Chapter Eighteen.
Memory the Eighteenth—In Terrible Suspense.
My spirits rose a little after breakfast the next morning, though I only smiled sadly as I thought of my many disappointments; but we had had a long talk with Patty, and she had faithfully promised never, upon any consideration, to divulge one of our secrets. Of course I did not like making another confidante; but, under the circumstances, what could one do?
“Ah!” said Patty; “but it was a great shame that you did not tell me before.”
“Why, we should have told you,” said Clara—a wicked storyteller—“only you do sleep so soundly, dear.”
Though, after all, perhaps that was nearly the truth; for, if she had not slept so soundly, we should have been obliged to let her into our secrets sooner.
This satisfied her, but it did not satisfy me; for the stupid creature must go about looking so knowing, and cunning, and deep, and laugh and leer at Clara, and nod and wink at me, all day long, till it was dreadfully aggravating, and enough to make anybody suspicious; and I almost wonder that one of the watchful dragons did not have something to say about it.
“Why, we shall be obliged to have her in the room all the time,” I said to Clara, as I was thinking of my next interview with Achille; that is, if I ever was to have another.
“Never mind, dear,” replied Clara; “it cannot matter much. She is very stupid, and I daresay that I can keep her in order.”
I contrived to let Achille know all when he came the next day, and gave him to understand that he might try again upon any night he liked; for the last was only a false alarm, and all would have gone well had I but only held tightly by the cord. I gave him the information, written in French, at the top of my exercise, while Miss Furness was in the room, when if he had not the audacity to call me up to his elbow—for he had seen it all in an instant—and if he did not point out and mark two or three mistakes in the note I had scribbled so hastily at the top about the last meeting. However, I suppose he wished me to speak his own language correctly; and none but the brave deserve the fair.
There was one thing, though, in our correspondence which I did not like—poor Achille never could take any interest in our English poets; so that, if one quoted a bit of Byron or Moore to him, it was good for nothing, while he, the tiresome man, was always filling up his notes with scraps of Molière, and I am sure I always praised them, and said that they were very beautiful.
And now once more came the night for meeting, with all its heart-throbbing flurry and excitement; but this time, apparently, without any of the terrible contretemps that had previously troubled us. Patty was in high glee, and sat on the edge of her bedstead, munching an Abernethy biscuit, and grinning; while her great eyes, instead of half closing, like anybody else’s would when they were laughing, became more round and wide open than ever. It seemed to be capital fun to her, and over and over again, when I glanced at her, she was giggling and laughing; and I do believe that, if I had not been there, she would have got up and danced about the room.
But it was time to start at last, and upon this occasion I had no noisy drawer to open, for I had a ball of new, stout string in my pocket. So, one at a time, we glided along the passage, Clara going first, Patty second, and I followed behind, to close our door as quietly as was possible.
“Pat, pat, pat,” and, with a gentle rustle, we passed along the passage, and stood at last in the little end room, while I am sure that no one could have heard our footsteps.
Clara made one effort to get rid of Patty before we started, but it was of no avail.
“Arn’t you afraid of catching a worse cold?” she said; “hadn’t you better stay in the bedroom, dear?”
For really she had a most miserable cold, and her eyes and nose looked as red as red.
“I sha’n’t catch any more cold than you will,” she cried, just as she had once before upon a similar occasion—“I want to see all the fun.”
Fancy calling it fun!
So we were obliged to suffer her presence; but I am afraid that I was uncharitable enough to wish that she might catch a bad sore throat for her pains, or else something that would keep her from coming again.
However, there we all were; and as soon as ever we were all in the little room, I secured the door with a fork that I had brought for the purpose, and then, pulling out my string, I unfastened the window, when, fortunately, it glided up beautifully.
Clara was the first to look out, and it not being a dark night, she popped in again directly, saying in a whisper—
“There he is. I can see him.”
“Let me look,” cried Patty Smith, quite out loud; and then, when her head was out of the window, if she did not give quite a loud cough, in not only a most indiscreet way, but, really, one that was most reprehensible.
I pulled her back as quickly as I could, and, in a whisper, gave her a good scolding. Then I tied my scissors to the end of the string, to make it go down quickly, and swinging them over the great ledge, I looked down; but I could not see poor Achille, for he had come close up to the house, and was, of course, out of sight beneath the cornice.
“But I shall see him soon,” I said to myself; and went on letting down the scissors till the string felt slack, and I knew that they touched the ground, when, just as before, I felt the string seized and jerked about, as if being attached to something; and well I knew what, though a half-fear took hold upon me now lest it should break the string, which was not so strong as I could have wished.
But now there was the signal; and I began to pull up the heavy rope ladder, cutting my poor little fingers with the string. At first it came up pretty quickly, but soon slower, for again it began to grow heavier; and at last, when I made sure that it must be nearly up, if it must not turn contrary against us, and catch against the cornice, and remain immovable.
What was I to do? It was of no use to pull and jerk; for, if we had pulled any harder, I’m sure that the string must have broken. If it had not been for Clara, I should have climbed out of the window, and stood upon the cornice, to set it at liberty, for she could easily have held my hand, so that I should really have been quite safe.
But she would not hear of this, and I don’t know what I should have done if I had not thought of lowering the ladder down a little way, and then trying again, when, to my great delight, up it came, and Clara soon had hold of a pair of great iron hooks, just the sort of hooks I expected to see; and on fixing them upon the sill, my side, we found that they fitted beautifully; so I threw myself upon them to hold them in their places, lest they should slip.
Just after that there was a sharp rustle of the rope, and then it was pulled tight; while now, making Clara hold one hook and Patty the other, I strained out as far as I could reach, so that I could see Achille mounting, slowly ascending, the dangerous thing; and, although we all held on as tightly as we could, when he was about a dozen feet from the ground the tiresome rope began to twist and spin round and round, so that the poor fellow was twisting just as if he was being roasted, and I’m sure he must have been as giddy as giddy.
Fortunately for him, he did not always go the same way round, but twisted back again, or else he must have dropped off. It was not as if he had been close up to the house, for then he could have touched the wall and stopped himself; but the cornice, which was a good width, kept him away, so that he swung clear. And perhaps, after all, it was quite as well, for he might else have gone right through one of the windows.
It was very shuddery and dreadful; but we poor girls could do nothing but grasp the rope and hold our breath, and, as Clara said, hold our tongues; though Patty would keep letting go, and staring out of the window when she was not wanted to.
“Won’t I tease him about this,” she said. “Only see, the first time he finds fault with my exercises.”
“Hush! you foolish child,” I exclaimed. “Good gracious me! you must never say a word to him about it, under any consideration.”
“Mustn’t I?” said Patty, as innocently as could be.
“No, of course not,” cried Clara; “that would ruin everything.”
For I was now reaching as far as could be out of the window, to see what poor Achille was about; for the rope seemed to be doing nothing, and did not jerk as if he was getting higher and higher. And then, oh, dear! if I could not just see one of his feet where his head was last time I looked; for he was sitting upon the sill of the first floor window—the best bedroom, which was, of course, empty—and, I suppose, resting himself.
All at once, though, I heard him whisper—
“Is de ting sauf?”
“Yes, yes,” I whispered in reply.
And then the rope crunched upon the cornice, as if he had again committed to it his weight, when I drew in my head and waited, trembling, for him to reach the window; and it did seem such a long time to come so short a distance; but, as he told me afterwards, the loops would keep slipping away when he wanted to put his feet in them, besides the rope spinning him round until he was giddy. At last I looked out again, and then drew back my head in agony; for if he was not hanging by one leg, head downwards, just like my poor Dick, the canary, did in London, when it caught its claw in the wire of the cage and could not get loose.
As I said, I drew in my head, quite in an agony of fear; but the rope jerked about so that I was obliged to gaze once more, and then I ejaculated, quite loudly—
“Oh, Achille!”
“Eh, yais, oui,” he exclaimed. “I ’ave put in mine’s foot.”
“In what—in what, mon cher?” I whispered.
“Oh,” he gasped, in a thick voice, “mais je suis giddy. I ’ave puts my foot trou de loops, and cannot get him back.”
“Oh, pray come in!” cried Clara, who had heard every word, and seemed quite horrified—“pray come in and shut the window. Let’s go away.”
“Oh, nonsense,” I said, “he will be hung: he will die! His head is hanging down, and his leg sticking up in the rope. He has slipped. Whatever shall we do?”
“Why don’t you cut the rope?” said Patty; but of course no one took any notice of her.
“Let’s unhook the things,” whispered Clara, “and then drop him down into the laurustinus.”
“Oh, how can you be so stupid!” I panted. “It would kill him: he’s right above the first floor window-sill.”
“Well, but we can’t shut the window with those things there,” said Clara; “and it will not do to be found out.”
I looked again, and there he still was twirling round just as if he was being roasted, and the rope shaking so that I thought it must break. I kept whispering to him, but he did not hear me; and just dim and indistinctly as he was seen, I could make out that he was trying to double himself up and get his hands to the rope.
I never, I’m sure, felt anything so dreadful before in my life as those few moments when he was struggling there, and me unable to help him; for, in addition to the horror, there was the pricking of my conscience, as it told me that this was all my fault, and that if he was killed I should have murdered him. Which was very dreadful, you know, when that last affair of the cistern, which he escaped from with a fearful drenching, ought to have been a warning to me to have spared him from running any more risks on my behalf.
I declare that I should have tried to slide down the rope to help him, or else to share his fate, if Clara had not restrained me once more; but she kept tightly hold of my waist, till there came up a sound like the gnashing together of teeth, the rope gave a terrible shake, and the iron hooks fell jingling upon the floor.
There was a crashing and rustling of leaves and branches, as if a heavy body had fallen amongst trees, and then all was still, except for a deep groan—a French groan—which came up, thrilling us all horribly; for the rope had come unfastened, and had slipped through the round rings of the hooks.
We all stood aghast for a few minutes; but at last I summoned up courage enough to lean out, and whisper loudly—
“Achille! mon ami Achille!” when, as if in answer, came a most doleful “H-ooo, o-o-o, ho-o-o-o!” which made one’s very blood run cold.
“That’s only an owl,” said Clara, the next minute.
“A howl!” said Patty; “that it wasn’t, it was a groan, just the same as the pigs give when they’re dying in our slaughter-house at home.”
I leaned out of the window as far as I could, once more, and was trying to pierce the darkness below, when all at once I heard a window to the right opening very gently, and squeaking as it ran up, and that window, I felt sure, was the lady principal’s; so, recollecting the night of the alarm from Clara’s basin—agonised though I was—I felt obliged to close ours quietly, pick up the two hooks, and then we all three glided back to our room—my heart chiding me the while for forsaking poor Achille in such a time of dire distress. But what could I do? To stay or to raise an alarm was to be found out, and perhaps—ay, perhaps!—poor fellow, he was not hurt, after all.
It was just as well that we did slip back, for we had hardly closed the door before the alarm bell on the top of the house began to ring, and we heard the Fraülein spring out of bed with a regular bump upon the floor.
We were not many seconds scuffling into bed; and, just as we lay down, we heard the Fraülein’s door open, and then there were voices talking and a good deal of buzzing about, for quite half an hour. But we thought it better not to go out; for, when Clara took a peep, Miss Furness was hunting several of the girls back into their rooms with—
“Nothing the matter, young ladies. Back to your dormitories.”
So we lay quite still, and listened; while I essayed to allay my horrible fears about poor Achille, and tried to fancy that every sigh of the wind among the branches was him stealing—no, I won’t say stealing, it looks so bad—hurrying away. Then we heard the Fraülein come in, and her bed creak loudly as she lay down; and once more all was quiet, and I felt sure that they could not have seen or heard anything, but I dared not get up once more to see. Clara said she was sure she heard Mrs Blunt talking to the policeman out of the window again. Perhaps she did, but I did not; though it was most likely, after the ringing of the alarm bell.
“What are you sobbing for?” said Clara, all at once.
“Oh, I know he’s killed,” I said.
“Pooh, nonsense,” she replied, in her unfeeling way, “he only went plop among the bushes; and they say exiles always manage to fall on their feet when they come to England, just like cats. He is not hurt, unless he has scratched that beautiful face of his a little bit.”
“Then you don’t think he is killed, dear?” I said, seeking for comfort, alas! where I was but little likely to find it, I’m sorry to say.
“Not I,” said Clara; “it was not far enough to fall.”
“I sha’n’t go no more,” drawled Patty; “it ain’t half such fun as I thought it was. Why didn’t he come right up?”
“Don’t be such a goose!” cried Clara to the noodle. “Why, didn’t he get his leg caught, and then didn’t the rope give way?”
“I’m sure I dunno,” said Patty, yawning; and then, in spite of all the trouble, we all dropped off fast asleep.