The Road to Paris Part 13

"Thank you, monsieur," said Blagdon, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng triumph; while d.i.c.k stepped back into the chamber from his doorway at the landing. d.i.c.k dared not close the door after him, lest its creak or the noise of its latch might attract the attention of the people in the hallway below.

d.i.c.k had seen that some of these guests were British officers, availing themselves of a brief relief from duty.

"Neither Lieutenant Blagdon nor any other man shall search _my_ chamber!" said Catherine, with a pretence of that capricious determination which a woman may show without visible reason and yet not excite suspicion. She ascended the short flight of stairs with dignity, and stood on the landing, her back to the door. She had the superior sense to leave the door ajar, so that her action seemed the result, not of solicitude regarding some person in the chamber, but of a whimsical antagonism aroused by the manner in which Blagdon had spoken to her.

Blagdon gave some instructions, in a low voice, to an under officer. The latter, whom Antoine accompanied in obedience to a gesture from Monsieur de St. Valier, led four men into the rooms opening on the hall, while Blagdon and two of the troops remained where they were, as a guard to the great doors at the hall's either end. The searching party next went below stairs. During these operations Monsieur de St. Valier laughed and chatted with his guests, who stood grouped at either side of the parlor doorway, while Gerard remained at the stair-foot, apart from the others, watching his sister and listening for any sign from the searching troops. These presently came empty-handed from the lower regions, and hurried up-stairs, pa.s.sing Catherine and her doorway as they went. After several minutes they returned, disappointed of their prey. Every room but Catherine's had now been looked through, the searchers having doubtless been ordered by Blagdon to leave that one exempt. He had probably hoped that the fugitive might be found elsewhere, and that his own duty and inclination might thus be fulfilled without further direct conflict with Catherine. He now braced himself for such contest,--a contest doubly difficult from the fact that he was in love with her and desired her love in return.

"Search that room!" he commanded the under officer, indicating Catherine's.

d.i.c.k, in the darkness beyond the threshold, ran to the window at the chamber's further end, and tried to open it; but it would not yield to his strongest pressure. Not able in the darkness to learn how it was fastened, he despaired of finding exit by means of it. So he returned to his place near the open door, outside of which stood Catherine, who dared not communicate with him in the gaze of the people below.

Meanwhile Catherine had capped Blagdon's order with the words:

"Whoever tries to enter this room must first deal with my brother and myself!"

"Right, sister!" cried Gerard, at the foot of the stairs. "He will have to pa.s.s over my body!"

Blagdon's men hesitated. Monsieur de St. Valier looked puzzled and annoyed. Little as he loved his niece and nephew, it would not do, before his guests, either to take a stand against Catherine or to risk the possible disclosure that she was really concealing a rebel in her chamber. So he remained silent and motionless, though manifestly ill at ease within. The guests waited curiously for developments.

"Miss de St. Valier betrays the truth," said Blagdon. "Her unwillingness to have the room examined shows that the man is there."

"Mlle. de St. Valier," replied Gerard, "is not accustomed to having her chamber invaded by men!"

"She has apparently made no difficulty of admitting to it the favored man!" cried Blagdon, in a voice evidently designed to be heard by d.i.c.k.

The lieutenant had been suddenly inspired with the thought that such a spirited youth as d.i.c.k, being in love with the girl, would himself come forth to resent an insult offered her. d.i.c.k, indeed, now back from the window, heard the words, and, grasping his hunting-knife, would have bounded to the landing; but at that instant came Catherine's prompt reply, also uttered for his ears:

"If a man were there, Lieutenant Blagdon, he would be wiser than to be tricked out, for your purposes, by any insult of yours!"

d.i.c.k took the hint, and stayed where he was.

"He would not have to avenge the insult," cried Gerard. "That shall be my business. I look to you for reparation, Lieutenant Blagdon!"

"As you please," said Blagdon. "I shall have time presently. But now I am serving the King. The rebel, I perceive, is content to leave such matters to other hands. 'Tis what one might expect of a fellow that hides behind petticoats. But petticoats sha'n't protect him any longer.

To that room, men,--"

But Catherine's voice rose louder than the lieutenant's, interrupting the order. "Why, lieutenant," she cried, with pretended irony, "if a spy were in the room, do you think he would not have escaped through the window by this time?"

d.i.c.k knew these words also were intended for him. She was not aware he had tried the window in vain. He held his knife the tighter, and awaited events.

"That was meant for his hearing!" cried Blagdon. "Saunders, take Jarvis and MacDonald outside and guard the window of that room. Make haste, or the rascal may drop from it before you get there." The subaltern and two men hurried out by the rear door. Blagdon, who now had four men left, cast a quick glance at the officers visible among the guests, to see if they were commenting on his previous negligence in not having placed guards outside before entering the house, a negligence due to his impatience and to his certainty that the fugitive was within. "Now, men, you first two seize any one who attempts to interfere, and you others follow me!"

He started for the stairs, but at the foot he encountered Gerard, who held the way so well for a few seconds, with body and both arms, that no one could pa.s.s him, the rear soldiers being obstructed by the scuffle between Gerard on one side and Blagdon and one of his men on the other.

Catherine saw that this unequal contest must soon end in her brother's being thrown down or dragged aside. She shrank at the thought that, unless she could obtain other interposition, her own person would next have to serve as barrier, in which case d.i.c.k would certainly appear, for she had heard no sound of the window being opened.

"Gentlemen," she cried to the officers in the hallway, "you've heard Lieutenant Blagdon's accusation against me. Well, if you permit, he may enter my room to search, provided he enters alone."

"But I don't permit!" cried one of the officers, running to the side of the staircase, whence he stepped up to the outer end of a stair and then leaped with agility over the bal.u.s.ter, landing above the scrimmage at the foot. "By gad, I won't stand idly by and see such an indignity committed against a lady!" And he drew his sword, which, being in uniform and ready for any sudden call to duty, he wore.

"Nor I!" came from three or four more mouths, and in a few moments every officer present, having followed the leader's mode of pa.s.sage, stood with drawn weapon on the stairs, between Catherine and Blagdon's party.

"I say, this is not fair play!" cried one of the officers, seeing Gerard at last held down on his back by two of the soldiers. Thereupon there was a swift charge of the officers down the stairs, each impelled to risk court martial by the desire to stand well in the esteem of a beautiful woman. Those were gallant days! Men were willing to chance anything for a grateful glance from a pair of lovely eyes,--that is to say, some men were,--and women were content to be the kind of women for whom men would take the chance.

The result of this movement was that Blagdon and his men were hurled backward to the front door, and Gerard, whom the officers leaped over in rescuing him, rose to a sitting posture and regained his breath. Blagdon stood defeated, at a loss. There came a knock on the front door. At St.

Valier's gesture, Antoine opened it, and in walked Colonel Maclean and a member of his staff. The colonel, who had come on invitation, to join Monsieur de St. Valier's guests at dinner, looked around in surprise.

"Colonel," spoke up Blagdon, yet half breathless, "there is resistance here. The spy has been tracked to this house and to that room. These gentlemen have hindered me and my men from going to take him."

"We consider," explained one of the officers, "that Miss de St. Valier's chamber ought not to be entered without her consent, especially when she herself stands in the way, and when violence would have to be used against her in order to pa.s.s."

"Hoot toot!" said the colonel. "Do you mean that the young lady refuses, then? It must be because the matter was gone about in a way displeasing to the s.e.x. I'm sure she won't object to my taking just a peep inside her nest, seeing how matters lie." Maclean did not use Scotch words save when speaking to Scotchmen. "I didn't notice the outside of this house guarded, when I came in," he added, turning to Blagdon.

"There are guards beneath the window of that room," replied the lieutenant, "where 'tis certain the man is hid."

"Well," said the colonel, half playfully, "to save the lady's proper feelings, which she has full right to indulge, I'll go alone into the room. You'll not mind the intrusion of a gray-headed colonel, who comes in the cause of the King and of Quebec, my dear young lady, I'm sure."

And he started up the stairs.

"Will you not take my word, colonel?" asked Catherine, in a low, unsteady voice.

"Why, yes," he answered; "but, as a matter of form, duty requires I should take a glimpse. You there with the lantern, and the next man, follow me."

Maclean and the two soldiers chosen left all the others--St. Valier and his guests, Blagdon and the two remaining privates, Maclean's staff officer and Gerard--huddled well to the front of the hall, in that part whence they could see the landing before Catherine's door. Catherine suddenly disappeared into her room. "Go behind the door," she whispered to d.i.c.k as she pa.s.sed him. He did so. Maclean entered the chamber, followed closely by his two men. By the light of the lantern, the colonel could see that Catherine was standing before a door that had the look of communicating with a closet in the side of the room. Her att.i.tude and expression were of a desperate determination to protect that door from being entered.

"So that's where the spy is?" quoth Maclean, quickly. d.i.c.k saw the ruse, and stood ready to profit by the one chance it gave him against ten.

"For G.o.d's sake, colonel, don't open this door!" cried Catherine. "I give you my word, the spy is not behind it!"

"Madam, I must!" said Maclean, gravely. "Your own conduct shows you have some one concealed there. 'Tis your kind heart makes you wish to save the life of a hunted man, but perhaps many lives of loyal subjects depend on his capture. I beg you, stand aside, madam."

"I will not stand aside! While I have the strength, I will protect this door!" said Catherine.

Completely deceived by her solicitude over the door behind which d.i.c.k was not, the colonel, with as much gentleness as he could use, caught her in his arms and drew her from before that door, she resisting and protesting with the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, "For the sake of heaven! Take my word!

There's no one there! Believe me! Don't open, I beg!" He then threw wide the door, and peered through the opening.

"Why!" he said, "there's a stairway here. Men, follow me down the steps!" He strode through the newly opened doorway, the two men at his heels. Catherine instantly flung the door shut upon them, and locked it.

"Across the landing," she whispered loudly to d.i.c.k; "window at the other side of the house--no guards there!"

"I love you!" he whispered back, having emerged from behind his door.

"Shall we meet again?"

"G.o.d knows! Perhaps! Good night!" she said.

He seized her hand, in the darkness, and pressed it to his lips; then dashed through the doorway, across the landing, up the little flight of stairs at his left, into the first room ahead whose door he ran against, then to a window, which at once gave way to the force he brought to bear against it. He stepped out to the roof of the porch in front of the house, slid down a corner-post, ran through the yet open gateway to Palace Street, hastened leftward to the first intersecting street, and turned, again leftward, into that street, which led him towards the wall-crowned precipice that overlooked the St. Lawrence.

Meanwhile, the people in the hallway had caught the momentary view of his figure as it leaped across the landing, but they, in their ignorance of what had pa.s.sed in Catherine's room, and in the unlikelihood of the fugitive's eluding Maclean without any outcry or pursuit on the latter's part, had supposed the flying apparition to be that of one of Maclean's men, despatched by the colonel on some business to them unknown. d.i.c.k had not remained a sufficient time in sight for his rifleman's attire to be distinguished in the half-darkness of the landing. So they waited for some appearance from Catherine's chamber.

Catherine remained standing in her room. Very soon a noise at its inner door told that Maclean had returned from his false quest, which had taken him only to an unused and bolted outer door originally designed to give a side entrance to the room, that apartment having been formerly devoted to the purposes of an office. She did not heed Maclean's efforts to open the door, which she had locked on her side. These efforts soon became extremely violent, and at last resulted in the breaking of the door, and in the appearance of the now irate colonel, followed by his men with the lantern.

"Why, miss," said he, "somebody locked that door behind me!"