Tales of Trail and Town Part 13

With a little cry, that was more like a sigh than an outcry, the girl's arms fell to her side; she took a step backwards, reeled, and fainted away.

d.i.c.k caught her as she fell. What had he said!--but, more than all, what should he do now? He could not leave her alone and helpless,--yet how could he justify another disconcerting intrusion? He touched her hands; they were cold and lifeless; her eyes were half closed; her face as pale and drooping as her lily. Well, he must brave the worst now, and carry her to the house, even at the risk of meeting the others and terrifying them as he had her. He caught her up,--he scarcely felt her weight against his breast and shoulder,--and ran hurriedly down the slope to the terrace, which was still deserted. If he had time to place her on some bench beside the window within their reach, he might still fly undiscovered! But as he panted up the steps of the terrace with his burden, he saw that the French window was still open, but the light seemed to have been extinguished. It would be safer for her if he could place her INSIDE the house,--if he but dared to enter. He was desperate, and he dared!

He found himself alone, in a long salon of rich but faded white and gold hangings, lit at the further end by two tall candles on either side of the high marble mantel, whose rays, however, scarcely reached the window where he had entered. He laid his burden on a high-backed sofa. In so doing, the rose fell from her belt. He picked it up, put it in his breast, and turned to go. But he was arrested by a voice from the terrace:--

"Renee!"

It was the voice of the elderly lady, who, with the Cure at her side, had just appeared from the rear of the house, and from the further end of the terrace was looking towards the garden in search of the young girl. His escape in that way was cut off. To add to his dismay, the young girl, perhaps roused by her mother's voice, was beginning to show signs of recovering consciousness. d.i.c.k looked quickly around him.

There was an open door, opposite the window, leading to a hall which, no doubt, offered some exit on the other side of the house. It was his only remaining chance! He darted through it, closed it behind him, and found himself at the end of a long hall or picture-gallery, strangely illuminated through high windows, reaching nearly to the roof, by the moon, which on that side of the building threw nearly level bars of light and shadows across the floor and the quaint portraits on the wall.

But to his delight he could see at the other end a narrow, lance-shaped open postern door showing the moonlit pavement without--evidently the door through which the mother and the Cure had just pa.s.sed out. He ran rapidly towards it. As he did so he heard the hurried ringing of bells and voices in the room he had quitted--the young girl had evidently been discovered--and this would give him time. He had nearly reached the door, when he stopped suddenly--his blood chilled with awe! It was his turn to be terrified--he was standing, apparently, before HIMSELF!

His first recovering thought was that it was a mirror--so accurately was every line and detail of his face and figure reflected. But a second scrutiny showed some discrepancies of costume, and he saw it was a panelled portrait on the wall. It was of a man of his own age, height, beard, complexion, and features, with long curls like his own, falling over a lace Van d.y.k.e collar, which, however, again simulated the appearance of his own hunting-s.h.i.+rt. The broad-brimmed hat in the picture, whose drooping plume was lost in shadow, was scarcely different from d.i.c.k's sombrero. But the likeness of the face to d.i.c.k was marvelous--convincing! As he gazed at it, the wicked black eyes seemed to flash and kindle at his own,--its lip curled with d.i.c.k's own sardonic humor!

He was recalled to himself by a step in the gallery. It was the Cure who had entered hastily, evidently in search of one of the servants.

Partly because it was a man and not a woman, partly from a feeling of bravado--and partly from a strange sense, excited by the picture, that he had some claim to be there, he turned and faced the pale priest with a slight dash of impatient devilry that would have done credit to the portrait. But he was sorry for it the next moment!

The priest, looking up suddenly, discovered what seemed to him to be the portrait standing before its own frame and glaring at him. Throwing up his hands with an averted head and an "EXORCIS--!" he wheeled and scuffled away. d.i.c.k seized the opportunity, darted through the narrow door on to the rear terrace, and ran, under cover of the shadow of the house, to the steps into the garden. Luckily for him, this new and unexpected diversion occupied the inmates too much with what was going on in the house to give them time to search outside. d.i.c.k reached the lilac hedge, tore up the hill, and in a few moments threw himself, panting, on his blanket. In the single look he had cast behind, he had seen that the half-dark salon was now brilliantly lighted--where no doubt the whole terrified household was now a.s.sembled. He had no fear of being followed; since his confrontation with his own likeness in the mysterious portrait, he understood everything. The apparently supernatural character of his visitation was made plain; his ruffled vanity was soothed--his vindication was complete. He laughed to himself and rolled about, until in his suppressed merriment the rose fell from his bosom, and--he stopped! Its freshness and fragrance recalled the innocent young girl he had frightened. He remembered her gentle, pleading voice, and his cheek flushed. Well, he had done the best he could in bringing her back to the house--at the risk of being taken for a burglar--and she was safe now! If that stupid French parson didn't know the difference between a living man and a dead and painted one, it wasn't his fault. But he fell asleep with the rose in his fingers.

He was awake at the first streak of dawn. He again bathed his horse's shoulder, saddled, but did not mount him, as the beast, although better, was still stiff, and d.i.c.k wished to spare him for the journey to still distant Havre, although he had determined to lie over that night at the first wayside inn. Luckily for him, the disturbance at the chateau had not extended to the forest, for d.i.c.k had to lead his horse slowly and could not have escaped; but no suspicion of external intrusion seemed to have been awakened, and the woodland was, evidently, seldom invaded.

By dint of laying his course by the sun and the exercise of a little woodcraft, in the course of two hours he heard the creaking of a hay-cart, and knew that he was near a traveled road. But to his discomfiture he presently came to a high wall, which had evidently guarded this portion of the woods from the public. Time, however, had made frequent breaches in the stones; these had been roughly filled in with a rude abatis of logs and treetops pointing towards the road. But as these were mainly designed to prevent intrusion into the park rather than egress from it, d.i.c.k had no difficulty in rolling them aside and emerging at last with his limping steed upon the white high-road.

The creaking cart had pa.s.sed; it was yet early for traffic, and d.i.c.k presently came upon a wine-shop, a bakery, a blacksmith's shop, laundry, and a somewhat pretentious cafe and hotel in a broader s.p.a.ce which marked the junction of another road.

Directly before it, however, to his consternation, were the ma.s.sive, but timeworn, iron gates of a park, which d.i.c.k did not doubt was the one in which he had spent the previous night. But it was impossible to go further in his present plight, and he boldly approached the restaurant.

As he was preparing to make his usual explanatory signs, to his great delight he was addressed in a quaint, broken English, mixed with forgotten American slang, by the white-trousered, black-alpaca coated proprietor. More than that--he was a Social Democrat and an enthusiastic lover of America--had he not been to "Bos-town" and New York, and penetrated as far west as "Booflo," and had much pleasure in that beautiful and free country? Yes! it was a "go-a-'ed" country--you "bet-your-lif'." One had reason to say so: there was your electricity--your street cars--your "steambots"--ah! such steambots--and your "r-rail-r-roads." Ah! observe! compare your r-rail-r-roads and the buffet of the Pullman with the line from Paris, for example--and where is one? Nowhere! Actually, positively, without doubt, nowhere!

Later, at an appetizing breakfast--at which, to d.i.c.k's great satisfaction, the good man had permitted and congratulated himself to sit at table with a free-born American--he was even more loquacious.

For what then, he would ask, was this incompetence, this imbecility, of France? He would tell. It was the vile corruption of Paris, the grasping of capital and companies, the fatal influence of the still clinging n.o.blesse, and the insidious Jesuitical power of the priests. As for example, Monsieur "the Booflo-bil" had doubtless noticed the great gates of the park before the cafe? It was the preserve,--the hunting-park of one of the old grand seigneurs, still kept up by his descendants, the Comtes de Fontonelles--hundreds of acres that had never been tilled, and kept as wild waste wilderness,--kept for a day's pleasure in a year!

And, look you! the peasants starving around its walls in their small garden patches and pinched farms! And the present Comte de Fontonelles cascading gold on his mistresses in Paris; and the Comtesse, his mother, and her daughter living there to feed and fatten and pension a brood of plotting, black-cowled priests. Ah, bah! where was your Republican France, then? But a time would come. The "Booflo-bil" had, without doubt, noticed, as he came along the road, the breaches in the wall of the park?

d.i.c.k, with a slight dry reserve, "reckoned that he had."

"They were made by the scythes and pitchforks of the peasants in the Revolution of '93, when the count was emigre, as one says with reason 'skedadelle,' to England. Let them look the next time that they burn not the chateau,--'bet your lif'!'"

"The chateau," said d.i.c.k, with affected carelessness. "Wot's the blamed thing like?"

It was an old affair,--with armor and a picture-gallery,--and bricabrac.

He had never seen it. Not even as a boy,--it was kept very secluded then. As a man--you understand--he could not ask the favor. The Comtes de Fontonelles and himself were not friends. The family did not like a cafe near their sacred gates,--where had stood only the huts of their retainers. The American would observe that he had not called it "Cafe de Chateau," nor "Cafe de Fontonelles,"--the gold of California would not induce him. Why did he remain there? Naturally, to goad them! It was a principle, one understood. To GOAD them and hold them in check! One kept a cafe,--why not? One had one's principles,--one's conviction,--that was another thing! That was the kind of "'air-pin"--was it not?--that HE, Gustav Ribaud, was like!

Yet for all his truculent socialism, he was quick, obliging, and charmingly attentive to d.i.c.k and his needs. As to d.i.c.k's horse, he should have the best veterinary surgeon--there was an incomparable one in the person of the blacksmith--see to him, and if it were an affair of days, and d.i.c.k must go, he himself would be glad to purchase the beast, his saddle, and accoutrements. It was an affair of business,--an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the cafe! He would ride the horse himself before the gates of the park. It would please his customers. Ha! he had learned a trick or two in free America.

d.i.c.k's first act had been to shave off his characteristic beard and mustache, and even to submit his long curls to the village barber's shears, while a straw hat, which he bought to take the place of his slouched sombrero, completed his transformation. His host saw in the change only the natural preparation of a voyager, but d.i.c.k had really made the sacrifice, not from fear of detection, for he had recovered his old swaggering audacity, but from a quick distaste he had taken to his resemblance to the portrait. He was too genuine a Westerner, and too vain a man, to feel flattered at his resemblance to an aristocratic bully, as he believed the ancestral De Fontonelles to be. Even his momentary sensation as he faced the Cure in the picture-gallery was more from a vague sense that liberties had been taken with his, d.i.c.k's, personality, than that he had borrowed anything from the portrait.

But he was not so clear about the young girl. Her tender, appealing voice, although he knew it had been addressed only to a vision, still thrilled his fancy. The pluck that had made her withstand her fear so long--until he had uttered that dreadful word--still excited his admiration. His curiosity to know what mistake he had made--for he knew it must have been some frightful blunder--was all the more keen, as he had no chance to rectify it. What a brute she must have thought him--or DID she really think him a brute even then?--for her look was one more of despair and pity! Yet she would remember him only by that last word, and never know that he had risked insult and ejection from her friends to carry her to her place of safety. He could not bear to go across the seas carrying the pale, unsatisfied face of that gentle girl ever before his eyes! A sense of delicacy--new to d.i.c.k, but always the accompaniment of deep feeling--kept him from even hinting his story to his host, though he knew--perhaps BECAUSE he knew--that it would gratify his enmity to the family. A sudden thought struck d.i.c.k. He knew her house, and her name. He would write her a note. Somebody would be sure to translate it for her.

He borrowed pen, ink, and paper, and in the clean solitude of his fresh chintz bedroom, indited the following letter:--

DEAR MISS FONTONELLES,--Please excuse me for having skeert you. I hadn't any call to do it, I never reckoned to do it--it was all jest my derned luck; I only reckoned to tell you I was lost--in them blamed woods--don't you remember?--"lost"--PERDOO!--and then you up and fainted! I wouldn't have come into your garden, only, you see, I'd just skeered by accident two of your helps, reg'lar softies, and I wanted to explain. I reckon they allowed I was that man that that picture in the hall was painted after. I reckon they took ME for him--see? But he ain't MY style, nohow, and I never saw the picture at all until after I'd toted you, when you fainted, up to your house, or I'd have made my kalkilations and acted according. I'd have laid low in the woods, and got away without skeerin' you. You see what I mean? It was mighty mean of me, I suppose, to have tetched you at all, without saying, "Excuse me, miss," and toted you out of the garden and up the steps into your own parlor without asking your leave. But the whole thing tumbled so suddent. And it didn't seem the square thing for me to lite out and leave you lying there on the gra.s.s. That's why! I'm sorry I skeert that old preacher, but he came upon me in the picture hall so suddent, that it was a mighty close call, I tell you, to get off without a s.h.i.+ndy.

Please forgive me, Miss Fontonelles. When you get this, I shall be going back home to America, but you might write to me at Denver City, saying you're all right. I liked your style; I liked your grit in standing up to me in the garden until you had your say, when you thought I was the Lord knows what--though I never understood a word you got off--not knowing French. But it's all the same now. Say! I've got your rose!

Yours very respectfully,

RICHARD FOUNTAINS.

d.i.c.k folded the epistle and put it in his pocket. He would post it himself on the morning before he left. When he came downstairs he found his indefatigable host awaiting him, with the report of the veterinary blacksmith. There was nothing seriously wrong with the mustang, but it would be unfit to travel for several days. The landlord repeated his former offer. d.i.c.k, whose money was pretty well exhausted, was fain to accept, reflecting that SHE had never seen the mustang and would not recognize it. But he drew the line at the sombrero, to which his host had taken a great fancy. He had worn it before HER!

Later in the evening d.i.c.k was sitting on the low veranda of the cafe, overlooking the white road. A round white table was beside him, his feet were on the railing, but his eyes were resting beyond on the high, mouldy iron gates of the mysterious park. What he was thinking of did not matter, but he was a little impatient at the sudden appearance of his host--whom he had evaded during the afternoon--at his side. The man's manner was full of bursting loquacity and mysterious levity.

Truly, it was a good hour when d.i.c.k had arrived at Fontonelles,--"just in time." He could see now what a world of imbeciles was France. What stupid ignorance ruled, what low cunning and low tact could achieve,--in effect, what jugglers and mountebanks, hypocritical priests and licentious and lying n.o.blesse went to make up existing society.

Ah, there had been a fine excitement, a regular coup d'theatre at Fontonelles,--the chateau yonder; here at the village, where the news was brought by frightened grooms and silly women! He had been in the thick of it all the afternoon! He had examined it,--interrogated them like a juge d'instruction,--winnowed it, sifted it. And what was it all? An attempt by these wretched priests and n.o.blesse to revive in the nineteenth century--the age of electricity and Pullman cars--a miserable mediaeval legend of an apparition, a miracle! Yes; one is asked to believe that at the chateau yonder was seen last night three times the apparition of Armand de Fontonelles!

d.i.c.k started. "Armand de Fontonelles!" He remembered that she had repeated that name.

"Who's he?" he demanded abruptly.

"The first Comte de Fontonelles! When monsieur knows that the first comte has been dead three hundred years, he will see the imbecility of the affair!"

"Wot did he come back for?" growled d.i.c.k.

"Ah! it was a legend. Consider its artfulness! The Comte Armand had been a hard liver, a dissipated scoundrel, a reckless beast, but a mighty hunter of the stag. It was said that on one of these occasions he had been warned by the apparition of St. Hubert; but he had laughed,--for, observe, HE always jeered at the priests too; hence this story!--and had declared that the flaming cross seen between the horns of the sacred stag was only the torch of a poacher, and he would shoot it! Good! the body of the comte, dead, but without a wound, was found in the wood the next day, with his discharged arquebus in his hand. The Archbishop of Rouen refused his body the rites of the Church until a number of ma.s.ses were said every year and--paid for! One understands! one sees their 'little game;' the count now appears,--he is in purgatory! More ma.s.ses,--more money! There you are. Bah! One understands, too, that the affair takes place, not in a cafe like this,--not in a public place,--but at a chateau of the n.o.blesse, and is seen by--the proprietor checked the characters on his fingers--TWO retainers; one young demoiselle of the n.o.blesse, daughter of the chatelaine herself; and, my faith, it goes without saying, by a fat priest, the Cure! In effect, two interested ones! And the priest,--his lie is magnificent!

Superb! For he saw the comte in the picture-gallery,--in effect, stepping into his frame!"

"Oh, come off the roof," said d.i.c.k impatiently; "they must have seen SOMETHING, you know. The young lady wouldn't lie!"

Monsieur Ribaud leaned over, with a mysterious, cynical smile, and lowering his voice said:--

"You have reason to say so. You have hit it, my friend. There WAS a something! And if we regard the young lady, you shall hear. The story of Mademoiselle de Fontonelles is that she has walked by herself alone in the garden,--you observe, ALONE--in the moonlight, near the edge of the wood. You comprehend? The mother and the Cure are in the house,--for the time effaced! Here at the edge of the wood--though why she continues, a young demoiselle, to the edge of the wood does not make itself clear--she beholds her ancestor, as on a pedestal, young, pale, but very handsome and exalte,--pardon!"

"Nothing," said d.i.c.k hurriedly; "go on!"

"She beseeches him why! He says he is lost! She faints away, on the instant, there--regard me!--ON THE EDGE OF THE WOOD, she says. But her mother and Monsieur le Cure find her pale, agitated, distressed, ON THE SOFA IN THE SALON. One is asked to believe that she is transported through the air--like an angel--by the spirit of Armand de Fontonelles.

Incredible!"

"Well, wot do YOU think?" said d.i.c.k sharply.

The cafe proprietor looked around him carefully, and then lowered his voice significantly:--

"A lover!"

"A what?" said d.i.c.k, with a gasp.

"A lover!" repeated Ribaud. "You comprehend! Mademoiselle has no dot,--the property is nothing,--the brother has everything. A Mademoiselle de Fontonelles cannot marry out of her cla.s.s, and the n.o.blesse are all poor. Mademoiselle is young,--pretty, they say, of her kind. It is an intolerable life at the old chateau; mademoiselle consoles herself!"

Monsieur Ribaud never knew how near he was to the white road below the railing at that particular moment. Luckily, d.i.c.k controlled himself, and wisely, as Monsieur Ribaud's next sentence showed him.

"A romance,--an innocent, foolish liaison, if you like,--but, all the same, if known of a Mademoiselle de Fontonelles, a compromising, a fatal entanglement. There you are. Look! for this, then, all this story of c.o.c.k and bulls and spirits! Mademoiselle has been discovered with her lover by some one. This pretty story shall stop their mouths!"