(1)
M. Perrelet, followed by an orderly with an armful of pillows, came briskly down the corridor one afternoon ten days later, and entered a certain guarded room.
"Well, my children, and what are you doing now?" he demanded benignantly of its inhabitants.
"I am having my knowledge of English extended, sir," responded one of them from the bed, smiling faintly. "M. de Courtomer found an English book on the shelf there, and he is reading it to me. . . . Are those the pillows you promised me this morning?"
He still looked extraordinarily bloodless, and even thinner, but there was more life about him. Laurent had got up, and stood glancing from M. Perrelet to L'Oiseleur with an air of being rather proud of his charge. Indeed, to-day was an important milestone; having, a couple of days ago, been promoted from his recumbent position to about three pillows, La Rocheterie was now going to be propped up with many into a sitting posture for an hour or two—hence the orderly's load. And in a few minutes the little doctor and Laurent proceeded so to prop him.
"You may feel a trifle giddy at first," remarked the former, surveying him critically. "When you are tired, ask your nurse to take them away again. . . . And this is your English book? H'm. Le Vicaire de Vackfeel. What is this Vackfeel—a place or a person? Once I could read English, though not speak it. I read the poet Shackspeer."
"Monsieur Perrelet," observed Laurent, "you are a mine of knowledge, and of everything desirable. And, as you have brought M. de la Rocheterie all those plump pillows, you could no doubt bring me what I want."
"And what is that, my boy?" asked the surgeon, looking up from the pages of Goldsmith which, sitting on the edge of his patient's bed, he was turning over, his lips very much pursed.
"A letter," responded M. de Courtomer. "A letter from a lady—from my mother, in short. Though I do not know why you should play postman. I suppose that if I get a reply to mine, which I wrote—oh, a fortnight ago—it will come through the same channel, those gentlemen downstairs?"
"You had left yours open, I suppose?"
"Yes, but I contrived to put in a good deal of what I wanted to say. And now I wish to hear how my dear mother is bearing my loss."
"I cannot tell you that," replied the little doctor, twinkling, "but any ordinary—or extraordinary—outside news I can supply you with, if you are pining for it. To-day, however, I have heard nothing in particular."
"But might you not get into trouble for telling us, if there were?"
The bounce which M. Perrelet gave shook the bed. "Sacrebleu, young man, am I a soldier? I thank God, no! Do I care, either, whether King or Emperor rules this distracted country, provided he makes haste and does it, and I get my drugs delivered when I order them? If I could hope that those confounded diligence-robbing Chouans of yours had swallowed what I was having sent last week I might feel consoled, for in that event some of those long-haired gentry would still be suffering from stomach-ache. But I have not forgiven the Imperialists either for opening a case because they pretended to think it contained smuggled ammunition. There's nothing to choose between the adherents of either side. No; I am like a character in one of le Shackspeer's plays—I forget which, but this book brings back my little English. He says, à propos of some quarrel (and I say it with him), 'A pla-gué on bot' your 'ousses!'"
The linguist making of the first noun a dissyllable with, as was natural, the continental "a", and of the second the French word which means a horse-cloth, Laurent stooped hurriedly to the floor after nothing in particular, and even L'Oiseleur bit his lip.
"Is not M. Perrelet's pronunciation of English rather singular?" he enquired after the doctor had gone. "You are not always very polite about mine, but even I had not the faintest idea what he was saying just now."
"I should not have known myself, but that it was a quotation," confessed his instructor, laughing. "Are you comfortable like that—not too high?"
"Quite comfortable—but a little out of my bearings. Still, I was coming to know the geography of the ceiling rather overwell. . . . And now that I am thus erected, I suppose you will insist on my reading that book to myself? I wonder, de Courtomer, what is the next reformation that you will try to work on me, after my health and my English?"
And, as he held out his blanched hand with its seamed wrist for the Vicar of Wakefield, he suddenly gave his companion a brief glimpse of his once enchanting smile.
Laurent went red with pleasure. Yes, this was indeed a day to be remembered—the first time that L'Oiseleur had smiled in earnest since he was brought to Arbelles. He gave him the book, and said that he did not really expect him to struggle with it.
"But," said his charge, "I shall like to read more about this pastor who has his living wife's epitaph framed over his mantelpiece to encourage her in virtue! It seems to me that he must be a person of humour."
Highly pleased at this unwonted manifestation of interest, Laurent sat down by the window. Captivity had hardly yet had time to be irksome; he had been too much occupied. But, even if La Rocheterie's life no longer depended on his care, he had no visions of escape, though obviously the climb down from the unbarred window presented only one difficulty to a young and vigorous man—the sentry below. Laurent's heart, however, was chained for the present in this room, where he had acquired something personally more precious than what he had lost. It still seemed strange and wonderful to him that his hero had been given over to him like a child—like an infant, indeed, at one stage, requiring to be fed from a spoon. He was not so helpless now, though he was still very weak. But, since the day when they had come to an understanding, it was nothing but a pleasure to do things for him. And L'Oiseleur was so good, so patient, so grateful!
All at once L'Oiseleur's own voice, with the lightness gone out of it, broke in on these reflections. "You were speaking just now about having written a letter, Comte. Have you writing materials there, and if so might I——"
"Of course," replied Laurent, jumping and fetching them.
M. de la Rocheterie did not get on very fast, however—whether from physical or mental disabilities was not clear. At last his pencil ceased its labours altogether, and the writer put his head back against his high pillows. Perhaps the letter was a difficult one; it might well be!
After a few minutes' inaction he tried again; added a word or two, and desisted a second time. Then he looked in Laurent's direction.
"I am so sorry, de Courtomer," he said rather breathlessly. "I suppose it is these pillows . . . it's ridiculous, but I feel . . ."
What he felt was pretty obvious now. Laurent grabbed away M. Perrelet's erection and laid him flat again where, after a little, he got the better of his faintness. On this, rather to Laurent's surprise, he asked if he might dictate the rest of his letter, as he wanted to finish it.
So Laurent retrieved the pencil and paper and sat down by the bed. Very little was on the paper.
"Please read it over to me," said the writer. And Laurent read these words aloud:
"MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER,—You will, I expect, have heard that my little force was almost annihilated about three weeks ago, and you may have been wondering——"
Laurent looked enquiringly at the bed.
"—'Why you have had no news from me,'" finished its occupant slowly. And Laurent completed the sentence, trying to guess what the next would be. What would he—what could he—tell his grandmother about his plight?
"'I was slightly wounded,'" resumed Aymar in a colourless tone (Laurent involuntarily raising his eyebrows as he transcribed this statement) "'and am now a prisoner, but I have been and am very well looked after.'" He let his eyes dwell for a second on his amanuensis as he dictated this, and his voice had a different inflection though his expression did not change. "'There is therefore no need for anxiety on my behalf.'"
In the pause that followed Laurent wondered whether it were of set purpose that he had not mentioned his place of captivity. L'Oiseleur resumed:
"'Please tell Avoye that her letter reached me just before I—'" he paused again—"'before I was captured. She will understand that I cannot answer it at present as I should have wished. And do not be uneasy if you do not hear from me again for some time.'"
"That is all," said the letter-writer, suddenly appearing exhausted. "If you will kindly give it to me I will sign it."
"Well, there could hardly be a balder letter of reassurance," thought Laurent. "Shall I address it?" he asked.
"If you please," said L'Oiseleur. "'Madame la Vicomtesse de la Rocheterie, Château de Sessignes, près Merléac.' I am going to ask M. Perrelet to post it. If he does not feel justified in doing so I shall tear it up. It is not going through their hands downstairs!"
And, as Laurent assented sympathetically, he added, "But I am afraid you will think that I am not a very candid person, de Courtomer! It would hardly be kind, however, to tell my grandmother the truth about my 'capture,' would it? And there is no actual lie, as you can see, in that letter."
Laurent grew hot in a moment. A faint, half-tortured amusement showed in the red-brown eyes. "Well, perhaps M. Perrelet will refuse to take it, and that will end the matter," said their owner. And Laurent had the strange idea that, on the whole, he would be glad of it.
But M. Perrelet, when asked next morning, made no bones about it at all, merely repeating his Shackspeer quotation rather more execrably than before.