Part 14 (1/2)
”Ah, Mademoiselle, if ever he leaves his bed again, it will be a miracle.”
She was not listening. Age, age again!--it makes all the difference.
Here came the coach--did it hold a letter for Raoul? Raoul was young.
The coach rolled by with less noise than usual, on the carpet of snow churned brown with traffic. As it pa.s.sed, the guard lifted his horn and blew cheerily. She followed, telling herself it was a good omen. During the long wait outside the post office she rebuked herself more than once for building a hope upon it. Name after name was called, and at each call a prisoner pushed forward to the doorway for his letter. She caught sight of the General on the outskirts of the crowd. Her brother would not come out until every letter had been distributed.
But when he appeared in the doorway she read the good news in his face.
He made his way briskly towards her, the prisoners falling back to give pa.s.sage.
”Right; it has come,” he said. ”Trot away home and have the valises packed, while I run into 'The Dogs' and order the chaise.”
Once clear of the town, she galloped. There was little need to hurry, for her own valise had been packed overnight.
Having sent Mudge to attend to her brother's, she ran to Narcissus'
room--his scriptorium, as he called it.
Narcissus was at home to-day, busy with the cellar accounts. He took stock twice a year and composed a report in language worthy of a survey of the Roman Empire. Before he could look up, Dorothea had kissed him on the crown of his venerable head.
”Such news, dear! Endymion has ordered a chaise from 'The Dogs,' and is going to take me to Dartmoor!”
”Dartmoor--G.o.d bless my soul!” He rubbed his head, and added with a twinkle: ”Why, what have you been doing?”
”Endymion has a cartel of exchange for M. Raoul, and we are to carry it.”
”Ah, so that is what you two have been conspiring over? I smelt a rat somewhere. But, really, this is delightful of you--delightful of you both. Only, why on earth should you be carrying the release yourselves, in this weather.”
”He is very ill,” said Dorothea, seriously.
”Indeed? Poor fellow, poor fellow. Still, that scarcely explains--”
”And you will be good, and take your meals regularly when Mudge beats the gong? And you won't sit up late and set fire to the house? But I must run off and tell everyone to take care of you.”
She kissed him again, and was half-way down the corridor before he called after her:
”Dorothea, Dorothea! the drawings!”
”Ah, to be sure; I forgot,” she murmured, as he thrust the parcel into her hand.
”Forgot? Forgot the drawings? But, G.o.d bless my soul!--”
He pa.s.sed his hand over his grey hairs and stared down the corridor after her.
The roads were heavy to start, with, and beyond Chard they grew heavier. At Honiton, which our travellers reached at midnight, it was snowing; and Dorothea, when the sleepy chamber-maid aroused her at dawn, looked out upon a forbidding world of white. The postboys were growling, and she half feared that Endymion would abandon the journey for the day. But if he lacked her zeal, he had the true Englishman's hatred of turning back. She, who had known him always for a master of men, learned a new awe of her splendid brother. He took command; he cross-examined landlord and postboys, pooh-poohed their objections, extracted from them in half-a-dozen curt questions more information than, five minutes before, they were conscious of possessing, to judge from the scratching of heads which produced it; finally, he handed Dorothea into the chaise, sprang in himself, and closed discussion with a slam of the door. They were driven off amid the salaams of ostler, boots, waiter, and two chambermaids, among whom he had scattered largess with the lordliest hand.
So the chaise ploughed through Exeter to Moreton Hampstead, where they supped and rested for another night. But before dawn they were off again. Snow lay in thick drifts on the skirts of the great moor, and snow whirled about them as they climbed, until day broke upon a howling desert, across which Dorothea peered but could discern no features.
Not leagues but years divided Bayfield from this tableland, high over all the world, uninhabited, without tree or gate or hedge. Her eyes were heavy with lack of sleep, smarting with the bite of the north wind, which neither ceased nor eased until, towards ten o'clock, the carriage began to lumber downhill towards Two Bridges, under the lee of Crockern Tor. Beyond came a heavy piece of collar work, the horses dropping to a walk as they heaved through the drifts towards a depression between two tors closing the view ahead. Dorothea's eyes, avoiding the wind, were fixed on the tor to the left, when Endymion touched her hand and pointed towards the base of the other. There, grey--almost black--against the white hillside, a ma.s.s of masonry loomed up through the weather; the great circle of the War Prison.
The road did not lead them to it direct. They must halt first at the bare village of Prince Town, and drink coffee and warm themselves at the ”Plume of Feathers Inn,” before facing the last few hundred yards beneath the lee of North Hessary. But a little before noon, Dorothea-- still with a sense of being lifted on a platform miles above the world she knew--alighted before a tremendous archway of piled granite set in a featureless wall, and closed with a sheeted gate of iron. A grey- coated sentry, pacing here in front of his snow-capped box, challenged and demanded their business.