at the other end of the barn, reached in three bounds the brink of the stream, and even as Vlaye's shout of warning startled the field, plunged from the bank, and was lost to sight.

"Hola! Hola!" M. de Vlaye cried in stentorian tones, and, with his rowels in his horse's flanks, he was away racing to the spot before his followers had taken the alarm. The next moment they were thundering emulously at his heels, their charge shaking the earth.

Even the men who had alighted beside the barn, and as yet knew nothing of the evasion, saw that something was wrong, took the alarm, and hurried round the building to the river.

"He is there!" cried one, as they pulled up along the bank of the stream. And the speaker, in his desire to show his zeal, wheeled his horse about so suddenly that he well-nigh knocked down his neighbour.

"No, there! There!" cried another. And "There!" cried a third, as the fugitive dived, otter fashion, the willows of the stream affording him some protection.

Suddenly M. de Vlaye's voice rang above all. "After him!" he cried.

"After him, fools, and seize him on the other side!"

In a twinkling three or four of the more courageous forced their horses into the stream, and began to swim across. Sixty yards below the spot where he had entered the water, the swimmer's head could be seen. He was being borne on a current towards a willow-bed which projected from the opposite bank, and offered a hiding-place. With wild cries those who had not entered the stream followed him along the bank, jostling and crossing one another, and marked him here and marked him there, while the baying of the excited hounds, restrained by their couples, filled the woods beyond the river with the fierce music of the chase.

Meantime the Vicomte and his younger daughter remained alone in the middle of the meadow; for the Abbess's horse had carried her after the others, whether she would or no, with her hawk clinging and screaming on her sleeve. Of the two who remained, the Vicomte was in a high rage. To be used after this fashion by his guests! To see strangers taking the law into their own hands on his land! To be afoot while hireling troopers spurned his own clods in his face, and all without leave or license, all where he and his forebears had exercised the low justice and the high for centuries! It was too much!

"What is it? Who is it?" he cried, adding in his pa.s.sion oaths and execrations then too common. "That is not the Countess! Are they mad?"

"It is Charles," she answered, weeping bitterly. "He was hiding there.

And he thought that they were in search of him. Oh, they will kill him! They will kill him!"

"Charles?" the Vicomte exclaimed, and stood turned to stone.

"Charles?"

"Yes!" she panted. "And, oh, sir, a word! He is your son, and a word may save him! He has done nothing--nothing that they should hunt him like a rat!"

But the Vicomte was another man now, moved, wrought on by Heaven knows what devils of pride and shame. "My son!" he cried, his rage diverted.

"That my son? You lie, girl!" coa.r.s.ely. "He is no son of mine. You wander. It is some skulking Crocan they have unharboured. Son of mine?

Hiding on my land? No! You rave, girl!"

"Oh, sir!" she panted.

"Not a word!" He gripped her wrist fiercely and forced her to silence.

"Do you hear me? Not a word. He is no son of mine!"

She clung to him, still imploring him, still trying to soften him. But he shook her off, roughly, brutally, raising his stick to her; and, blinded by her tears, unable to do more, she sank to the ground and buried her face, that she might not see, in a ma.s.s of hay. He, without a word, turned his back on her, on the crowd beside the river, on the groups of frightened haymakers--turned his back on all and strode away in the direction of the chateau, with those devils of shame and pride, which he had pampered so long, riding him hard. He had drained at last the cup of humiliation to the dregs. He had seen his son hunted like a beast of vermin on his own land in his presence. And his one desire was to be gone. Rage with the cause of this last and worst disgrace dried up all natural feeling, all thought for his flesh and blood, all pity. He cared not whether his son lived or died. His only longing was to escape in his own person; to be gone from the place and scene of degradation, to set himself once more in a position, to--to be himself!

There are tones of the voice that in the lowest depth inspire something of confidence. Bonne, as she lay crushed under the weight of her misery, with the merciless sun beating down upon her neck, heard such a tone whispering low in her ear.

"Lie still, mademoiselle," it murmured. "Lie still! Where you are, you are unseen, and I must speak to you. The man, whoever he is, is taken.

They have seized him."

She tried to rise. He laid his hand on her shoulder and held her down.

"I must go!" she gasped, still struggling to rise. "I must go! It is my brother!"

The Lieutenant--for he it was--muttered, it is to be feared, an oath.

"Your brother!" he said. "It is your brother, is it? Ah, if you had trusted me! But all is not lost! Listen!" he continued urgently. "M.

de Vlaye has bidden the men who have taken him--on the farther side of the river--to convey him along that bank to the ford, and so by the road to Vlaye. And--will you trust me now, mademoiselle?"

"I will, I will!" she sobbed. She showed him for one moment her tear-stained, impa.s.sioned face. "If you will help me! If you will help my brother!"

"I will!" he said, and then, and abruptly, he laid his hand on her and violently pressed her down. "Be still!" he muttered in a tone of sharp warning. "I have no more wish to be seen by Vlaye than your brother had!" Lying beside her, he peeped warily over the hay by which he was partly hidden; a slight hollow in which that particular c.o.c.k rested served to shelter them somewhat, but the screen was slight. "I fear they are coming this way," he continued, his voice not quite steady.

"I would I had my horse here, and sound, and I would trouble them little. But all is not lost, all is not lost," he repeated slowly, "till their hands are on us! Nor, may-be, even then!"

She understood, and lay trembling and hiding her face, unable to face this new terror. The thunder of hoofs, coming nearer and nearer, once more shook the earth. The hors.e.m.e.n were returning from the river.

"Lie low!" he repeated, more coolly. "They have spied the Countess. I feared they would. And they are hot foot after her--so ho! And we are saved! Yes," he continued, peeping again and more boldly, "we are saved, I think. They have stopped her, just as Roger and her man--clever Roger, he will make a general yet--were about to pa.s.s her over the bridge. Another minute and they had got her to cover in the house, and it had been my fate to be taken."