Читать книгу A Fire of Driftwood: A Collection of Short Stories (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - D. K. Broster - Страница 5

I

Adèle Moustier was going to meet an admirer, and from the way she walked through the barley you would have thought each blade a possible conquest. As wars and their rumours in no way deterred Adèle from campaigns of her own, so did her flighty little head remain undisturbed by the very near presence of battle. Only yesterday morning had all Cezay-la-Fontaine been throbbing with excitement; only yesterday evening had it welcomed Rossignol’s two regiments after their victorious skirmish with the Royalists in the scarcely league-distant wood of Champerneau. It was still indeed disturbed and jubilant, and Adèle, as the Maire’s daughter, might reasonably have been more conscious than she was of Republican fervour. But she was a little indifferent to martial glory, and disliked noise and all ill sights. So she walked through the field with her nose in the air and the points of her second-best cap standing out at a provoking angle. Cezay-la-Fontaine was a good half-mile behind her, and the diagonal path across the unfenced barley was approaching the high-road, when suddenly she uttered a scream. At her feet, in a trampled patch of the ripe grain, lay the dead body of a Vendéan.

There was no mistaking his identity, for on the embroidered vest which showed beneath his short Breton jacket was sewn the symbol of the Sacred Heart, and a thin white scarf, fringed and torn, was wound about his waist. He lay on his back with his arms spread wide, and he was quite young, and had long bright hair. There shot through Adèle a pang of horror and a simultaneous desire to get away, for as she had kept within doors when the wounded were brought in, and had had no dealings with them since their arrival, this form at her feet was a spectacle of a disturbing novelty. The next moment horror had given place to a sort of indignation.

“In the barley, too!” she thought. “Just where one walks!”

It was precisely at this moment that the Vicomte de Beaumanoir opened his eyes.

Adèle stood still, galvanised by the shock of finding two living points of light in the ghastly face. It is probable that the Vicomte saw but indistinctly whom or what he was addressing when he said, without stirring, in a terrible cracked voice that shook Adèle’s little soul to its foundations:

“Water . . . for God’s sake get me some water. . . .”

“Oh, mon Dieu!” said Adèle to herself. The final unpleasantness had descended upon her, and she must minister to a dying man. “There is none,” she faltered, and even as she spoke remembered the stream between the field and the high-road. But she had nothing to bring water in. She must go on quickly, or turn back. Yet the wounded man’s eyes held her, half-frightened. It was the most disagreeable position she had ever been in, and at the back of her mind was a consciousness that she might feel even more uncomfortable in the future if she left the petition unanswered. She hesitated on the path, looking vaguely round for escape. There was no one else in sight.

The barley rustled as the wounded Royalist dragged himself up to one elbow.

“If you would only dip your handkerchief into a puddle,” he said, with desperate pleading. “I want very little . . . only one cannot die while one is so thirsty. . . .”

A shiver went through the girl, and she fled precipitately towards the road.

When she got to the stream, a dozen yards away, a complete revulsion of purpose had taken place in Adèle’s soul. She had, on starting for that goal, the firmest intention of crossing it by the footbridge and pursuing her way down the road. Instead, she was suddenly stooping over the water with a piece of a broken bowl in her fingers. Possibly the very sight of that opportune bit of crockery, dropped there by the hand of Fate or a careless village urchin, wrought the change. Even with the dripping bowl in her fingers she hesitated; but there was no one on the high-road: she must return and give the water to the man herself. Her hand shook a little as she stooped over him and put the bowl without a word into one of his. The eagerness with which he drank was horrible to witness, and Adèle averted her eyes, only to meet a worse sight. The Vendéan’s left leg, to the top of his high boot, was a scarcely dried welter of blood. The same shuddering resentment surged through Adèle. Why should she be forced to encounter these disagreeable things? Anyhow, she could go now.

“Mademoiselle, you are an angel,” said the young man, looking up at her. . . . “I cannot thank you.”

Now that a little life and expression had come back into his mask of a face, Adèle saw that it was handsome, and dimly realised that it was also high-bred. But the light went out again immediately, and, sinking back, the Vendéan lay still once more, with closed eyes.

“Now I can go,” thought Adèle joyfully; and she went.

On the footbridge she turned and looked back. The young Royalist was lying very much as she had first seen him, save that he had flung an arm over his face. The sun was hot . . . of course he could not move into the shade. She wondered how long he would have to stay there – and indeed how he had got there at all. He had spoken of dying; perhaps he was dying now, or dead. If he had not mentioned that unpleasant possibility, or if she had not promised to meet young Lépine at the mill, or even if it had not been so hot in the barley, she would certainly have stopped a little longer – though, of course, she could have done nothing. Certainly, she told herself, she would have stopped – and walked steadily over the little bridge and down the road.

As it happened, Adèle need not have sketched these shadowy justifications for her conduct, for Charles de Beaumanoir was quite unaware of her departure.

Now Jacques Lépine was not at the trysting-place, and in consequence it was an irate Adèle who came along the high-road some twenty minutes later. The misdemeanour of the swain, conjectures as to its possible cause, and schemes for its punishment occupied her mind to the exclusion of everything else. Could he have heard that the blacksmith’s nephew said that he had kissed her? Could. . . . But here Adèle, who was profoundly indifferent to Lépine fils in himself, and merely outraged at his behaviour, caught sight of the little bridge and remembered the Vendéan. She hesitated, because if he was dead she was certainly not going to pass him. But no; people did not die like that. She went over the bridge. He was still there in the barley, motionless, and she approached him slowly. He was breathing, but his eyes were closed.

“He is very ill,” thought Adèle. “I wonder what it is like to die.” She looked down in silence at his drawn features, at his disordered hair, as gleaming as her own, at the clenched hand, delicate and sunburnt, lying on his breast. A certain conclusion came to her as she looked, and made her heart leap, Republican though she was.

“He is a ci-devant, an aristo,” she said to herself. “He is not a peasant, for all his dress.” It seemed to make a difference, and, kneeling down, she touched the hand lightly with her own, and said, “Shall I get you some more water?”

The young man opened his eyes.

“Keep to the right, men; keep to the right!” he said indistinctly. “There are Blues in the clearing. . . . Ah, it is you, Eustacie!” He looked hard at Adèle, and his face changed. “Pardon me – I was dreaming. And you have been here all the time, Mademoiselle? You are too kind . . . too kind.”

“I wish – – ” began Adèle, and halted, for she did not know what she wished.

The Vicomte continued to look at her. “You would be still more kind,” he said, “if you would tell the – tell your friends that there is a Blanc in the corn who would be very glad to see them.”

Adèle stared, puzzled. “Tell them?” she repeated. “But – – ”

A rather bitter little smile crept round the corners of the set mouth. “Just so,” said the Royalist. “If they can shoot straight I should be very pleased to meet them. In my case” – he glanced at his mangled leg – “one desires to postpone it no longer than can be helped. Will you do it, Mademoiselle, and put the crown on your charity?”

Adèle sprang indignant to her feet. “I! Not for worlds! For what do you take me?” She broke off as a sound caught her ear.

Down the road were coming at a trot a troop of Republican cavalry returning from Champerneau on the other side of the wood, where they had been quartered for the night after pursuing fugitives. And the barley-field was open to a horseman’s eye if not to a pedestrian’s.

Adèle turned round again. She was rather pale. “They are coming,” she exclaimed. “What shall I do?”

“A la bonne heure!” said Charles de Beaumanoir. “You can do nothing, Mademoiselle, but go away as quickly as you can. My best thanks for the water, and your company.”

But Adèle still stood there, chained by an indecision which was revealed in her attitude. The quick eye of the officer in command was caught by her pose, and flashed from her to the prone figure in the barley. The riders were halted, and he was off his horse and over the foot-bridge in a moment, drawing a pistol from his sash as he came.

“Let Mademoiselle get away first,” observed the Royalist coolly, without moving. Adèle seemed fascinated with terror.

The officer, a young man with a tight-lipped mouth, glanced at him, and replaced the pistol. “Is this your prisoner, citoyenne,” he said to the girl, “or your lover?”

“He – I – – ” began Adèle, between anger and confusion, but the Republican did not wait for an answer to his pleasantry.

“When did you get that?” he demanded curtly, pointing to the Vendéan’s injury.

“Last night,” said the Vicomte.

“You are an officer?”

“Yes.”

“You were with your main body at Champerneau?”

“In advance of it.”

“And where did they mean to retire to, in the event of a defeat?”

“I have not the faintest idea,” responded M. de Beaumanoir languidly. His interlocutor, seemingly satisfied, abandoned the topic and embarked upon another.

“And your leader was, you said – – ?”

The Vicomte glanced up sharply at him. “I did not say.”

“Well, you can say now, then. It was either Talmont or d’Autichamp.”

“You must ask somebody else,” said the Vendéan, with a return to his indifferent manner. “I do not intend to tell you.”

“That is a pity,” responded the officer, with an ugly little smile, “for I intend that you shall.” He moved a little nearer to the prostrate man and repeated his question, still smiling. “Come now, who was it?”

“I shall not tell you.”

The smile dropped from the Republican’s face.

“I can find a way to make you, canaille d’aristocrate,” he said through his teeth, and, walking round him, deliberately aimed a kick with his heavily-booted foot at his captive’s shattered leg.

A scream broke from the young man. Adèle put her hands over her ears.

“Come, tell me,” said the officer. “It’s of no use being obstinate – you will have to tell me in the end.”

“Never!” gasped the Royalist. “Oh, for God’s sake shoot me at once! I swear I will not tell you!”

“We shall see,” quoth the other, and he repeated his expedient. The form at his feet quivered and then lay still. Charles de Beaumanoir had fainted; and just as his tormentor, bending quickly over him, arrived at that conclusion, an interruption of another sort occurred.

“Coward! coward! Stop – stop instantly!” cried a girl’s voice, and Adèle Moustier, carried out of herself for the first time in her existence, confronted the Republican across the insensible body of his victim with clenched hands and sparkling eyes.

“Eh, citoyenne!” returned the officer lightly. “Quelle mouche te pique? What enthusiasm for a cursed Chouan! Do you know that it becomes you devilishly well, though?”

And Adèle, to whom the most wonderful thing of her life had just happened, turned away with a giggle and a toss of the head.

The officer, after surveying her for a moment, summoned two of his men, and she heard him telling them to take the Chouan and convey him somehow – he did not care how – to the church where their own wounded lay. “The citoyenne will perhaps show you a short cut,” he suggested.

“Indeed I shall not,” snapped Adèle; and, unwilling to witness any more distressing scenes, she started off homewards at a good pace.