Wounded Name — Chapter 3: In the Dust, part 3
(7) It was nearly two o'clock in the morning--but not of the next morning, the morning after that.
Laurent rose from replenishing the little fire which was always burning.
In a few moments M. Perrelet would relieve him and he could sleep.
Thanks to the old surgeon, L'Oiseleur had been saved--for the second time--but it had been touch and go for some hours.
Before nightfall on Friday they had succeeded in pulling him back to a kind of consciousness, and all yesterday he had lain quiescent, so exhausted that it had been difficult to rouse him to take nourishment, but at least in outward peace, as Laurent kept assuring himself, for the brutality which had been practised on La Rocheterie in this room haunted him, waking or sleeping.
M.
Perrelet indeed was amazed at the rally, considering that the victim's heart was, and would long remain, so much impaired.
Laurent stood now for a moment at the foot of the bed--and had a sudden feeling that he should like to hang a laurel wreath there.
Then M. Perrelet entered in a dressing-gown, and waved him to his own couch.
He woke about five o'clock to find, to his surprise, a low-voiced conversation going on behind the screen.
Since his collapse La Rocheterie had not uttered a word.
".
.
.
kept me alive for that!"
he caught the end of a sentence, in his broken, trailing voice, suffused nevertheless with bitterness.
"Now, my boy," he heard M. Perrelet reply gently, "you cannot honestly think that was my purpose, can you?
If I could have Colonel Guitton tried for attempted murder, I would willingly do so.
But you must not think of it any more; it is over now."
The voice said, "Till they try again!"
"No, no!"
The old surgeon sounded genuinely shocked.
"The Colonel has left Arbelles.
It shall never happen again, I swear it.
And you did not tell him anything; you know that, don't you?"
"Yes .
.
.
but .
.
.
he _asked_ me .
.
.
he _dared_ to ask me!"
gasped L'Oiseleur ".
.
.
and before M. de Courtomer!"
(Yes, he had recognized him--he had realized that he was there!
) "Come, come, my child, you must be quiet!"
said the doctor.
"I know that you went through a dreadful time, but you kept your mouth shut--that's really all you care about, isn't it?
Now see if you cannot get to sleep again--to please me!"
And to Laurent's relief there was silence for a little; then the ghost of a voice began again.
The question itself was inaudible.
"M. de Courtomer is here," answered M. Perrelet.
"He is asleep just now.
He helps me to look after you, you know."
"He is here--in the room?
Always?"
"Certainly.
You cannot be left."
"But, my God," came desperately from the bed, "that is the one thing I want .
.
.
to be left alone.
And instead of that he .
.
.
who knew me once .
.
.
was in the room .
.
.
and heard .
.
.
_everything!
_ Can't he be put somewhere else .
.
.
can't I be alone?"
The voice was almost sobbing in its entreaty.
Poor Laurent, in his bed, covered his face with his hand.
So much for his dreams of a grateful recognition!
Yes, that was it, as he had felt at the time--the intolerable humiliation, to a very proud and sensitive spirit, of having had an acquaintance a witness of Friday's proceedings.
There was a movement behind the screen.
"Chut!
mon enfant!"
said the doctor.
"You must not agitate yourself like this!
M.
de Courtomer is here of his own free will to nurse you, and he is so much your champion that he has twice already fought your battle with the Colonel.
And if he had not fetched me in after that business on Friday----" "I wish he had not!"
broke in the faint, bitter voice.
"You are kind, Doctor .
.
.
but if you would only let me die .
.
."
This was becoming unbearable.
Never had Laurent conceived of the La Rocheterie he had known before, though he was young enough, than as a man--even, by reason of his quiet self-possession and his prestige, than as a man older, perhaps, than he really was.
He sounded now like a broken-hearted boy.
The listener put his hands over his ears.
He kept them there till he was sure that the voices had ceased.
A little afterwards he heard M. Perrelet emerge very cautiously and tiptoe over to his bed.
The young man's instant pretence of being asleep did not deceive the doctor.
He bent over him till his mouth was almost at his ear and whispered, "Did you by any chance hear what was said just now?"
"Yes," breathed Laurent with his eyes shut.
"You won't take any notice of it, my dear boy, will you?"
pleaded the surgeon in the same almost inaudible tone.
"He's nearly crazy after that damnable strain."
"That's obvious.
And therefore--after what he said--I had better be moved elsewhere."
"No, no, I can't spare you.
He will get over this morbid feeling about you as the effects of that scene wear off."
"But shall I get over his having had it?"
thought Laurent.
He said nothing, but suddenly buried his face in the pillow.
"You will stay--and take no notice?"
queried the voice in his ear; and after a moment Laurent gave a smothered assent.
The grasp on his shoulder tightened.
"Good boy!"
whispered M. Perrelet, and went away.
But it was not easy to carry out that promise.
Already, by the time that the hour for dressings arrived, L'Oiseleur had contrived, without the aid of speech, to make his feelings about the unwilling witness so clear that Laurent was constrained to help himself through that ordeal by pretending that the set and frozen face below him belonged to someone whom he had never seen before.
And indeed it could not have shown less sign of recognition had this really been the case.
At the conclusion M. Perrelet suddenly laid hold of his patient's arm.
"Time I had a look at these wrists again," he murmured, and began to unfasten the little bandage.
The wrist jerked weakly in his hold.
"No!"
ejaculated the Vicomte de la Rocheterie with a catch of the breath.
"Leave them alone, please!"
Low as it was, the tone was a command, which the frown emphasized.
M.
Perrelet just glanced at the speaker.
"My dear boy," he said, almost equally low, "it is necessary," and went on unwinding.
But Laurent, averting his face, slipped away from the bed, lest he should see the marks of those accursed ropes, and L'Oiseleur have him again as an unwilling witness of his humiliation.
He was not so to avoid it.
"Will you please bring that fresh lint I left on the table," came the surgeon's voice a moment later.
For an instant Laurent had the idea of saying that he could not find it--the next, he snatched it angrily up and went round the barrier.
La Rocheterie's head was turned stiffly away, but Laurent had the impression that he was grinding his teeth.
And on the unbandaged wrist in M. Perrelet's hold he saw just what he had guessed and feared.
.
.
.
Yes, he must have struggled, indeed!
Perhaps, still worse, he had been dragged about.
.
.
.
Laurent silently put the lint on the bed and went away again.
And there was more than one moment during that day--it was the Sunday--when, despite his promise to M. Perrelet, Laurent found himself saying, "I'll be hanged if I stay here!"
For L'Oiseleur's demeanour towards him continued to be of a politeness so stony that his guardian would really much have preferred him to be rude.
After that one approach to a breakdown to which, in his precarious state, insults and torture had brought him, La Rocheterie had evidently summoned up all his pride and his endurance.
There was nothing of that heartrending boyishness about him now; he was a man again, and a desperately unapproachable one.
It was extraordinary that a person who was so utterly helpless and dependent on another could contrive to keep that other so freezingly at arm's length.
Yet, directly Laurent had come to the conclusion that next time M. Perrelet entered he must ask to be moved elsewhere, he had only to look at his charge lying there to feel that he could not bring himself to desert him.
However much La Rocheterie might not want him, he needed him terribly.
And always at the back of Laurent's mind was the instinctive knowledge that, before he was brought to Arbelles, he must have been through some terrible experience to be so completely changed.
The very attractive, courteous, self-contained young man of last year, with his modesty, his easy and quiet gaiety, his consideration for others, was entirely gone, and in his place was a phantom of that figure, sombre and tortured, too sore in spirit to accept the most willing sympathy and service.
His very voice was changed.
No; it was plain to Laurent that the slander was at the back of all that had happened to him even before he came to the château.
And what exactly had happened?
Every day, every hour, the situation seemed to blossom into fresh horrible possibilities; and before that agonized silence one was helpless.
For that he would hear now from the victim's own lips the story of what he had undergone seemed so improbable that Laurent had given up considering it.
The best he could hope for was that he could continue to nurse him without being asked point-blank to leave him.
And though he would abstain from that request now, directly L'Oiseleur was well enough to be left he should ask to be moved--instantly.
It was a small but very wounding occurrence which fixed him in this resolve.
He noticed during the afternoon that a lock of the hair which he had cut so badly, straggling over his forehead, was bothering the helpless man.
Laurent could not think at first why he was feebly moving his head first to one side, then to the other, but when L'Oiseleur began slowly to try to disengage a hand from beneath the bedclothes to deal with the annoyance Laurent jumped up, murmuring, "Let me do that for you!"
But as he gently put aside the recalcitrant lock he felt La Rocheterie shrink--most indubitably shrink--from his touch, flashing up at him as he did so an extraordinary glance of hostility--it could be nothing else.
And Laurent had gone instantly away without a word.
He went to bed that night feeling almost desperate.
His patient had intimated in the most icy tones that he did not wish for anything during the night, and that he would be extremely obliged if the light might not be kept burning as hitherto.
Laurent knew that he was doing very wrong in acceding to these requests (which partook more of the nature of commands), but he simply had not the courage to contravene them.
(8) At the end of his visit next morning M. Perrelet managed to whisper to Laurent, under cover of washing his hands, "Is he being very difficult?"
"A little," answered M. de Courtomer, colouring.
"I thought so!
But you know, in some way or other he's going through hell, that young man!
I should know that as a doctor, if I had not heard that dark story about him.
So hold on, there's a good lad, and one day he will realize what you are doing for him and thank you for it."
"Going through hell."
The phrase recurred to Laurent as he sat by the window that afternoon.
Yes, he looked as if he were.
And the strain, whatever it was, was not lessening but increasing.
All the hours, reflected Laurent, that he lies there motionless, he is thinking, thinking .
.
.
and of what?
Why will he not tell me--tell me at least something .
.
.
tell me that he is in a great strait?
For whatever he is going through cannot be caused by his own misdoing; yet in this horrible tale there is misdoing--someone else's, of which the blame has fallen on him.
Then it came to him like a flash of lightning.
_No, he has taken it on himself!
_ An immense cloud whose existence he had hardly acknowledged rolled away from Laurent's mind.
Of course that was it!
How could he have been so dense?
That would fully account for La Rocheterie's not having denied the imputation when the Colonel made it so brutally to his face.
Some other man had committed the traitorous act which had brought about Pont-aux-Rochers, and L'Oiseleur, for some reason, had shouldered the blame.
He was enduring all this vicarious shame for someone else .
.
.
and suffering bitterly under it.
His mind full of this illumination, Laurent looked thoughtfully across the room at the rococo clock on the mantelpiece, for at three o'clock he was to take La Rocheterie's pulse, a task entrusted to him in M. Perrelet's absence.
As the timepiece had marked half-past two when last he looked at it, it must have stopped.
He went over to it to make sure, and thus came into full view of the bed, and was aware that its occupant was awake, and watching him as he put his ear to the glass.
It was unlikely that he would address him, for he hardly ever spoke.
Nothing could have surprised him more than to hear what he did.
"The clock stopped quite half an hour ago, Monsieur de Courtomer.
--It is Monsieur de Courtomer, is it not?"
Laurent turned round, hoping that he was not showing his amazement, aware as he was that the real recognition had been made four days ago.
"Yes, Monsieur, I was taken prisoner a week since."
"And wounded, too, I see," observed M. de la Rocheterie gravely.
"Wounded?"
queried Laurent, quite forgetting the plaster on his forehead.
"Your head."
"Oh, that!"
exclaimed the young man, putting up a hand to his adornment.
"That is nothing--a scratch from a hedge."
"But a scratch honourably come by."
Laurent winced at the tone, and hurriedly said, "If you will permit me, Monsieur de la Rocheterie," he could bring out the name now, "I will take your pulse--M. Perrelet's orders."
A tiny frown appeared between the slender eyebrows, and Laurent felt instantly that he did not want one of his bandaged wrists exposed to the light of day--for both his hands were under the bedclothes.
"Do not move your arm, pray," he remarked quickly.
"I can get at your pulse quite well as you are."
And, watch in hand, he knelt down by the bed and slipped his hand in at the side.
His fingers nevertheless fumbled about the wrappings as they sought for the artery.
"It will be more convenient for you when those bandages are off," observed the chilling voice.
Laurent was saved any reply to this remark by the fact that, his eyes glued to his watch, he was counting, as he had recently been instructed.
Then he got up and went to the table to write down the result of his computations.
"You saw yesterday why I have to have my wrists bandaged?"
said L'Oiseleur abruptly.
Laurent had his back to him.
"I did not look particularly," he very truthfully replied.
"Then I advise you to do so next time," said Aymar de la Rocheterie.
"You may not, then, perhaps, care to .
.
.
continue your ministrations."
Laurent was momentarily tempted to retort, "Would that please you?"
but he was too much afraid of the answer to risk it.
Oh, why would he, with the scrap of strength he had gained, use it in torturing himself and his fellow-captive?
Inspired by sheer desperation the guardian turned round with an air of authority and said, "Monsieur de la Rocheterie, I am under strict orders not to let you talk.
If you will allow me, I will try to arrange you more comfortably, and perhaps you could sleep a little."
The bloodless lips almost twitched into a smile as the wounded man looked up at him.
"When last we met, Monsieur de Courtomer, under very different circumstances----" "Excuse me, but would you not like your pillow turned?"
"No, thank you.
As I was saying----" "If only you would not talk!"
interjected Laurent.
"When last I had the pleasure of seeing you .
.
.
at M. de Saint-Séverin's reception .
.
.
I little guessed that at our next meeting you would be what you are .
.
.
and I--" he drew a long breath "--and I .
.
.
what I am!"
"--Surgeon's assistant and patient," struck in Laurent gallantly.
"No, I little thought that myself!"
"It was not purely in that role .
.
.
that I was considering myself," commented L'Oiseleur.
He did smile this time, a rather terrible smile.
And then, spent by his unwonted effort at conversation--and such a conversation, thought the unhappy Laurent--he shut his eyes, and relapsed once more into complete silence and immobility.
M.
Perrelet was not pleased with his patient that evening.
He explained to Laurent that what he had rather anticipated was happening--the bullet in his shoulder was poisoning him.
He thought that M. de la Rocheterie could stand the extraction now; indeed there was no choice in the matter.
He would perform it next day; his victim need not know of his intention till the morning.
Poor Laurent wished that the same reticence had been exercised with regard to himself; he fancied that he needed it far more.
He spent an apprehensive and L'Oiseleur a restless night.
(9) "Well, I am glad that is satisfactorily over," remarked M. Perrelet next morning as he washed his instruments at the table in the middle of the room.
"All the same, as I told you, I have put him to sleep because that shoulder will hurt for some time like the devil, and I am very anxious to avoid unnecessary heroism--it's bad for his heart.
We have had quite enough of necessary this morning as it is."
For though it was out of his power to drug his patient for the operation itself, he had given him a strong opiate immediately afterwards, and to this La Rocheterie had very quickly succumbed.
"Yes, it has been worrying me," went on the old surgeon, "how to get that ball out without too much shock.
.
.
.
_You_ look a bit white, my boy.
Are you all right?"
"I am very much all right, thank you, sir," returned Laurent, pallid but smiling.
For he, at any rate, had derived from the detestable business something which made what he had gone through worth while.
"And in the process of becoming quite a useful assistant to me you have not lost your zeal as a champion, eh?"
"Not a bit," said Laurent.
"Though I admit that I would give a very great deal to get to the bottom of the business."
M.
Perrelet flashed a shrewd glance at him.
"You still don't think you would be sorry when you got there?"
Laurent drew himself up.
"Not in the sense you mean, Monsieur.
And surely you yourself, who have saved his life----" "That's my job, Monsieur de Courtomer.
It's nothing to me that the bullet I have just fished out of that young man's shoulder came from some old Chouan musket of the year one--look at it--nor that that young man was found lashed to a beech tree outside his own headquarters, nor that he has, undoubtedly, something very grave on his mind--my business is to set him on his legs again, if I can."
"Monsieur Perrelet," said Laurent earnestly, "I believe I can account for everything.
He is shielding someone else.
I am positive of it.
It cannot be an agreeable thing to do; it has cost him terribly in the past, it is costing him terribly now, and as for the future----" He broke off rather abruptly.
M.
Perrelet gave a little shake of the head; his smile was half amused, but half touched, too.
