The Quest of Glory - Marjorie Bowen (most interesting books to read txt) 📗

I am

alone. As you may remember, Monsieur, I am not afraid—of such things as

travelling alone.”

 

He did remember her in Bohemia, and a glow came into his heart.

 

“I think you have a fine courage, Madame.”

 

“Yes?” she assented indifferently. “There are so many kinds of courage,

are there not? I,” she added, “have been cowardly enough in some

things.”

 

Luc sat silent, looking down at the dark mane of his patient horse.

 

“You are to have your chance in the spring,” continued Carola. “I am

glad—and about Mademoiselle de Séguy. In great sincerity I congratulate

you. I believe and hope this lady will not disappoint you.”

 

“I believe so also, Madame,” said Luc proudly. Carola sighed.

 

“I am leaving Aix to-night,” she said. “Good-bye, Monsieur le Marquis.”

 

Luc took off his hat.

 

“Good-bye, Madame. I shall still think of our journey to Eger as

an—inspiration.”

 

“Thank you,” answered Carola.

 

She touched up her horse; and so it seemed that they were about to part

for ever, he journeying towards the dark gates of the town and his

brilliant future, she towards her convent and her obscure end. So they

would have parted had not a sudden sound checked them, made them pause,

drawn them once more together.

 

It was the imploring, weak wail of a child rising out of the empty dusk.

They both listened, and it was repeated.

 

“O God!” cried Carola, with sudden passion. “I have heard that cry in

dreams!”

 

“Some child is lost,” said Luc.

 

“And in pain,” she added quickly.

 

He turned his horse’s head, and went back with her along the way he had

come, across the worn grass of the fair ground, which was strewn with

confetti, torn paper, and ragged muslin roses.

 

The crying continued. It sounded near, yet very feeble; it could

scarcely rise above the sound of the horses’ hoofs or the jingle of the

harness.

 

The twilight seemed to have descended very rapidly; it was now almost

dark, but the clouds were breaking above a rising moon, and the last

glow of daylight was mingled with a cold, unearthly radiance. Luc felt

chilly even beneath his riding mantle; the memory of the march from

Prague seemed to linger in the faintly bitter air.

 

Carola paused and looked over her shoulder at the man, who was a little

behind her.

 

“Stop,” she said. “You had better ride home, Monsieur.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Have you not heard about the plague?”

 

“The plague?”

 

“The smallpox,” she said intensely. “They say it will be bad in Provence

this winter. They wish to keep it from the towns. I was told, at my inn,

that they suspected it among the players, and had ordered them away

suddenly.”

 

“Well?” questioned Luc keenly.

 

Carola pointed her whip towards the corner of the field where the

solitary tent stood.

 

“The crying comes from there,” she said. “They have left somebody

behind.”

 

“Ah!” cried Luc, “some one infected—some one ill!”

 

“I think so—at least it is possible.”

 

Luc had heard of such things often enough. The smallpox was the dread

and the scourge of the country; his father had earned recognition from

the Court by his heroic fight with an epidemic in Aix many years ago.

Luc had heard him speak of how the sick and dying had been cast out by

their own kin.

 

“I will see if there is anyone abandoned in the tent,” he said.

 

Carola laid her hand on his bridle.

 

“No,” she cried, with energy. “Return home, Monsieur. You have others to

think of—remember, reflect. You must not risk it.”

 

Luc smiled.

 

“Am I to watch you go—and then ride away?”

 

“Ah,” she answered, “what does it matter about me? There is a _maison de

Dieu_ at my convent; the nuns would take in the sick.”

 

“Madame, simply because there may be some danger, I cannot leave you.”

 

“You have never had the smallpox?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then,” she said, in great agitation, “you must not come. Think of

Mademoiselle de Séguy.”

 

“She would bid me go,” smiled Luc. “And we make much out of

nothing-maybe it is not the plague.”

 

He took her hand gently from his reins and rode across to the tent.

 

By the time he had dismounted and fastened his horse to a little broken

elm tree she was on foot also and beside him, leading her horse.

 

“If you were to ride into the town, could you not find some one who

would come?” she asked.

 

“Many,” he answered; “but why should I? This has come my way. Do you

ride on, Madame.”

 

“O God!” cried Carola desperately, “supposing it is the plague?”

 

Luc lifted the tent flap and entered. The air was heavy and foul; it was

completely dark. Luc stepped cautiously; he could hear nothing.

 

He began to think Carola had been mistaken, and that the tent was empty,

when she appeared behind him with the lantern from her saddle, lit, in

her hand. The beautiful beams disclosed the sagging canvas, the tipping

centre pole, a confusion of articles, clothes, cooking utensils, stools,

and paper hats and crowns cast over the ground.

 

Carola held the lantern higher.

 

In one corner a child lay along a pile of garments, staring at the light

with glazed eyes; her face was white and disfigured with purple stains

like bruises, her lips were covered with blood. Seeing these two looking

at her, she began to wail incoherently.

 

Both Luc and Carola recognized her by her apple-green bodice and red and

white skirts: she was the little dancer on the tight-rope at the fête.

 

Luc made a step forward, but Carola caught his arm.

 

“It is the smallpox!” she whispered. “What are we going to do?”

 

Luc looked at her.

 

“You should not be here,” he said.

 

The child began to talk in some kind of patois.

 

“She is saying her prayers,” said Luc, who knew the dialect of the

district. He shook his arm free from Carola, went to the humble bed, and

took the small, cold, heavy hand of the sick child in his. “What is the

matter, eh?” he asked, in a tone of great tenderness. “You are not alone

now.”

 

“You have done a mad thing,” said Carola, in a quivering voice. “You

cannot return to Aix now.”

 

He lifted his calm, beautiful face, round which the soft locks of hazel

hair had loosened.

 

“No,” he said, very gravely—“not until I know if this is the smallpox

or not.”

 

He put his arm round the child, and, taking his laced handkerchief from

his pocket, wiped the blood from the sore lips. The little creature

drooped her swollen face against the silk muslin and lace on his bosom.

 

Carola set the lantern on a stool and looked round the tent.

 

“Here is nothing,” she said. “What can we do.” Luc looked up.

 

“Your convent, Madame. You say they would take in the sick?”

 

“Yes—that is our only chance to save the child.”

 

“And to avoid Aix,” added the Marquis quietly. “How far is this

convent?”

 

“Twenty miles, perhaps.”

 

She came to the other side of the couch and knelt down.

 

“Give me the child,” she said passionately. “You do not know what you

are doing—what it means. For God’s sake—!”

 

“Hush,” answered Luc gently. “I know very well—hush.”

 

The little girl lay in a stupor in his arms; as the blood came to her

mouth he wiped it away. His face was utterly pale, but serene; he was

thinking of Clémence and the beggar on the Paris quay.

 

Carola looked at him, and controlled herself with an effort.

 

“You sacrifice so much,” she said, in a very low voice; “I nothing. You

were wrong not to let me undertake this.”

 

“Could you have carried her?” he asked, with a little smile.

 

And to both of them came the thought of the child she had borne over the

Bohemian mountains.

 

“That was younger,” she murmured.

 

And in the strangeness of their being alone again with the dying,

isolated alone again from the world, they looked at each other in

silence.

 

“What shall I do?” whispered Carola.

 

“We will go to your convent. I think the moon will hold. There is no

other way, and perhaps we may prevent the plague spreading to Aix. All

this “—he looked round the tent—“must be burnt.” He rose from his

knees, lifting the child, who cried bitterly when her aching body was

moved.

 

“We will go at once,” he said, with his simple air of decision. “Some

one might find us here.”

 

Two slender figures in their long dark cloaks, they left the tent—he

carrying the child, she the lantern. When they breathed the clear air

again both gave a deep sigh of relief.

 

It was now dark, but the moon was abroad though swimming behind a feeble

veil of clouds; the cold was insidious, keen, mysterious; the grey and

silver sky seemed very remote, the trees still as a painted fantasy; the

little wind had utterly died away. Luc’s face was a pale oval above the

mantle that wrapt his burden, which he carried easily enough for all his

slight look.

 

Carola glanced at him and bit her lower lip.

 

“It is going to be a cold night,” she said. She went back into the tent

and brought out a woollen cloak, a tawdry striped thing of blue and

yellow. “Wrap her in this, Monsieur.”

 

Luc gave up the child, who coughed and muttered deliriously; between

them they rolled her in the player’s mantle. Luc wiped her face and her

lips with his stained handkerchief.

 

Both were silent now; like creatures in the grip of fate, they seemed to

act almost mechanically.

 

Leaving the child under the trees, they collected the paper roses, the

card-board hats and crowns, and piling them together in front of the

tent, lit them from a ragged brand of paper turned into a torch by the

lantern flame.

 

The first attempts were fruitless, but presently the muslin began to

flare and the fire rose up strong and clear.

 

Luc and Carola stepped back; the ragged edges of the tent caught; in a

few moments a fantastic bonfire lit the dark and lonely field, and

illuminated the steadfast faces of the man and woman who watched their

work. When the flames were sweeping untroubled over the infected spot,

the two, still without a word, turned to their horses. When they had

unfastened them, Luc spoke.

 

“Can you lift her up if I mount?” he asked.

 

“I will try.”

 

He carried the child to his horse’s side, then gave her to Carola as he

sprang into the saddle; then as he stooped to her, Carola felt his bare

cold hands touch hers as the little girl, not without difficulty, was

lifted on to his saddle-bow.

 

“You know the way; you must lead,” he said.

 

She stood for a second, looking up at him. The glow of the fire brought

out every line of his face, so fine and true and serene, and yet the

face of a man who knew what he had undertaken, what was before him, for

there was a kind of awe in his expression, and yet an exaltation; his

lips were delicately compressed, his nostrils delicately distended, and

his eyes were wild and dark. He was looking over the huddled form of the

child in