Books: The Guest of Quesnay

B >> Booth Tarkington >> The Guest of Quesnay

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And I remembered the dream of her I had before I ever saw her, on that
first night after I came down to Normandy, when Amedee's talk of "Madame
d'Armand" had brought her into my thoughts. I remembered that I had
dreamed of finding her statue, but it was veiled and I could not uncover
it. And to-night it seemed to me that the veil had lifted, and the
statue was a figure of Mercy in the beautiful likeness of Louise Harman.
Then Keredec was wrong, optimist as he was, since a will such as hers
could save him she loved, even from his own acts.

"And when you come to Monticelli's first style--" Miss Elliott's voice
rose a little, and I caught the sound of a new thrill vibrating in it--
"you find a hundred others of his epoch doing it quite as well, not a
BIT of a bit less commonplace--"

She broke off suddenly, and looking up, as I had fifty times in the last
twenty minutes, I saw that a light shone from Keredec's window.

"I dare say they ARE commonplace," I remarked, rising. "But now, if you
will permit me, I'll offer you my escort back to Quesnay."

I went into my room, put on my cap, lit a lantern, and returned with it
to the veranda. "If you are ready?" I said.

"Oh, quite," she answered, and we crossed the garden as far as the
steps.

Mr. Percy signified his approval.

"Gunna see the little lady home, are you?" he said graciously. "I was
THINKIN' it was about time, m'self!"

The salon door of the "Grand Suite" opened, above me, and at the sound,
the youth started, springing back to see what it portended, but I ran
quickly up the steps. Keredec stood in the doorway, bare-headed and in
his shirt-sleeves; in one hand he held a travelling-bag, which he
immediately gave me, setting his other for a second upon my shoulder.

"Thank you, my good, good friend," he said with an emotion in his big
voice which made me glad of what I was doing. He went back into the
room, closing the door, and I descended the steps as rapidly as I had
run up them. Without pausing, I started for the rear of the courtyard,
Miss Elliott accompanying me.

The sentry had watched these proceedings open-mouthed, more mystified
than alarmed. "Luk here," he said, "I want t' know whut this means."

"Anything you choose to think it means," I laughed, beginning to walk a
little more rapidly. He glanced up at the windows of the "Grande Suite,"
which were again dark, and began to follow us slowly. "What you gut in
that grip?" he asked.

"You don't think we're carrying off Mr. Harman?"

"I reckon HE'S in his room all right," said the youth grimly; "unless
he's FLEW out. But I want t' know what you think y're doin'?"

"Just now," I replied, "I'm opening this door."

This was a fact he could not question. We emerged at the foot of a lane
behind the inn; it was long and narrow, bordered by stone walls, and at
the other end debouched upon a road which passed the rear of the Baudry
cottage.

Miss Elliott took my arm, and we entered the lane.

Mr. Percy paused undecidedly. "I want t' know whut you think y're
doin'?" he repeated angrily, calling after us.

"It's very simple," I called in turn. "Can't I do an errand for a
friend? Can't I even carry his travelling-bag for him, without going
into explanations to everybody I happen to meet? And," I added,
permitting some anxiety to be marked in my voice, "I think you may as
well go back. We're not going far enough to need a guard."

Mr. Percy allowed an oath to escape him, and we heard him muttering to
himself. Then his foot-steps sounded behind us.

"He's coming!" Miss Elliott whispered, with nervous exultation, looking
over her shoulder. "He's going to follow."

"He was sure to," said I.

We trudged briskly on, followed at some fifty paces by the perturbed
watchman. Presently I heard my companion utter a sigh so profound that
it was a whispered moan.

"What is it?" I murmured.

"Oh, it's the thought of Quesnay and to-morrow; facing them with THIS!"
she quavered. "Louise has written a letter for me to give them, but I'll
have to tell them--"

"Not alone," I whispered. "I'll be there when you come down from your
room in the morning."

We were embarked upon a singular adventure, not unattended by a certain
danger; we were tingling with a hundred apprehensions, occupied with the
vital necessity of drawing the little spy after us--and that was a
strange moment for a man (and an elderly painter-man of no mark, at
that!) to hear himself called what I was called then, in a tremulous
whisper close to my ear. Of course she has denied it since;
nevertheless, she said it--twice, for I pretended not to hear her the
first time. I made no answer, for something in the word she called me,
and in her seeming to mean it, made me choke up so that I could not even
whisper; but I made up my mind that, after THAT if this girl saw Mr.
Earl Percy on his way back to the inn before she wished him to go, it
would be because he had killed me.

We were near the end of the lane when the neigh of a horse sounded
sonorously from the road beyond.

Mr. Percy came running up swiftly and darted by us.

"Who's that?" he called loudly. "Who's that in the cart yonder?"

I set my lantern on the ground close to the wall, and at the same moment
a horse and cart drew up on the road at the end of the lane, showing
against the starlight. It was Pere Baudry's best horse, a stout gray,
that would easily enough make Trouville by daylight. A woman's figure
and a man's (the latter that of Pere Baudry himself) could be made out
dimly on the seat of the cart.

"Who is it, I say?" shouted our excited friend. "What kind of a game
d'ye think y're puttin' up on me here?"

He set his hand on the side of the cart and sprang upon the hub of the
wheel. A glance at the occupants satisfied him.

"Mrs. Harman!" he yelled. "Mrs. Harman!" He leaped down into the road.
"I knowed I was a fool to come away without wakin' up Rameau. But you
haven't beat us yet!"

He drove back into the lane, but just inside its entrance I met him.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"Back to the pigeon-house in a hurry. There's devilment here, and I want
Rameau. Git out o' my way!"

"You're not going back," said I.

"The hell I ain't!" said Mr. Percy. "I give ye two seconds t' git out o'
my--TAKE YER HANDS OFFA ME!"

I made sure of my grip, not upon the refulgent overcoat, for I feared he
might slip out of that, but upon the collars of his coat and waistcoat,
which I clenched together in my right hand. I knew that he was quick,
and I suspected that he was "scientific," but I did it before he had
finished talking, and so made fast, with my mind and heart and soul set
upon sticking to him.

My suspicions as to his "science" were perfervidly justified. "You long-
legged devil!" he yelled, and I instantly received a series of
concussions upon the face and head which put me in supreme doubt of my
surroundings, for I seemed to have plunged, eyes foremost, into the
Milky Way. But I had my left arm around his neck, which probably saved
me from a coup de grace, as he was forced to pommel me at half-length.
Pommel it was; to use so gentle a word for what to me was crash, bang,
smash, battle, murder, earthquake and tornado. I was conscious of some
one screaming, and it seemed a consoling part of my delirium that the
cheek of Miss Anne Elliott should be jammed tight against mine through
one phase of the explosion. My arms were wrenched, my fingers twisted
and tortured, and, when it was all too clear to me that I could not
possibly bear one added iota of physical pain, the ingenious fiend began
to kick my shins and knees with feet like crowbars.

Conflict of any sort was never my vocation. I had not been an accessory-
during-the-fact to a fight since I passed the truculent age of fourteen;
and it is a marvel that I was able to hang to that dynamic bundle of
trained muscles--which defines Mr. Earl Percy well enough--for more than
ten seconds. Yet I did hang to him, as Pere Baudry testifies, for a
minute and a half, which seems no inconsiderable lapse of time to a
person undergoing such experiences as were then afflicting me.

It appeared to me that we were revolving in enormous circles in the
ether, and I had long since given my last gasp, when there came a great
roaring wind in my ears and a range of mountains toppled upon us both;
we went to earth beneath it.

"Ha! you must create violence, then?" roared the avalanche.

And the voice was the voice of Keredec.

Some one pulled me from underneath my struggling antagonist, and, the
power of sight in a hazy, zigzagging fashion coming back to me, I
perceived the figure of Miss Anne Elliott recumbent beside me, her arms
about Mr. Percy's prostrate body. The extraordinary girl had fastened
upon him, too, though I had not known it, and she had gone to ground
with us; but it is to be said for Mr. Earl Percy that no blow of his
touched her, and she was not hurt. Even in the final extremities of
temper, he had carefully discriminated in my favour.

Mrs. Harman was bending over her, and, as the girl sprang up lightly,
threw her arms about her. For my part, I rose more slowly, section by
section, wondering why I did not fall apart; lips, nose, and cheeks
bleeding, and I had a fear that I should need to be led like a blind
man, through my eyelids swelling shut. That was something I earnestly
desired should not happen; but whether it did, or did not--or if the
heavens fell!--I meant to walk back to Quesnay with Anne Elliott that
night, and, mangled, broken, or half-dead, presenting whatever
appearance of the prize-ring or the abattoir that I might, I intended to
take the same train for Paris on the morrow that she did.

For our days together were not at an end; nor was it hers nor my desire
that they should be.

CHAPTER XXII

It was Oliver Saffren--as I like to think of him--who helped me to my
feet and wiped my face with his handkerchief, and when that one was
ruined, brought others from his bag and stanched the wounds gladly
received, in the service of his wife.

"I will remember--" he said, and his voice broke. "These are the
memories which Keredec says make a man good. I pray they will help to
redeem me." And for the last time I heard the child in him speaking: "I
ought to be redeemed; I must be, don't you think, for her sake?"

"Lose no time!" shouted Keredec. "You must be gone if you will reach
that certain town for the five-o'clock train of the morning." This was
for the spy's benefit; it indicated Lisieux and the train to Paris. Mr.
Percy struggled; the professor knelt over him, pinioning his wrists in
one great hand, and holding him easily to earth.

"Ha! my friend--" he addressed his captive--"you shall not have cause to
say we do you any harm; there shall be no law, for you are not hurt, and
you are not going to be. But here you shall stay quiet for a little
while--till I say you can go." As he spoke he bound the other's wrists
with a short rope which he took from his pocket, performing the same
office immediately afterward for Mr. Percy's ankles.

"I take the count!" was the sole remark of that philosopher. "I can't go
up against no herd of elephants."

"And now," said the professor, rising, "good-bye! The sun shall rise
gloriously for you tomorrow. Come, it is time."

The two women were crying in each other's arms. "Good-bye!" sobbed Anne
Elliott.

Mrs. Harman turned to Keredec. "Good-bye! for a little while."

He kissed her hand. "Dear lady, I shall come within the year."

She came to me, and I took her hand, meaning to kiss it as Keredec had
done, but suddenly she was closer and I felt her lips upon my battered
cheek. I remember it now.

I wrung her husband's hand, and then he took her in his arms, lifted her
to the foot-board of the cart, and sprang up beside her.

"God bless you, and good-bye!" we called.

And their voices came back to us. "God bless YOU and good-bye!" They
were carried into the enveloping night. We stared after them down the
road; watching the lantern on the tail-board of the cart diminish;
watching it dim and dwindle to a point of gray;--listening until the
hoof-beats of the heavy Norman grew fainter than the rustle of the
branch that rose above the wall beside us. But it is bad luck to strain
eyes and ears to the very last when friends are parting, because that so
sharpens the loneliness; and before the cart went quite beyond our ken,
two of us set out upon the longest way to Quesnay.

THE END

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