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Witness to the Deed, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 55. The Last Cloud |
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_ CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE. THE LAST CLOUD "Jules, you are a bad--a naughty!" cried Margot angrily. "You and your wife never tell me of what takes place while I sleep; you send me out with my patient, and never tell me he is dangerous; and then you rob me of my bread by getting him sent away. It is ruin, and I must go back to the town and starve." "Never," cried a pleasant little voice behind her; and she turned sharply round to see Edie and Guest, the former smiling through her tears. "Have no fear about that, my poor Margot. Come up to the house and help, as my poor cousin is very weak and ill." "My faith, dear miss, I will," cried the sturdy Breton woman. In fact, Margot's hands were pretty full during the next month, for she had two patients to tend--at the little chateau and in the cottage just below. "Ah! bah, madame," she said, looking up from her knitting. "What do I do? Nothing. The beloved miss grows better and more beautiful day by day, and is it I? Is it the good physician come from Saint Malo? Name of a little cider apple! no. Look at the dear old monsieur there." She pointed with a knitting needle to where Brettison sat, propped up in a chair in the shadow of the rock with a table before him, and Miss Jerrold, who looked very old and grey and stately, turned her head, nodded, and went on with the embroidery about which her busy fingers played. "He says to me, 'You must go up on the cliffs this morning, Margot, and bring me every flower you can find.' I go, madame, and--" "One moment, Margot; you always forget I am mademoiselle, not madame." "The greater the pity, mad'moiselle. You so young looking still you should be the beautiful mother of many children, or a widow like me. What of the monsieur? I take him every morning all the flowers, and there, see, he is as happy with them as a little child. Of my other sick one--look at her--" She pointed with the other needle just set free to where Myra and Stratton were also seated in the shade gazing dreamily out to where the anchored sailing boats rose and fell upon the calm blue water. Aunt Jerrold looked through her half-closed eyes, smiled and nodded again. "Faith of a good woman!" said Margot, "does she want a nurse, does she want a physician? No. The good doctor is by her side, and ever since the day when the bad man was taken I have seen the beautiful brown of the sea air and the rose of the sun come into her cheeks. It is a folly my being here now, but if mademoiselle and the great sea captain will keep my faithful services till they marry and be happy; and oh, mademoiselle," cried Margot, turning her eyes up toward the sky, and displaying her white teeth, "the way that I adore the dear, dear little children!" "Margot!" cried Miss Jerrold austerely, and she rose and walked away. "Faith of a good woman! what have I said?" muttered Margot, looking now at where Guest and Edie had gone down to a rock pool in which they were fishing with their hands for prawns, but catching each other's fingers instead deep down under the weeds. "They will all marry, and very soon. Ah! those old maids!" The one to whom she specially referred had gone to sit down now by her brother, who was scanning a vessel in the offing with his glass. "French man-of-war, Rebecca," he said. "Fine vessel, but only a confounded imitation of one of ours." "Yes, dear, I suppose so," said his sister, and she went on with her embroidery. "Are you getting tired of the place, Mark?" she said suddenly. "Eh? Tired! What for? It's beautiful and calm, and there's water and a bit of shipping, and everyone seems to be happy and comfortable. Tired? No! Are you?" "Oh, no, dear, only I thought we could not go on much longer like this." "Let fate alter it, then," said the admiral gruffly. "Don't catch me at it. Myra hasn't suggested such a thing." "She? No," said Miss Jerrold quickly. "O Mark!" she cried, "I am so glad to see her happy once again." "God bless her, yes. I think she must have had all the trouble meant for her life in one big storm, so that she may have a calm passage right to the end." "I pray that it may be so," said Aunt Jerrold fervently. "How happy she looks." "Yes," said Sir Mark, closing the glass through which he had watched her while his sister spoke. They were right, for the calm had come. Seated hand in hand, Stratton had told Myra in the soft, dim light of evening, while the waters murmured at her feet, all the tangle of his troubles, and she had literally forced him to tell her all again and again, for the narrative was never tedious to her as a twice told tale, while the knowledge of all that he had suffered for her sake drew the bond between them in a faster knot. On this particular morning, when all was bright and sunny, there yet was one cloud near, for a servant came out from the cottage to say that monsieur was wanted. Stratton sprang up, and Myra rose and clung to his arm, her eyes dilating with the dread of some new trouble. But he at once calmed her. "There can be no trouble now that we could not meet," he whispered; and she sank back in her seat to watch him till he disappeared within the door. The officer who had arrested Henderson was standing in the little room Stratton used, and with him a thin, earnest looking man in black, who seemed to wear an official uniform as well as air. Bows were exchanged, and then the latter produced some papers. "I have come, monsieur, respecting the man Barron-Dale," he said in very good English. "As you know, monsieur, we have been in communication with the English authorities, and, as we have reported to you from time to time, there has been a reluctance on their part to investigate the matter." "Yes, I have heard all this," said Stratton, trying to be calm. "They were disposed to treat him as an impostor, and at last sent us word definitely that Barron-Dale and Henderson certainly died in their attempt to escape from your great prison. The correspondence has gone on, monsieur, till now, and I believe that the English authorities were about to send an officer to investigate the matter; but, as you have been informed, the man has been growing worse and worse while ill in the infirmary of the prison at Barville. Yesterday he had a bad attack--a fit." He paused for a moment or two, looking gravely at Stratton. "The difficulty is solved now, monsieur," said the officer gravely. "He did not recover from the fit. Our doctors have found the cause of those attacks--a pistol bullet was imbedded close to the brain." "The bullet from his own pistol," thought Stratton. "The shot he meant for me." A few minutes after Stratton left the officer, and went straight to where Myra was waiting, trembling with excitement. "There is some fresh peril, Malcolm," she cried as she caught his hand. "No, dearest," he said slowly; "the last cloud has passed away."
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