Clementina Part 23

He looked out of the window and suddenly drew back. He stood for a moment with a look of great fear upon his face. For the sentinel was back at his post; Wogan dared not at this moment risk a struggle, and perhaps an outcry. Clementina was waiting under the avenue of trees; Wogan was within the house, and the lights of the guard were already flaring in the roadway. Even as Wogan stood in the embrasure of the window, he heard a heavy knocking on the door.

CHAPTER XIV

Wogan closed the window cautiously. The snow had drifted through and lay melting in a heap beneath the sill. He drew the curtain across the embrasure, and then he crossed to the bedroom door.

"Jenny," he whispered, "are you in bed?"

"Yes."

"Lie close! Do not show your face nor speak. Only groan, and groan most delicately, or we are lost."

He closed the door upon Jenny, and turning about came face to face with the Princess-mother. She stood confronting him, a finger on her lips, and terror in her eyes; and he heard the street-door open and clang to below.

"The magistrate!" she whispered.

"Courage, your Highness. Keep them from the bed! Say that her eyes are weak and cannot bear the light."

He slipped behind the curtain into the embrasure, picturing to himself the disposition of the room, lest he should have left behind a trifle to betray him. He had in a supreme degree that gift of recollection which takes the form of a mental vision. He did not have to count over the details of the room; he summoned a picture of it to his mind, and saw it and its contents from corner to corner. And thus while the footsteps yet sounded on the stair, he saw Clementina's bundle lying forgotten on a couch. He darted from his hiding-place, seized it, and ran back. He had just sufficient and not a second more time, for the curtain had not ceased to swing when the magistrate knocked, and without waiting for an answer entered. He was followed by two soldiers, and these he ordered to wait without the door.

"Your Highness," he said in a polite voice, and stopped abruptly. It seemed to Wogan behind the curtain that his heart stopped at the same moment and with no less abruptness. There was no evidence of Clementina's flight to justify that sudden silence. Then he grew faint, as it occurred to him that he had made Lady Featherstone's mistake,-that his boot protruded into the room. He clenched his teeth, expecting a swift step and the curtain to be torn aside. The window was shut; he would never have time to open it and leap out and take his chance with the sentry underneath. He was caught in a trap, and Clementina waited for him in the avenue, under the fourth tree. All was lost, it seemed, and by his own folly, his own confidence. Had he only told her of the tavern under the city wall, where the carriage stood with its horses harnessed in the shafts, she might still have escaped, though he was trapped. The sweat pa.s.sed down his face. Yet no swift step was taken, nor was the curtain torn aside.

For within the room the magistrate, a kindly citizen of Innspruck who had no liking for this addition to his duties, stood gazing at the Princess-mother with a respectful pity. It was the sight of her tear-stained face which had checked his words. For two days Clementina had kept her bed, and the mother's tears alarmed him.

"Her Highness, your daughter, suffers so much?" said he.

"Sir, it is little to be wondered at."

The magistrate bowed. That question was not one with which he had a mind to meddle.

"She still lies in bed?" said he, and he crossed to the door. The mother flung herself in the way.

"She lies in pain, and you would disturb her; you would flash your lanterns in her eyes, that if perchance she sleeps, she may wake into a world of pain. Sir, you will not."

"Your Highness-"

"It is the mother who beseeches you. Sir, would you have me on my knees?"

Wogan, but this moment recovered from his alarm, became again uneasy. Her Highness protested too much; she played her part in the comedy too strenuously. He judged by the ear; the magistrate had the quivering, terror-stricken face before his eyes, and his pity deepened.

"Your Highness," he said, "I must pray you to let me pa.s.s. I have General Heister's orders to obey."

The Princess-mother now gave Wogan reason to applaud her. She saw that the magistrate, for all his politeness, was quite inflexible.

"Go, then," she said with a quiet dignity which once before she had shown that evening. "Since there is no humiliation to be spared us, take a candle, sir, and count the marks of suffering in my daughter's face;" and with her own hand she opened the bedroom door and stood aside.

"Madam, I would not press my duty an inch beyond its limits," said the magistrate. "I will stand in the doorway, and do you bid your daughter speak."

The Princess-mother did not move from her position.

"My child," she said.

Jenny in the bedroom groaned and turned from one side to the other.

"You are in pain?"

Jenny groaned again. The magistrate himself closed the door.

"Believe me," said he, "no one could more regret than I the incivilities to which I am compelled."

He crossed the room. Wogan heard him and his men descending the stairs. He heard the door open and shut; he heard Chateaudoux draw the bolts. Then he stepped out from the curtain.

"Your Highness, that was bravely done," said he, and kneeling he kissed her hand. He went back into the embrasure, slipped the bundle over his arm, and opened the window very silently. He saw the snow was still falling, the wind still moaning about the crannies and roaring along the streets. He set his knee upon the window-ledge, climbed out, and drew the window to behind him.

The Princess-mother waited in the room with her hand upon her heart. She waited, it seemed to her, for an eternity. Then she heard the sound of a heavy fall, and the clang of a musket against the wall of the villa. But she heard no cry. She ran to the window and looked out. But strain her eyes as she might, she could distinguish nothing in that blinding storm. She could not see the sentinel; nor was this strange, for the sentinel lay senseless on the snow against the house-wall, and Mr. Wogan was already running down the avenue.

Under the fourth tree he found Clementina; she took his arm, and they set off together, wrestling with the wind, wading through the snow. It seemed to Clementina that her companion was possessed by some new fear. He said no single word to her; he dragged her with a fierce grip upon her wrist; if she stumbled, he jerked her roughly to her feet. She set her teeth and kept pace with him. Only once did she speak. They had come to a depression in the road where the melted snow had made a wide pool. Wogan leaped across it and said,-

"Give me your hand! There's a white stone midway where you can set your foot."

The Princess stepped as he bade her. The stone yielded beneath her tread and she stood ankle-deep in the water. Wogan sprang to her side and lifted her out. She had uttered no cry, and now she only laughed as she stood s.h.i.+vering on the further edge. It was that low musical, good-humoured laugh to which Wogan had never listened without a thrill of gladness, but it waked no response in him now.

"You told me of a white stone on which I might safely set my foot," she said. "Well, sir, your white stone was straw."

They were both to remember these words afterwards and to make of them a parable, but it seemed that Wogan barely heard them now. "Come!" he said, and taking her arm he set off running again.

Clementina understood that something inopportune, something terrible, had happened since she had left the villa. She asked no questions; she trusted herself without reserve to these true friends who had striven at such risks for her, she desired to prove to them that she was what they would have her be,-a girl who did not pester them with inconvenient chatter, but who could keep silence when silence was helpful, and face hards.h.i.+ps with a buoyant heart.

They crossed the bridge and stopped before a pair of high folding doors. They were the doors of the tavern. Wogan drew a breath of relief, pulled the bobbin, and pushed the doors open. Clementina slipped through, and in darkness she took a step forward and bruised herself against the wheels of a carriage. Wogan closed the door and ran to her side.

"This way," said he, and held out his hand. He guided Clementina round the carriage to a steep narrow stairway-it was more a ladder than a stair-fixed against the inner wall. At the top of this stairway shone a horizontal line of yellow light. Wogan led the Princess up the stairs. The line of light shone out beneath a door. Wogan opened the door and stood aside. Clementina pa.s.sed into a small bare room lighted by a single candle, where Mrs. Misset, Gaydon, and O'Toole waited for her coming. Not a word was said; but their eyes spoke their admiration of the woman, their knees expressed their homage to the Queen. There was a fire blazing on the hearth, Mrs. Misset had a dry change of clothes ready and warm. Wogan laid the Princess's bundle on a chair, and with Gaydon and O'Toole went down the stairs.

"The horses?" he asked.

"I have ordered them," said Gaydon, "at the post-house. I will fetch them;" and he hurried off upon his errand.

Wogan turned to O'Toole.

"And the bill?"

"I have paid it."

"There is no one awake in the house?"

"No one but the landlady."