Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, page 246
‘I shall tell you afterwards,’ said I. ‘Suffice it, in the meantime, that I come on business.’
He seemed to digest my answer laboriously, his mouth gaping, his little eyes never straying from my face.
‘Suffer me to point out to you, sir,’ I resumed, ‘that this is a devil of a wet morning; and that the chimney corner, and possibly a glass of something hot, are clearly indicated.’
Indeed, the rain was now grown to be a deluge; the gutters of the house roared; the air was filled with the continuous, strident crash. The stolidity of his face, on which the rain streamed, was far from reassuring me. On the contrary, I was aware of a distinct qualm of apprehension, which was not at all lessened by a view of the driver, craning from his perch to observe us with the expression of a fascinated bird. So we stood silent, when the prisoner again began to sneeze from the body of the cart; and at the sound, prompt as a transformation, the driver had whipped up his horses and was shambling off round the corner of the house, and Mr. Fenn, recovering his wits with a gulp, had turned to the door behind him.
‘Come in, come in, sir,’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon, sir; the lock goes a trifle hard.’
Indeed, it took him a surprising time to open the door, which was not only locked on the outside, but the lock seemed rebellious from disuse; and when at last he stood back and motioned me to enter before him, I was greeted on the threshold by that peculiar and convincing sound of the rain echoing over empty chambers. The entrance-hall, in which I now found myself, was of a good size and good proportions; potted plants occupied the corners; the paved floor was soiled with muddy footprints and encumbered with straw; on a mahogany hall-table, which was the only furniture, a candle had been stuck and suffered to burn down — plainly a long while ago, for the gutterings were green with mould. My mind, under these new impressions, worked with unusual vivacity. I was here shut off with Fenn and his hireling in a deserted house, a neglected garden, and a wood of evergreens: the most eligible theatre for a deed of darkness. There came to me a vision of two flagstones raised in the hall-floor, and the driver putting in the rainy afternoon over my grave, and the prospect displeased me extremely. I felt I had carried my pleasantry as far as was safe; I must lose no time in declaring my true character, and I was even choosing the words in which I was to begin, when the hall-door was slammed-to behind me with a bang, and I turned, dropping my stick as I did so, in time — and not any more than time — to save my life.
The surprise of the onslaught and the huge weight of my assailant gave him the advantage. He had a pistol in his right hand of a portentous size, which it took me all my strength to keep deflected. With his left arm he strained me to his bosom, so that I thought I must be crushed or stifled. His mouth was open, his face crimson, and he panted aloud with hard animal sounds. The affair was as brief as it was hot and sudden. The potations which had swelled and bloated his carcase had already weakened the springs of energy. One more huge effort, that came near to overpower me, and in which the pistol happily exploded, and I felt his grasp slacken and weakness come on his joints; his legs succumbed under his weight, and he grovelled on his knees on the stone floor. ‘Spare me!’ he gasped.
I had not only been abominably frightened; I was shocked besides: my delicacy was in arms, like a lady to whom violence should have been offered by a similar monster. I plucked myself from his horrid contact, I snatched the pistol — even discharged, it was a formidable weapon — and menaced him with the butt. ‘Spare you!’ I cried, ‘you beast!’
His voice died in his fat inwards, but his lips still vehemently framed the same words of supplication. My anger began to pass off, but not all my repugnance; the picture he made revolted me, and I was impatient to be spared the further view of it.
‘Here,’ said I, ‘stop this performance: it sickens me. I am not going to kill you, do you hear? I have need of you.’
A look of relief, that I could almost have called beautiful, dawned on his countenance. ‘Anything — anything you wish,’ said he.
Anything is a big word, and his use of it brought me for a moment to a stand. ‘Why, what do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Do you mean that you will blow the gaff on the whole business?’
He answered me Yes with eager asseverations.
‘I know Monsieur de Saint-Yves is in it; it was through his papers we traced you,’ I said. ‘Do you consent to make a clean breast of the others?’
‘I do — I will!’ he cried. ‘The ‘ole crew of ‘em; there’s good names among ‘em. I’ll be king’s evidence.’
‘So that all shall hang except yourself? You damned villain!’ I broke out. ‘Understand at once that I am no spy or thief-taker. I am a kinsman of Monsieur de St. Yves — here in his interest. Upon my word, you have put your foot in it prettily, Mr. Burchell Fenn! Come, stand up; don’t grovel there. Stand up, you lump of iniquity!’
He scrambled to his feet. He was utterly unmanned, or it might have gone hard with me yet; and I considered him hesitating, as, indeed, there was cause. The man was a double-dyed traitor: he had tried to murder me, and I had first baffled his endeavours and then exposed and insulted him. Was it wise to place myself any longer at his mercy? With his help I should doubtless travel more quickly; doubtless also far less agreeably; and there was everything to show that it would be at a greater risk. In short, I should have washed my hands of him on the spot, but for the temptation of the French officers, whom I knew to be so near, and for whose society I felt so great and natural an impatience. If I was to see anything of my countrymen, it was clear I had first of all to make my peace with Mr. Fenn; and that was no easy matter. To make friends with any one implies concessions on both sides; and what could I concede? What could I say of him, but that he had proved himself a villain and a fool, and the worse man?
‘Well,’ said I, ‘here has been rather a poor piece of business, which I dare say you can have no pleasure in calling to mind; and, to say truth, I would as readily forget it myself. Suppose we try. Take back your pistol, which smells very ill; put it in your pocket or wherever you had it concealed. There! Now let us meet for the first time. — Give you good morning, Mr. Fenn! I hope you do very well. I come on the recommendation of my kinsman, the Vicomte de St. Yves.’
‘Do you mean it?’ he cried. ‘Do you mean you will pass over our little scrimmage?’
‘Why, certainly!’ said I. ‘It shows you are a bold fellow, who may be trusted to forget the business when it comes to the point. There is nothing against you in the little scrimmage, unless that your courage is greater than your strength. You are not so young as you once were, that is all.’
‘And I beg of you, sir, don’t betray me to the Vis-count,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll not deny but what my ‘eart failed me a trifle; but it was only a word, sir, what anybody might have said in the ‘eat of the moment, and over with it.’
‘Certainly,’ said I. ‘That is quite my own opinion.’
‘The way I came to be anxious about the Vis-count,’ he continued, ‘is that I believe he might be induced to form an ‘asty judgment. And the business, in a pecuniary point of view, is all that I could ask; only trying, sir — very trying. It’s making an old man of me before my time. You might have observed yourself, sir, that I ‘aven’t got the knees I once ‘ad. The knees and the breathing, there’s where it takes me. But I’m very sure, sir, I address a gentleman as would be the last to make trouble between friends.’
‘I am sure you do me no more than justice,’ said I; ‘and I shall think it quite unnecessary to dwell on any of these passing circumstances in my report to the Vicomte.’
‘Which you do favour him (if you’ll excuse me being so bold as to mention it) exac’ly!’ said he. ‘I should have known you anywheres. May I offer you a pot of ‘ome-brewed ale, sir? By your leave! This way, if you please. I am ‘eartily grateful— ‘eartily pleased to be of any service to a gentleman like you, sir, which is related to the Vis-count, and really a fambly of which you might well be proud! Take care of the step, sir. You have good news of ‘is ‘ealth, I trust? as well as that of Monseer the Count?’
God forgive me! the horrible fellow was still puffing and panting with the fury of his assault, and already he had fallen into an obsequious, wheedling familiarity like that of an old servant, — already he was flattering me on my family connections!
I followed him through the house into the stable-yard, where I observed the driver washing the cart in a shed. He must have heard the explosion of the pistol. He could not choose but hear it: the thing was shaped like a little blunderbuss, charged to the mouth, and made a report like a piece of field artillery. He had heard, he had paid no attention; and now, as we came forth by the back-door, he raised for a moment a pale and tell-tale face that was as direct as a confession. The rascal had expected to see Fenn come forth alone; he was waiting to be called on for that part of sexton, which I had already allotted to him in fancy.
I need not detain the reader very long with any description of my visit to the back-kitchen; of how we mulled our ale there, and mulled it very well; nor of how we sat talking, Fenn like an old, faithful, affectionate dependant, and I — well! I myself fallen into a mere admiration of so much impudence, that transcended words, and had very soon conquered animosity. I took a fancy to the man, he was so vast a humbug. I began to see a kind of beauty in him, his aplomb was so majestic. I never knew a rogue to cut so fat; his villainy was ample, like his belly, and I could scarce find it in my heart to hold him responsible for either. He was good enough to drop into the autobiographical; telling me how the farm, in spite of the war and the high prices, had proved a disappointment; how there was ‘a sight of cold, wet land as you come along the ‘igh-road’; how the winds and rains and the seasons had been misdirected, it seemed ‘o’ purpose’; how Mrs. Fenn had died— ‘I lost her coming two year agone; a remarkable fine woman, my old girl, sir! if you’ll excuse me,’ he added, with a burst of humility. In short, he gave me an opportunity of studying John Bull, as I may say, stuffed naked — his greed, his usuriousness, his hypocrisy, his perfidy of the back-stairs, all swelled to the superlative — such as was well worth the little disarray and fluster of our passage in the hall.
CHAPTER XIII — I MEET TWO OF MY COUNTRYMEN
As soon as I judged it safe, and that was not before Burchell Fenn had talked himself back into his breath and a complete good humour, I proposed he should introduce me to the French officers, henceforth to become my fellow-passengers. There were two of them, it appeared, and my heart beat as I approached the door. The specimen of Perfidious Albion whom I had just been studying gave me the stronger zest for my fellow-countrymen. I could have embraced them; I could have wept on their necks. And all the time I was going to a disappointment.
It was in a spacious and low room, with an outlook on the court, that I found them bestowed. In the good days of that house the apartment had probably served as a library, for there were traces of shelves along the wainscot. Four or five mattresses lay on the floor in a corner, with a frowsy heap of bedding; near by was a basin and a cube of soap; a rude kitchen-table and some deal chairs stood together at the far end; and the room was illuminated by no less than four windows, and warmed by a little, crazy, sidelong grate, propped up with bricks in the vent of a hospitable chimney, in which a pile of coals smoked prodigiously and gave out a few starveling flames. An old, frail, white-haired officer sat in one of the chairs, which he had drawn close to this apology for a fire. He was wrapped in a camlet cloak, of which the collar was turned up, his knees touched the bars, his hands were spread in the very smoke, and yet he shivered for cold. The second — a big, florid, fine animal of a man, whose every gesture labelled him the cock of the walk and the admiration of the ladies — had apparently despaired of the fire, and now strode up and down, sneezing hard, bitterly blowing his nose, and proffering a continual stream of bluster, complaint, and barrack-room oaths.
Fenn showed me in with the brief form of introduction: ‘Gentlemen all, this here’s another fare!’ and was gone again at once. The old man gave me but the one glance out of lack-lustre eyes; and even as he looked a shiver took him as sharp as a hiccough. But the other, who represented to admiration the picture of a Beau in a Catarrh, stared at me arrogantly.
‘And who are you, sir?’ he asked.
I made the military salute to my superiors.
‘Champdivers, private, Eighth of the Line,’ said I.
‘Pretty business!’ said he. ‘And you are going on with us? Three in a cart, and a great trolloping private at that! And who is to pay for you, my fine fellow?’ he inquired.
‘If monsieur comes to that,’ I answered civilly, ‘who paid for him?’
‘Oh, if you choose to play the wit!’ said he, — and began to rail at large upon his destiny, the weather, the cold, the danger and the expense of the escape, and, above all, the cooking of the accursed English. It seemed to annoy him particularly that I should have joined their party. ‘If you knew what you were doing, thirty thousand millions of pigs! you would keep yourself to yourself! The horses can’t drag the cart; the roads are all ruts and swamps. No longer ago than last night the Colonel and I had to march half the way — thunder of God! — half the way to the knees in mud — and I with this infernal cold — and the danger of detection! Happily we met no one: a desert — a real desert — like the whole abominable country! Nothing to eat — no, sir, there is nothing to eat but raw cow and greens boiled in water — nor to drink but Worcestershire sauce! Now I, with my catarrh, I have no appetite; is it not so? Well, if I were in France, I should have a good soup with a crust in it, an omelette, a fowl in rice, a partridge in cabbages — things to tempt me, thunder of God! But here — day of God! — what a country! And cold, too! They talk about Russia — this is all the cold I want! And the people — look at them! What a race! Never any handsome men; never any fine officers!’ — and he looked down complacently for a moment at his waist— ‘And the women — what faggots! No, that is one point clear, I cannot stomach the English!’
There was something in this man so antipathetic to me, as sent the mustard into my nose. I can never bear your bucks and dandies, even when they are decent-looking and well dressed; and the Major — for that was his rank — was the image of a flunkey in good luck. Even to be in agreement with him, or to seem to be so, was more than I could make out to endure.
‘You could scarce be expected to stomach them,’ said I civilly, ‘after having just digested your parole.’
He whipped round on his heel and turned on me a countenance which I dare say he imagined to be awful; but another fit of sneezing cut him off ere he could come the length of speech.
‘I have not tried the dish myself,’ I took the opportunity to add. ‘It is said to be unpalatable. Did monsieur find it so?’
With surprising vivacity the Colonel woke from his lethargy. He was between us ere another word could pass.
‘Shame, gentlemen!’ he said. ‘Is this a time for Frenchmen and fellow-soldiers to fall out? We are in the midst of our enemies; a quarrel, a loud word, may suffice to plunge us back into irretrievable distress. Monsieur le Commandant, you have been gravely offended. I make it my request, I make it my prayer — if need be, I give you my orders — that the matter shall stand by until we come safe to France. Then, if you please, I will serve you in any capacity. And for you, young man, you have shown all the cruelty and carelessness of youth. This gentleman is your superior; he is no longer young’ — at which word you are to conceive the Major’s face. ‘It is admitted he has broken his parole. I know not his reason, and no more do you. It might be patriotism in this hour of our country’s adversity, it might be humanity, necessity; you know not what in the least, and you permit yourself to reflect on his honour. To break parole may be a subject for pity and not derision. I have broken mine — I, a colonel of the Empire. And why? I have been years negotiating my exchange, and it cannot be managed; those who have influence at the Ministry of War continually rush in before me, and I have to wait, and my daughter at home is in a decline. I am going to see my daughter at last, and it is my only concern lest I should have delayed too long. She is ill, and very ill, — at death’s door. Nothing is left me but my daughter, my Emperor, and my honour; and I give my honour, blame me for it who dare!’
At this my heart smote me.
‘For God’s sake,’ I cried, ‘think no more of what I have said! A parole? what is a parole against life and death and love? I ask your pardon; this gentleman’s also. As long as I shall be with you, you shall not have cause to complain of me again. I pray God you will find your daughter alive and restored.’
‘That is past praying for,’ said the Colonel; and immediately the brief fire died out of him, and, returning to the hearth, he relapsed into his former abstraction.
But I was not so easy to compose. The knowledge of the poor gentleman’s trouble, and the sight of his face, had filled me with the bitterness of remorse; and I insisted upon shaking hands with the Major (which he did with a very ill grace), and abounded in palinodes and apologies.
‘After all,’ said I, ‘who am I to talk? I am in the luck to be a private soldier; I have no parole to give or to keep; once I am over the rampart, I am as free as air. I beg you to believe that I regret from my soul the use of these ungenerous expressions. Allow me . . . Is there no way in this damned house to attract attention? Where is this fellow, Fenn?’
I ran to one of the windows and threw it open. Fenn, who was at the moment passing below in the court, cast up his arms like one in despair, called to me to keep back, plunged into the house, and appeared next moment in the doorway of the chamber.
‘Oh, sir!’ says he, ‘keep away from those there windows. A body might see you from the back lane.’
‘It is registered,’ said I. ‘Henceforward I will be a mouse for precaution and a ghost for invisibility. But in the meantime, for God’s sake, fetch us a bottle of brandy! Your room is as damp as the bottom of a well, and these gentlemen are perishing of cold.’
