Читать книгу Indiana - George Sand - Страница 10

MADAME DELMARE DRESSES DE RAMIÈRES WOUNDS.

A mattress was placed on several chairs, and Indiana, assisted by her women, busied herself in dressing the wounded hand, while Sir Ralph, who had some surgical knowledge, drew a large quantity of blood from him.

But Noun was not listening; she walked from the window to her mistress's chair, her ears strained to catch the slightest sound; she seemed torn between the longing to run after Monsieur Delmare and the desire to remain with the invalid.

Her anxiety seemed so strange, so uncalled-for to Monsieur Brown, that he laid aside his customary mildness of manner, and said, grasping her arm roughly:

"Have you lost your wits altogether? don't you see that you frighten your mistress and that your absurd alarms have a disastrous effect upon her?"

Noun did not hear him; she had turned her eyes upon her mistress, who had just started on her chair as if the concussion of the air had imparted an electric shock to her senses. Almost at the same instant the report of a gun shook the windows of the salon, and Noun fell upon her knees.

"What miserable woman's terrors!" cried Sir Ralph, worn out by their emotion; "in a moment a dead rabbit will be brought to you in triumph, and you will laugh at yourselves."

"No, Ralph," said Madame Delmare, walking with a firm step toward the door, "I tell you that human blood has been shed."

Noun uttered a piercing shriek and fell upon her face.

The next moment they heard Lelièvre's voice in the park:

"He's there! he's there! Well aimed, my colonel! the brigand is down!"

Sir Ralph began to be excited. He followed Madame Delmare. A few moments later a man covered with blood and giving no sign of life was brought under the peristyle.

"Not so much noise! less shrieking!" said the colonel with rough gayety to the terrified servants who crowded around the wounded man; "this is only a joke; my gun was loaded with nothing but salt. Indeed I don't think I touched him; he fell from fright."

"But what about this blood, monsieur?" said Madame Delmare in a profoundly reproachful tone, "was it fear that caused it to flow?"

"Why are you here, madame?" cried Monsieur Delmare, "what are you doing here?"

"I have come to repair the harm that you have done, as it is my duty to do," replied Madame Delmare coldly.

She walked up to the wounded man with a courage of which no one of the persons present had as yet felt capable, and held a light to his face. Thereupon, instead of the plebeian features and garments which they expected to see, they discovered a young man with noble features and fashionably dressed, albeit in hunting costume. He had a trifling wound on one hand, but his torn clothes and his swoon indicated a serious fall.

"I should say as much!" said Lelièvre; "he fell from a height of twenty feet. He was just putting his leg over the wall when the colonel fired, and a few grains of small shot or salt in the right hand prevented his getting a hold. The fact is, I saw him fall, and when he got to the bottom he wasn't thinking much about running away, poor devil!"

"Would any one believe," said one of the female servants, "that a man so nicely dressed would amuse himself by stealing?"

"And his pockets are full of money!" said another, who had unbuttoned the supposed thief's waistcoat.

"It is very strange," said the colonel, gazing, not without emotion, at the man stretched out before him. "If the man is dead it's not my fault; examine his hand, madame, and see if you can find a particle of lead in it."

"I prefer to believe you, monsieur," replied Madame Delmare, who, with a self-possession and moral courage of which no one would have deemed her capable, was closely scrutinizing his pulse and the arteries of his neck. "Certainly," she added, "he is not dead, and he requires speedy attention. The man hasn't the appearance of a thief and perhaps he deserves our care; even if he does not deserve it, our duty calls upon us women to care for him none the less."

Thereupon Madame Delmare ordered the wounded man to be carried to the billiard room, which was nearest. A mattress was placed on several chairs, and Indiana, assisted by her women, busied herself in dressing the wounded hand, while Sir Ralph, who had some surgical knowledge, drew a large quantity of blood from him.

Meanwhile, the colonel, much embarrassed, found himself in the position of a man who has shown more ill-temper than he intended to show. He felt the necessity of justifying himself in the eyes of the others, or rather of making them justify him in his own eyes. So he had remained under the peristyle, surrounded by his servants, and indulging with them in the excited, prolix and perfectly useless disquisitions which are always forthcoming after the event. Lelièvre had already explained twenty times, with the most minute details, the shot, the fall and its results, while the colonel, who had recovered his good-nature among his own people, according to his custom, after giving way to his anger, impeached the purposes of a man who entered private property in the night-time over the wall. Every one agreed with the master, when the gardener, quietly leading him aside, assured him that the thief was the living image of a young land-owner who had recently settled in the neighborhood, and whom he had seen talking with Mademoiselle Noun three days before at the rustic fête at Rubelles.

This information gave a different turn to Monsieur Delmare's ideas; on his ample forehead, bald and glistening, appeared a huge swollen vein, which was always the precursor of a tempest.

"Morbleu!" he said, clenching his fists, "Madame Delmare takes a deal of interest in this puppy, who sneaks into my park over the wall!"

And he entered the billiard room, pale and trembling with wrath.