He laughed. It was the old buoyant, boyish laugh of sheer happiness, and I felt the better for hearing it.
"If you begin to preach, parson, I"ll go; I vow I"ll have no more sermonizing. Davy," he cried, "isn"t she just the dearest, sweetest, most beautiful person in the world?"
"Where is she?" I asked, temporizing. Nick was not a subtle person, and I was ready to follow him at great length in the praise of Antoinette.
"I hope she is not here."
"We made her go to Les Iles," said he.
"And you risked your life and stayed here without her?" I said.
"As for risking life, that kind of criticism doesn"t come well from you. And as for Antoinette," he added with a smile, "I expect to see something of her later on."
"Well," I answered with a sigh of supreme content, "you have been a fool all your life, and I hope that she will make you sensible."
"You never could make me so," said Nick, "and besides, I don"t think you"ve been so d.a.m.ned sensible yourself."
We were silent again for a s.p.a.ce.
"Davy," he asked, "do you remember what I said when you had that miniature here?"
"You said a great many things, I believe."
"I told you to consider carefully the masterful features of that lady, and to thank G.o.d you hadn"t married her. I vow I never thought she"d turn up. Upon my oath I never thought I should be such a blind slave as I have been for the last fortnight. Faith, Monsieur de St. Gre is a strong man, but he was no more than a puppet in his own house when he came back here for a day. That lady could govern a province,--no, a kingdom. But I warrant you there would be no climbing of balconies in her dominions. I have never been so generalled in my life."
I had no answer for these comments.
"The deuce of it is the way she does it," he continued, plainly bent on relieving himself. "There"s no noise, no fuss; but you must obey, you don"t know why. And yet you may flay me if I don"t love her."
"Love her!" I repeated.
"She saved your life," said Nick; "I don"t believe any other woman could have done it. She hadn"t any thought of her own. She has been here, in this room, almost constantly night and day, and she never let you go.
The little French doctor gave you up--not she. She held on. Cursed if I see why she did it."
"Nor I," I answered.
"Well," he said apologetically, "of course I would have done it, but you weren"t anything to her. Yes, egad, you were something to be saved,--that was all that was necessary. She had you brought back here--we are in Monsieur de St. Gre"s house, by the way--in a litter, and she took command as though she had nursed yellow fever cases all her life. No flurry. I said that you were in love with her once, Davy, when I saw you looking at the portrait. I take it back. Of course a man could be very fond of her," he said, "but a king ought to have married her. As for that poor Vicomte she"s tied up to, I reckon I know the reason why he didn"t come to America. An ordinary man would have no chance at all.
G.o.d bless her!" he cried, with a sudden burst of feeling, "I would die for her myself. She got me out of a barrel of trouble with his Excellency. She cared for my mother, a lonely outcast, and braved death herself to go to her when she was dying of the fever. G.o.d bless her!"
Lindy was standing in the doorway.
"Lan" sakes, Ma.r.s.e Nick, yo" gotter go," she said.
He rose and pressed my fingers. "I"ll go," he said, and left me. Lindy seated herself in the chair. She held in her hand a bowl of beef broth.
From this she fed me in silence, and when she left she commanded me to sleep informing me that she would be on the gallery within call.
But I did not sleep at once. Nick"s words had brought back a fact which my returning consciousness had hitherto ignored. The birds sang in the court-yard, and when the breeze stirred it was ever laden with a new scent. I had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from the jaws of death, my life was before me, but the happiness which had thrilled me was gone, and in my weakness the weight of the sadness which had come upon me was almost unbearable.
If I had had the strength, I would have risen then and there from my bed, I would have fled from the city at the first opportunity. As it was, I lay in a torture of thought, living over again every part of my life which she had touched. I remembered the first long, yearning look I had given the miniature at Madame Bouvet"s. I had not loved her then.
My feeling rather had been a mysterious sympathy with and admiration for this brilliant lady whose sphere was so far removed from mine. This was sufficiently strange. Again, in the years of my struggle for livelihood which followed, I dreamed of her; I pictured her often in the midst of the darkness of the Revolution. Then I had the miniature again, which had travelled to her, as it were, and come back to me. Even then it was not love I felt but an unnamed sentiment for one whom I clothed with gifts and attributes I admired: constancy, an ability to suffer and to hide, decision, wit, refuge for the weak, scorn for the false. So I named them at random and cherished them, knowing that these things were not what other men longed for in women. Nay, there was another quality which I believed was there--which I knew was there--a supreme tenderness that was hidden like a treasure too sacred to be seen.
I did not seek to explain the mystery which had brought her across the sea into that little garden of Mrs. Temple"s and into my heart. There she was now enthroned, deified; that she would always be there I accepted. That I would never say or do anything not in consonance with her standards I knew. That I would suffer much I was sure, but the lees of that suffering I should h.o.a.rd because they came from her.
What might have been I tried to put away. There was the moment, I thought, when our souls had met in the little parlor in the Rue Bourbon.
I should never know. This I knew--that we had labored together to bring happiness into other lives.
Then came another thought to appall me. Unmindful of her own safety, she had nursed me back to life through all the horrors of the fever. The doctor had despaired, and I knew that by the very force that was in her she had saved me. She was here now, in this house, and presently she would be coming back to my bedside. Painfully I turned my face to the wall in a torment of humiliation--I had called her by her name. I would see her again, but I knew not whence the strength for that ordeal was to come.
CHAPTER XIII. A MYSTERY
I knew by the light that it was evening when I awoke. So prisoners mark the pa.s.sing of the days by a bar of sun light. And as I looked at the green trees in the courtyard, vaguely troubled by I knew not what, some one came and stood in the doorway. It was Nick.
"You don"t seem very cheerful," said he; "a man ought to be who has been s.n.a.t.c.hed out of the fire."
"You seem to be rather too sure of my future," I said, trying to smile.
"That"s more like you," said Nick. "Egad, you ought to be happy--we all ought to be happy--she"s gone."
"She!" I cried. "Who"s gone?"
"Madame la Vicomtesse," he replied, rubbing his hands as he stood over me. "But she"s left instructions with me for Lindy as long as Monsieur de Carondelet"s Bando de Buen Gobierno. You are not to do this, and you are not to do that, you are to eat such and such things, you are to be made to sleep at such and such times. She came in here about an hour ago and took a long look at you before she left."
"She was not ill?" I said faintly.
"Faith, I don"t know why she was not," he said. "She has done enough to tire out an army. But she seems well and fairly happy. She had her joke at my expense as she went through the court-yard, and she reminded me that we were to send a report by Andre every day."
Chagrin, depression, relief, bewilderment, all were struggling within me.
"Where did she go?" I asked at last.
"To Les Iles," he said. "You are to be brought there as soon as you are strong enough."
"Do you happen to know why she went?" I said.
"Now how the deuce should I know?" he answered. "I"ve done everything with blind servility since I came into this house. I never asked for any reason--it never would have done any good. I suppose she thought that you were well on the road to recovery, and she knew that Lindy was an old hand. And then the doctor is to come in."
"Why didn"t you go?" I demanded, with a sudden remembrance that he was staying away from happiness.
"It was because I longed for another taste of liberty, Davy," he laughed. "You and I will have an old-fashioned time here together,--a deal of talk, and perhaps a little piquet,--who knows?"
My strength came back, bit by bit, and listening to his happiness did much to ease the soreness of my heart--while the light lasted. It was in the night watches that my struggles came--though often some unwitting speech of his would bring back the pain. He took delight in telling me, for example, how for hours at a time I had been in a fearful delirium.
"The Lord knows what foolishness you talked, Davy," said he. "It would have done me good to hear you had you been in your right mind."
"But you did hear me," I said, full of apprehensions.
"Some of it," said he. "You were after Wilkinson once, in a burrow, I believe, and you swore dreadfully because he got out of the other end.
I can"t remember all the things you said. Oh, yes, once you were talking to Auguste de St. Gre about money."