The Arm Chair at the Inn Part 8

Somewhere inside the chaotic ma.s.s lay Lemois and Gaston!

A cry of horror went up from the crowd, made more intense by the shriek of a fisher-woman--Gaston's mother--who just before the crash came had seen her son's head at the library window, and who was now fighting her way to where Herbert was keeping back the mob until he could make up his mind what was best to do. Her breathless news decided him.

"Louis!" he shouted, his voice ringing above the roar of the sea, "pick out two men--good ones--and follow me!"

The four worked their way to a careened window now flattened within a foot of the ground, crawled over the sill, and Herbert calling out to Lemois and Gaston all the while, crept under a tangle of twisted beams, flooring, and furniture, until they reached what was once the farther wall of the library.

Under an overturned sofa, pinned down but unhurt, white with dust and broken plaster and almost unrecognizable, they found our landlord.

Gaston lay a few feet away, the breath knocked out of him, an ugly wound in his head. Lemois had answered their call, but Gaston had given no sign.

Herbert braced himself and in the dim light looked about him. The saving of lives was now a question of judgment, requiring that same instantaneous making up of his mind always necessary when his own life had depended upon the exact placing of a rifle-ball in the skull of a charging elephant. There was not a second to lose. Another slash of the sea and the whole ma.s.s might go headlong down the slope, and yet to lift the wrong timber in an effort to free Lemois might topple the entire heap, as picking out the wrong match-stick topples a pile of jackstraws.

He ran his eye over the shattered room; ordered the two fishermen to leave the wrecked building; selected, after a moment's pause, a heavy joist lying across the sofa; stood by while Louis put his shoulder under its edge, his enormous strength bearing the full brunt of the weight; waited until it swayed loose, and then, grabbing Lemois firmly by the coat-collar, dragged him clear and set him on his feet.

Gaston came next, limp and apparently dead--the blood trickling from his head and spattering his rescuers.

The crowd shouted in unison as they caught sight of Lemois' gray head, all the whiter from the grime of powdered plaster. Then came another and louder shout, followed by another piercing shriek from Gaston's mother as her boy's sagging, insensible body was brought clear of the wreck.

None of his bones were broken, none that Lemois could find; something had struck the boy--some falling weight--perhaps a bust from one of the bookcases over his head. That was the last the lad had known until he found his mother kneeling beside him in the rain and mud, where the cold wind and rain revived him.

But our work was not yet over. The miscellaneous a.s.sortment of precious things housed in the garage must be rearranged before nightfall and protected against breakage and leakage. Watchmen must be selected and made comfortable in the garage, a telegram despatched to madame at her apartment in Paris, with details of the catastrophe and salvage, and another to her estate at Rouen, and, more important still, Gaston must be carried home, put to bed, and a doctor sent for. This done, Herbert and the rest of us could go back to the inn in Le Blanc's motor.

[Ill.u.s.tration: As her boy's sagging, insensible body was brought clear of the wreck]

The first load brought Herbert, Brierley, and myself, Le Blanc driving: Lemois had remained with Gaston. Mignon, with staring, inquiring eyes, her ap.r.o.n over her head to protect her from the wet, met us at the outer gate, but not a word was said by any of us about Gaston, a crack on a fisherman's head not being a serious affair--and then again, this one was as tough as a rudder-post and as full of spring as an oar--and then, more important still, the poor child with her hungry, tear-stained eyes had had trouble enough for one day, as we all knew. Later when Lea and I were alone, I told her the story, describing Gaston's pluck and bravery and his risking his life to save Lemois--the dear old woman clasping her fingers together as if in church when I added that "he'd be all right in the morning after a good night's rest."

"Pray G.o.d nothing happens to him!" she said at last, crossing herself.

"Mignon is only a child and it would break her heart. Monsieur Lemois does not wish it, and there is trouble--much trouble--ahead for her, but while there is life there is hope. He is a good Gaston--his mother and I were girls together; she had only this one left--the boat upset and the father was drowned off _Les Dents Terribles_ two years ago."

Louis, whose heart is as big as his body, was less cautious. He must have a word with the girl herself. And so, when we had all gathered before the fire to dry out--for most of us were still wet and all ravenous--he called out to her in his cheery, hearty way:

"That is a plucky garcon of yours, mademoiselle. Monsieur Lemois would have been flattened into a pancake but for him. When the house fell it was Monsieur Gaston who jerked him away from the window and rolled a sofa on top of him. Ah!--a brave garcon, and one who does you credit."

The girl--she was busying herself with her dishes at the time--blushed and said: "Merci, monsieur," her eyes dancing over the praise of her lover, but she was too modest and too well trained to say more.

Again Le Blanc's siren came shrieking down the road. This time it would bring Lemois. I threw on another log to warm them both, and Louis began collecting a small a.s.sortment of gla.s.ses, Mignon following with a decanter.

Several minutes pa.s.sed, during which we waited for the heavy tread of fat Le Blanc. Then the door opened and Lea appeared; she was trembling from head to foot and white as a ghost.

"Monsieur wants you--all of you--something has happened! Not you, Mignon--you stay here."

Inside the court-yard, close to the door of the Marmouset, stood Le Blanc's motor. Lemois was on the foot-board leaning over the body of a man stretched out on the two seats.

"Easy now," Lemois whispered to Louis, who had pushed his way alongside of the others crowding about the car. "He collapsed again as soon as you all left. There is something serious I am afraid--that is why I brought him here. His mother wanted to take him home, but that's no place for him now. He must stay here to-night. We stopped and left word for the doctor and he will be here in a minute. Be careful, Monsieur Louis--not in there--upstairs."

Louis was careful--careful as if he were lifting a baby; but he did not delay, nor did he take him upstairs. Picking up the unconscious fisherman bodily in his arms, he bore him clear of the machine, carried him through the open door of the Marmouset, and stretched him full length on the lounge, tucking a cushion under his head as the lad sank down into the soft mattress.

As the flare of the table candles stirred by the night wind lighted up his face, Mignon, who had been pushing aside the chairs from out the wounded man's way, believing it to be Le Blanc, sprang forward, and with a half-stifled cry sank on her knees beside the boy. Lemois lunged forward, stooped quickly, and grasping her firmly by the arm, dragged her to her feet.

"Leave the room!--you are in the way," he said in low, angry tones.

"There are plenty here to take care of him."

Louis, who had moved closer to the girl, and who had already begun to quiet her fears, wheeled suddenly and would have broken out in instantaneous protest had not Lea, her lean, tall body stretched to its utmost, her flat, sunken chest heaving with indignation, stepped in front of Lemois.

"You are not kind, monsieur," she said coldly, with calm, unflinching eyes.

"Hold your tongue! I do not want your advice. Take her out!--this is no place for her!"

Louis' eyes blazed. Unkindness to a woman was the one thing that always enraged him. Then his better judgment worked.

"Give her to me, Lea," he said. "Come, Mignon! Don't cry, child; he's not hurt so bad; he'll be all right in the morning. Move away there, all of you!" and he led the sobbing girl from the room.

A dull, paralyzing silence fell upon us all. Those of us who knew only the gentle, kind-hearted, always courteous Lemois were dumb with astonishment. Had he, too, received a crack on his head which had unsettled his judgment, or was this, after all, the real Lemois?

The opening of the door and the hurried re-entrance of Louis, followed by the doctor, a short, thick-set man with a bald head, for a time relieved the tension.

"I was on my way near here when your messenger met me," called out the doctor with a nod of salutation to the room at large as he dropped into a chair beside the sufferer, thus supplanting Brierley, who during Lemois' outburst had been wiping the blood-stained face and lips with a napkin and finger-bowl he had caught up from the table.

There was an anxious hush; the men standing in a half-circle awaiting the decision; the doctor feeling for broken limbs, listening to his breathing, his hand on the boy's heart. Then there came a convulsive movement and the wounded man lifted his head and gazed about him.

The doctor bent closer, studied Gaston's eyes for a moment, rose to his feet, tucked his spectacles into a black leather case which he took from his pocket, and said calmly:

"I think there's no fracture of the skull. I'll know definitely later on. He is, as I at first supposed, suffering from shock and has swallowed a lot of dust. He must have complete rest; get him to bed somewhere and send for a woman in the village to take care of him. I'll come to-morrow. Who carried him in here?"

Louis nodded his head.

"Then pick him up again and, if Monsieur Lemois is willing, put him in the room on the ground floor at the end of the court. I can get at him then from the outside without disturbing anybody. You, gentlemen, so I hear, are down here for your pleasure and not to run a hospital, and so I will see you are not disturbed."

Louis leaned down, picked the young fisherman up in his arms with no more effort than if he had been handling a bag of flour, and carried him out of the room, across the court, Lea following, and into the bas.e.m.e.nt chamber, where he laid him on the bed, leaving him with the remark:

"Now stay here and take care of him, Lea, no matter what Monsieur Lemois says."

Meanwhile Lemois had poured out a gla.s.s of wine for the doctor, waited until he had drank it, thanked him in his most courteous tones for his promptness, bidden him good-night on the threshold, closed the door behind him, and without a word to any of us had resumed his place by the fire.

Another embarra.s.sing silence ensued. Every one felt that the incident, if aggravated by any untimely remarks, might lead up to an outbreak which would bring our visit to a premature close. And yet both Lea and Mignon were so beloved by all of us, and the brutality of the attack upon the little maid was so uncalled for, that we felt something was due to our own self-respect.

Herbert, catching our suggestive glances, essayed the task. He was the man held in most esteem by Lemois, and might perhaps be allowed to say things which the old gentleman would not take from the rest; and then again, whatever the outcome, Herbert could be depended upon to keep his temper no matter what Lemois might answer in return.

"Mignon did nothing, monsieur, except show her love for her sweetheart--why break out on her?" Herbert's voice was low, but there was meaning behind it.

"I won't have this thing!" came the indignant retort, all his poise gone. "That's why I broke out on her. Mignon is not for fishermen, nor ditch-diggers, nor road-makers. She is like my child--I have other things in store for her. I tell you I will not have it go on--she knows why and Lea knows why! I have said so, and it is finished!"

"He about saved your life a little while ago. Does that count for anything?" The words edged their way through tightly closed lips.

"Yes--for me; that is why I brought him home--but he has not saved Mignon's life. He would wreck it. She will marry somebody else and he will marry somebody else. There are too many thick-heads along the coast now. I decide to steer clear of them."

Louis, who now that his human-ambulance trip was over, had returned to the Marmouset, stood wondering. What had taken place in his absence was a mystery. He had, after depositing his burden, taken Mignon to Pierre and sat her down by the kitchen fire, where he had left her crying softly to herself.

Lemois waited until Louis had found a seat and went on: