VIII
The doctor came that night, and took out of my back a piece offlattened lead. It had gone under the flesh, quite half round mybody, next to the ribs, without doing worse than to rake the bonehere and there and weaken me with a loss of blood. I woke awhilebefore he came. The baroness and the fat butler were sittingbeside me. She was a big, stout woman of some forty years, withdark hair and gray eyes, and teeth of remarkable whiteness andsymmetry. That evening, I remember, she was in full dress.
"My poor boy!" said she, in English and in a sympathetic tone, asshe bent over me.
Indeed, my own mother could not have been kinder than that goodwoman. She was one that had a heart and a hand for the sick-room.I told her how I had been hurt and of my ride. She heard methrough with a glow in her eyes.
"What a story!" said she. "What a daredevil! I do not see how ithas been possible for you to live."
She spoke to me always in English of quaint wording and quainteraccent. She seemed not to know that I could speak French.
An impressive French tutor--a fine old fellow, obsequious andbald-headed--sat by me all night to give me medicine. In themorning I felt as if I had a new heart in me, and was planning tomount my horse. I thought I ought to go on about my business, butI fear I thought more of the young ladies and the possibility of myseeing them again. The baroness came in after I had a bite to eat.I told her I felt able to ride,
"You are not able, my child. You cannot ride the horse now," saidshe, feeling my brow; "maybe not for a ver' long time. I have alarge house, plenty servant, plenty food. Parbleu! be content. Weshall take good care of you. If there is one message to go to yourchief, you know I shall send it."
I wrote a brief report of my adventure with the British, locatingthe scene as carefully as might be, and she sent it by mountedmessenger to "the Burg."
"The young ladies they wish to see you," said the baroness. "Theyare kind-hearted; they would like to do what they can. But I tellthem no; they will make you to be very tired."
"On the contrary, it will rest me. Let them come," I said.
"But I warn you," said she, lifting her finger as she left theroom, "do not fall in love. They are full of mischief. They donot study. They do not care. You know they make much fun all day."
The young ladies came in presently. They wore gray gowns admirablyfitted to their fine figures. They brought big bouquets and setthem, with a handsome courtesy, on the table beside me. They tookchairs and sat solemn-faced, without a word, as if it were a Quakermeeting they had come to. I never saw better models of sympatheticpropriety. I was about to speak. One of them shook her head, afinger on her lips.
"Do not say one word," she said solemnly in English. "It will makeyou ver' sick."
It was the first effort of either of them to address me in English.As I soon knew, the warning had exhausted her vocabulary. Thebaroness went below in a moment. Then the one who had spoken cameover and sat near me, smiling.
"She does not know you can speak French," said she, whispering andaddressing me in her native tongue, as the other tiptoed to thedoor. "On your life, do not let her know. She will never permitus to see you. She will keep us under lock and key. She knows wecannot speak English, so she thinks we cannot talk with you. It isa great lark. Are you better?"
What was I to do under orders from such authority? As they bademe, I hope you will say, for that is what I did. I had no easyconscience about it, I must own. Day after day I took my part inthe little comedy. They came in Quaker-faced if the baroness wereat hand, never speaking, except to her, until she had gone.Then--well, such animation, such wit, such bright eyes, suchbrilliancy, I have never seen or heard.
My wound was healing. War and stern duty were as things of the farpast. The grand passion had hold of me. I tried to fight it down,to shake it off, but somehow it had the claws of a tiger. Therewas an odd thing about it all: I could not for the life of me tellwhich of the two charming girls I loved the better. It may seemincredible; I could not understand it myself. They looked alike,and yet they were quite different. Louison was a year older and ofstouter build. She had more animation also, and always a quickerand perhaps a brighter answer. The other had a face more serious,albeit no less beautiful, and a slower tongue. She had little tosay, but her silence had much in it to admire, and, indeed, toremember. They appealed to different men in me with equal force, Idid not then know why. A perplexing problem it was, and I had tothink and suffer much before I saw the end of it, and really cameto know what love is and what it is not.
"I could not for the life of me tell which of thetwo charming girls I loved the better."]
Shortly I was near the end of this delightful season of illness. Ihad been out of bed a week. The baroness had read to me every day,and had been so kind that I felt a great shame for my part in ourdeception. Every afternoon she was off in a boat or in hercaleche, and had promised to take me with her as soon as I was ableto go.
"You know," said she, "I am going to make you to stay here a fullmonth. I have the consent of the general."
I had begun to move about a little and enjoy the splendor of thatforest home. There were, indeed, many rare and priceless things init that came out of her chateau in France. She had some curiousold clocks, tokens of ancestral taste and friendship. There wasone her grandfather had got from the land of Louis XIV.--_Le GrandMonarque_, of whom my mother had begun to tell me as soon as Icould hear with understanding. Another came from the bedchamber ofPhilip II of Spain--a grand high clock that had tolled the hours inthat great hall beyond my door. A little thing, in a case ofcarved ivory, that ticked on a table near my bed, Moliere had givento one of her ancestors, and there were many others of equalinterest.
Her walls were adorned with art treasures of the value of which Ihad little appreciation those days. But I remember there werecanvases of Correggio and Rembrandt and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Shewas, indeed, a woman of fine taste, who had brought her best toAmerica; for no one had a doubt, in the time of which I am writing,that the settlement of the Compagnie de New York would grow into agreat colony, with towns and cities and fine roadways, and the fullcomplement of high living. She had built the Hermitage,--that wasthe name of the mansion,--fine and splendid as it was, for a meretemporary shelter pending the arrival of those better days.
She had a curious fad, this hermit baroness of the big woods. Sheloved nature and was a naturalist of no poor attainments. Waspsand hornets were the special study of this remarkable woman. Therewere at least a score of their nests on her front portico--big andlittle, and some of them oddly shaped. She hunted them in wood andfield. When she found a nest she had it moved carefully afternightfall, under a bit of netting, and fastened somewhere about thegables. Around the Hermitage there were many withered boughs andbriers holding cones of wrought fibre, each a citadel of theseuniformed soldiers of the air and the poisoned arrow. They wereassembled in colonies of yellow, white, blue, and black wasps, andwhite-faced hornets. She had no fear of them, and, indeed, no oneof the household was ever stung to my knowledge. I have seen herstand in front of her door and feed them out of a saucer. Therewere special favorites that would light upon her palm, overrunningits pink hollow and gorging at the honey-drop.
"They will never sting," she would say, "if one does not declarethe war. To strike, to make any quick motion, it gives them anger.Then, mon cher ami! it is terrible. They cause you to burn, toache, to make a great noise, and even to lie down upon the ground.If people come to see me, if I get a new servant, I say: 'Make tothem no attention, and they will not harm you.'"
In the house I have seen her catch one by the wings on a windowand, holding it carefully ask me to watch her captive--sometimes aa great daredevil hornet, lion-maned--as he lay stabbing with hispoison-dagger.
"Now," said she, "he is angry; he will remember. If I release himhe will sting me when I come near him again. So I do not permithim to live--I kill him."
Then sh
e would impale him and invite me to look at him with themicroscope.
One day the baroness went away to town with the young ladies. Iwas quite alone with the servants. Father Joulin of the chateaucame over and sat awhile with me, and told me how he had escapedthe Parisian mob, a night in the Reign of Terror. Late in theafternoon I walked awhile in the grove with him. When he left Iwent slowly down the trail over which I had ridden. My strengthwas coming fast. I felt like an idle man, shirking the saddle,when I should be serving my country. I must to my horse and makean end to dallying. With thoughts like these for company, I wentfarther than I intended. Returning over the bushy trail I camesuddenly upon--Louison! She was neatly gowned in pink and white.
"Le diable!" said she. "You surprise me. I thought you wentanother way."
"Or you would not have taken this one," I said.
"Of course not," said she. "One does not wish to find men if sheis hunting for--for--" she hesitated a moment, blushing--"mon Dieu!for bears," she added.
I thought then, as her beautiful eyes looked up at me smiling, thatshe was incomparable, that I loved her above all others--I feltsure of it.
"And why do you hunt bears?" I inquired.
"I do not know. I think it is because they are so--so beautiful,so amiable!" she answered.
"And such good companions."
"Yes; they never embarrass you," she went on. "You never feel atloss for a word."
"I fear you do not know bears."
"Dieu! better than men. Voila!" she exclaimed, touching me withthe end of her parasol. "You are not so terrible. I do not thinkyou would bite."
"No; I have never bitten anything but--but bread and doughnuts, orsomething of that sort."
"Come, I desire to intimidate you. Won't you please be afraid ofme? Indeed, I can be very terrible. See! I have sharp teeth."
She turned with a playful growl, and parting her crimson lips,showed them to me--white and shapely, and as even as if they hadbeen wrought of ivory. She knew they were beautiful, the vixen.
"You terrify me. I have a mind to run," I said, backing off,
"Please do not run," she answered quickly. "I should be afraidthat--that--"
She hesitated a moment, stirring the moss with one dainty foot.
"That you might not return," she added, smiling as she looked up atme.
"Then--then perhaps it will do as well if I climb a tree."
"No, no; I wish to talk with you."
"Ma'm'selle, you honor me," I said.
"And dishonor myself, I presume, with so much boldness," she wenton. "It is only that I have something to say; and you know when awoman has something to--to say--"
"It is a fool that does not listen if she be as fair as you," I putin.
"You are--well, I shall not say what I think of you, for fear--forfear of giving offence," said she, blushing as she spoke. "Do youlike the life of a soldier?"
"Very much, and especially when I am wounded, with such excellentcare and company."
"But your side--it was so horribly torn. I did feel verysorry--indeed I did. You will go again to the war?"
"Unless--unless--Ah, yes, ma'm'selle, I shall go again to the war,"I stammered, going to the brink of confession, only to back awayfrom it, as the blood came hot to my cheeks.
She broke a tiny bough and began stripping its leaves.
"Tell me, do you love the baroness?" she inquired as she whipped aswaying bush of brier.
The question amazed me. I laughed nervously.
"I respect, I admire the good woman--she would make an excellentmother," was my answer.
"Well spoken!" she said, clapping her hands. "I thought you were afool. I did not know whether you were to blame or--or the Creator."
"Or the baroness," I added, laughing.
"Well," said she, with a pretty shrug, "is there not a man forevery woman? The baroness she thinks she is irresistible. She hasmoney. She would like to buy you for a plaything--to marry you.But I say beware. She is more terrible than the keeper of theBastile. And you--you are too young!"
"My dear girl," said I, in a voice of pleading, "it is terrible.Save me! Save me, I pray you!"
"Pooh! I do not care!"--with a gesture of indifference, "I amtrying to save myself, that is all."
"From what?"
"Another relative. Parbleu! I have enough." She stamped her footimpatiently as she spoke. "I should be very terrible to you. Ishould say the meanest things. I should call you grandpapa andgive you a new cane every Christmas."
"And if you gave me also a smile, I should be content."
More than once I was near declaring myself that day, but I had amighty fear she was playing with me, and held my tongue. There wasan odd light in her eyes. I knew not, then, what it meant.
"You are easily satisfied," was her answer.
"I am to leave soon," I said. "May I not see you here to-morrow?"
"Alas! I do not think you can," was her answer.
"And why not?"
"Because it would not be proper," said she, smiling as she lookedup at me.
"Not proper! I should like to know why."
"It would make me break another engagement," she went on, laughing."I am to go with the baroness to meet the count if he comes--shehas commanded. The day after, in the morning, at ten o'clock, bythe cascade--will that do? Good! I must leave you now. I mustnot return with you. Remember!" she commanded, pointing at me withher tapered forefinger. "Remember--ten o'clock in the morning."
Then she took a bypath and went out of sight. I returned to themansion as deep in love as a man could be. I went to dinner withthe rest that evening. Louison came in after we were all seated.
"You are late, my dear," said the baroness.
"Yes; I went away walking and lost something, and was not able tofind it again."