D. Broster: A Fire of Driftwood: A Collection of Short Stories (D. K. Broster) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

The Royalist smiled, a little sardonically. “I would do much to oblige you, Mademoiselle, but the difficulties – ”

“Oh, must you jest upon it!” cried Adèle, stung by his tone. “You shall go – I will help you. Do you know what they will do to you if you do not get away?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle,” said the Vicomte quietly, “I do. But I beg of you not to distress yourself.” For Adèle’s pretty lip was trembling; for a moment she had quite forgotten how unbecoming were tears – then, steadied by the thought, caught violently at her composure.

“Listen,” she said. “There is an old forgotten door out of this chapel, behind the hangings there. Between nine and ten to-night I will come to the door with a man and a cart. If you cannot drag yourself as far as the door I will come in and help you; they cannot see in from the church. Then Joseph will drive you under his load of hay to any point you wish where you will find friends – to St. Etienne, for instance, which is full of brig . . . of Royalists.”

“Useless!” said the captive. A momentary flush had however passed over his thin face. “How is a man to account for carting his hay that distance so late in the evening? It would only be to sacrifice another life.”

Adèle shook her head eagerly. “No one takes the slightest notice of what Joseph does. If he threw his hay into the pond, no one would be surprised. He is not – he is an idiot. But he will do anything for me, and nobody will stop him. If they did – if you were found even – no harm would come to him. They would not hold him responsible. I will swear it – by her if you wish.” She pointed to Our Lady of Succour.

Again the young Royalist’s gaze strayed up to the face of the Madonna and back to Adèle’s.

“And what of you?” he said.

“I shall not appear in it at all,” answered the girl. “Joseph will do what I tell him, and next day he will have forgotten all about it. No one will know anything of me. I shall just go home to bed, and next morning, when it is found out, I shall be more surprised than anybody.”

The young man gazed very hard at her, trying to find out if she were indeed speaking the truth. As a matter of fact, she was doing so; but whether the Vicomte would have ended by believing her was to remain in doubt, for, perhaps fortunately for Adèle’s scheme, the advent of M. Guillon stopped further protest or argument, and Adèle, whispering, “Be ready at nine!” fled as on a previous occasion.

The hours thereafter were leaden-footed and weighted with a thousand warring emotions, and yet in the end the sound of a turned handle made Charles de Beaumanoir’s heart beat like the suddenest of surprises. The hangings moved slightly. In the dim light from the body of the church, supplemented scarcely at all by the ineffectual little lantern set on the altar-steps, a muffled black figure slipped to his side.

Adèle bent over him so low that her drapery touched his face, and with her lips at his ear whispered, “You must try to do with me alone to help you out. Joseph is so clumsy; he would make too much noise. Do not make a sound!”

Silently, and fighting back the anguish every least movement cost him, he got to one knee – helped by her strong arms, to his feet. His head swam with the pain, and fell back for a moment uncertainly on her shoulder. “Courage,” she whispered, “it is such a little way”; and together, infinitely slowly, they traversed the few yards that separated them from freedom.

Outside loomed Joseph’s cart. The owner, a lanky figure whose face in the darkness was indistinguishable, took hold of the Vendéan on the other side.

“How shall we see to get him into the cart?” asked Adèle. “You have no light, Joseph? There’s a lantern in the chapel; I’ll get that.” She withdrew her support.

When at last the Vicomte was got into the wagon he was far too spent with physical pain to care whether the remainder of his flight accomplished itself or not. Yet as Adèle knelt above him in the cart, and piled the hay hastily over his body, her face a spectral whiteness in the gloom, he groped suddenly for her hand and carried it to his lips. But Adèle bent and kissed him on the mouth. Then, blushing furiously, she scrambled without a word from the cart and ran back to the chapel door.

As the cart moved slowly away she reflected. It was no less than the truth that she ran little risk of detection; had it been otherwise she would not have done what she had done. Furthermore, she knew that even were her complicity discovered she would not pay the penalty. Her father might bluster, but he was not a Roman parent. At the present moment, however, she was faced by an unforeseen difficulty – that of covering, for the next hour, the prisoner’s absence. She had unexpectedly learnt that a sergeant made the round of the church at ten o’clock, and the sight of the empty pallet would inevitably lead to a pursuit which, in the morning, would be too late. To prevent premature discovery was almost as much to her interest as to the Vendéan’s.

The church clock chiming a quarter to ten above her head sent her thoughts scurrying. Panting with a sudden sense of pursuit, she slid through the door and closed it noiselessly behind her. All was quiet in the church save for the voice of a wounded man down the nave, who was talking in sleep or delirium. Invisible in the gloom of the empty chapel, she stood by the deserted pallet, tore off her cap and thrust it into her pocket, and, swiftly unpinning them, shook down her fair locks, so that her head at least should bear some little resemblance to the fugitive’s. Then she lay down on the mattress and drew the rough covering well over her.

Sergeant Michel Bernard was by nature a punctual man, and, moreover, he was anxious to get back to the game of cards in which he had been interrupted. The last stroke of the hour had scarcely died away before Adèle heard, down the nave, the whine of the inner leather door. Footfalls, which gradually disentangled themselves into those of two men, came up the aisle, pausing for a second – it seemed a year – at the entrance to the chapel, and passing thence round the other chapel at the back of the high altar. Adèle breathed freely again. But in a moment she heard the footsteps stop, hesitate, and return, and in the stillness the sergeant’s voice remarking gruffly to his subordinate:

“What the devil has the ci-devant done with his light? It was there at half-past eight.”

Adèle’s heart died within her. She had forgotten the lantern; it was still outside, and the men were evidently coming to see what had become of it. If they looked at her closely they must see in a minute that she was not what she pretended to be. She cowered under the blanket, holding it over her face. The heavy boots stumbled past her.

“Sacré nom d’un nom! Where can it have got to?”

“What does it matter?” asked the younger soldier, yawning noisily. “Perhaps the aristo prefers the dark.”

“Even if he does he can’t have eaten the lantern! He could not even have reached it.”

“Dame! Then it’s one of the other ci-devant’s miracles,” suggested his companion, pointing laughingly to the Madonna. “Perhaps she has taken it away to please him.”

“It means that someone has been here,” said the sergeant, glancing suspiciously round the chapel.

“La petite Moustier, perhaps?”

“Impossible. I saw her leave at dusk, and there is no door open.”

The younger man yawned again. “Confound your lanterns, sergeant, and confound this Loire wine – how sleepy it makes a man! Ask the Chouan himself, and have done with it. Here, I’ll ask him.”

He came, and, stooping over Adèle, shook her lightly by the shoulder.

“Wake up, dog of a Vendéan, and tell us what you have done with your lantern!” Laughter and sleep strove in his voice. “Doesn’t he sleep soundly? Wake up, aristo! . . . I say, sergeant, supposing he’s slipped off the hooks. . . . Just hold your light here a moment, will you?”