Jason: A Romance Page 21

  XXI

  A MIST DIMS THE SHINING STAR

  Ste. Marie remained in his room all the rest of that day, and he did notsee Mlle. O'Hara again, for Michel brought him his lunch and the oldJustine his dinner. For the greater part of the time he sat in bedreading, but rose now and then and moved about the room. His woundseemed to have suffered no great inconvenience from the morning'souting. If he stood or walked too long it burned somewhat, and he hadthe sensation of a tight band round the leg; but this passed after hehad lain down for a little while, or even sat in a chair with the legstraight out before him; so he knew that he was not to be crippled verymuch longer, and his thoughts began to turn more and more keenly uponthe matter of escape.

  He realized, of course, that now, since he was once more able to walk,he would be guarded with unremitting care every moment of the day, andquite possibly every moment of the night as well, though the simplebolting of his door on the outside would seem to answer the purpose savewhen he was out-of-doors. Once he went to the two east windows and hungout of them, testing as well as he could with his hands the strength andtenacity of the ivy which covered that side of the house. He thought itseemed strong enough to give hand and foot hold without being tornloose, but he was afraid it would make an atrocious amount of noise ifhe should try to climb down it, and, besides, he would need two veryactive legs for that.

  At another time a fresh idea struck him, and he put it at once intoaction. There might be just a chance, when out one day with Michel, ofgetting near enough to the wall which ran along the Clamart road tothrow something over it when the old man was not looking. In one of hispockets he had a card-case with a little pencil fitted into a loop atthe edge, and in the case it was his custom to carry postage-stamps. Heinvestigated and found pencil and stamps. Of course he had nothing butcards to write upon, and they were useless. He looked about the room andwent through an empty chest of drawers in vain, but at last, on someshelves in the closet where his clothes had hung, he found several largesheets of coarse white paper. The shelves were covered with it looselyfor the sake of cleanliness. He abstracted one of these sheets, and cutit into squares of the ordinary note-paper size, and he sat down andwrote a brief letter to Richard Hartley, stating where he was, thatArthur Benham was there, the O'Haras, and, he thought, Captain Stewart.He did not write the names out, but put instead the initial letters ofeach name, knowing that Hartley would understand. He gave carefuldirections as to how the place was to be reached, and he asked Hartleyto come as soon as possible by night to that wall where he himself hadmade his entrance, to climb up by the cedar-tree, and to drop his answerinto the thick leaves of the lilac bushes immediately beneath--an answernaming a day and hour, preferably by night, when he could return withthree or four to help him, surprise the household at La Lierre, andcarry off young Benham.

  Ste. Marie wrote this letter four times, and each of the four copies heenclosed in an awkwardly fashioned envelope, made with infinite pains sothat its flaps folded in together, for he had no gum. He addressed andstamped the four envelopes, and put them all in his pocket to await thefirst opportunity.

  Afterward he lay down for a while, and as, one after another, the bookshe had in the room failed to interest him, his thoughts began to turnback to Mlle. Coira O'Hara and his hour with her upon the old stonebench in the garden. He realized all at once that he had been puttingoff this reflection as one puts off a reckoning that one a little dreadsto face, and rather vaguely he realized why.

  The spell that the girl wielded--quite without being conscious of it; hegranted her that grace--was too potent. It was dangerous, and he knewit. Even imaginative and very unpractical people can be in some thingssurprisingly matter-of-fact, and Ste. Marie was matter-of-fact aboutthis. The girl had made a mysterious and unprecedented appeal to him athis very first sight of her, long before, and ever since that time shehad continued, intermittently at least, to haunt his dreams. Now he wasin the very house with her. It was quite possible that he might see herand speak with her every day, and he knew there was peril in that.

  He closed his eyes and she came to him, dark and beautiful, magneticallyvital, spreading enchantment about her like a fragrance. She sat besidehim on the moss-stained bench in the garden, holding out her handcup-wise, and a sunbeam lay in the hand like a little, golden,fluttering bird. His thoughts ran back to that first morning when he hadnarrowly escaped death by poison. He remembered the girl's agony of fearand horror. He felt her hands once more upon his shoulders, and he wasaware that his breath was coming faster and that his heart beat quickly.He got to his feet and went across to one of the windows, and he stoodthere for a long time frowning out into the summer day. If ever in hislife, he said to himself with some deliberation, he was to need a cooland clear head, faculties unclouded and unimpaired by emotion, it wasnow in these next few days. Much more than his own well-being dependedupon him now. The fates of a whole family, and quite possibly the livesof some of them, were in his hands. He must not fail, and he must not,in any least way, falter.

  For enemies he had a band of desperate adventurers, and the very boyhimself, the centre and reason for the whole plot, had been, in someincomprehensible way, so played upon that he, too, was against him.

  The man standing by the window forced himself quite deliberately to lookthe plain facts in the face. He compelled himself to envisage thisbeautiful girl with her tragic eyes for just what his reason knew her tobe--an adventuress, a decoy, a lure to a callow, impressionable, foolishlad, the tool of that arch-villain Stewart and of the lesser villain herfather. It was like standing by and watching something lovely andpitiful vilely befouled. It turned his heart sick within him, but heheld himself to the task. He brought to aid him the vision of his lady,in whose cause he was pursuing this adventure. For strength anddetermination he reached eye and hand to her where she sat enthroned,calm-browed, serene.

  For the first time since the beginning of all things his lady failedhim, and Ste. Marie turned cold with fear.

  Where was that splendid frenzy that had been wont to sweep him all in aninstant into upper air--set his feet upon the stars? Where was it? Theman gave a sudden, voiceless cry of horror. The wings that had suchcountless times upborne him fluttered weakly near the earth and couldnot mount. His lady was there; through infinite space he was aware ofher, but she was cold and aloof, and her eyes gazed very serenely beyondat something he could not see.

  He knew well enough that the fault lay somewhere within himself. She wasas she had ever been, but he lacked the strength to rise to her. Why?Why? He searched himself with a desperate earnestness, but he could findno answer to his questioning. In himself, as in her, there had come nochange. She was still to him all that she ever had been--the star of hisdestiny, the pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day, to guide him onhis path. Where, then, the fine, pure fervor that should, at thought ofher, whirl him on high and make a god of him?

  He stood wrapped in bewilderment and despair, for he could find noanswer.

  In plain words, in commonplace black-and-white, the man's anguish has anover-fanciful, a well-nigh absurd look, but to Ste. Marie the thing wasvery real and terrible, as real and as terrible as, to a half-starvedmonk in his lonely cell, the sudden failure of the customary exaltationof spirit after a night's long prayer.

  He went, after a time, back to the bed, and lay down there with oneupflung arm across his eyes to shut out the light. He was filled with aprofound dejection and a sense of hopelessness. Through all the longweek of his imprisonment he had been cheerful, at times even gay.However evil his case might have looked, his elastic spirits had mountedabove all difficulties and cares, confident in the face of apparentdefeat. Now at last he lay still, bruised, as it were, and battered andweary. The flame of courage burned very low in him. From sheerexhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep, but even therethe enemy followed him and would not let him rest. He seemed to himselfto be in a place of shadows and fears. He strained his eyes to make outabove him the bright, clear st
ar of guidance, for so long as that shonehe was safe; but something had come between--cloud or mist--and his starshone dimly in fitful glimpses.

  * * * * *

  On the next morning he went out once more with the old Michel into thegarden. He went with a stronger heart, for the morning had renewed hiscourage, as bright, fresh mornings do. From the anguish of the daybefore he held himself carefully aloof. He kept his mind away from allthought of it, and gave his attention to the things about him. It wouldreturn, doubtless, in the slow, idle hours; he would have to face itagain and yet again; he would have to contend with it; but for thepresent he put it out of his thoughts, for there were things to do.

  It was no more than human of him--and certainly it was verycharacteristic of Ste. Marie--that he should be half glad and halfdisappointed at not finding Coira O'Hara in her place at the rond point.It left him free to do what he wished to do--make a carefulreconnaissance of the whole garden enclosure--but it left him empty ofsomething he had, without conscious thought, looked forward to.

  His wounded leg was stronger and more flexible than on the day before;it burned and prickled less, and could be bent a little at the knee withsmall distress; so he led the old Michel at a good pace down the lengthof the enclosure, past the rose-gardens, a tangle of unkempt sweetness,and so to the opposite wall. He found the gates there, veryformidable-looking, made of vertical iron bars connected by cross-piecesand an ornamental scroll. They were fastened together by a heavy chainand a padlock. The lock was covered with rust, as were the gatesthemselves, and Ste. Marie observed that the lane outside upon whichthey gave was overgrown with turf and moss, and even with seedlingshrubs; so he felt sure that this entrance was never used. The lane, henoted, swept away to the right toward Issy and not toward the Clamartroad. He heard, as he stood there, the whir of a tram from far away atthe left, a tram bound to or from Clamart, and the sound brought to hismind what he wished to do. He turned about and began to make his wayround the rose-gardens, which were partly enclosed by a low brick wallsome two or three feet high. Beyond them the trees and shrubbery werenot set out in orderly rows as they were near the house, but grew atwill without hindrance or care. It was like a bit of the Meudon wood.

  He found the going more difficult here for his bad leg, but he pressedon, and in a little while saw before him that wall which skirted theClamart road. He felt in his pocket for the four sealed and stampedletters, but just then the old Michel spoke behind him:

  "Pardon, Monsieur! Ce n'est pas permis."

  "What is not permitted?" demanded Ste. Marie, wheeling about.

  "To approach that wall, Monsieur," said the old man, with an incrediblygnomelike and apologetic grin.

  Ste. Marie gave an exclamation of disgust. "Is it believed that I couldleap over it?" he asked. "A matter of five metres? Merci, non! I am notso agile. You flatter me."

  The old Michel spread out his two gnarled hands.

  "Pas de ma faute. I have orders, Monsieur. It will be my painful duty toshoot if Monsieur approaches that wall." He turned his strange head onone side and regarded Ste. Marie with his sharp and beadlike eye. Thesmile of apology still distorted his face, and he looked exactly likethe Punchinello in a street show.

  Ste. Marie slowly withdrew from his pocket two louis d'or and held thembefore him in the palm of his hand. He looked down upon them, and Michellooked, too, with a gaze so intense that his solitary eye seemed toproject a very little from his withered face. He was like a hypnotizedold bird.

  "Mon vieux," said Ste. Marie. "I am a man of honor."

  "Surement! Surement, Monsieur!" said the old Michel, politely, but hishypnotized gaze did not stir so much as a hair's-breadth. "Ca va sans ledire."

  "A man of honor," repeated Ste. Marie. "When I give my word I keep it.Voila! I keep it. And," said he, "I have here forty francs. Two louis. Alarge sum. It is yours, my brave Michel, for the mere trouble of turningyour back just thirty seconds."

  "Monsieur," whispered the old man, "it is impossible. He would killme--by torture."

  "He will never know," said Ste. Marie, "for I do not mean to try toescape. I give you my word of honor that I shall not try to escape.Besides, I could not climb over that wall, as you see. Two louis,Michel! Forty francs!"

  The old man's hands twisted and trembled round the barrel of thecarbine, and he swallowed once with some difficulty. He seemed tohesitate, but in the end he shook his head. It was as if he shook it ingrief over the grave of his first-born. "It is impossible," he saidagain. "Impossible." He tore the beadlike eye away from those twobeautiful, glowing golden things, and Ste. Marie saw that there wasnothing to be done with him just now. He slipped the money back into hispocket with a little sigh and turned away toward the rose-gardens.

  "Ah, well," said he. "Another time, perhaps. Another time. And there aremore louis still, mon vieux. Perhaps three or four. Who knows?"

  Michel emitted a groan of extreme anguish, and they moved on.

  But a few moments later Ste. Marie gave a sudden low exclamation, andthen a soundless laugh, for he caught sight of a very familiar figureseated in apparent dejection upon a fallen tree-trunk and staring acrossthe tangled splendor of the roses.

  * * * * *