# The Times' Red Cross Story Book/The Face in the Hop Vines

I sat in the gloom motionless, watching the pale square of the window. Presently a head appeared close to the glass, and my fingers released the pistol. Then light fingers tapped on the pane, and with great willingness I threw open the sash. I held my tongue and kept my face aloof from the outdoor glimmer. "Jacques," she murmured in a voice which my ears at once approved, "is it really you?"
"There's a mistake here," said my heart to me. But my conscience made no protest as I answered: "Surely, dear one, it's Jack. Who else could it be?"
The Face in the Hop Vines
By Charles G. D. Roberts
King's (Liverpool) Regiment
From the low window, framed in hop-vines, came light enough to light to bed so sleepy a traveller as I, so I troubled not at all to find the candle. Sitting idly on the edge of the couch, I pondered on the effort it would require to pull off my boots. A soldier, and hardened to all shifts, I might, indeed, have slept as I was; but the bed was the best in the inn, and I cared not to vex my hostess's tidy soul by any such roughness of the camp. Even as I thought of it, however, my tired brain was flowing away into dreams.
But on the sudden I sat up straight, very wide awake. My hand went to the butt of my pistol. I had caught a stealthy rustling in the hop vines about the window. Could these Acadians be planning any mischief against me? It was not probable, for they were an open-dealing and courageous folk, and had shown themselves civil during the few hours since my coming to Cheticamp village. Nevertheless, I knew that in a certain sense I might count myself to be in an enemy's country, and vigilance my best comrade.
I sat in the gloom motionless, watching the pale square of the window. Presently a head appeared close to the glass, and my fingers released the pistol. The head was a woman's—a young girl's, it seemed—in the wimpled white cap wherein these girls of Acadia are wont to enshadow their bright faces. Then light fingers tapped on the pane, and with great willingness I threw open the sash. But on the instant, guessing at a mystery of some sort, I held my tongue and kept my face aloof from the outdoor glimmer. For my part, however, I could make out—less, perhaps, by these material eyes than by the insight of the heart—that the face which looked up peeringly into mine was young and alluring.
"Jacques," she murmured in a voice which my ears at once approved, "is it really you?"
"There's a mistake here—an interesting mistake," said my heart to me. But I let no such utterance rise to my lips. No, indeed. But my name is Jack—and no one could be supposed to think of spelling at such a moment. My conscience made no protest as I answered:
"Surely, dear one, it's Jack. Who else could it be?"
I spoke in a discreet whisper, for all voices in a whisper sound alike; and I blessed my stars that I had perfected my French since my arrival in Halifax. I put out my hand, but failed to find a small one to occupy it.
"Of course, I knew it was you, Jacques," the bewitching voice responded, "or you don't suppose I should have come knocking at your window this way, do you?"
"No, I should think not, chérie," I assented heartily, solicitous to cherish the maid's mistake and prolong the interview to the utmost patience of Fate.
"But it was kind of you to come so soon."
This seemed safe and non-committal, but I trembled after I said it, lest some unknown revelation should be lurking in the words.
"I had to, Jacques, because I was afraid you might come to see me to-night——"
"I was coming," I interrupted, boldly mendacious, but I was on the road all night, and thought I had better lie down for a soldier's forty winks before I called."
She laughed under her breath provocatively.
"How your French has improved in these two years," she remarked with approbation. "I used to think you would never learn."
This was the first time 1 had seen Cheticamp village, but I felt safe in my reply.
"I was stupid, of course, mon ange; but after I was gone I remembered your sweet instructions."
This was dangerous ground. I hastened to shift it.
"But tell me," I went on, "what can you mean by saying I am not to come and see you? Surely you are not going to be so cruel, when I've been away so long."
"No, Jacques," she said, with a decisive shake of her pretty head, "you cannot come. Father is very bitter against you, and there would be a scene."
I began to feel that I had rights which were being trampled upon.
But what do you suppose I came to Cheticamp for?" I pleaded.
"Not merely to see me—that I know, Jacques," came the decided answer. "You could never get leave of absence just for that. You cold-blooded English could never make a woman's wishes so important."
"Couldn't we, indeed?" I protested. In my eagerness I leaned forward into the glimmer, seeking closer proximity to the fair enshadowed face that seemed to waver off alluringly just beyond my reach. Then, in a panic lest I had revealed myself and displayed to her the error which I was finding so agreeable, I drew myself back hastily into the gloom. To cover my alarm I reproached her plaintively.
"Why do you keep so far away, sweet one? Surely you are glad to see me again!"
She laughed softly, deliciously, under her hood.
"I haven't seen you yet, really, you know, Jacques. Perhaps you have changed, and I might not like you so well. Men do change, especially Englishmen and soldiers, they say. But tell me, why have you come to Cheticamp; what reason beside to see me?"
This was a poser. I feared the game was up. But experience has taught me that when one has no good lie ready to hand it is safest to throw oneself on the mercy of Truth and trust to her good nature. She has so many sides that one of them can generally be found to serve any occasion. I told the truth, yet with an air that would permit her to doubt, should the game require it.
"The business which gained me the privilege of coming where I might be once more blessed by the light of your sweet eyes, provoking one, was the need conceived in the heart of our good Governor of putting a stop to certain transactions with the French at Louisbourg, which, as you doubtless know very well, have laid all this Cheticamp coast under grave suspicion. Your people, I dare wager, are too wise to be mixed up in such perilous enterprises."
No sooner had I spoken than I realised that, for once. Truth had tricked me. I had better have trusted to invention.
"Thank you, Jacques. That is just what I wanted to know. You are so kind. Good night."
There was a mocking note in the sweet voice, a little ring of triumph and hostility. For one instant the face was raised, and I saw it plainly, as if by the radiance of the scornful eyes. Then, before I could in any way gather my wits, it vanished.
I thrust my head forward, heedless of concealment, and gained one glimpse of a shadow disappearing through the shrubbery, I sprang out to follow. But no, I forget myself. The window was somewhat small for one of my inches. I climbed out laboriously. The witch was nowhere to be seen. Then, still more laboriously, I climbed back again, cursing Fortune and my own stupidity which had bungled so sweet a game. I sat down on the edge of my bed to consider.
The errand which had brought me from Halifax to Cheticamp, with six soldiers to support me, was one of some moment, and here was I already in danger of distraction, thinking of a girl's voice, of half-seen, mocking eyes, rather than of my undertaking. I got up, shook myself angrily, then sat down again to lay my plans for the morrow.
The old Seigneur of Cheticamp, Monsieur Raoul St. Michel le Fevre, had heartily accepted the English rule, and dwelt in high favour with the powers at Halifax. But he had died a year back, leaving his estates to his nephew, young St. Michel. It had come to the ears of the Government that this youth, a headstrong partisan of France, was taking advantage of his position as seigneur to prosecute very successfully the forbidden traffic with Louisbourg. Great and merited was the official indignation. It was resolved that the estates should be confiscated at once, and young Monsieur St. Michel le Fevre captured, if possible. Thereupon the estates were conferred upon myself, to whom the Governor was somewhat deeply indebted. It was passing comfortable to him to pay a debt out of a pocket other than his own. I was dispatched to Cheticamp to gather in Monsieur le Fevre for the Governor and the le Fevre estates for myself. They were fair estates, I had heard, and I vowed that I would presently teach them to serve well the cause of England's king.
My first thought in the morning, when the level sun streaming through the hop vines brought me on the sudden wide awake—as a soldier should wake, slipping cleanly and completely out of his sleep-heaviness—my first thought, I say, was of a shadowed face vanishing into the night-glimmer, and something enchantingly mysterious to be sought for in this remote Acadian village. Then, remembering my business and hoping that my indiscretion had not muddled it, I resolutely put the folly from me and sprang up.
It is curious, when one looks back, to note what petty details stand forth in a clear light, as it were, upon the background of great and essential experience. I am no gourmand, but apt to eat whatever is set before me, with little concern save that it be cleanly and sufficient. Yet never do I hear or think of Cheticamp village without a remembered savour of barley cakes and brown honey, crossed delicately with the smell of bean blossoms blown in through a sunny window. At the time, I am sure, I took little heed of these things. My care was chiefly to see that two of my men set forth promptly to watch the two wharves on each side of the creek, which served the fleet of the fishermen. Then I dispatched two others to spy on the roadway entering and leaving the village, and a fifth to sentinel a hill at the back overlooking all the open country. With the remaining fellow, my orderly, at my heels, I set out for the dwelling of young Monsieur St. Michel le Fevre de Cheticamp, rehearsing his full name with care as I went, in order that there should be no lack of courteous ceremony to disguise the rudeness of my errand.
I needed none to point me out the house of the le Fevres. On the crest of a dark-wooded knoll at the south-east end of the one long village street, it spread its cluster of grey gables, low and of a comfortable air. Fir groves sheltered it to north and east. On the west gathered the cool, green ranks of its apple orchard. Down the slope in front unrolled a careless garden—thyme plots and hollyhock rows, gooseberry bushes and marigold beds, and a wide waste of blossoming roses—all as unlike the formal pleasances of France and England as garden-close could be, yet bewitching, like a fair and wilful woman.
"It shall not be changed by so much as one gooseberry bush," said I to myself, highly pleased with the prospect. Then, rounding a lilac thicket, I arrived at the open gate. And then, face to face, I met a girl.
The meeting was so sudden, and so closely did I confront her, that I felt my coming a most uncivil intrusion. Moreover, she was most disconcerting to look upon. Stammering apologies and snatching my hat from my head, I flushed and dropped my eyes before her—which was not in accordance with my custom. I dropped my eyes, as I say, but even then I saw her as clearly within my brain as if my eyes were boldly resting upon her face.
The lady of the manor, evidently. I had heard there was a sister to the recalcitrant young seigneur, one Mademoiselle Irene, over whose beauty and. caprices had more than one duel been fought among the gallants of Quebec.
The picture which, during those few heart-beats while I stood stuttering, burned itself into my memory was one that not absence, years, or habitude has any power to dull. The face was a face for which some men would die a hundred deaths and dream all beauty in dying, while other men, blind fools, and many women, of the envious sort, would protest it to be not even passable; a face small, thin, clear, and very dark; the chin obstinate; the mouth full, somewhat large, sorrowful, mocking, maddening, unforgettably scarlet; the nose whimsical, dainty; the eyes of a strange green radiance, very large and trustfully wide open, frank as a child's, yet unfathomable; a face to trust, to adore, yet not to understand. The hair black, thick, half curling, with a dull burnish, falling over each side of the brow almost to cover the little delicate ears. The figure, clad in some soft, whitish stuff descending only to the ankles, was under middle height, slight to thinness, straight, lithe, fine, indescribably alive—in some strange way reminding me of a flame. In narrow little shoes of red leather the light feet stood poised like birds'. From one small nut-brown hand swung a broad-brimmed hat of black beaver, with an ample black feather at the side. Beside this entrancing picture I was vaguely conscious of a wide, yellow pathway sloping upward through roses, roses, roses drenched in sun.
Presently I heard the sound of my stammering cease, and a soft voice, troubling me with a familiar note, said courteously: "You are very welcome to Cheticamp, monsieur. My brother is away from home, unhappily, but in his absence you must allow me the honour of taking his place as your host in my poor way."
I looked up and met her eyes fairly, my confusion lost in surprise, and on the instant my heart signalled to me: "It is none other than the maid of the window! Take care!"
Yes, I saw it plain. Yet I should never have known it but for a perception somehow more subtle than that of ear and eye—for she had disguised her voice the night before, and her dress had been that of a peasant maid, and the bright riddle of her face had been in shadow. I perceived, too, that she felt herself safe from discovery, and that it was for me to save her blushes by leaving her security unassailed. In all this sudden turmoil of my wits, however, I fear that I was near forgetting my manners.
"But, mademoiselle," I demanded bluntly, "how do you know who I am?"
"It is the part of the conquered to know their conquerors, monsieur," she answered, in a manner that eluded the bitterness of the words. "But, indeed, the place of an English officer, on duty that is doubtless official, is here at the Seigneury and not at the village inn. We cannot let you put a slight upon our hospitality."
I was in sore embarrassment; and the parchment deed conveying to me the Seigneury of Cheticamp began to burn my pocket. I felt a vehement desire to accept the sweetly proffered hospitality of this enchanting witch. The temptation dragged at my heartstrings. There was nothing to do but take it by the throat rudely if I would save any shreds of honour. "Alas! mademoiselle," I said, avoiding her eyes, "I am here on a rough errand, and your courtesy pierces me. I am here to arrest your brother and carry him a prisoner to Halifax."
"Monsieur, monsieur, what do you mean?" she cried, with a faintness in her voice. But looking up suddenly, I saw that her surprise was a pretty piece of feigning, though her agitation was real enough.
"I mean that your brother, though succeeding to these estates under protection of English law, and owing allegiance to the English Crown, is giving aid to England's enemies. He is supplying Louisbourg with grain and flax and cattle from these lands of Acadia, which are now English. The Governor has proofs beyond cavil. He has sent me to arrest your brother, mademoiselle, not to be happy in the hospitality of your brother's sister."
And now, to my amaze, the merriest and most persuasive smile spread a dazzle over my lady witch's face.
"Those proofs of your good Governor's, monsieur," she cried, with pretty scorn, "I will show you what folly they are. You have all been deceived. You must come with me now, and give me fullest opportunity to clear my brother's honour. And in any case it is my right, as well as my pleasure, to entertain the Governor's representative when he visits the place of my father's people."
But I was stubborn. That deed in my pocket weighed tons. Yet my inclination must have shown in my eyes, plainly enough for one less keen than Mademoiselle Irene le Fevre to decipher it. A little air of confidence flitted over her face. Nevertheless, I shook my head.
"Most gracious lady," I protested, "you honour me too much. It will delight me to learn that your brother has been maligned"—and in this, faith, I spoke true, forgetting the contingent peril to my pocket—"but were he never so innocent it would be my duty to take him to Halifax, for the Governor himself to weigh the evidence. The irony of life has sent me as your foe, not as your guest."
"Then, monsieur, come as a foe who but observes the courtesies. Come with your hands free to arrest my brother at any moment on his own hearthstone (he is far away from it now, praise Mary!), or to arrest your hostess either, if your duty should demand that unkindness. Come as one who graciously accepts what he could, if he would, take as his right. Let us play that you come here as our friend, monsieur—and give me the hope of winning an advocate for my brother against the evil day that may bring him before the cold English judges at Halifax."
Her strong, little eloquent hands were clasped in appeal—and who was I to deny her? But I looked into her eyes; and I saw in their childlike deeps, underneath the mocking and the feigning, a clear spirit, which I could not bear to delude. I understood now very plainly her mad game of the night before. She was unmasking a danger for her brother. I justified her in my heart; for my own part in the folly I felt a creeping shame. How lightly she must hold me. This thought, and a sense that I was about to hurt her, brought the hot flush to my face; and I looked away as I spoke.
"But, mademoiselle—forgive me that I bear such tidings—the estates of Monsieur Raoul le Fevre, Seigneur of Cheticamp, are confiscated to the Crown."
Lifting my eyes at the last words, I saw that the girl had grown very white and was staring at me in a sort of terror. There was plainly no feigning here. This blow was unexpected, unprepared for, something beyond her bright young wit to deal with. I seemed to see in her heart a sudden, hopeless desolation, as if all her world had fallen to ruin about her and left her life naked to the storm of time. Not a word had she ready in such a crisis.
"Mademoiselle," I cried, more passionately, perhaps, than was fitting, "do not misunderstand. The confiscation does not apply at once, of course, and you are still absolute mistress here. If your brother be proved innocent, the decree of confiscation may be revoked. So it will now be held in suspension. You will, I am sure, permit me to go through the form of visiting your house, to convince me, as the Governor's emissary, that Monsieur le Fevre is not there. Then I will return to the village and see to it that my men shall cause you no annoyance or embarrassment. I dare not ask you to pity me for the duty that has been put upon me."
As I spoke I had been watching her face, without seeming to think of anything but my own words. First the colour returned to cheek and lips; then a wild anger was lighted in the great green eyes—anger with a fear and appeal behind it. Then a resolved look—and I knew that she would force herself to play out the game, setting her brother's interest before all else. And then, last of all, a most fleeting, elusive look of triumph at the back of her eyes and at the bow of her lips, for the indeterminable fraction of a second. I took note of this with some anxiety. Could it be possible that she felt sure of her power over me? Could it be possible that she had, at all, any hold upon me? No, she was too confident. She interested me amazingly. She seemed to me the most beautiful thing that could have ever existed. But I was not in love, and would not be swerved from my duty even if I were. Yet all this was flashed instantaneously through my brain—she was speaking—and I was yielding.
"You are a generous enemy, a chivalrous enemy, monsieur," she murmured, in a low, earnest, slightly strained voice. Then she recovered her lightness. "I am almost your prisoner, in a sense, am I not? A suspect, certainly. If I accept your leniency, and profit by your permission to stay here under my confiscated roof, do not make me die under this weight of favour. Be my guest and let me feel that I am not the only one in debt."
Was this the same woman, this half-mocking, all-irresistible creature, she whom I had seen grey-faced with hopeless trouble not three minutes before? Said I to myself, "If I put my wits or my heart against hers it is all up with me. Blank truth is my only hope." Aloud I said, "I will be your guest, mademoiselle, though the debt in which I so overwhelm myself is one from which I can never again get free."
For this acquiescence my reward was just a look of brilliancy that made me catch my breath with pleasure. With a gesture that bade me to her side she turned and moved slowly up the path, between the shining copiousness of roses.
"I will send a servant with your orderly to the inn, monsieur," she said, "to fetch your things. Our old walls will be glad to shelter again a soldier's uniform, even if the colour of it be something strange to them."
"Almost you tempt me to wish that I had been born to the white uniform," I answered, in a daze with the nearness of her, the witchery of her, the nameless charm of her movement, the subtle intoxication of her voice.
"Almost you tempt me to regret," she retorted, with gracious raillery, "that the men of your cold and stubborn north cannot be moved to change by a woman's arguments."
"It is to unchangeableness we are moved by a woman, mademoiselle."
I spoke with an exaggerated lightness, to avoid a too significant seriousness.
"Is there ever, I wonder, a risk of such steadfastness growing tiresome?" mused mademoiselle, turning contemplative.
The swift change discomfited me. I turned my words to platitudes on the beauty of the house, the garden, the landscape. And presently I found myself established, an honoured yet confessedly hostile guest, in the Seigneury of Cheticamp.
A little old housekeeper, wizened and taciturn and omnipresent, kept me under an inscrutable surveillance, but treated me civilly enough. My chamber, very spacious, but with a low ceiling of broken slopes under the eaves, its windows looking out over the rose-garden, the village, and the sea, was furnished with a strange commingling of the luxury and daintiness of Versailles with the rudeness of a remote, half-barbarous colony. One of my men, my orderly, was entertained, much to his satisfaction, in the servants' quarters, and did me service as regularly as if we were at home at Goreham-on-Thames; while the rest, lodging at the inn, came to me with daily reports, which varied not at all in their trivial sameness. I breakfasted alone. Throughout the morning I walked exploring the country for miles about and talking with the inhabitants; or I investigated the roomy, irregular old house, whose half-open doors and rambling corridors extended trustful invitation to my curiosity; or I read and wrote in the small but well-stocked library, to which stained glass from Rouen, a prayer desk, and a corner shrine lent the savour and sanctity of a chapel. At one hour past noon precisely I dined with Mademoiselle le Fevre, and afterwards either walked with her in the garden and in the fir-woods, or, if the weather was unfavourable, conversed with her, most pleasurably, in the book-room, while she wrought with more or less affectation of diligence at a curious piece of tapestry, gold threads and scarlet on a cloth of a soft dull blue. Before sunset we supped, and in the evening, with doors and windows open and the scented breath of sea and rose and meadow flowing through, she played to me on her spinet, or sang ballads of old France, till candle-light and "good night" brought the day to a close.
Small wonder, being so gently occupied, that I was in no haste to force events, to ask myself what I desired or expected should happen. The man I was sent to seek was obviously not here. It was a plain and pleasant duty for me to stay here and await him. Meanwhile, I was serving the King by my presence, which was security that the Seigneury of Cheticamp should render no assistance to the King's enemies at Louisbourg. To be sure, it was rendering continual assistance to Mademoiselle Irene le Fevre de Cheticamp, but I could not bring myself to consider for a moment that the King could be so unhappy as to count her among his enemies. And so the days slipped by. I was not—as I should have sworn to myself in all honesty had one suggested it to me—in the least in love with mademoiselle. I merely found it unavoidable to think about her or dream about her all the time; impossible to engage my interest in anything whatever that I could not connect with her. For her part, she grew day by day more sweetly serious, more womanly courteous, until our pretty masquerading that night at my window among the hop vines came to be a remote, unbelievable dream.
But the situation, seemingly so quiet and easy that it might aspire to last for ever, was, in fact, a bubble of rainbow tissue blown to its extremes of tension and ready to shatter at a breath. When the breath came it was a light one, truly, yet how the face of the world changed under it. I awoke one morning in the first rosiness of dawn with a kind of foreboding. I went to the window. There in the misty bay, hove-to at a discreet distance from the wharves, was a small schooner, signalling.
The signals were unintelligible to me, which meant it was my duty to be concerned with them. I remembered that there was a flag-pole on the knoll, behind the house. With a sudden leaden sinking at the heart I realised that mademoiselle's brother was at last in evidence, and I could imagine nothing that would more embarrass me than that I should succeed in capturing him. After watching the signals for some time, and wondering if it were mademoiselle herself manipulating the unseen replies, I decided that there was nothing to be done but parade my guard openly along the coast. Then, if he should persist in stupidly running his neck into the noose, I would have to do my duty and pull it.
"Oh, why has she a brother!" I groaned, cursing him heartily, but straight revoked my curse, remembering that but for his delinquencies I had never come at all to Cheticamp.
Slowly I made my toilet, and before it was finished the little vessel was under way again, beating out of the inlet against a light westerly wind. Both to north and south of Cheticamp Harbour were little sheltered ports with anchorage for such small craft as she; and I concluded that with this wind she would seek the next haven northward. I resolved to send my men to search the southerly coves. Then I stepped out upon the terrace and met mademoiselle herself tripping through the dew, her hair dishevelled, her eyes like stars, her small face one gipsy sparkle with excitement.
At sight of me an apprehension dimmed the sparkle for an instant. Then she came forward to greet me with her usual courtesy. But now there was a challenge deep in her eyes, and presently a return of the old subtle audacity, as if I were a foe to be fenced with, bewildered, eluded. It hurt me keenly, and I took no thought of the utter unreasonableness of my grievance.
"Good morning, monsieur," she cried gaily. "Have you a bad conscience that you sleep so lightly and arise so early?"
"Mademoiselle," said I gravely, bending low over her cool brown fingers, and noticing that they trembled, "I have been watching the signals from yonder ship."
The brown fingers were withdrawn nervously.
"They were quite unintelligible to me," I continued, "but I readily infer that your brother has returned and is on shipboard."
A strange look—was it relief?—passed over her face. Then she nodded her dark head as if in frankest acquiescence.
"Allow me to say at once that I must try to capture him, but that I earnestly hope that I shall not be so unfortunate as to succeed."
At this her eyes softened upon me. Never had I seen anything, in life or in dream, so beautiful as the smile upon her lips. But I went on: "My men will patrol the coast; but they are few, and I cannot, of course, prevent your messengers eluding their vigilance and communicating with Monsieur le Fevre. I am glad I cannot prevent it. I doubt not you will warn him that all this neighbourhood is strictly watched. My men would at once recognise him, if they saw him, from the descriptions they have had."
Then, as I watched her face, my restraint was shaken. The love which I had not till that day let myself realise laid mighty grasp upon me. The long-chained passion crept into my voice, and it changed, trembling, as I continued:
"Oh, you can prevent him falling into our hands. I beseech you let not that evil come upon me that your brother should be my prisoner."
"Thank you, monsieur," she said very simply, putting her hand in mine with a confidence like a child's. Her eyes searched my very heart for a second. "I think, with such assistance, we can elude your vigilance, monsieur."
But on the instant her look changed to one of the deepest gravity. As I have so often thought of that look since, it was a surrender in part, in part a sacrament.
"The South Cove at noon," she said, with a sort of sob, and flushed and ran hastily into the house.
For a moment or two I stood staring after her in utter bewilderment. The dominant feeling, which sent great gushes of light and warmth through heart and brain and nerve, was that she loved me, that she had revealed herself to me on a swift, inexplicable impulse. This set me reeling in a kind of intoxication. But underneath, clamouring harshly to be heeded, was the problem she had thrust upon me. She had forced me to know just what I had striven so desperately not to know. For the moment, however, I did not think. I simply let myself feel; and, turning mechanically, I walked in a daze down the winding road through the rose garden.
"Of course," said I to myself, and half aloud to the roses, "she means that I am to act upon her word and take my men safely out of the way to South Cove before noon, leaving the North Harbour, where the ship has gone, perfectly secure. She knows that I can act with a clear conscience on so definite a piece of information as that. She knows that there is nothing else for me to do. She sees that I love her. She trusts me. And she trusts my wit to comprehend her subtle devisings. Irene! Irene!"
And I swung gaily down towards the village through an air more light and sweet, through a sunshine more radiant and clear, under a sky more blue, than ever before my travelled senses had encountered.
I breakfasted at the inn. By the time my messengers had got hold of my scattered men and given them my orders to report to me at South Cove, it wanted but an hour of noon. To South Cove was an hour's brisk walking, and I set out, with my orderly at my heels. He was a trusty, discreet fellow, with whom I was wont to talk net a little; but to-day my dreams were all-sufficient to me, and I would not let the lad so much as stir his tongue. Arriving at the point where the upland dipped down to South Cove, a narrow inlet thickly screened with woods, I noted the hour as exact noon. Then, liking well the look of the leafage below me, with the glint of water sparkling through, and craving no company but my own and my thoughts, I bade my man wait where he was and watch the roads both ways, and halt the others as they should come up.
The path down through the trees was green-mossed, winding, and steep. I went swiftly but noiselessly. Near the foot, as I was just about to emerge upon the beach, the sound of voices below caught my ear. I essayed to stop myself, slipped, crashed through a brittle screen of dead spruce boughs, and came down, erect upon my feet but somewhat jarred, not ten paces from the spot where a lady and a cavalier, locked in one another's arms, stood beside a small boat drawn up upon the shingle.
It was mademoiselle, and the man was her brother, as I saw on the instant from the likeness between them. They had unlocked their arms and turned towards me, startled at the sound of my fall. Mademoiselle's face went white, then flushed crimson, and, drawing herself up, she confronted me with a look of unutterable scorn, mingled with pain and reproach. Apprehension and amusement struggled together in the face of the young seigneur.
For my own part, I had realised on the instant the whole enormity of my mistake. Mademoiselle had told me the plain truth, staking everything on my love, trusting me utterly. My heart sinks now as I recall the anguish of that moment. I had but one thought—to justify myself in her eyes. I sprang forward, stammering.
"Forgive me, mademoiselle, I did not understand—I quite misunderstood. Believe me, I never dreamed——"
But, shaken and humiliated as she was, she did not lose her presence of mind. She played another card boldly.
"Captain Scott," she said, as if this were the most ceremonious meeting in the world, "this is my fiancé. Monsieur de St. Ange."
By great good fortune I had wit enough to seem to believe her. In fact, perhaps my belief was too well simulated, for the expressions that passed over her face in the next few seconds were inexplicable to me and mightily increased my confusion. But toward this "Monsieur de St. Ange" I felt most cordial.
"Delighted, monsieur, I am sure," I exclaimed, bowing low, while he bowed with equal ceremony, but in silence.
"I congratulate yon," I went on, terribly at a loss. Then I looked at mademoiselle, who had turned away white and indifferent.
"There has been some mistake," I continued desperately. "That you should wish to see your betrothed is, of course, to me sufficient explanation of your presence here. But others might think I should inquire more searchingly into an enemy's purpose in visiting a place like this. My men are in the neighbourhood; I will go at once and withdraw them. But I beg you, monsieur, to withdraw yourself as speedily as possible."
I backed away, striving in vain to win a look from mademoiselle. As for her brother, he was most civil.
"I thank you for your great courtesy, monsieur," he answered, the corners of his mouth restraining themselves from mirth. "Much as it would be to my pleasure to know you better, I am aware that I might find it inconvenient. I shall comply as speedily as possible with your most reasonable request."
At the foot of the path, finding that mademoiselle was quite oblivious to my presence, I turned and made all haste from the calamitous spot. When I found my men, I hurried them off toward Cheticamp with an eagerness that hinted at a fresh and important clue. From the inn I sent them in parties of two, on errands of urgency that would take them as far as possible from South Cove. Then, hurrying back to the Seigneury, I awaited, in sickening suspense, the return of mademoiselle to a belated meal.
At the suggestion of the wizened old housekeeper, I ate the meal alone—or, rather, I put some dry, chip-like substances into my mouth, which chose to collect themselves in a lump some little way below my throat. The old lady seemed as ignorant as I of the reason of mademoiselle's delay, though once and again, from the shrewd scrutiny which I caught her bestowing upon my countenance, I suspected that she knew more than she would confess. The afternoon went by in that misery of waiting that turns one's blood to gall. I would go out among the roses, but cursing them for their false, disastrous speech, I found them not contenting company. Then I would go back into the library and spend the sluggish minutes in jumping up, sitting down, trying this book, rejecting that, while every sense was on the rack of intensity to catch some hint of her presence in the house. But all in vain. The stillness seemed unnatural. There was a menace in the clear pour of the afternoon sun. When at last, toward sundown, the humpbacked old gardener went by the window with a watering-pot, I was startled to see that the affairs of life were going on as usual. There was somehow a grain of comfort, of reassurance, in the sight of the old humpback. I left the library and went to find the housekeeper, determined to put her through such an inquisition as should in some way relieve my suspense.
I found her in the supper-room, putting flowers on a table that was set for—only one.
"Supper is served, monsieur," she said, as I came in.
"For me alone?" I gasped, feeling that the world had come to an end.
"For monsieur," she answered.
"Tell me"—and the tone made her look at me quickly with a deference not before observable in her manner—"tell me at once where Mademoiselle le Fevre is gone."
"Certainly, monsieur, certainly. There is no desire to deceive monsieur. Mademoiselle and her maid have removed to the inn at Cheticamp, where mademoiselle intends to reside till she can join monsieur her brother at Louisbourg."
I heard her through, then rushed from the room, snatched up my hat, and sped down to the inn of Cheticamp. I fear that the civil salutations of the villagers whom I passed went outrageously unregarded.
My demand was urgent, so within a very few minutes of my coming I was ushered into mademoiselle's parlour, and with a thrill of hope at the omen I noted that it was the same room which I had occupied on the night of my arrival at Cheticamp, the same dear room through whose hop-garlanded window I had made such bold and merry counterfeit with mademoiselle in her disguise. But not nourishing to hope was mademoiselle's greeting. I had not dreamed so small a dame could ever look so tall. Her slim figure was in the gown of creamy linen which she had worn when I had met her in the rose-garden. Her small, strange, child-like face was very white, her lips set coldly and less scarlet than their wont, and her eyes—they were fearfully bright and large, with a gaze which I could not fathom.
"To what do I owe this honour, monsieur?" she asked. "It is much——"
But I was rude in my trouble.
"Why have you fled from me, mademoiselle?" I interrupted passionately. "Why have you left your own home in this way? I will leave it at once—for you shall not be driven from it."
"My home, monsieur? It is your house. I will not be a pensioner on your bounty."
How had she found this out? I was in confusion.
"What—what do you mean, mademoiselle?" I stammered.
"I mean, monsieur," she said, with ice and fire contending in her voice, "that all these days, when I thought I was playing the hostess, in a home belonging either to my brother or to the English Government, I have been but a beggar living on your charity. I know that you are the owner of Cheticamp House and all in it, it having been taken from us to give to you."
I was in despair over this further complication; but this was not the time for finding out the betrayer of my secret.
"I had hoped that you would never know, mademoiselle," I protested. "But it is not of that I would speak. Forgive me, I beg you on my knees, for the stupid mistake, the unpardonable mistake I made this morning. And oh, count it something that I did my best to remedy the error, so that no harm came of it."
The anger that flamed into her eyes was of a beauty that did not delight me.
"Doubtless you did your duty, monsieur, as a servant of your Government. Doubtless honour required that you should betray the trust so foolishly reposed in you by a silly girl. You would have taken my brother, and through his sister's folly. I cannot feel any very keen gratitude for the generosity which suffered my fiancé, whom you did not seek, to go free."
Light began to struggle in upon the darkness of my brain.
"Your fiancé!" I returned quickly. "Could you think for one moment I did not know that he was your brother?"
Her face changed marvellously at this declaration.
"I knew your purpose then," I went on. "But forgive me, forgive me for not understanding you before. I was not worthy of the simple trust you placed in me. I thought you meant me to understand that I should take my men to South Cove at noon to have them out of the way. I thought it was a piece of your daring strategy, and I was proud because you trusted my stupid wits to follow your plan. I thought it was to save me the embarrassment of openly letting your brother go. I thought—oh, I thought myself so wise, and I was so cheaply careful of my duty. Can you forgive me? You know, you must know, in the light of what I did afterwards, that if I had only understood your words in all their uncalculating faith no power on earth would have prevented me keeping myself and my men as far as possible from South Cove."
Her tense attitude relaxed. Her figure seemed no longer so portentously tall.
"It is I who must ask forgiveness," she said softly, holding out her hand. I seized it in both of mine and dared to kiss it fiercely, hungrily, and marvelled to find that it was not at once withdrawn from such an ardour.
"I am not so wise, I am not so subtle, as you think me," she continued. "It was a clever device, indeed, that you credited me with, and so much more considerate and fine in every way than my poor little thoughtlessness which threw the responsibility upon you. But you are mistaken, monsieur, if you think that I am at all clever or subtle."
She was looking down, watching, but not seeming to see, how my hands held both of hers. For myself, I knew that the joy of life had come to me; but I could find no word to say, so wildly ran my blood. After a moment's silence she said musingly:
"I don't think I ever could deceive any one. I am sure I never did deceive any one in my life—but once; oh, yes, once." And here she lifted up her face and flashed upon me a challenge of dancing eyes and mocking mouth.
"No, indeed," said I. "The maid who came to my window did not deceive me for a moment when afterwards I met her in the rose-garden."
"Oh!" she gasped with a little sob, while her face grew scarlet. "You knew all the time? It was horrid of me—too horrid to think of. Oh——"
At this point it seemed to me that she was looking for a spot to hide her face, and, taking base advantage of her confusion, I drew her into my arms and let her blushes fly to cover against my coat. Never before, in my opinion, had the King's uniform been so highly honoured.
"To my window you came that night, my lady," I whispered, "but it was to the door of my heart you came."
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1943, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 80 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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