This plan was executed as soon as proposed. Bourdon, my lieutenant, led one half of the troop to the left of the terrace, at the same moment that I appeared on the other side; and though the enemy had by this time become aware of our approach, and received us with a severe fire of musketry, we charged them with all the determination of hatred and revenge, and cut them down almost to a man. At that moment, however, an event occurred, which, in the passion and heat of the circumstances, I had not at all anticipated. A much larger body of infantry than that which had occupied the terrace drew out from the court behind, and I had just time to recognise in their commander my old enemy, Gaspard de Belleville, when the word was given to fire. Ten or twelve of my men dropped round about me in a moment; a violent blow seemed to strike my right shoulder, and with a strange feeling of faintness I fell headlong from my horse. I made one ineffectual effort to rise; but as I did so, the terrace, the park, the conflict that was still going on, and the burning château, swam round and round before my eyes; the feeling of faint sickness increased more and more, and in another instant complete forgetfulness of everything came over me. Nearly two hours must have passed as I lay in this state; and when I recovered my senses, I found myself cast carelessly upon a baggage-wagon, stiff, bruised, and in great pain, though a number of bandages round my neck and shoulders showed me that I had been tended with some degree of care. It was still night, but there was a slight tinge of grey in the sky, which spoke that morning was not far distant, and by the noise of other wagons and the tramp of marching men, I judged that I was carried along with a retreating army. In the front part of the wagon, at a very short distance from me, sat a female figure, the countenance of which I could not distinguish in the darkness; but a groan breaking from my lips, as the jolts of the vehicle gave me a degree of agony indescribable, caused her to approach and take my head in her lap, adding a few words of comfort. The voice I recognised at once as that of Suzette, who had been the servante of Madame de Villardin; but it was so changed in its tone, so low and sad, that I was almost led to doubt whether my ear had not deceived me. A feeling of abhorrence towards the woman--excited certainly more by my suspicions than by my knowledge--would have made me shrink from her, had it been possible. So weak, however, had I become, that I could neither move hand nor foot, and the pain of the attempt only called another groan from my bosom, which drew her attention still more towards me. Whether she had any particular motive in the care she took of me, or whether it sprung alone from that tender-heartedness which even the worst of women feel on beholding suffering and distress, of course I could not tell; but to do her but justice, she certainly tended me most kindly, and just as day was breaking, we found ourselves at the little town of Château Renard. Here she descended from the wagon, and was giving directions to the drivers to lift me gently into a little auberge, when Gaspard de Belleville himself, riding up at full speed, caught her by the shoulder, and giving her a rude shake, exclaimed, "Get up!--get up! You are not going to halt here!"--and then turning to the wagoners, he cursed them brutally for having paused at all, ordering them to make all speed onward towards Champagne.
"What in the devil's name have you there?" he exclaimed, pointing towards me, whose face he could not very well see.
"Only a wounded officer," replied Suzette.
"And what business has a wounded officer on your wagon?" cried he, sharply; "but get up, get up, and lose no time;" and riding on to the wagons which had preceded us, and which had likewise halted, he apparently gave more particular orders, and then galloped back, calling to Suzette as he passed to make the best of her way to Marou, and wait his coming there.
As I had never heard of Marou in my life, I was of course at a loss to know in what direction I was about to be borne; but, to tell the truth, in the state of feebleness and pain in which I then was, I cared so little what became of me, that I did not give the matter a second thought. The wagon rolled on; but at a little village, about five miles farther on, we were obliged to pause till fresh horses could be procured; and as this was not to be done without compulsion, a good deal of time was lost, while, lying on the top of the packages with which the vehicle was loaded, wounded, exhausted, and feverish, I suffered more than it is possible to describe. It luckily happened that the sky was dull and cloudy; for had it been one of those hot oppressive days which are sometimes met with in April, I do not think I should have been alive at night. Suzette, however, was kinder than I imagined she could have been: brought me drink several times to assuage the burning thirst that now consumed me, assured me that before night I should have a surgeon to dress my wounds, and did all in her power to keep up my spirits and to soothe my pain. A change had apparently taken place in her feelings since last I had beheld her, and a change had also taken place in her appearance, for I saw--and remembered afterwards, though it made but little impression on my mind at the time--that her dress was very different from that in which she had appeared in Bordeaux; and, indeed, the only mode of conveyance which was assigned to her would have rendered any other apparel than that of the simplest kind both ridiculous and cumbersome.
Through the whole of that day we travelled on, accompanied, as it appeared to me, by a small party of horse; but, nevertheless, Gaspard de Belleville did not again make his appearance, and towards night we halted at a village near Joigny. Here a surgeon was procured for me, who, though none of the best, contrived to extract the ball out of my side, after putting me to terrible torture for nearly half an hour. The relief, however, that I experienced was immediate; and the wound being properly dressed, I fell sound asleep, even before I was removed from the table on which the operation had been performed. The next morning early I found Suzette again by the side of the straw-bed on which I was stretched; and by this time I had recovered sufficient strength to ask her what had become of Father Ferdinand and Mademoiselle de Villardin, when the château of Virmont had been burned. She replied, that she could not tell, as she had not come up till afterwards; and she added, at the same time, an injunction not to trouble myself about other people, but to keep as quiet as circumstances would permit, out of consideration for myself.
This warning was uttered with a touch of that flippancy which had been her characteristic while in the service of Madame de Villardin, but it was the only remaining trait of the kind that I now remarked. It was sufficient, however, to make me turn from her again in some degree of disgust, by awakening all the memories of the past; but she did not seem to perceive any emotion of the sort, and the party being once more prepared to set out, I was again placed on the wagon, though a pile of straw had been spread to form a sort of bed for me on the top of the packages, and a piece of canvas had been drawn across as an awning for my head. Another day's journey brought us about twenty miles further in Champagne, and towards four o'clock, the wagon in which I was placed stopped at the turning of a cross-road, near which was a farmhouse. A number of the peasants were called up to the side of the vehicle; and, under the directions of Suzette, several of the packages which it contained were carried down the road. A couple of planks were then procured, and, being tied together, I was placed thereon, and lifted up from the ground by four stout men, who proceeded to bear me in the direction which those who carried the baggage had already taken. At the distance of about a mile and a half from the high road we came to a house, which, though distinguishable in every respect from a farm, did not at all deserve the name of a château. It was, indeed, one of those dwellings which, at that time, were commonly called in France a gentilhommière, and which were generally inhabited by persons of gentle birth but small fortunes, who, after having served in the army the customary five or six years, retired to fit their younger children for becoming lawyers, abbés, and soldiers of fortune, while the heir to the estate prepared to tread exactly in his father's footsteps, and follow the same laudable and quiet path.
Up the steps of this building was I carried by my sturdy bearers, and in the hall I found Suzette, who had preceded us by some minutes, giving orders for my accommodation to two or three servants, male and female, who called her Madame, and acknowledged her commands as those of their mistress. Carried into a neat small chamber on the ground floor, I was undressed by the hands of the lacquey, and put to bed. In a few hours more a surgeon visited me, and I saw no one else but himself and the servant for two or three days, except when, once every morning, Suzette visited my bed-side, asked briefly whether I was getting better, and left me as soon as I had replied.
On the fourth day, however, when she appeared, she sat down by my bed-side, and, instead of addressing me in the usual hurried manner, she paused thoughtfully, and looked anxiously in my face, even before she inquired after my health. Her whole manner, indeed, was absent and agitated; and after two or three remarks on indifferent subjects, she said, abruptly, "I have something to tell you, Monsieur Hall, which must be told, and which shall be told, though I had intended to wait for two or three days longer, till you were well enough to hear it, and I had got courage enough to tell it; but he is coming home to-morrow, and heaven knows, if I do not tell it now, whether I shall ever be permitted to tell it at all."
As there was much that she had in her power to communicate which I would have given my right hand to hear, I assured her that I was quite well enough to attend to and remember everything she might say. She hesitated, however, long, although it was evident that it was the question, how to tell her tale, not any doubt in regard to telling it, that embarrassed her; and after beginning and breaking off at least twenty times, she at length summoned courage, and proceeded with her story as follows:--