The Lady of Fort St. John Part 3

"I'm Le Rossignol," she piped out, when she had looked at the vagrant girl a few minutes, "and I can read your name on your face. It's Marguerite."

The girl stared helplessly at this midget seer.

"You're the same Marguerite that was left on the Island of Demons a hundred years ago. You may not know it, but you're the same. I know that downward look, and soft, crying way, and still tongue, and the very baby on your knees. You never bring any good, and words are wasted on you.

Don't smile under your sly mouth, and think you are hiding anything from Le Rossignol."

The girl crouched deeper into her clothes, until those unwinking eyes relieved her by turning with indifference toward the chimney.

"I have no pity for any Marguerite," Le Rossignol added, and she tossed from her head the entire subject with a cap made of white gull b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

A brush of red hair stood up in thousands of tendrils, exaggerating by its nimbus the size of her upper person. Never had dwarf a sweeter voice. If she had been compressed in order to produce melody, her tones were compensation, enough. She made lilting sounds while dangling her feet to the blaze, as if she thought in music.

Le Rossignol was so positive a force that she seldom found herself overborne by the presence of large human beings. The only man in the fortress who saw her without superst.i.tion was Klussman. He inclined to complain of her antics, but not to find magic in her flights and returns. At that period deformity was the symbol of witchcraft. Blame fell upon this dwarf when toothache or rheumatic pains invaded the barracks, especially if the sufferer had spoken against her unseen excursions with her swan. Protected from childhood by the family of La Tour, she had grown an autocrat, and bent to n.o.body except her lady.

"Where is my clavier?" exclaimed Le Rossignol. "I heard a tune in the woods which I must get out of my clavier,--a green tune, the color of quickening lichens; a dropping tune with sap in it; a tune like the wind across inland lakes."

She ran along the settle, and thrust her head around its high back.

Zelie, with white garments upon one arm, was setting solidly forth down the uncovered stairs, when the dwarf arrested her by a cry.

"Go back, heavy-foot,--go back and fetch me my clavier."

"Mademoiselle the nightingale has suddenly returned," muttered Zelie, ill pleased.

"Am I not always here when my lady comes home? I demand the box wherein my instrument is kept."

"What doth your instrument concern me? Madame has sent me to dress the baby."

"Will you bring my clavier?"

The dwarf's scream was like the weird high note of a wind-harp. It had its effect on Zelie. She turned back, though muttering against the overruling of her lady's commands by a creature like a bat, who could probably send other powers than a decent maid to bring claviers.

"And where shall I find it?" she inquired aloud. "Here have I been in the fortress scarce half an hour, after all but s.h.i.+pwreck, and I must search out the belongings of people who do naught but idle."

"Find it where you will. No one hath the key but myself. The box may stand in Madame Marie's apartment, or it may be in my own chamber. Such matters are blown out of my head by the wind along the coast. Make haste to fetch it so I can play when Madame Marie appears."

Le Rossignol drew herself up the back of the settle, and perched at ease on the angle farthest from the fire. She beat her heels lightly against her throne, and hummed, with her face turned from the listless girl, who watched all her antics.

Zelie brought the instrument case, unlocked it, and handed up a crook-necked mandolin and its small ivory plectrum to her tyrant. At once the hall was full of tinkling melody. The dwarf's threadlike fingers ran along the neck of the mandolin, and as she made the ivory disk quiver among its strings her head swayed in rapturous singing.

Zelie forgot the baby. The garments intended for its use were spread upon the settle near the fire. She folded her arms, and wagged her head with Le Rossignol's. But while the dwarf kept an eye on the stairway, watching like a lover for the appearance of Madame La Tour, the outer door again clanked, and Klussman stepped into the hall. His big presence had instant effect on Le Rossignol. Her music tinkled louder and faster.

The playing sprite, sitting half on air, gamboled and made droll faces to catch his eye. Her vanity and self-satisfaction, her pliant gesture and skillful wild music, made her appear some soulless little being from the woods who mocked at man's tense sternness.

Klussman took little notice of any one in the hall, but waited by the closed door so relentless a sentinel that Zelie was reminded of her duty. She made haste to bring perfumed water in a basin, and turned the linen on the settle. She then took the child from its mother's limp hands, and exclaimed and muttered under her breath as she turned it on her knees.

"What hast thou done to it since my lady left thee?" inquired Zelie sharply. But she got no answer from the girl.

Unrewarded for her minstrelsy by a single look from the Swiss, Le Rossignol quit playing, and made a fist of the curved instrument to shake at him, and let herself down the back of the settle. She sat on the mandolin box in shadow, vaguely sulking, until Madame La Tour, fresh from her swift attiring, stood at the top of the stairway. That instant the half-hid mandolin burst into quavering melodies.

"Thou art back again, Nightingale?" called the lady, descending.

"Yes, Madame Marie."

"Madame!" exclaimed Klussman, and as his voice escaped repression it rang through the hall. He advanced, but his lady lifted her finger to hold him back.

"Presently, Klussman. The first matter in hand is to rebuke this runaway."

Marie's firm and polished chin, the contour of her glowing mouth, and the kindling beauty of her eyes were forever fresh delights to Le Rossignol. The dwarf watched the shapely and majestic woman moving down the hall.

"Madame," besought Zelie, looking anxiously around the end of the settle. But she also was obliged to wait. Marie extended a hand to the claws of Le Rossignol, who touched it with her beak.

"Thou hast very greatly displeased me."

"Yes, Madame Marie," said the culprit, with resignation.

"How many times have you set all our people talking about these witch flights on the swan, and sudden returns after dark?"

"I forget, Madame Marie."

"In all seriousness thou shalt be well punished for this last," said the lady severely.

"I was punished before the offense. Your absence punished me, Madame Marie."

"A bit of adroit flattery will not turn aside discipline. The smallest va.s.sal in the fort shall know that. A day in the turret, with a loaf of bread and a jug of water, may put thee in better liking to stay at home."

"Yes, Madame Marie," a.s.sented the dwarf, with smiles.

"And I may yet find it in my heart to have that swan's neck wrung."

"Shubenacadie's neck! Oh, Madame Marie, wring mine! It would be the death of me if Shubenacadie died. Consider how long I have had him. And his looks, my lady! He is such a pretty bird."

"We must mend that dangerous beauty of his. If these flights stop not, I will have his wings clipped."

"His satin wings,--his glistening, polished wings," mourned Le Rossignol, "tipped with angel-finger feathers! Oh, Madame Marie, my heart's blood would run out of his quills!"

"It is a serious breach in the discipline of this fortress for even you to disobey me constantly," said the lady, again severely, though she knew her lecture was wasted on the human brownie.

Le Rossignol poked and worried the mandolin with antennae-like fingers, and made up a contrite face.

The dimness of the hall had not covered Klussman's large pallor. The emotions of the Swiss pa.s.sed over the outside of his countenance, in bulk like himself. His lady often compared him to a n.o.ble young bullock or other well-conditioned animal. There was in Klussman much wholesomeness and excuse for existence.

"Now, Klussman," said Marie, meeting her lieutenant with the intentness of one used to sudden military emergencies. He trod straight to the fireplace, and pointed at the strange girl, who hid her face.

"Madame, I have come in to speak of a thing you ought to know. Has that woman told you her name?"

"No, she hath not. She hath kept a close tongue ever since we found her at the outpost."

"She ever had a close tongue, madame, but she works her will in silence.

It hath been no good will to me, and it will be no good will to the Fort of St. John."