Jason: A Romance Page 14

  XIV

  THE WALLS OF AEA

  Ste. Marie had acted upon an impulse of which he was scarcely consciousat all, and when he found himself standing alone in the road andwatching the Clamart tram disappear under the railway bridge he calledhimself hard names and wondered what he was to do next. He looked beforeand behind him, and there was no living soul in sight. He bent his eyesagain upon that unkempt patch of young trees and undergrowth, and oncemore the thought forced itself to his brain that it would make excellentcover for one who wished to observe a little--to reconnoitre.

  He knew that it was the part of wisdom to turn his back upon this place,to walk on to Clamart or return to Vanves and mount upon ahomeward-bound tram. He knew that it was the part of folly, of madnesseven, to expose himself to possible discovery by some one within thewalled enclosure. What though no one there were able to recognize him,still the sight of a man prowling about the walls, seeking to spy overthem, might excite an alarm that would lead to all sorts of undesirablecomplications. Dimly Ste. Marie realized all this, and he tried to turnhis back and walk away, but the patch of little trees and shrubbery drewhim with an irresistible fascination. "Just a little look along thatunknown wall," he said to himself, "just the briefest of all briefreconnaissances, the merest glance beyond the masking screen of woodgrowth, so that in case of sudden future need he might have the lie ofthe place clear in his mind;" for without any sound reason for it he wassomehow confident that this walled house and garden were to play animportant part in the rescue of Arthur Benham. It was once more a matterof feeling. The rather womanlike intuition which had warned him thatO'Hara was concerned in young Benham's disappearance, and that the twowere not far from Paris, was again at work in him, and he trusted it ashe had done before.

  He gave a little nod of determination, as one who, for good or ill,casts a die, and he crossed the road. There was a deep ditch, and he hadto climb down into it and up its farther side, for it was too broad tobe jumped. So he came into the shelter of the young poplars and elms andoaks. The underbrush caught at his clothes, and the dead leaves of pastseasons crackled underfoot; but after a little space he came to somewhatclearer ground, though the saplings still stood thick about him and hidhim securely.

  He made his way inward along the wall, keeping a short distance backfrom it, and he saw that after twenty or thirty yards it turned again ata very obtuse angle away from him and once more ran on in a longstraight line. Just beyond this angle he came upon a little wooden doorthickly studded with nails. It was made to open inward, and on theoutside there was no knob or handle of any kind, only a large key-holeof the simple, old-fashioned sort. Slipping up near to look, Ste. Marieobserved that the edges of the key-hole were rusty, but scratched alittle through the rust with recent marks; so the door, it seemed, wassometimes used. He observed another thing. The ground near by was lessencumbered with trees than at any other point, and the turf wasdepressed with many wheel marks--broad marks, such as are made only bythe wheels of a motor-car. He followed these tracks for a littledistance, and they wound in and out among the trees, and beyond the thinfringe of wood swept away in a curve toward Issy, doubtless to join theroad which he had already imagined to lie somewhere beyond theenclosure.

  Beyond the more open space about this little door the young trees stoodthick together again, and Ste. Marie pressed cautiously on. He stoppednow and then to listen, and once he thought that he heard from withinthe sound of a woman's laugh, but he could not be sure. The slightchange of direction had confused him a little, and he was uncertain asto where the house lay. The wall was twelve or fifteen feet high, andfrom the level of the ground he could, of course, see nothing over itbut tree tops. He went on for what may have been a hundred yards, but itseemed to him very much more than that, and he came to a tall gnarledcedar-tree which stood almost against the high wall. It was half dead,but its twisted limbs were thick and strong, and by force of the tree'scramped position they had grown in strange and grotesque forms. One ofthem stretched across the very top of the stone wall, and with thewind's action it had scraped away the coping of tiles and bottle-glassand had made a little depression there to rest in.

  Ste. Marie looked up along this natural ladder, and temptation smote himsorely. It was so easy and so safe! There was enough foliage left uponthe half-dead tree to screen him well, but whether or no it is probablethat he would have yielded to the proffered lure. There seems to havebeen more than chance in Ste. Marie's movements upon this day; thereseems to have been something like the hand of Fate in them--as doubtlessthere is in most things, if one but knew.

  He left his hat and stick behind him, under a shrub, and he began tomake his way up the half-bare branches of the gnarled cedar. They borehim well, without crack or rustle, and the way was very easy. No laddermade by man could have offered a much simpler ascent. So, mountingslowly and with care, his head came level with the top of the wall. Heclimbed to the next branch, a foot higher, and rested there. Thedrooping foliage from the upper part of the cedar-tree, which was stillalive, hung down over him and cloaked him from view, but through itsaromatic screen he could see as freely as through the window curtain inthe rue d'Assas.

  The house lay before him, a little to the left and perhaps a hundredyards away. It was a disappointing house to find in that greatenclosure, for though it was certainly neither small nor trivial, it wasas certainly far from possessing anything like grandeur. It had been inits day a respectable, unpretentious square structure of three stories,entirely without architectural beauty, but also entirely without theornate hideousness of the modern villas along the route de Clamart. Now,however, the stucco was gone in great patches from its stone walls,giving them an unpleasantly diseased look, and long neglect of alldecent cares had lent the place the air almost of desertion. Ancientlythe grounds before the house had been laid out in the formal fashionwith a terrace and geometrical lawns and a pool and a fountain and arather fine, long vista between clipped larches, but the same neglectwhich had made shabby the stuccoed house had allowed grass and weeds togrow over the gravel paths, underbrush to spring up and to encroach uponthe geometrical turf-plots, the long double row of clipped larches toflourish at will or to die or to fall prostrate and lie where they hadfallen.

  So all the broad enclosure was a scene of heedless neglect, a riot ofunrestrained and wanton growth, where should have been decorous andorderly beauty. It was a sight to bring tears to a gardener's eyes, butit had a certain untamed charm of its own, for all that. The very riotof it, the wanton prodigality of untouched natural growth, produced aneffect that was by no means all disagreeable.

  An odd and whimsical thought came into Ste. Marie's mind that thus musthave looked the garden and park round the castle of the sleeping beautywhen the prince came to wake her.

  But sleeping beauties and unkempt grounds went from him in a flash whenhe became aware of a sound which was like the sound of voices.Instinctively he drew farther back into the shelter of his aromaticscreen. His eyes swept the space below him from right to left, and couldsee no one. So he sat very still, save for the thunderous beat of aheart which seemed to him like drum-beats when soldiers are marching,and he listened--"all ears," as the phrase goes.

  The sound was in truth a sound of voices. He was presently assured ofthat, but for some time he could not make out from which direction itcame. And so he was the more startled when quite suddenly there appearedfrom behind a row of tall shrubs two young people moving slowly togetherup the untrimmed turf in the direction of the house.

  The two young people were Mlle. Coira O'Hara and Arthur Benham, and uponthe brow of this latter youth there was no sign of dungeon pallor, uponhis free-moving limbs no ball and chain. There was no apparent reasonwhy he should not hasten back to the eager arms in the rue del'Universite if he chose to--unless, indeed, his undissembling attitudetoward Mlle. Coira O'Hara might serve as a reason. The young manfollowed at her heel with much the manner and somewhat the appearance ofa small dog humbly conscious of unworthiness, but
hopeful neverthelessof an occasional kind word or pat on the head.

  The world wheeled multi-colored and kaleidoscopic before Ste. Marie'seyes, and in his ears there was a rushing of great winds, but he set histeeth and clung with all the strength he had to the tree which shelteredhim. His first feeling, after that initial giddiness, was anger, sheeranger, a bewildered and astonished fury. He had thought to find thispoor youth in captivity, pining through prison bars for the home and theloved ones and the familiar life from which he had been ruthlessly torn.Yet here he was strolling in a suburban garden with a lady--free, freeas air, or so he seemed. Ste. Marie thought of the grim and sorrowfulold man in Paris who was sinking untimely into his grave because hisgrandson did not return to him; he thought of that timid soul--moreshadow than woman--the boy's mother; he thought of Helen Benham's tragiceyes, and he could have beaten young Arthur half to death in that momentin the righteous rage that stormed within him.

  But he turned his eyes from this wretched youth to the girl who walkedbeside, a little in advance, and the rage died in him swiftly.

  After all, was she not one to make any boy--or any man--forget duty,home, friends, everything?

  Rather oddly his mind flashed back to the morning and to the words ofthe little photographer, Bernstein. Perhaps the Jew had put it as wellas any man could:

  "She was a goddess, that lady, a queen of goddesses ... the young Junobefore marriage...."

  Ste. Marie nodded his head. Yes, she was just that. The little Jew hadspoken well. It could not be more fairly put--though without doubt itcould have been expressed at much greater length and with a great dealmore eloquence. The photographer's other words came also to his mind,the more detailed description, and again he nodded his head, for this,too, was true.

  "She was all color--brown skin with a dull-red stain under the cheeks,and a great mass of hair that was not black but very nearlyblack--except in the sun, and then there were red lights in it."

  It occurred to Ste. Marie, whimsically, that the two young people mighthave stepped out of the door of Bernstein's studio straight into thisgarden, judging from their bearing each to the other.

  "Ah, a thing to touch the heart! Such devotion as that! Alas, that thelady should seem so cold to it! ... Still, a goddess! What would you? Aqueen among goddesses! ... One would not have them laugh and make littlejokes.... Make eyes at love-sick boys. No, indeed!"

  Certainly Mlle. Coira O'Hara was not making eyes at the love-sick boywho followed at her heel this afternoon. Perhaps it would be going toofar to say that she was cold to him, but it was very plain to see thatshe was bored and weary, and that she wished she might be almostanywhere else than where she was. She turned her beautiful face a littletoward the wall where Ste. Marie lay perdu, and he could see that hereyes had the same dark fire, the same tragic look of appeal that he hadseen in them before--once in the Champs-Elysees and again in his dreams.

  Abruptly he became aware that while he gazed, like a man in a trance,the two young people walked on their way and were on the point ofpassing beyond reach of eye or ear. He made a sudden involuntarymovement as if he would call them back, and for the first time hisfaithful hiding-place, strained beyond silent endurance, betrayed himwith a loud rustle of shaken branches. Ste. Marie shrank back, his heartin his throat. It was too late to retreat now down the tree. The damagewas already done. He saw the two young people halt and turn to look, andafter a moment he saw the boy come slowly forward, staring. He heard himsay:

  "What's up in that tree? There's something in the tree." And he heardthe girl answer: "It's only birds fighting. Don't bother!" But youngArthur Benham came on, staring up curiously until he was almost underthe high wall.

  Then Ste. Marie's strange madness, or the hand of Fate, or whateverpower it was which governed him on that day, thrust him on to theultimate pitch of recklessness. He bent forward from his insecure perchover the wall until his head and shoulders were in plain sight, and hecalled down to the lad below in a loud whisper:

  "Benham! Benham!"

  The boy gave a sharp cry of alarm and began to back away. And after amoment Ste. Marie heard the cry echoed from Coira O'Hara. He heard hersay:

  "Be careful! Be careful, Arthur! Come away! Oh, come away quickly!"

  Ste. Marie raised his own voice to a sort of cry. He said:

  "Wait! I tell you to wait, Benham! I must have a word with you. I comefrom your family--from Helen!"

  To his amazement the lad turned about and began to run toward where thegirl stood waiting; and so, without a moment's hesitation, Ste. Mariethrew himself across the top of the wall, hung for an instant by hishands, and dropped upon the soft turf. Scarcely waiting to recover hisbalance, he stumbled forward, shouting:

  "Wait! I tell you, wait! Are you mad? Wait, I say! Listen to me!"

  Vaguely, in the midst of his great excitement, he had heard a whistlesound as he dropped inside the wall. He did not know then whence theshrill call had come, but afterward he knew that Coira O' Hara had blownit. And now, as he ran forward toward the two who stood at a distancestaring at him, he heard other steps and he slackened his pace to look.

  A man came running down among the black-boled trees, a strange, squat,gnomelike man whose gait was as uncouth as his dwarfish figure. He heldsomething in his two hands as he ran, and when he came near he threwthis thing with a swift movement up before him, but he did not pause inhis odd, scrambling run.

  Ste. Marie felt a violent blow upon his left leg between hip and knee.He thought that somebody had crept up behind him and struck him; but ashe whirled about he saw that there was no one there, and then he heard anoise and knew that the gnomelike running man had shot him. He facedabout once more toward the two young people. He was very angry and hewished to say so, and very much he wished to explain why he hadtrespassed there, and why they had no right to shoot him as if he weresome wretched thief. But he found that in some quite absurd fashion hewas as if fixed to the ground. It was as if he had suddenly become ofthe most ponderous and incredible weight, like lead--or that othermetal, not gold, which is the heaviest of all. Only the metal,seemingly, was not only heavy but fiery hot, and his strength wasincapable of holding it up any longer. His eyes fixed themselves in abewildered stare upon the figure of Mlle. Coira O'Hara; he had time toobserve that she had put up her two hands over her face, then he felldown forward, his head struck something very hard, and he knew no more.

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