During this incident the sound of a motor had been throbbing away, at first at some distance. The explosions grew louder, and there burst, once more through the arch, into the courtyard a motorcycle which went bumping over the uneven ground and stopped short. The motorcyclist had caught sight of the clock.
Quite young, of a well setup, well-proportioned figure, tall, slim, and of a cheerful countenance, he was certainly, like the first-comer, of the Anglo-Saxon race. Having propped up his motorcycle, he walked towards Dorothy, watch in hand as if he were on the point of saying:
“You will note that I am not late.”
But he was interrupted by two more arrivals who came almost simultaneously. A second horseman came trotting briskly through the arch on a big, lean horse, and at the sight of the group gathered in front of the clock, drew rein sharply, saying in Italian:
“Gently—gently.”
He had a fine profile and an amiable face, and when he had tied up his mount, he came forward hat in hand, as one about to pay his respects to a lady.
But, mounted on a donkey, appeared a fifth individual, from a different direction from any of the others. On the threshold of the court he pulled up in amazement, staring stupidly with wide-open eyes behind his spectacles.
“Is it p-p-possible?” he stammered. “Is it possible? They’ve come. The whole thing isn’t a fairytale!”
He was quite sixty. Dressed in a frock-coat, his head covered with a black straw hat, he wore whiskers and carried under his arm a leather satchel. He did not cease to reiterate in a flustered voice:
“They have come! … They have come to the rendezvous! … It’s unbelievable!”
Up to now Dorothy had been silent in the face of the exclamations and arrivals of her companions. The need of explanations, of speech even, seemed to diminish in her the more they flocked round her. She became serious and grave. Her thoughtful eyes expressed an intense emotion. Each apparition seemed to her as tremendous an event as a miracle. Like the gentleman in the frock-coat with the satchel, she murmured:
“Is it possible? They have come to the rendezvous!”
She looked at her watch.
Noon.
“Listen,” she said, stretching out her hand. “Listen. The Angelus is ringing somewhere … at the village church. …”
They uncovered their heads, and while they listened to the ringing of the bell, which came to them in irregular bursts, one would have said that they were waiting for the clock to start going and connect with the minute that was passing the thread of the minutes of long ago.
Dorothy fell on her knees. Her emotion was so deep that she was weeping.
XI
The Will of the Marquis de Beaugreval
Tears of joy, tears which relieved her strained nerves and bathed her in an immense peacefulness. The five men were greatly disturbed, knowing neither what to do nor what to say.
“Mademoiselle? … What’s the matter, mademoiselle?”
They seemed so staggered by her sobs and by their own presence round her, that Dorothy passed suddenly from tears to laughter, and yielding to her natural impulse, she began forthwith to dance, without troubling to know whether she would appear to them to be a princess or a ropedancer. And the more this unexpected display increased the embarrassment of her companions the gayer she grew. Fandango, jig, reel, she gave a snatch of each, with a simulated accompaniment of castanets, and a genuine accompaniment of English songs and Auvergnat ritornelles, and above all of bursts of laughter which awakened the echoes of Roche-Périac.
“But laugh too, all five of you!” she cried. “You look like five mummies. It’s I who order you to laugh, I, Dorothy, ropedancer and Princess of Argonne. Come, Mr. Lawyer,” she added, addressing the gentleman in the frock-coat. “Look more cheerful. I assure you that there’s plenty to be cheerful about.”
She darted to the good man, shook him by the hand, and said, as if to assure him of his status: “You are the lawyer, aren’t you? The notary charged with the execution of the provisions of a will. That’s much clearer than you think. … We’ll explain it to you. … You are the notary?”
“That is the fact,” stammered the gentleman. “I am Maître Delarue, notary at Nantes.”
“At Nantes? Excellent; we know where we are. And it’s a question of a gold medal, isn’t it? … A gold medal which each has received as a summons to the rendezvous?”
“Yes, yes,” he said, more and more flustered. “A gold medal—a rendezvous.”
“The 12th of July, 1921.”
“Yes, yes—1921.”
“At noon?”
“At noon.”
He made as if to look at his watch. She stopped him:
“You needn’t take the trouble, Maître Delarue; we’ve heard the Angelus. You are punctual at the rendezvous. … We are too. … Everything is in order. … Each has his gold medal. … They’re going to show it to you.”
She drew Maître Delarue towards the clock, and said with even greater animation:
“This is Maître Delarue, the notary. You understand? If you don’t, I can speak English—and Italian—and Javanese.”
All four of them protested that they understood French.
“Excellent. We shall understand one another better. Then this is Maître Delarue; he is the notary, the man who has been instructed to preside at our meeting. In France notaries represent the dead. So that since it is a dead man who brings us together, you see how important Maître Delarue’s position is in the matter. You don’t grasp it? How funny that is! To me it is all so clear—and so amusing. So strange! It’s the prettiest adventure I ever heard of—and the most thrilling. Think now! We all belong to the same family. … We’re by way of being cousins. Then we ought to be joyful like relations who have come together. And all the more because—yes: I’m right—all four of you are decorated. … The French Croix de Guerre. Then all four of you have fought? … Fought
