(1)
when the laitière came at half-past six that morning she was sorry to hear that mme vidal was indisposed, but not ill-pleased to sell her, in consequence, a double portion of milk. so indisposed indeed was the concierge that she requested toinon, when she returned to the village, to get conveyed to paris a note to her niece mme tessier, asking the latter to make a few purchases and to visit her.
the sympathetic toinon gone, mme de trélan went back to her patient. long before this he had come to himself for the second time, and she had fed him with the milk she had reserved for her morning coffee, in a spoon. he took it drowsily, like a child, and dropped off to sleep again.
she thought him asleep now when she came in, and went about noiselessly putting the dark little bedroom to rights, preoccupied all the time with one thought, this boy’s safety. the thought divided itself into two parts; how to secure proper attention for his wound, and how to get the boy himself away without discovery. her unpractised investigation of his hurt had already led her to suppose that it was a glancing flesh wound off the ribs, probably not dangerous, save from the amount of blood he seemed to have lost. why he had risked coming by it she had not even a guess.
but though she thought him asleep she saw, after a minute or two, as she passed by the bed, that his eyes were open and that he was looking at her. he was very flushed.
“is there anything you want, mon enfant?” she asked, stopping.
he continued to look at her mutely, then made these brief statements:
“my name is roland de céligny. i ought not to have come. now i shall be endangering you. madame, i implore you to let me go!”
“chut!” retorted valentine, laying her hand for a second on his forehead. “how could you go, even if i would let you? there is no need, i assure you, to trouble about me. besides, why should i not care for a wounded man whom i find in the garden. you are not a malefactor, monsieur de céligny!”
“mais si, madame,” replied roland earnestly. “in intention, at least . . . that is just what i am. . . . you ought to give me up.”
“if we all did what we ought to do!” exclaimed valentine lightly, and stood looking down at him, convinced now that that momentary likeness was a trick of the dawn, some enchantment of the garden, anything but fact.
she felt that to ensure silence she ought to leave him; unused as she was to caring for an injured man she was certain that he ought not to talk. in romances the wounded hero was always adjured not to do so, and the boy looked feverish. but not to know a little more about him were to waste the chance of arranging some plan which the faithful suzon’s arrival would bring her. so, contrary to all romantic tradition, valentine sat down by the bed and said in a business-like way,
“tell me, monsieur de céligny, as shortly as possible, what you came into the garden to do, and if you know anyone in paris with whom it would be safe to communicate. i ask you this because i have a trusted friend coming to see me to-day, and through her something might be arranged. your personal safety is the first thing to consider, your wound—which i believe is not serious—the second.”
“i have cousins in paris,” said roland. he gave their address. “i was at their house for three or four days before i came here.”
“do they know where you are?”
“no, madame.”
“they will be very anxious about you, then?”
“yes,” murmured he rather shamefacedly, and sighed.
“are they likely to track you here?”
“i don’t think so,” said the adventurer. “no, i do not believe it possible.”
“but the sentry saw you; fortunately it was too dark to distinguish your face. they are sure to search again. i think the moment has come, monsieur de céligny, if i am to help you further, for you to tell me a little more. you see that i am your friend, and that i am not . . . in fear of the directory. you need not name anyone unless you wish, but i think you had better tell me for what reason you were in the park of mirabel last night.”
“madame,” replied roland with emotion, “after what you have done for me i should indeed be foolish and ungrateful if i kept back anything from you. i came to mirabel to find the hidden treasure.”
the duchesse de trélan stared at him. “but, my child, there is no such thing!”
from the pillow the young man’s look said as politely as possible, “how can you be sure of that, madame la concierge?”
“i have known the chateau for many years,” said valentine, “and i assure you. . . .” she broke off, puzzled.
“but i have seen a plan of its hiding-place,” said roland eagerly.
“where did you see such a thing?”
“when i was in brittany with m. de——” some remnant of caution checked him, “—with a chouan leader.”
“a chouan leader had a plan of a treasure hidden in mirabel!” exclaimed mirabel’s mistress, strongest amazement in her tone. “what was his name—no, i will not ask you that. did he send you here, then?”
“no, madame,” admitted roland, with a return of shamefacedness. “he will be very angry with me—if ever i see him again.” he gave a second or two to inward contemplation, presumably, of this anger, and went on, “the money was hidden here during the fronde by the duc of those days, but the paper describing its whereabouts was stolen, and came into the hands of an old lady who was dying in the next house to . . . to where we were. our aum?nier went to see her, and she gave him the paper to convey to the duc de trélan, who, i believe, is in england, or somewhere of the sort. at any rate he is an émigré—as i suppose you know, madame.”
valentine forced herself to remain quietly sitting there. “well?” she said, and her voice, from sheer self-restraint, sounded quite stony.
“and the aum?nier brought it in to give to m. de kersaint, because he knew that the marquis was a kinsman of the duc de trélan.”
“what name did you say?” asked valentine, more and more amazed.
“the marquis de kersaint,” replied roland. then he stopped. “i did not mean to mention the name.”
“de kersaint—a kinsman!” exclaimed valentine, from whom all thoughts of encouraging prudence in the fugitive were now miles away. “i never heard the name in my life! a kinsman of——”
and now roland was staring at her.
“well, never mind,” said she. “we must keep to the point, which is, how to get you away, monsieur de céligny. you saw this . . . this extraordinary plan, then, and—since you say that you were not sent—i assume that you thought that you would like to come on your own account to hunt for the treasure. had you any accomplices?”
“not in paris,” replied roland, reddening faintly.
“and your cousins know nothing?”
“no, i merely said that i was leaving paris for the day and might be back late. you see, madame, i meant to have got here earlier, but it was light so long. i only had a sight of that plan for a moment,” confessed the treasure-hunter with engaging candour, “yet i remember that it looked as though there were an entrance from the garden to a passage leading under the house to the banqueting hall, i think. but i did not realise that the garden was so large.”
again valentine stared at him. it was making her dizzy to learn these facts—if they were facts—about her own house after all her years of acquaintance with it.
“you must be crazy, my child,” she said conclusively, “or the plan was a hoax. but to return to these cousins of yours, and how to get you restored to them. the point is whether it would be better to try to smuggle a surgeon in to you, or to smuggle you out. and what to say to them? it is not over safe to tell the exact truth in a letter. it might endanger the bearer also. let me think.”
she put her shapely, slightly roughened hand over her eyes, and roland gazed at it.
“monsieur de céligny,” she said after a moment, uncovering her eyes, “have you ever fought a duel?”
“no, madame.”
“should you object to having come to the park of mirabel for that purpose last night?”
roland took her meaning, with a little smile. “there is nothing i should like better.”
“it is the best i can devise for the moment. as i say, it would not do for you to tell the truth in writing. if, to-morrow night, you could walk with my assistance as far as a little door in the park wall that i know of, and if your cousins could procure, with all secrecy, for a carriage to be there. . . . you see, it will be impossible for you to get out of the place you have so rashly entered save in some such clandestine fashion, and even then any mischance——”
“mischance to me matters not, madame!” cried the young man. “but if it were to you!”
the duchesse de trélan smiled. “reassure yourself, monsieur de céligny. no mischance is likely to come to me. if you feel able i must urge you now to write a line to your cousins about your duel. it might be thought a trap of some kind if i wrote. they must see your hand.”
she fetched him pencil and paper, and together they concocted a letter to his elderly kinsmen, she holding the paper. at the end she fed him again, for the conversation and the effort of writing had exhausted him rather alarmingly. it was no more than was to be expected. but at that price valentine had the main threads of the affair in her hands now.
(2)
in the early afternoon arrived, as she had been desired, the faithful tessier, with a basket containing medicaments and comforts.
“i knew the place would not suit you, madame,” she said, almost as soon as she set foot inside the little parlour. “ah, i see that you are indeed indisposed!” for mme de trélan, to give colour to her statement to toinon, had wrapped herself in a shawl.
“suzon, i was never better in my life,” said she, and looked it. “but there is someone ill here. that was really why i sent for you.”
“someone—in there?” ejaculated mme tessier, pointing to the bedroom door.
“yes, a young man, suffering from a gunshot wound in the side,” responded the duchesse calmly. “you can give me help and advice.”
for the moment suzon looked little capable of either. her eyes turned wildly from mme de trélan to the bedroom door.
“but—did he fall from heaven, or through the chimney?” she managed to get out.
“neither. i found him in the garden at three o’clock this morning. he was shot by the guard last night.”
suzon sat down heavily on a chair. “mercy on us! what is his name, madame, his business?”
“his name—no, i will not tell you his name. and as for his business, suffice it to say that it has not succeeded. i want to keep him here no longer than is necessary for his wound, lest he should be discovered and taken.”
“but you yourself, madame?”
“my reputation, do you mean?” asked the duchesse, laughing. she seemed in a mood of unusual exhilaration. “i think, at my age, that will take care of itself.”
“your safety is what i mean, madame,” said suzon reproachfully. “you ought to give him up, whatever he was doing.”
“that is just what i am going to do—to his relations if they will come and fetch him.” and valentine explained her plan. when she had heard it, poor suzon, breathing a sigh of relief at the prospect of getting rid of the refugee, almost clamoured to take the compromising letter to its destination.
“and i think i had better see these gentlemen and bring back the answer to-morrow,” she volunteered.
“i hardly like to ask you to do that,” said valentine, hesitating.
“then how are you going to know, madame, whether the carriage will be there or not,” objected mme tessier. “it will be difficult enough as it is to bring it all off without a hitch. and i am only too anxious for him to be gone. cleaning day or visiting day, what might happen—heaven preserve us!”
“my bedroom is not on show to the general public,” observed valentine lightly. “and i can always lock louise out.” (louise commanded the brigade of cleaners.) “however, i am not anxious to keep the boy, for his own sake. now, what have you brought me for him, suzette?”
mme tessier watched her as, alert and interested, she unpacked the basket. now and again there would peep out, in this tragically fated lady, whom she worshipped and protected with equal fervour—this lady who for all her lifetime of authority was so wonderfully humble and contented—some trait of those older days when her lightest wish had been a command. despite her extraordinary consideration for others, and those her inferiors, she did sometimes demand services without counting the cost, and accept devotion as a right. and suzon loved her for it.
“this is excellent, ma fille,” said the duchesse in a moment, setting out suzon’s purchases on the table. “i think that as a reward i must tell you, after all, about this young man’s errand—a wild-goose chase if ever there was one. did you ever hear, suzon, from your grandfather, of a treasure hidden in mirabel from the time of the fronde?”
“why, bless you, yes, madame,” replied suzon. “grandpère used often to talk of it. there were supposed to be jewels too. but i never believed it myself.”
valentine was taken aback at this unexpected reply. “you did know of it! it is extraordinary that i should be the last to hear of it, then.”
and in both their minds, as each guessed, was the unuttered question, had the duc known of it too? but for years now mme tessier had never mentioned m. de trélan unless the duchesse did so first.
“it is very strange,” went on mirabel’s mistress reflectively. “and stranger still that the man who possesses a plan of the spot where this treasure is supposed to be hidden should be a chouan leader calling himself—with what truth i cannot tell—a kinsman of . . . of the duc’s.” a swift, tiny flush ran over her face. “i have never heard his name. i think it must be a false assertion.”
“and that is why the young man is here, then?” interrupted suzon despite herself. “—sent by this chouan to secure the treasure! he is a royalist, therefore!—o, madame——”
“not sent, i gather,” corrected the duchesse. “yes, a royalist, a collet noir.”
“a collet noir—one of those hotheads! and the guard—you say they shot him! did they not search for him? will they not search again? really, madame, i must say it, your imprudence . . .”
“the search, if you can call it so, is over,” said mme de trélan with composure, opening a pot of jelly. “it was very perfunctory last night, and little better this morning, when the sergeant and three men came. i of course knew nothing—may heaven pardon me!”
“heaven needs to watch over you!” murmured suzon.
“they think he got away—the obvious conclusion. so now we have nothing to do but to make that surmise a fact.” suddenly she turned her head. “what, in heaven’s name, is the poor boy doing in there now?”
he was singing; and as the two women went hastily in, it was apparent that his choice was that gay little air, la double violette.
“suzon,” said the duchesse in alarm, after a moment, “he is light-headed. is he worse? what ought i to do?”
“i expect,” replied mme tessier, “that a surgeon would say he should be bled.”
“bled! when he has lost so much blood already!”
“rossignol prend sa volée,
???au chateau d’amour s’en va,”
chanted roland, more and more out of tune.
“oh, poor nightingale!” exclaimed valentine, half laughing. “?‘chateau d’amour,’ indeed!”
“trouva la porte fermée,
???par la fenêtre il entra,”
was the songster’s next equally appropriate announcement.
“i will go at once to the village and get a febrifuge of some kind,” said suzon, making for the door. “i will not be long.”
and mme de trélan was left, to be greeted with the nightingale’s message:
“bonjour l’une, bonjour l’autre,
???bonjour la belle que voilà!
votre amant m’envoie vous dire
???que vous ne l’oubliez pas!”
“child,” she said, sitting down and laying her hand on the hot forehead, “you could put your strength to so much better use!”
and at her voice or touch the minstrel suddenly ceased his strain, while his fingers, moving over the bed, found and closed on her other hand. thereafter he was at least quiet.
