A Sheaf of Bluebells

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

I

The woods were unusually still. Not a sound broke the delicious hush which lay over this summer's morning, when Fernande de Courson made her way stealthily through the tangled undergrowth, avoiding the trodden paths and the clearings, flitting in and out among the trees like some young elf at play. The mischievous light which was scarcely ever wholly absent from her eyes was more apparent to-day than it had ever been before. She was wearing a white dress; her arms and shoulders were bare, and on her way she had gathered an armful of bluebells, there where they grew thickest with long stalks and giant bells, on the fringe of the wood.

It was still very early in the morning, so early that the bluebells were dripping with dew, and the sun came slanting in through the trees, making the vivid green of tiny elm and birch leaves gleam like emeralds and suffusing the gummy tips of the young chestnut with a vivid crimson glow. The carpet of last year's leaves made a soft swishing sound under the girl's feet; from the branches overhead the birds peeped down on the intruder with quaint inquisitiveness in their tiny, beady eyes, and now and then there would come a louder rustle, a murmur through the trees as a frightened squirrel hopped from bough to bough, fleeing at the approach of the human foe. But the human foe, clad all in white, and with the morning sun touching her fair curls with living gold, did not pause in order to gaze up at white-throat or finch; she did not hearken to the call of the mating linnet, nor did she watch the squirrels in their flight. She had heard something last night which had caused her to rise very early this morning and to start out for a walk in the woods, armed with a sheaf of bluebells and a very arsenal of feminine wiles.

A week had gone by since she had pledged her faith that she would make the untamed bear of La Vieuville dance to her piping. Since then she had quietly but with marvellous perseverance studied the ground whereon she desired to lay her trap for the catching of the unwary beast. During that week she had had to endure some ridicule from her father, a few gibes from her aunt, and renewed scowls from Laurent. But she was not to be deterred, and none of her kinsfolk—not even Laurent—had the least idea what was going on in that young head, nor what mischief was brewing behind the mocking glance of her blue eyes.

Fernande de Courson had spent that week trying to find out something definite about "the General's" habits and movements during the day. That had been an easy task. Anyone in the district could have told her that the hero of Austerlitz and Hohenlinden, and of a hundred other fights, toiled down from the Château of La Vieuville up on the height to his foundries in the valley below, every morning at seven o'clock, and returned home again every evening at nine. That he took a short cut across the fields between the edge of the wood and the foundry, walking rather slowly across the rough ground, and dragging his wounded leg slightly toward the end of his journey.

Any one could have told Fernande de Courson that Ronnay de Maurel could be found every day and all day, either in one of the workshops or else in the small office which he had fitted out for himself, and from whence he supervised the administration of his huge estate and of the works which supplied the Emperor's army with the material wherewith to conquer the world and subjugate the enemies of France. Any one, too, could have added that when "the General" was not at the foundry, he was sitting in the back kitchen of the Château of La Vieuville, trying to cheer in his rough way the monotonous hours of a confirmed invalid.

All these facts Fernande had learned in four-and-twenty hours. It took her a week to find out something more. That something was the fact that "the General" was mightily fond of shooting, and that during the winter he had often been seen with a gun on his shoulder and a dog at his heels, at break of day, roaming through the moors and forests of La Frontenay, dragging his wounded leg at the close of two or three hours' hard tramping, and often returning with a young deer slung across his shoulders, or a few snipe, or pheasant, or golden plover swinging round his belt. But in the springtime of the year, when the close season set in and the gun had to be laid aside, M. de Maurel did not discontinue his wanderings, and there were many who averred that at break of day "the General" could still be seen wending his way towards the woods, his dog at his heels, his breakfast in his wallet. People said that he was overfond of pushing as far as the silent pool, which was close to the boundary that separated the domain of La Frontenay from that of Courson.

"They say that his heart is always with the army," so Fernande's informer told her, "and that he goes daily to the silent pool, in order to listen if the pigeons of St. Front are cooing—for, indeed, 'tis a sure sign, Mademoiselle, that if the pigeons coo, great sorrow or disaster, or even death, awaits the one who hears them; and to the General sorrow and disaster to himself only means sorrow and disaster to the Emperor. They say that he sits for hours beside the pool, and if he does not hear the pigeons, he goes away satisfied."

It was in Villemor itself that Fernande had gleaned this information. She had driven in one day in Père Lebrun's carriole, sitting upon the pile of vegetables which he was taking into the town. Père Lebrun was a cultivator who owned a bit of land of his own whereon he grew cabbages which he sold when and how he could; he also owned an old nag and a broken-down carriole, and once a week—when the weather was propitious—he drove into Villemor—a matter of eight kilomètres—and combined pleasure with business, by going to see his sister, who lived in the village of La Vieuville, on the way to Villemor. This Fernande learned while she sat on the pile of Père Lebrun's cabbages. She had desired to be driven into the town for the sake of a few commissions which she had to do there; but thoughts of Ronnay de Maurel were never absent from her mind now, and as soon as the pointed roofs of La Vieuville came in sight, she led Père Lebrun to talk of the inmates of the old château. And Père Lebrun was as ready for gossip as is a peach to fall from the tree when it is ripe. One word set him going, and he had a great deal to tell of old M. Gaston's eccentricities and miserliness, as well as of "the General" and his queer, rough ways. But though he spoke much, he could only quote hearsay, and Fernande was waxing impatient, when Lebrun suddenly told her that his sister Adèle Lapin did the ménage daily at the château, and that all his information about the two eccentric dwellers thereof came from her.

Whereupon Fernande discovered that her commissions in the town would easily keep for another day, and, moreover, that riding in a carriole on the top of a pile of cabbages made her sick. She demanded to be put down at the door of Mme. Adèle Lapin, declaring that she would wait there until Père Lebrun had finished his business in Villemor and came to pick her up at his sister's house before driving back to Courson.

The result of this change of plans was a wealth of information gleaned from Mme. Adèle's voluble talk. She knew all about old M. Gaston, who, indeed, was very ill, and all about "the General," who was as savage, as morose and as shy as a bear. But Lapin, her husband, worked at a farm the other side of the La Frontenay woods, and when he went to his work at break of day, he nearly always met M. Ronnay tramping through the thickets, and once or twice he had seen him sitting beside the silent pool. Other people had seen him, too, and they said that he sat so still that undoubtedly he was listening for the cooing of the pigeons of St. Front.

And Fernande de Courson drove home that afternoon in Père Lebrun's carriole feeling like a soldier on the eve of battle. She hardly spoke to anyone the whole of that evening, and Laurent had serious cause to complain of her lack of responsiveness. She pleaded fatigue from her expedition and went early to bed. But the next morning she was up betimes and tramping soon after sunrise in the direction of the woods of La Frontenay.