The Westcotes Part 9

That evening Dorothea rated the girl soundly for her pertness. "And I shall speak to Zeally," she threatened, "if anything of the kind happens again. If Mr. Endymion is to let you two have a house when you marry, and take in the Frenchmen as lodgers, he will want to know that you treat them respectfully."

Polly wept, and was forgiven.

April, May, June, went by, and still Dorothea lived in her dream, troubled only by dread of the day which must bring her lover's task to an end, and, with it, his almost daily visits. Bit by bit she learned his story. He told her of Arles, his birthplace, with its Roman masonry and amphitheatre; of a turreted terraced chateau and a family of aristocrats lording it among the vineyards; conspiring a little later with other n.o.ble families, entertaining them at secret meetings of the _Chiffonne_, where oaths were taken; later again, defending itself behind barricades of paving-stones; last of all, marched or carried in batches to the guillotine or the fusillade. He told of Avignon and its Papal Castle overhanging the Rhone, the city where he had spent his school days, and at the age of nine had seen Patriot L'Escuyer stabbed to death in the Cordeliers' Church with women's scissors; had seen Jourdan, the avenger, otherwise Coupe-tete, march flaming by at the head of his brave _brigands d'Avignon_. He told of the sequel, the hundred and thirty men, women and babes slaughtered in the dungeon of the _Glaciere_; of Choisi's Dragoons and Grenadiers at the gates, and how, with roses scattered before them, they marched through the streets to the Castle, entered the gateway and paused, brought to a stand by the stench of putrefying flesh. He and his school mates had taken a holiday--their master being in hiding--to see the bodies lifted out.

Also he had seen the search party ride out through the gates and return again, bringing Jourdan, with feet strapped beneath his horse's belly.

He told of his journey to, Paris--his purpose to learn to paint (at such a time!); of the great David, fat and wheezy, back at his easel, panting from civil blood-shed; of the call to arms, his enlistment, his first campaign of 1805; of the foggy morning of Austerlitz, his wound, and he long hours he lay in the rear of a battery on the height of Pratzen, writhing, watching the artillerymen at work and so on, with stories of marching and fighting, nights slept out by him at full length on the sodden turf beside his arms.

She had no history to tell him in exchange; she asked only to listen and to comfort. Yet so cleverly he addressed his story that the longest monologue became, by aid of a look or pressure of the hand, a conversation in which she, his guardian angel, bore her part. Did he talk of Avignon, for instance? It was the land of Laura and Petrarch, and she, seated with half-closed eyes beneath the Bayfield elms, saw the pair beside the waters of Vaucluse, saw the roses and orange-trees and arid plains of Provence, and wondered at the trouble in their spiritual love. She was not troubled; love as "a dureless content and a trustless joy" lay outside of her knowledge, and she had no desire to prove it. In this only she forgot the difference between Raoul's age and hers.

The day came when his work was ended. They spent a great part of that afternoon in the garden, now in the height of its midsummer glory.

Raoul was very silent.

"But this must not end. It cannot end so!" he groaned once or twice.

He never forgot for long his old spite against Time.

"It will never end for me," she murmured.

"Of what are you made, then, that you look forward to living on shadows?--one would say, almost cheerfully! I believe you could be happy if you never saw me again!"

"Even if that had to be," she answered gravely, "while I knew you loved me I should never be quite unhappy. But you must find a way, while you can, to come sometimes; yes, you must come."

CHAPTER VIII

CORPORAL ZEALLY INTERVENES

Dorothea sat in the great hall of Bayfield, between the lamplight and the moonlight, listening to the drip of the fountain beneath its tiny cupola. A midsummer moon-ray fell through the uncurtained lantern beneath the dome and spread in a small pool of silver at her feet.

Beneath one of the two shaded lamps Endymion lounged in his armchair and read the Sherborne Mercury. Narcissus had carried off the other to a table across the hall by the long bookcase, and above the pot-plants banked about the fountain she saw it shining on his shapely grey head as he bent over a copy of the Antonine Itinerary and patiently worked out a new theory of its distances. Her own face rested in deep shadow, and she felt grateful for it as she leaned back thinking her own thoughts. It was a whole week now since Charles had visited Bayfield, but she had encountered him that morning in Axcester High Street as she pa.s.sed up it on horseback with her brothers. Narcissus had reined up to put some question or other about the drawings, but Endymion (who did not share his brother's liking for M. Raoul) had ridden on, and she had ridden on too, though reluctantly. She recalled his salute, his glance at her, and down-dropped eyes; she wondered what point Narcissus and he had discussed, and blamed herself for not having found courage to ask. . . .

The stable clock struck ten. She arose and kissed her brothers good- night. By Narcissus she paused.

"Be careful of your eyes, dear. And if you are going to be busy with that great book these next few evenings I will have the table brought across to the other side where you will be cosier."

Narcissus came out of his calculations and looked up at her gently.

"Please do not disarrange the furniture for me; a change always fidgets me, even before I take in precisely what has happened." He smiled.

"In that I resemble my old friend Vespasian, who would have no alterations made when he visited his home--_manente villa qualis fuerat olim, ne quid scilicet oculorum consuetudini deperiret_.

A pleasant trait, I have always thought."

He lit her candle and kissed her, and Dorothea went up the broad staircase to her own room. Half-way along the corridor she stayed a moment to look down upon the hall. Endymion had dropped his newspaper and was yawning; a sure sign that Narcissus, already reabsorbed in the Itinerary, would in a few moments be hurried from it to bed.

She reached the door of her room and opened it, then checked an exclamation of annoyance. For some mysterious reason Polly had forgotten to light her candle. This was her rule, never broken before.

She stepped to the bellpull. Her hand was on it, when she heard the girl's voice muttering in the next room--the boudoir. At least, it sounded like Polly's voice, though its tone was strangely subdued and level. "Talking to herself," Dorothea decided, and smiled, in spite of her annoyance, as everyone smiles who catches another in this trick.

She dropped the bellpull and opened the boudoir door.

Polly was not talking to herself. She was leaning far out of the open window, and at the sound of the door started back into the room with a gasp and a short cry.

"To whom were you talking?"

Dorothea had set the candle down in the bedroom. Outside the window the park lay spread to the soft moonshine, but the moon did not look directly into the boudoir. In the half-light mistress and maid sought each other's eyes.

"To whom were you talking?" Dorothea demanded, sternly.

Polly was silent for a second or two, then her chin went up defiantly.

"To Mr. Raoul," she muttered.

"To M. Raoul!--to M. Raoul? I don't understand. Is M. Raoul--Oh, for goodness sake speak, girl! What is that? I see a piece of paper in your hand."

Polly twisted it in her fingers, and made a movement to hide it in her pocket; but with the movement she seemed to reflect.

"He gave it to me; I don't understand anything about it. I was shutting the window, when he whistled to me; he gave me this. I--I think he meant it for you."

Polly's tone suddenly became saucy, but her voice shook.

Dorothea was shaking too, as her fingers closed on the note. She vainly sought to read the girl's eyes. Her own cheeks were burning; she felt the blood rushing into them and singing in her ears. Yet in her abas.e.m.e.nt she kept her dignity, and, motioning Polly to follow, stepped into the bedroom, unfolded the letter slowly, and read it by the candle there.

_"My Angel,

"I have hungered now for a week. Be at your window this evening and let me, at least, be fed with a word. See what I risk for you.

"Yours devotedly and for ever."_

There was no signature, but well enough Dorothea knew the handwriting.

A wave of anger swelled in her heart--the first she had ever felt towards him. He had behaved selfishly. "See what I risk for you!"-- but to what risk was he exposing her! He was breaking their covenant too; demanding that which he must know her conscience abhorred. She had not believed he could understand her so poorly, held her so cheap.

Cheap indeed, since he had risked her secret in Polly's hand!

She turned the paper over, noting its creases. Suddenly--"You have opened and read this!" she said.

Polly admitted it with downcast eyes. The girl, after the first surprise, had demeaned herself admirably, and now stood in the att.i.tude proper to a confidential servant; solicitous, respectful, prepared to blink the peccadillo, even to sympathise discreetly at a hint given.

"I'm sorry, Miss, that I opened it; I ought to have told you, but you took me by surprise. You know, Miss, that you gave me leave to run down to my aunt's this evening; and on my way back--just as I was letting myself in by the nursery gate, Mr. Raoul comes tearing up the hill after me and slips this into my hand. To tell you the truth, it rather frightened me being run after like that. And he said something and ran back--for nine was just striking, and in a moment the Ting-tang would be ringing and he must be back to answer his name. So in my fl.u.s.ter I didn't catch what he meant. When I got home and opened it, I saw my mistake. But you were downstairs at dinner--I couldn't get to speak with you alone--I waited to tell you; and just now, when I was drawing the blinds, I heard a whistle--"

"M. Raoul had no right to send me such a message, Polly. I cannot think what he means by it. Nothing that I have ever said to him--"

"No, Miss," Polly a.s.sented readily. After a pause she added: "I suppose you'd like me to go now? You won't be wanting your hair done to-night?"

"Certainly I wish you to stay. Is he--is M. Raoul outside?"

"I think so, Miss. Oh, yes--for certain he is."

"Then I must insist on your staying with me while I dismiss him."

"Very good, Miss. Would you wish me to stay here, or to come with you?"