Читать книгу The Quest of Glory - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 8

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The snow fell without a break for three days; on the morning of the fourth it ceased a little, and by the time M. de Belleisle had reached Chiesch stopped.

The army had now been a week on the road, and the Maréchal hoped by a forced march to reach Eger, on the borders of Bavaria, with those who remained of the thirty thousand men who had marched out of Prague.

The famous régiment du roi, reduced to half their number, had fallen out of the vanguard, and stumbled along as best they might through the rocky ravines and high mounting roads. There was no longer any order in the army; the retreat had been one horror of death; men fell every moment, and were quickly buried in the silent snow; the wretched refugees died by the hundred. The waste of life was appalling; M. de Vauvenargues felt sick and delirious from the constant spectacle of this helpless agony; men dropped to right and left of him, he passed them at every step on the route; two of his fellow-officers had died the same night; it was like a shrieking nightmare to the Marquis to have to leave them, carrion in the snow; and now the strength of young Georges d’Espagnac began to fail; both had long ago lost their horses; M. de Biron himself was walking; there was indeed scarcely an animal left in the army; gun carriages and wagons had been abandoned all along the route as the mules died.

As the sombre evening obscured the awful sights along the line of march, the thing that the Marquis had been dreading for the last two days happened: Georges d’Espagnac lurched and fell insensible by his side.

M. de Biron looked over his shoulder.

“Poor child,” he murmured; then, to the Marquis, “It is death to stop; you can do no good. Come on.”

But M. de Vauvenargues shook his head and drew the wasted young figure out of the ghastly march.

A wagon with a broken wheel rested close by with two dead mules still in the traces and the corpse of a fair-haired woman flung across them, just as she had crawled out of the way. The Marquis wondered vaguely why they should have dragged this wagon so far; the covering at the back was open, and the heavy canvas flaps rose and fell sluggishly in the bitter wind, while from the interior had fallen a silver dessert service that glittered curiously on the thick snow and some rolls of straw-coloured silk that the Marquis had once seen hanging on the walls of M. de Belleisle’s room in the Hradcany castle.

He winced at the bitter irony of it; yet the rolls of silk, when shaken out, were some covering for the young Lieutenant, and the wagon was some protection from the wind.

Beyond this he could do nothing; he knelt and took d’Espagnac’s head on his knee for greater warmth, and waited.

It was little over a week since he had looked at the beautiful inspired face turned upwards in the chapel of St. Wenceslas; he gazed down now at the poor head on his lap, and the tears rose under his lids.

Georges d’Espagnac was wasted till his blue uniform, tarnished and torn, hung on him loosely; his face was so thin that even the hollows in the temples showed clearly and of a bluish tinge, while the lips were strained and distorted; all powder and dressing had left his hair, which hung in a mass of damp locks of a startling brightness about his shoulders; his right cheek was bruised by the fall from the saddle when his horse died, and his gloveless right hand was cracked and bleeding.

The Marquis felt his heart, and it was beating reluctantly and wearily.

There was no hope, he knew; at any moment the snow might begin again, and this lovely life must go out as the other lives were going out, unnoticed, unsweetened by any care, regret, or tenderness.

But it never occurred to M. de Vauvenargues to leave him, though he knew that his own best, perhaps his only, chance of life lay in movement, in pressing on.

The darkness fell slowly and with a certain dreadful heaviness; the added ugliness of the distant bark of wolves completed the speechless horror of the Marquis’s mood.

Still the army was trailing past him, bent figures supporting each other, a few Generals still on horseback, a few wounded and women in sledges or carts.

From an officer of the Black Musqueteers he begged a little wine that brought a tinge of colour into d’Espagnac’s cheeks and proved how pitifully easy it would have been to save him by warmth and care.

“There is only rough nursing here, Monsieur,” said the musqueteer kindly; “leave him and save your own life, for I think the snow will begin again.”

“Monsieur,” replied the Marquis gently, “he is so very young. And maybe he will be conscious before he dies, and find himself alone and hear the wolves. And it is such a little thing I do.”

And still the army went past like a procession in a dream of hell, and every moment it became darker, until the fir trees and the rocks were being lost in blackness and the howls of the wolves sounded nearer. Presently came a woman walking with more energy than most, yet stumbling under some burden that she held in her arms. At that moment d’Espagnac suddenly recovered consciousness, and cried in a clear voice—

“Let us get on our way, my dear Marquis—we ought to be at Eger to-morrow night.”

The words made the woman pause and look round. The Marquis gazed at her; he had last seen her on a white horse beneath a silver fir; and though he had forgotten her since, he had now a passionate desire that she should stop and speak to him.

As if in answer to this wish, she crossed directly to the wagon. The young Count had fallen into a weak swoon again, and she looked down on him calmly.

“Your friend is dying,” she said. “My God, how many more!”

She sat down on a round grey stone and put her hand to her head; then the Marquis saw that she carried, wrapped to her breast, a small sick child.

“You must go on,” he said, with energy. “You must not stop for us, Mademoiselle.”

“I cannot walk any more,” she answered. “I am very strong, but I cannot walk farther.”

“Where is your brother?” he asked.

“Dead,” she replied.

“Dead!”

“The word seems to mean nothing. I have a child here, dying too. I thought it might be happier dying in some one’s arms.”

It was exactly his own thought about Georges; he smiled with his courteous, sad sweetness, and putting the lieutenant’s head gently on one of the still rolled-up curtains, rose.

“We are on the heights, are we not?” asked Carola. “I seem to have been climbing all day.”

He approached her. “I think we are very high up,” he said gently. “Will you give me the child, Mademoiselle?”

She resigned the pitiful burden without a word; the Marquis shuddered as he felt the frail weight in his arms.

“So cold,” he murmured. “How could they bring children on such a march as this! How far have you carried him?” he added.

“Since morning,” answered Carola; “and it is a girl, Monsieur.”

The Marquis looked down into the tiny crumpled white face in the folds of the fur mantle, and laid the little creature down beside d’Espagnac.

“What can we do?” asked the Countess, in a broken voice.

“Nothing,” he answered gravely; “but if you have any strength at all, you should join the march. It is your only chance, Mademoiselle.”

She shook her delicate head. “Please permit me to stay with you. We might help each other. This is very terrible—the wolves are the worst.” She set her lips, and her pinched face had a look of decided strength. “Will the army be passing all night?” she added.

“I do not think so—surely there cannot be many more.”

“I was thinking when they go—perhaps the wolves——” She paused.

He was unused to these severe latitudes; there were wolves in France, but they had never troubled him.

“They might attack us,” she finished, seeing he did not comprehend.

He took his pistols from his belt and laid them on the ground beside him.

“I am armed,” he answered.

The Countess rose stiffly; her thick fur-lined cloak fell apart and showed the bright colours of her dress beneath, the tags and braids of gold, the vermilion sash and ruffled laces. “It is strange that I should live and my brother die, is it not?” she said wearily. “He fell from his horse and struck his head on a broken gun. Then he died very quickly.” There was dried blood on her fur gloves and on the bosom of her shirt. She went to the unconscious child and knelt beside her, moved the wrappings from the pallid, dead-coloured face, and touched the cheek. “I think she will never wake again—but your friend?” She glanced at the Marquis, who was standing looking down at M. d’Espagnac.

“I can only watch him die,” he said.

The Countess drew from her bosom the flask she had offered to M. de Vauvenargues four days before.

“This was filled this morning,” she explained, “and I cannot take it for it makes me giddy.” She moved to the side of M. d’Espagnac and raised his head tenderly and forced the spirits between his teeth.

“I think there is a lantern in the wagon,” said the Marquis, and went to find it. The dark was now so thick that they could scarcely see each other’s features, but he found the lantern and flint and tinder and lit it, and the long yellow beams were some comfort in the overwhelming sadness of the night.

The effect of the brandy on M. d’Espagnac was sudden and almost terrible: he sat up amid the tumbled rolls of silk, and his cheeks were red with fever and his eyes open in a forced fashion. He appeared clear-headed and master of his senses; his glance rested on the Polish lady and then on the Marquis. “You should not have waited for me,” he muttered. “On—on to Eger. I shall soon be well.” He raised his wasted, bleeding hands to his brilliant hair. “I am sick from seeing people die,” he said. “It could never have been meant. O God, what have we done?” He crossed himself.

“This is war, Georges,” answered the Marquis. “Remember the chapel of St. Wenceslas and the words we spoke there.”

M. d’Espagnac shuddered and fell back on to the cloaks the Marquis had piled under his head. Carola took his poor torn hand.

“Rest a little longer,” she said, “and then we can continue on our way.”

Save for a few stragglers, the army had passed now. The isolation seemed to increase with the dark, and the greedy howls of the wolves came nearer.

The lieutenant struggled up again and cried impetuously, “I am not going to die! That would be folly, for I have done nothing yet.”

“No, you shall not die,” answered Carola, and grasped his hand tighter. The Marquis was on the other side of him. Georges d’Espagnac laughed.

“You must not wait for me, Monsieur.” Then he closed his eyes, and shiver after shiver shook his limbs.

The baby stirred and wailed dismally; in a moment Carola had it caught up and pressed to her heart. The sick man whispered and moaned, then suddenly sat up in violent delirium.

“I will not see any more die!” he cried. “No more, do you hear? These people might have done something—what were they born for? How much farther? No food—no rest. How much farther? How far to Provence?”

The Marquis started; he was himself Provençal, and had not known M. d’Espagnac came from his country; the word stirred agony in the heart he controlled with such difficulty.

“Provence!” repeated the lieutenant. “They will want news of me, you know, Monsieur. I must tell them—the quest of glory——”

Again the words stabbed M. de Vauvenargues. “Georges,” he murmured, bending over him, “perhaps you have attained the quest.”

M. d’Espagnac laughed again.

“What a jest if I should die!” he muttered wildly. “My heart is quite cold, it is freezing my blood. Perhaps I am in my grave, and this is some one else speaking. How far to Eger?—how long to the Judgment Day?”

“I am with you, Georges d’Espagnac,” said the Marquis. “We are alive.”

He seemed to hear that.

“Where?” he demanded.

“On the heights,” said M. de Vauvenargues.

It was now quite dark save for the light of the wagon lamp that fell over the straw-coloured silk hangings of M. de Belleisle, the beautiful anguished face framed in the gorgeous hair, the woman in her barbaric splendour clasping the feeble child, and the slender figure of the Marquis in his blue and silver uniform; it glimmered, too, on the pieces of the Maréchal’s dessert service, and the sparkle of them caught Carola’s eye.

“Do you travel with such things?” she asked. “Our nobles sleep on the ground, and drink from horn——”

“M. de Belleisle must travel as a Maréchal de France,” answered the Marquis. “But these things seem foolish now.”

A great giddy sickness was on him, and a distaste of life that could be so wretched; the spirit within him was weary of the miserable flesh that suffered so pitifully.

“Give me my sword,” said M. d’Espagnac. “I am starting out on a quest. Do you hear? Jesu, have mercy upon me!”

Carola rose and walked up and down with the child.

“You are Catholic?” she asked.

“No,” answered the Marquis.

“An atheist?” she questioned.

“An ugly word, Mademoiselle”—he gave a little sigh; “but yes—perhaps.”

“I am sorry for you,” said Carola; at which he smiled. “But your friend?” she added. “We have no priest!” She seemed distressed at the thought.

“His soul does not need shriving,” replied M. de Vauvenargues.

But the words seemed to have penetrated the lieutenant’s clouded consciousness; he clamoured for a priest, for the last Sacrament, for the Eucharist.

The Marquis caught him in his arms and held him strongly.

“None of that matters,” he said with power. “You are free of all that—upon the heights.”

The voice calmed M. d’Espagnac; he rested his head on his captain’s breast, and shuddered into silence.

The Marquis looked up to see Carola with empty arms.

“Where is the child?” he asked.

“Dead,” she answered, in a tired voice. “And I have laid her under the wagon with my crucifix. I think she was a Hussite, but perhaps God will forgive her, for she was too young to know error.”

“Do you suppose God’s charity less than yours, Mademoiselle?” answered M. de Vauvenargues gently. “You sheltered a heretic child all day—will not God shelter her through all eternity?”

She looked at him strangely.

“I feel very weary,” she said; “the wolves sound nearer.”

The Marquis thought of the two dead mules and the woman’s corpse that Carola had not seen; he was stretching out his hand for his pistol when d’Espagnac lifted his head.

“Thank you, Monsieur,” he said, and his voice was sweet and sane; “I fear I incommode you and Mademoiselle.” He smiled and raised himself on one arm. “You must not stay for me. I am very well. Dying, I know—but very well.”

Carola came closer to him.

“I know the prayers of my church—shall I say them for you?”

He faintly shook his head.

“Thank you for your thought. But we are so far from churches.”

He was silent again, and the Marquis noticed with a shudder that the great snowflakes were beginning to fall once more.

“How can we endure it?” murmured Carola, and the tears clung to her stiff lids.

M. d’Espagnac moved again. “There are some letters in my pockets—if you should return to France——”

“Yes, yes,” said the Marquis.

The lieutenant gave a little cough, and seemed to suddenly fall asleep; they wrapped him up as well as they could and chafed his brow and hands.

The snow increased and drifted round the wagon and began to cover them softly.

Presently, as there was no further sound, the Marquis held a scrap of the feather trimming of his hat before d’Espagnac’s lips and slipped his hand inside the fine cold shirt.

They discovered that he was dead; had evidently drawn his last breath on the word “France,” and resigned his soul without a sigh or struggle.

It was horrible and incredible to the Marquis in those first minutes; why should he, never robust, and a girl of delicate make survive, and Georges d’Espagnac, so young, strong, and full of vitality, die as easily as the ailing child?

He bent low over the sunken face, and the loose strands of his hair touched the frozen snow.

“The Quest of Glory,” said Carola, in a strange voice.

The Marquis looked up at her, and his eyes were full of light.

“Yes, Mademoiselle,” he said simply, and drew the heavy cloak over the face of Georges d’Espagnac.

“A joyful quest!” she cried, in a hollow voice.

“Yes,” he said again, “a joyful quest.”

He rose, and the snow drifted on to his argent epaulettes, his torn lace cravat and his loose hanging hair. He leant against the wagon and put his hand to his side; now that they had the covered form of the dead between them, the hideous loneliness became a hundredfold intensified. Heavy tears forced themselves with difficulty from under Carola’s lids and ran down her wan cheeks, but she made no sound of sobbing.

“You are a brave woman,” said the Marquis very gently. “You must not die. Give me your hand.”

She shook her head.

“Leave me here. Why should you trouble? Go on your way.”

She bent her head and then felt his hand on her shoulder, drawing her, very tenderly, to her feet; she resisted her giddiness, which nearly flung her into his arms, and murmured in a firmer voice—

“Very well. We are companions in misfortune and will stay together.” She crossed herself and whispered some prayer over the dead. “It is horrible to leave them,” she added, thinking of the wolves.

“He is not there,” answered the Marquis, “but ahead of us on the way already.”

He unfastened the lantern from the wagon and, taking it in his left hand, offered the right to the Countess.

An extraordinary sweetness had sprung up between them; they felt a great tenderness for each other, a great respect.

As they made the first steps on the terrible, difficult route, with the snow-filled blackness before them and their poor light showing only death and horror, the Marquis said to his companion—

“If I could have spared you, Mademoiselle, any of this——”

She broke in upon his speech—

“We shall never forget each other all our lives, Monsieur.”

Then in silence they followed in the blood-stained track of the army towards Eger.