Wounded Name — Chapter 9: The Toledo Blade, part 4

(6) All the way back to Aymar's lodging those words were vibrating through Laurent's whole being: "not a shred of real evidence to show that he did not deliberately sacrifice his men to save his cousin."

Yet when they got into the little room, and de Fresne, who had accompanied them, revealed the depth of his gloom and of his irritation, Laurent, from pure antagonism, began to cheer up.

"I told you so!"

lamented the poor gentleman.

"I told you from the beginning, La Rocheterie, that it was a mistake to court enquiry now .

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and after failing to produce your two chief witnesses still more so!

And what is going to happen to-morrow?

We have no more evidence;

the thing will become a farce!"

"I will tell you what will happen to-morrow, Monsieur," remarked Laurent rather maliciously.

"You will go on giving your testimony, perhaps for hours, with that fat old fellow asking question after question about those three days in the Bois des Fauvettes which intrigue him so--the Three Days of Creation."

Aymar, who looked like a ghost, smiled in spite of himself.

"That event occupied six, you will remember, Laurent."

And the unfortunate de Fresne said tartly that, with such a prospect in front of him, he would betake himself to his inn and go to bed early.

As he closed the door behind his lieutenant Aymar shook his head at the tormentor.

"You are really rather unkind, Laurent!"

And, as Laurent made a grimace intended to show at once a sense of self-justification and a measure of penitence, he went on gravely, "And you know, mon ami, de Fresne is quite justified in his view.

I have not really any chance now .

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of being cleared, that is.

Indeed, I was very strongly tempted to tell the General at the close of to-day's proceedings that it was hardly worth while wasting the time of the Court any more.

But then it came to me that perhaps it was cowardly, and perhaps it was rash .

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and I have had enough of being both."

"The first you have never been!"

retorted Laurent.

"Moreover, I feel that the luck will turn yet.

Remember that you have the _jartier_ back!

Now, you are tired to death; lie down on this horrible sofa and try to rest a little.

No, you do not need to go through those notes any more."

"That is true," agreed Aymar as he obeyed him.

"There is nothing more to say now."

And as Laurent spread a covering over him he added, with a smile, "But I did not mean you to come here to begin Arbelles over again!"

"What did you mean me to come for, then, since you will not let me give evidence now that I am here?"

Aymar made no reply in words; he merely pressed his hand.

And a few minutes later, sheer fatigue overriding the nervous tension, he was sleeping like a child.

But, in spite of his own brave words, Laurent's heart ached as he sat beside him and thought of the morrow.

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And to-day?

In some ways Aymar had got through better than he probably looked for--in the matter of keeping out Mme de Villecresne's name, for instance.

On the other hand, they neither of them anticipated that the Court would want to burrow so deeply into that intensely painful episode of the shooting.

Oh, what would be the outcome of the whole business--what, indeed, would an impartial observer have said was the real outcome of to-day's proceedings?

But in Mme Leblanc's little sitting-room no such person existed; there was only one very anxious young man watching another.

More than half an hour had passed thus when there came a knock at the door, and Laurent, tiptoeing over, was presented by Mme Leblanc with a large visiting card, and the information that there was "a gentleman downstairs asking to see M. de la Rocheterie."

Laurent gave an exclamation.

"What is it?"

asked Aymar, rousing.

"You would never guess!"

cried Laurent in high glee.

"Our dear Père Perrelet, come, I am sure, to make amends, though dropped from Heaven knows where, and on your track Heaven knows how!

You'll see him, Aymar, of course?"

And, pelting down the narrow stairs, he almost fell into the arms of M. le docteur J. -M.

-P.

Perrelet, in all his Sunday clothes, at the bottom.

Indeed M. le docteur soundly embraced him.

"Oh, my dear boy, how is he after this morning?

I was there--you didn't see me?

I managed to get in--I--as a military doctor!

I heard of this by chance at Arbelles two days ago .

.

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so I knew that I should find him here.

And now I've listened to it all .

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mon Dieu, what a story!

What a brute and fool I was!

Will he see me?

I want to ask his pardon.

Do you think he will give it me?

Or perhaps he never realized that----" "Oh, did he not!"

returned Laurent.

"But he owes you far too much to refuse it .

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and in any case .

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Go up; there's the door."

And he watched the little doctor mount the stairs, already taking out his pocket-handkerchief, heard him open the door, and say in husky tones, "My dearest boy, can you ever----" Then the door shut.

"Well," thought the young man, leaning against the foot of the stairs and feeling a kind of pleasant moisture about his own eyelids, "at least _I_ have never claimed not to be a sentimentalist.

How long shall I give them?"

M.

Perrelet stayed to supper, which his presence somehow enlivened into quite a cheerful meal.

He was very hopeful, on what grounds could hardly be discovered.

I wonder, thought Laurent once more, that he doesn't say, "I'm no optimist," and shortly afterwards, to his delight, the old surgeon did remark, "Of course I'm not one to take an unduly rosy view of things!"

And Laurent himself again besought Aymar to call him as a witness, and when Aymar enquired "as a witness to what?"

asseverated anew that he should not be contented till du Tremblay knew what he owed him over the cipher business--till they all knew it.

"My dear Laurent," observed L'Oiseleur a little drily, "you surely do not expect me to bring it forward as a merit that I did not betray a comrade's plans when it was suggested to me to do so!"

"Of course you would never have done it voluntarily!

But I wonder how many people, in your condition, could to the very last have kept their heads sufficiently not to show so much as assent or dissent when that blackguard narrowed the issue down to a single question--that vital question of the crossing of the river?"

"Nobody who had not a will of steel," pronounced M. Perrelet.

"There you are!"

cried Laurent.

"There is evidence--indirect, if you like--as to intention and character.

Oh, I could make it very plain to those gentlemen if I had the chance!"

Aymar shrugged his shoulders.

"I am afraid your desire will not be gratified, mon cher; and I am afraid that I don't want it gratified so publicly."

"It's a great waste," sighed the champion stubbornly.

"And it is of no good to depreciate testimony of that kind, because you see that it is 'without a shred of real evidence,' as M. de la Boëssière would say, that you have converted"--he grinned--"a hard-headed, unemotional, scientific man like M. Perrelet from his temporary unbelief!"

(7) The scientific man in question becoming very high-handed after supper, and ordering his ex-patient to bed, Laurent went forth to hunt up a couple of acquaintances whom he had seen as they came back from the Hôtel de Ville.

He found them, as he expected, at the Hôtel de l'Ecusson and, knowing Aymar to be in excellent hands, went in with them and called for wine.

In the room he entered, which was full of officers, the enquiry seemed to be the sole topic of conversation, and the only point on which there appeared to be general agreement was that those who had not attended it that afternoon would be there next morning.

Some stared at Laurent, recognizing him, and he felt that it was not a bad move to have put in an appearance, just to show that one had a clear conscience.

His own friends were fortunately _bien pensants_, one of them enthusiastically so, and the other said that he thought La Rocheterie must be innocent, or he would never have had the courage to bring all this upon himself.

With them, too, surmises were not wanting as to the "cousin" and her relations with L'Oiseleur, but Laurent purposely avoided throwing any light upon the subject.

Presently, lo, through the clouds of tobacco-smoke a face appeared for a moment and vanished again.

Laurent made one of his swift sallies.

"Monsieur Perrelet, come in, come in!

Are you looking for me--how charming of you!

Come and have a glass of wine with me!

I have some friends here; you can tell us the latest news from Arbelles."

M.

Perrelet, chuckling, protesting and pleased, suffered the young man to drag him in and make presentations.

"Well, yes, perhaps one glass of cognac," he said.

"I left him in bed," he announced behind his hand to Laurent, "in fact, I gave him a sleeping-draught (though he was not aware of it).

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There is something I want to ask you presently.

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Oh, thank you, Monsieur, you are too kind!"

So there the good doctor sat, smoking a cheroot, and very happy in the consciousness that he was "seeing life"--in the Royalist camp this time; at least that was how Laurent read his amused and contented and observant expression, and he was probably not far wrong.

But half of Laurent himself, though he continued to chat, was gauging with a rather too acute sensitiveness the current of feeling in the room about the one thing which mattered to him.

After the tension of the afternoon the wine he had taken, though without affecting his head in the ordinary sense, made him conscious of a desire to get up and say something, publicly, on Aymar's behalf.

But his better sense warned him against it.

However, he ended by engaging in something a great deal more sensational than oratory.

For at a table close by had now been sitting for a little while, with a friend, the very officer whose behaviour had displeased him in the audience at the Hôtel de Ville.

Laurent could not help hearing their conversation.

The two amused themselves for some time by half-whispered witticisms about "la belle cousine," and though Laurent's brow grew darker and darker his good sense again warned him not to bring this topic into more prominence by taking notice of it.

But suddenly he heard, so clearly spoken that others must have heard it, too: "Pretty brazen, to base your main defence on an invented conversation with two men of whom one is dead and the other cannot be found!"

The other man assented, and Laurent, angry as he was, realized what a specious appearance of truth there was in this criticism.

"Yet," went on the voice of his bête noire, "in spite of the fact that he has not, as La Boëssière said, a shred of real evidence to bring forward, I am afraid that he will never get what he deserves now."

"No," responded the other.

"It is curious, the impression he seems to have made on some of the Court."

"Cannot you see that it is this pose of complete honesty and telling the whole truth that is doing it!

It was an idea little short of genius.

Of course one must be a good actor to carry it out .

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but that is just what the man is!"

"--Whatever is the matter, my dear boy?"

exclaimed M. Perrelet.

The dear boy did move sometimes with such disconcerting suddenness.

As for the individual who had so appraised L'Oiseleur's histrionic abilities, he had now in front of him to his exceeding surprise, a fair young man in the Vendean uniform, who was saying, with a very deadly intensity, "You will kindly take back every word of what you have just said, Monsieur, and apologize for having said it!"

"What!

I'll be damned if I will!"

cried the critic, jumping to his feet.

So Laurent, exclaiming, "Espèce de Guitton!"

knocked him down.

"Aha, la boxe Anglaise!"

said M. Perrelet, craning forward, like everyone else.

But the combat was not destined to proceed on pugilistic lines.

Amid terrific clamour the victim rose to his feet, tugging at his sword, while some threw themselves on him, and Laurent's two friends tried to drag him away.

M.

de Courtomer himself appeared quite calm, though he was really tingling with the liveliest wrath.

"Satisfaction?

Certainly!"

M.

Perrelet heard him say, amid the babel.

"Also, instantly.

Montbrillais, you'll see fair play for me, won't you?"

"But you can't fight here!"

several voices assured him, and his friends, too, spoke of next morning.

"I regret that I am engaged to-morrow morning," quoth Laurent, and proceeded to remove his sword-belt.

"Lucky I had my sword on this time!"

he told himself.

"Engaged?

Ah, yes, with the play-actor!"

sneered his opponent, whose lip was already swelling.

"No," retorted Laurent, throwing back his head and speaking very clearly and deliberately, "with my friend, M. le Vicomte de la Rocheterie, Chevalier de St. Louis--he who held the Moulin Brûlé, L'Oiseleur!"

"Bravo!"

cried several voices to this.

"And I will either give you satisfaction here and now or not at all," resumed Laurent.

"You need have no fear on the score of the medical attendance; I have an excellent surgeon with me"--he slightly indicated M.

Perrelet--"and though he, too, happens to be a friend of M. de la Rocheterie's, I am sure he will do his best for you."

There were not only cheers, but laughter now.

The general opinion also was with Laurent on the desirability of settling the affair on the spot, and his foe was too angry to wish to postpone shedding his blood.

So the company pushed back the tables with alacrity, and Laurent stripped off his coat and gave it to one of his friends.

At that point M.

Perrelet came and caught him by the arm.

"Laurent," he said in a low voice, agitated and yet pleasurably agitated, and unaware that he had used his Christian name, "Laurent, my dear boy, are you au fait at this sort of thing?"

"Do you mean," enquired Laurent coolly, as he rolled up his shirt sleeve, "have I ever fought before?

No, I have not.

But between foils and singlestick, I know quite enough to settle M. Guitton cadet."

M.

Perrelet could not restrain a chuckle of appreciation.

But he whispered, "Do, pray, be careful!"

"Of him?

Oh, yes .

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up to a point."

How all too short are moments of ecstasy!

This one only lasted, from the--"On guard!"

and the loosing of the crossed blades, fifty-six seconds exactly--seconds in which the younger gentleman at the end of one of those blades was blissfully, unimaginably happy.

He knew that he was no brilliant swordsman, but he knew, too, that he had a steady hand, a quick eye, and a very good balance .

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and he was fighting for Aymar.

Yes, it was a pity that this man, ten years his senior and with more experience, no doubt, behind him, was so angry, because otherwise he might have prolonged the bout instead of exposing himself in that crazy fashion.

A queer sensation, that, of the point going in!

Queer evidently for Guitton cadet also.

There was surprise on his face as well as pain and fury as he recoiled, run very creditably through the top of the right shoulder.

(8) About a quarter of an hour afterwards Laurent found himself arm-in-arm under the stars with M. Perrelet, his purpose being to escort that excellent gentleman back to his inn.

Prudence had dictated to all in the coffee-room of the Hôtel de l'Ecusson who were amenable to military discipline a quiet and speedy dispersal, and Laurent himself had only waited till M. Perrelet had finished with his victim.

The wound was not dangerous, but it was painful; on hearing which its author had expressed the most unchivalrous gratification.

The couple were now in unfeelingly good spirits as they picked their way in the darkness over gutters.

"I wish I could scold you as you deserve to be scolded, mauvais sujet!"

said M. Perrelet, pressing the arm under his.

"But I am incapable of it.

And it was so neat--so clever, even, considering that you can know nothing of anatomy!

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And your success, your championship of La Rocheterie, had an extraordinary effect--I felt it."

"Do you really think so?"

asked Laurent, soaring into a still higher heaven.

"I am sure of it.

It was almost a pity that none of the----" "That none of the Nine Muses were there," finished the young man, laughing.

"Yes, that is my pretty name for the gentlemen of the Court of Enquiry.

But on the whole, it's a good thing they were not.

--By the way, Monsieur Perrelet, did you ever get that letter I wrote you?"

M.

Perrelet stopped on the brink of a dark streamlet.

"I did, my child, and thankful I was to get it, though it made me more than ever distressed and ashamed about that incident at La Baussaine.

But what he said that night was really most damning.

(No, I shall not tell you what it was.

) Still, I shall never forgive myself for acting as I did.

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And how much more trying that shooting business, too, must have been for the poor boy than I realized."

"Yes," said Laurent rather sadly, "and the worst of it is, that to have gone through all that suffering and shame only leaves him in a more critical position than he was before.

You heard this afternoon how it was cast up against him, and to what cruel allegations it led.

As for to-morrow----" "Oh, to-morrow will be all right, you will see," announced M. Perrelet, resuming his advance.

"--If he can hold out till the end, that is.

He is not really in the least fit for this affair, of course.

--Ah, this was what I wanted to ask you--round this corner is my way--what in the name of fortune made those marks on his arm which he tried, too late, to conceal from me when I was examining him after you left?

They are burns, and he says he did them himself, by accident--and expects me, a doctor, to believe him!"

This time it was Laurent who stopped, and under a convenient street lamp.

"Ah, he said that, did he?

Of course he would!

Accident, indeed!"

He made one of his hot, boyish gestures.

"It was the most deliberate, cold-blooded----" He never reached his noun.

A gesture was made behind him; a hand fell on his shoulder.

"I regret to have to demand your sword, Monsieur," said an abrupt military voice.

"You are placed under arrest.

Kindly follow me at once!"

It is hard to know which of the couple was the more thunderstruck.

Words were completely smitten from both of them.

On the very threshold of his thrilling revelation Laurent was plucked away, vanishing like a dream from the eyes of M. Perrelet, who, a moment later was left, a stout and bewildered little civilian, in the light of the convenient street lamp, while the footsteps of the patrol and the captured duellist died away round the corner.

Elijah and Elisha had not a more dramatic parting.

The threads of events lay thereafter in M. Perrelet's hands.

After a short period of dismayed reflection he hurried back to Aymar's lodging.

But that young man lay relaxed in the profound and beneficent slumber of his physician's own procuring, and it would have been a crime to wake him.

So, except that the hazard of sleep afforded M. Perrelet an uninterrupted view of the branded arm, he gained little by his visit, and hastened off to M. de Fresne, conceiving that there was nothing criminal in waking him with the news.

M.

de Fresne was hardly of that opinion.

By the time his nocturnal caller had introduced himself and explained his errand he was, and perhaps justifiably, in a thoroughly bad temper.

"Poor boy, indeed!

Feather-brained young scamp!

Let him cool his heels--it won't hurt him.

And I can do nothing; the only possible course is for La Rocheterie, if he can, to get permission in the morning for him to attend the Court under open arrest, as a witness.

A nice witness for a case where already the testimony is so short of the mark!"

M.

Perrelet shook his head at the irate gentleman sitting up in his bed.

"I consider that he acted very properly, Monsieur.

And as for being feather-brained, let me tell you, in all seriousness, that but for him there would be no La Rocheterie here to-day at all!"

"Humph!"

said M. de Fresne, and laying down, turned over on his other side.

"Well, I will come and see La Rocheterie about it at half-past six.

Good-night."

A little before that hour, therefore, M. Perrelet was on foot once more, and having obtained admission, peeped in on his patient.

The russet head moved at once on the pillow.

"You are up early, Monsieur Perrelet!"

"Have you slept, my dear boy?"

enquired the doctor, coming in.

"I have not had a night like this," replied Aymar, "for weeks!

It is fortunate .

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but mysterious!

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Why, is that de Fresne up early, too?"

M.

Perrelet glanced behind him.

"M. de Fresne wants you to write a letter for him to take to the General," he observed casually.

"Just a line to request formally that one of your witnesses may be released from arrest in order to attend the Court this morning."

"One of my witnesses arrested!"