CHAPTER XXII
“LA PAUVRE”
There were eighteen francs in her purse. She emptied them into Jeannette’s hand as she left the tavern.
“You are a good girl,” she said; “do what you can for him. He cannot eat the food here. Go to the house of Hummel, the vintner, and buy brandy for him. We shall send to-morrow. If you think that we should come sooner, you will find me at the house of the Countess of Görsdorf in the Place Kleber. I am Madame Lefort. You may have heard my name!”
The girl raised her hands in wonder.
“Ah, Madame, if I remember! Was I not at the wedding in the Minster? Ma foi! what silk, what satin—and the gold of the officers. Of course, I shall be his friend. You will sleep to-night and say, ‘She is watching him.’ I have loved myself, Madame—even I, Jeannette.”
Again the scarlet flush dyed the pretty cheeks, and the heart of the girl beat fast.
“He is my kinsman,” she said earnestly; “his friends do not wish him to be in Strasburg. I count upon you to help him. We shall not forget your kindness. And my husband will come here himself when he returns from Ulm.”
Jeannette stood with eyes wide open. The romance of her guest was gone, then. In a sense the truth was unpleasant to her. And yet, after all, she had no rival in the house. When she mounted the quaking stairs again, she went gladly and singing. The English stranger was very handsome. He should not want a friend there.
Beatrix left the house quickly, almost furtively. The errand she had set herself was an errand of life or death. The drunken troopers in the tavern stood to her for so many savage jailors of the lonely man in the garret above. The noises in the streets echoed as the cries of the doomed in a stricken city. Strange lights flared in the sky. She heard men say that they were lights of the houses which burned by the northern gates. The low booming of the artillery was incessant. It acted upon men’s nerves as an irritant, moving them to frenzies of rage and despair. By here and there the chink of a cellar door showed her whole families, accustomed yesterday to the common luxuries of life, now huddled together on a bed of straw for very terror of the falling death. Others were heaping up bags full of clay before the shutters of the shops. In the Broglie itself a man ran to and fro crying out to all that they had killed his son. He took her by the arm roughly and would have told her his story; but she tore herself away and heard the laughter of the maids of a great house, who had watched the man and found amusement in his distress. Some way further on, a child played with a paper lantern and a little tin sword while a company of half-drunken artillerymen drilled him incoherently. The men shouted after her to come and see the new Governor, who was going to open the gates to the Prussians.
She passed them by quickly, and turned into the square by the New Church. There were a great many soldiers here, both officers and privates, and they stood to watch a looming crimson cloud which quivered as with the iridescence of tremulous flame, and cast back upon the houses a golden wave of fantastic lights that showed her even the faces of the men who were gathered there. Amongst them she distinguished Gatelet, in his uniform of the National Guard. He recognised her at once, and crossed the road to speak to her. She knew that she trembled as he came, but she answered him quite frankly.
“I was coming to the Place Kleber to call upon you to-night,” he said in a low voice; “of course, you have been to see him. They told me so when I called just now.”
She looked up quickly. The man had followed her from the tavern, then—had watched, she thought, while she was in the room.
“Yes,” she responded with an effort; “I went there, Monsieur. Brandon was always our friend, I am under the greatest obligations to him, as is my husband—”
He made a little gesture as though the explanation was entirely supererogatory.
“Of course you went. If I had not thought that you would go, he would not be in the Rue de l’Arc-en-Ciel at this moment. And you will advise him to be prudent—if you are wise. They tell me that his German friends have been there. I am grieved to hear it, for, of course, we must not have complications. As far as I can be your friend, I will be so, Madame Lefort. And you will not forget that I am leaving him there for your sake.”
He laid his hand upon her arm familiarly, and she could see his little eyes twinkling as the eyes of an animal. In one instant, the whole truth stood revealed to her. This man hoped to profit of his insult. She had not misread his words. The gesture, the tone of voice were those of one who deemed that he possessed already a right indisputable thus to speak to her as no one else but her husband might in honour speak. An intense loathing of his presence came upon her. She wondered afterwards that she did not strike him upon the face. But she restrained herself for her friend’s sake. The keys of life and death were in the hands of the man whose fingers touched her arm, whose breath she felt upon her cheek.
“I shall forget nothing, Monsieur,” she said quietly; “while you serve my friend you serve me. Captain Lefort will tell you so when he returns.”
She released herself, and, with a curt nod to him, ran across the square to the Place Kleber. The new indignity sent her hurrying as a hurt child to its home. She had never thought or argued with such a possibility as that which was now revealed to her. It was as though her destiny had plunged her into some maelstrom of shame and darkness, from which she never might emerge again. The desire to tell someone was uncontrollable. She pictured to herself, as she went, how she would kneel at old Hélène’s side and confess all, even to her infidelity to the armies of France, and her belief, which was almost a pride, in that irresistible might of the Saxon of which her friend Brandon was the type. Words of love and sympathy and help would reward her, she was sure. That sweet face would not be turned from her; that hand, which had raised the lowliest, would dry up the tears which had already dimmed the eyes of Hélène’s child. There was a new hope in her heart when she turned into the square, and for the first time became aware of the terror there. The secret was done with. She was going to leave her burden in a mother’s keeping.
She was hastening when she entered the square; but she stopped abruptly as her own house came to view, and chains of lead seemed to fetter her limbs. She had expected to find the Place Kleber deserted, as usually it was at such an hour; had thought to see the brightly-lighted windows, and a glimpse of her own little boudoir behind them, and of old Hélène as she sat before her writing-table in the great drawing-room. But even before she had crossed the road by the New Church she heard the clamorous voice as of a great throng, and beheld men running swiftly, and saw others who cried for ladders and for water; and, going on a little way, she was caught up as on a human wave and pressed forward to the scene until she stood before the very doors of her home, and learned, with a woman’s instinct, the truth which nevermore she might forget. For the great house had been struck by a shell, and from its upper windows flames were vomited; and in that very boudoir, where she had found the sanctuary of life, she beheld firemen with axes, and soldiers, who tore the draperies madly, and even the women servants of the house wailing in their terror.
She had been carried to the scene swiftly, and moments went by before she could reason about it, or even ask of the people around her for news of those within the house. The little things of the instant occupied her and held her voiceless. She saw that the walls of the upper rooms had fallen to the street, leaving strange wreckage in their path. A bed hung sideways, wedged between the shattered rafters; a cabinet in one of the rooms was smashed to atoms, but a bracket, with a vase upon it, was untouched, at the very side of the cabinet. In her own boudoir the plaster had fallen, leaving the rafters bare and splintered. She saw a man throw water from a bucket against the hangings of the alcove, and she had the impulse to run in and stay his hand. But while her eyes surveyed the whole scene swiftly, she became aware that the lower floors of the house were in darkness—and then, as in an overwhelming instant of self-reproach, she thought of Hélène.
“Oh, Monsieur, Monsieur, what has happened—what are they doing in the house?”
She forced her way now through the people, struggling as if for life itself. A sergent de ville, hearing her voice, began to answer her brusquely; but when he saw her face he stretched out his hand to her, and thrust the people back.
“It is Madame Hélène’s daughter,” he said, and they made way for her, with words of sympathy uttered in low voices.
“There has been an accident, Madame—those cursed Prussians, they have destroyed your house. I would not go if I were you. There is Monsieur the Curé, he will tell you.”
One of the ministers of the Lutheran Church of St. Thomas came up at the moment, and recognised her.
“My poor child!” he exclaimed; “they have told you.”
“I know nothing,” she cried wildly; “take me to Hélène! Let me go to her!”
He put his hand upon her shoulder, and tried to hold her back.
“You must not go,” he said; “if you will wait a moment—”
A vague consciousness of the whole truth suddenly came to her.
“Oh, my God, Hélène is dead!” she cried.
He did not answer her. She read assent in his averted face. The sound of voices magnified in her ears. She saw the troubled faces, the shattered rooms, the looming crimson cloud above. They merged into a misty whirling scene, and so to darkness.
“La pauvre,” said one of those who looked on; “she is alone in the city now.”