(6)
A greater peace reigned next afternoon in Madeleine Allard's little plot of garden, where the great pear tree stood sentinel over the stocks and gillyflowers and the old lavender hedge, than any one acquainted with the events of the previous day would have believed possible. In the shade of the pear tree had been placed the ancient chair, and in this, with his swathed right arm extended on its shabby leather, and his legs on another chair, was ensconced L'Oiseleur. Laurent, elbow-propped, lay near him on the grass, and every now and then threw at some prowling hen one of the tiny unripe pears which strewed it.
"You would not do for the artillery, mon cher," observed Aymar lazily, smiling down at him under halfdropped lashes.
"But I am not trying to hit," retorted Laurent, equally lazily.
Abased in spirit to the very dust as he still was, he was also extraordinarily happy. For he had Aymar back, the real Aymar, who, wounded, weak and alone, had five times gone through agony for him—it must have been agony, whatever he said. He shot a swift but almost adoring glance at him now, where he leant his head back against Madeleine's best pillow-case. He was nearly as colourless as the linen, and the circles under his eyes were very deep and dark, but at least he did not seem to be in pain any longer. Yet while Aymar, ill and defenceless, had been undergoing that for his sake, he, in security, had been thinking. . . . The very remembrance almost choked him as he lay there under Aymar's eyes. If he knew . . . if he knew!
Aymar, who had heard the soldiers talking, believed Guitton to be at the back of the disgraceful business. It appeared that he had so bullied the first search-party when he learnt (not, however, for hours afterwards) of L'Oiseleur's presence at the farm that the second hardly dared to face him without the escaped prisoner, whom he correctly assumed to be there also. Indeed, Aymar was of opinion that the Colonel had gone so far as to hint that there was no need to stand on ceremony with him. . . . Perhaps that was even why they had been sent without an officer. He asserted that he bore the dragoon no ill-will for proceeding to extremities; they were really desperate—and if their commanding officer had assured them that, since he was beyond the pale, it did not matter what they did to him, could they be blamed for believing him? They had only used the ramrod as a last resource, and unwillingly—or there would not have been such a long prelude of threats first.
But, however much their victim tried to extenuate them, Laurent felt, as he said, that he was not so proud of being a Frenchman as he had been. His disgust and horror suddenly got the better of him again now, and, abruptly smiting the grass, he swore. And then, for the twentieth time, he said, "How could you let them do it! And how I wish I had not told you about that dungeon!"
"My dear fellow, you are making a tempest in a teacup once more," responded Aymar. "And do you suppose that the exact degree of captivity with which you were threatened made any difference? Or"—unconsciously he threw back his head a little against the pillow—"or that if you had been my worst enemy I should have yielded up the secret of your hiding-place to force? Think of that aspect of it, if it is any consolation to you; also of the fact that I got a testimonial out of it. For though they began by remarking that I was not likely to require any violent persuasion—— Oh, I'm sorry, I did not mean to tell you that—they ended by saying that I was a stubborn devil, which I took as a high compliment. . . . No, Laurent, in all seriousness, it was child's play to what it might have been."
"Even if that were true," said Laurent, pulling up grass distractedly, "you did not know whether at any moment it might not cease being 'child's play'—nor when it was going to end at all!" And as Aymar said nothing to this, he shot out the query, "Why did it end?"
"Perhaps owing to the intervention of your patron saint," suggested Aymar, smiling. "He had considerable experience of the effects of heat, we are told.—No, I think they were ashamed to go on any longer, and a little frightened at what they had done, insignificant though it was. Moreover, iron does not keep hot for ever, and though they talked of going into the kitchen to reheat it I really think they dared not face Madeleine again. My impression is that she screamed continuously throughout, and that distressed me more than anything, because I was afraid you might hear her, and come in."
"I only wish I had!" sighed Laurent, running his fingers through his hair. "But, Aymar"—he was unable to leave the hated subject—"if the accursed thing was cooling, as you say, how is it that the last burn is so much the worst?"
Aymar looked up at the pear tree. "Because they kept the ramrod on about three times as long, that is why. . . . What is that book you are not reading?"
Laurent raised himself and laid on his knee the little copy of The Vicar of Wakefield which he had inadvertently brought away from Arbelles in his pocket.
"Ah, my old friend," remarked L'Oiseleur, and fell to turning over the pages with one hand.
Laurent returned to his pose on the grass. Yes, Aymar could talk and even jest about yesterday's ordeal; he would never be able to do so about that horrible inquisition at Arbelles, in which he had suffered no actual physical violence.
Presently, indeed, the reader gave an exclamation of amusement. "Laurent, listen to what I have lighted on!" And he read out, in his careful English, "'My friends,' said I, 'this is severe weather in which you are come to take me to a prison; and it is particularly unfortunate at this time as one of my arms has lately been burnt in a terrible manner' . . ."
Laurent could not help smiling. "Really," he remarked appreciatively, "that book is extraordinarily apt. It always seems to hit the situation."
"Yes," agreed Aymar, "for it goes on to say, 'And I want clothes to cover me.'" He glanced at the three or four inches of wrist protruding from the sleeve of M. Arbelles' coat. "But how did this unfortunate divine come by his burnt arm? I have not read it."
"By rescuing his infant children from his house, which burst into flames before his eyes in what I have always considered the most surprising manner. If you'll give me the book I will find the place—it is a few chapters earlier." He reached up, found the page, and read: "'It was now near midnight that I came to knock at my door: all was still and silent—my heart dilated with unutterable happiness, when, to my amazement, I saw the house bursting out into a blaze of fire, and every aperture red with conflagration. I gave a loud convulsive outcry, and fell upon the pavement insensible.'"
"Very surprising, indeed," assented Aymar gravely. "But tell me, why did you say that the book was always so appropriate? I do not remember in our readings any other circumstances of the life of M. Primrose which your ingenuity could apply to either of us."
Laurent bent his head to conceal from him how red he had got. How could he have been such a fool as to let slip that remark? For what had been in his mind faced him now as he turned back from Chapter xxiv to Chapter xxii—the famous and disturbing heading of the intermediate chapter, which had given him such a shock at Arbelles—'NONE BUT THE GUILTY CAN BE LONG AND COMPLETELY MISERABLE.'
"I—I can't find the other place," he stammered, hastily turning over the leaves to get away from the damning phrase.
"But surely you can remember what the incident was?" persisted Aymar. "Come, now!" and he threw a pear on to the book, while the unwary Laurent, thankful at least to have got the volume out of the enquirer's hands, cudgelled his brains desperately. At last inspiration leapt into them.
"This is what I meant. Don't you remember, somewhere near the beginning, where his daughter falls into a torrent—not a salmon river, though—and is rescued by a stranger who plunges in?" He turned feverishly in search of the episode and read it, and encouraged, by his escape, looked up at his friend with a meaning smile and added, "We are told a little earlier that 'the stranger's conversation, which was at once pleasing and instructive, induced me to wish for a continuance of it.'" Then he closed the dangerous volume firmly, returned it to his own pocket and dropped his head again upon his arms on the warm grass.
"The sun is getting round," observed Aymar presently. "No, I am all right. I like it on my feet. Come and lean up here; you will be out of it then."
So Laurent dragged himself nearer and rested his back against the side of the chair. Aymar amused himself by gently pulling his hair.
"Tiens," said Laurent with a little yawn, "that is what Maman used to do to send me to sleep when I was small. It generally did; if not, she would tell me a fairy story. Tell me one!" His head dropped on to Aymar's knee.
The hand left his hair, and there was silence.
"If I told you a story, Laurent," came L'Oiseleur's voice at last, "it would not be a fairy story. Nor do I think it would send you to sleep." And, after a longer pause still, he added, so low that Laurent barely heard it, "No, not to-day."
But Laurent was already carrying the words with him into a land of dreams where they interpreted themselves as something quite different.