"Nine o"clock, when they are all playing cards."
"I will tell her," said Riette. "Oh, my Ange! she looked so sweet when she talked of you. I think I love her as much as you do. Why don"t you bring her to Les Chouettes, that we may take care of her? There is an idea. Take her to Monsieur le Cure to-morrow night. He will be gone to bed, but no matter. Make him get up and marry you. Then come and live at Les Chouettes, both of you. We have plenty of room, and little papa would not be angry."
"Hush, child, what things you say!"
The very thoughts were maddening, there in the dim darkness under the stairs, with glimmering points of distant earthly light from Lancilly on the opposite hill. One of them might be Helene"s window, where she sat and watched La Mariniere.
The music in the old room behind went swinging on. Monsieur Joseph played with immense spirit; Monsieur and Madame Urbain danced merrily up and down.
"Allons! we must go back," Angelot whispered to his little cousin, whose arms were round his neck. "And then you must dance with your uncle, because my mother likes a turn with me."
One cold touch of reflection came to dim his happiness. He had promised Uncle Joseph not to make Henriette a go-between. And it seemed no real excuse that it was Helene"s doing, not his. Well, this once it could not be helped. All the promises in the world would not make him disobey Helene or disappoint her.
For the present, it seemed as if the attraction between himself and Helene, a rapture to both of them, still meant very real misery to her.
She was in deep disgrace with Madame de Sainfoy. Although she was allowed to come down to the meals, at which she sat statue-like and silent, she was sent back at once to her room, and either her mother or Mademoiselle Moineau locked her in.
Her father noticed these proceedings and shrugged his shoulders. He was sorry for Helene, but had learnt by experience not to interfere, except on great and necessary occasions. No doubt girls were sometimes troublesome, and he did not pretend to know how to manage them. Adelade must bring up her children in her own way.
Another day of almost entire solitude, with a terrible doubt of Angelot added to the longing for his presence, so that peace was no longer to be found in the distant sight of La Mariniere; another day had dragged its length through the hot hours of the afternoon, when, as Helene walked restlessly up and down in her room, the blue-green depths of a grove on her tapestried wall began to move, and out from the wall itself, as if to join the dancing peasants beyond the grove, came the slender little figure of Henriette. In an instant the panel of tapestry had closed behind her and she had sprung into Helene"s arms. The girl clutched her convulsively.
"What does he say?"
"To-night, at nine o"clock, he will be near the little door in the moat.
Meet him there."
"The little door in the moat!"
"You see this. Let me show you the spring"--she dragged her to the wall, and opened the panel with a touch. Inside it there was a dark and narrow pa.s.sage, but opposite another panel stood slightly ajar.
"That is the way into the chapel," Riette whispered. "I came that way.
But you must turn to the right, and almost directly you will find the stairs. The door is at the foot of them. He will be there."
"It is unlocked?"
"There is no key. I believe there has been none for centuries. Adieu, my pretty angel. They will miss me; I must go. I told them I wanted to say a little prayer to Our Lady in the chapel. She often helped me when I used to play here."
"I hope she will help me, too!" murmured Helene.
In another moment she was terrified at finding herself alone in the dark; for the child was gone, softly closing the secret door into the chapel. Helene felt about for a minute or two before she could find the spring behind the tapestry, and stepped back into her room, shivering from the damp chill of the pa.s.sage.
It seemed like an extraordinary fate that that night her mother kept her downstairs at needlework later than usual. It was in truth a slight mark of returning favour. Madame de Sainfoy was in a better temper, and realised that it might be unwise to treat a tall girl of nineteen quite like a disobedient child. So Helene sat there st.i.tching beside Mademoiselle Moineau, who was sometimes called upon to take a hand at cards. To-night this did not seem likely, for Urbain de la Mariniere came in after dinner, and the snuffy, sharp-faced little Cure of Lancilly was there too. Madame de Sainfoy had asked him to dine that day, partly to show herself superior to family prejudices; for this little man, unlike the venerable Cure of La Mariniere, was one of the Const.i.tutional priests of the Republic.
Flushing crimson, and feeling, as she well might, like a heroine of romance, Helene heard the new Paris clock strike nine. Its measured, silvery tones had not died away, when she was by her mother"s side at the card-table, timidly asking leave to go to her room.
Madame de Sainfoy had just glanced at her hand and found it an excellent one.
"Yes, my child, certainly," she said absently, and gave Helene her free hand.
The girl touched it with her lips, and then her mother"s fingers lightly patted her cheek.
"How feverish you are!" Adelade murmured, but took no further notice, absorbed in her game.
"Like a little flame! but it is a hot night," said Herve as his daughter kissed him.
Mademoiselle Moineau was following Helene from the room, when she was called back.
"No, mademoiselle, you must stay; we cannot do without you. Monsieur le Cure has to be home before ten o"clock."
The governess went back obediently to her corner. Helene glanced back from the door at the group round the table, deep in their calculations, careless of what might be going on outside their circle of shaded candle-light. Only her father lifted his head and looked after her for an instant; her presence or absence was totally indifferent to the other men, though the square-headed cousin Urbain was Angelot"s father; and her mother had forgotten her already.
Carrying her light, Helene went with quick and trembling steps through the house to the north wing. As she entered the last pa.s.sage, she met the maid who had been waiting on Sophie and Lucie, and who slept in the room next her own.
"Mademoiselle wants me?" said Jeanne, a little disappointed; she had hoped for half-an-hour"s freedom.
"No, no, I do not want you," Helene answered quickly. "I have things to do--you can stay till Mademoiselle Moineau comes up."
Jeanne went on her way rejoicing.
Helene, once in her own room, locked the door inside, took a large black lace scarf and threw it over her head, hiding her white dress with it as much as possible; then, still carrying her candle, touched the mysterious tapestry door, that door which seemed to lead into old-time woods, into happy, romantic worlds far away, and stepped through into the pa.s.sage in the thickness of the wall.
Almost instantly she came to the topmost step of the staircase. Black with dust and cobwebs, damp, with slimy snail-tracks on the stones, it went winding down to the lowest story of the old house. The steps were worn and irregular. Long ago they had been built, for this was the most ancient part of the chateau. In their first days the stairs had not ended with the moat, then full of water, but had gone lower still, leading to a pa.s.sage under the moat that communicated with the open country. There were many such underground ways in the war-worn old province. But when Lancilly was restored and the moat drained, in the seventeenth century, the lower stairs and pa.s.sage were blocked up, and the present door was made, opening on the green gra.s.s and bushes that grew at the bottom of the old moat.
Helene went down the steep and narrow stairs as quickly as her trembling limbs would carry her. They seemed endless; but at last the light fell on a low, heavy door, deep set in the immense foundation wall. She seized the large rusty latch and lifted it without difficulty. Then she pulled gently; no result; she pushed hard, thinking the door must open outwards; it did not move. She set down her light on the stairs, and tried again with both hands; but the door was immovable. As her brain became a little steadier, and her eyes more accustomed to the dimness, she saw that a heavy iron bar was fastened across the upper panels of the door, and run into two enormous staples on the wall at each side.
She touched the bar, tried to move it, but found her hands absolutely useless; it would have been a heavy task for a strong man. She stood and looked at the door, shivering with terror and distress. After all, it seemed, she was a real prisoner. She could not keep her appointment with Angelot. She gave a stifled cry and threw herself against the door, beating it with her fists and bruising them. Then a voice spoke outside, low and quickly.
"Helene!"
"Ah! you are there!" she said, and leaned her head against the door.
"Open then, dearest--don"t be afraid. Lift the latch, and pull it towards you. There is only a keyhole on this side--but it can"t be locked, for there is no key."
"I cannot," she said. "It is barred with a great iron bar. I cannot move it. Oh, how unhappy I am! Why should I be so unfortunate, so miserable?"
she cried, and beat upon the door again.
"Ah, mon Dieu! My father"s precautions! He went round the chateau six weeks ago, to examine all the doors. I was not with him, or I should have known it. Helene! Will you do as I ask you?"
"Ah! there is nothing to be done. I had to speak to you--I cannot, with this dreadful door between us, and--Ah, heavens, something has put out my candle. I am in the dark! What shall I do!"
"Courage, courage!" he said, speaking close to the keyhole. "Go back up the stairs; go to the chapel window!"
"But I cannot speak to you from the window!"
"Yes, you can--you shall."
"But I am in the dark!"
"You cannot miss your way. Go--go quickly--we have not much time--it is late already."