PRISONERS OF WAR
COLONEL BARON might not confess the fact in so many words, but before
he had been three days in Paris he sorely regretted his own action in
taking Roy across the Channel.
When Roy was first taken ill—after ailing for a day or two—the doctor,
hastily called in, at once pronounced him to be probably sickening for
that fell disease which for centuries had held the world in a thraldom
of terror. Not without reason. Up to the close of the eighteenth
century nearly half a million of people had died in Europe every year
of smallpox.
Mrs. Baron was a fond and tender mother, yet when first that dread word
left the doctor's lips, even she fled in horror from the sick-room.
From infancy she had been used to admiration, and she knew too well to
what a mockery of the human face many a lovelier countenance than hers
was reduced.
Soon, ashamed of herself, she rallied, and would have returned; but
this the Colonel sternly prohibited.
The people of the hotel, in sheer dismay, insisted on Roy's instant
removal. The question was—where could he go? Then it was that Ivor came
to the rescue, He had had smallpox. He was not only safe, but also
experienced, having nursed a friend through the complaint. He would
take charge of the boy himself, allowing none other to enter the room.
His steady manner and cheerful face brought comfort to everybody.
Consulting with the hotel people, he heard of a M. and Mme. de Bertrand
living near, who might be willing to receive him and Roy. They and
their servant had been inoculated, and were safe. Since they were
members of the old lesser noblesse, and had lost heavily in Revolution
times, they might be glad thus to make a little money.
The matter was speedily arranged, and Roy was conveyed thither wrapped
in blankets, already much too ill to care what might be done with him.
Colonel and Mrs. Baron remained at the hotel, to endure a long agony of
suspense.
As days passed, it appeared that no one else had caught the disease,
and Roy was found to have it mildly. It was not a case of the awful
"confluent" smallpox, but of the simple "discrete" kind. There was a
good deal of fever, and at times he wandered, calling for "Molly," but
more often he was dull and stupefied, saying little.
Perhaps nobody who had seen Denham Ivor only in society or on parade
would have singled him out as likely to be a good nurse. A modern
trained nurse would have found much to complain of in his methods, and
not a little to arouse her laughter. Many of his arrangements were
highly masculine: the room was never in order; and whatever he used he
commonly plumped down in the most unlikely places.
But his patience and attention never failed; he never forgot
essentials; he never seemed to think of himself or to require rest. Day
after day he stayed in that upstairs room, only once in the twenty-four
hours going out for a short walk, that he might report Roy's condition
to Colonel Baron, meeting the latter, and standing a few yards from
him. If Roy was able to get a short sleep, Denham used that opportunity
to do the same; but in some mysterious way he always contrived to be
awake before Roy. His handsome bronzed face grew less bronzed with the
confinement and lack of exercise.
No one beside himself and the doctor entered the room, except a wizened
old Frenchwoman, herself frightful from the same dire disease, who was
hired to come in each morning, while Ivor was out, that she might put
things straight.
Then tokens of improvement began, and Colonel Baron sent a letter home
which cheered Molly's heart. But later violent inflammation of one ear
set in. For days and nights the boy suffered tortures, and sleep was
impossible for him or for his attendant. Roy in his weakness sometimes
cried bitterly with the pain, always begging that Molly might never be
told. "She'd think me so girlish," he said, while tears rolled down his
thin cheeks, marked by half a dozen red pits.
In the midst of this trouble, a terrible blow fell upon Ivor, in the
shape of a stern official notice, desiring him to consider himself a
prisoner of war, and at once to render his parole.
Ivor was commonly a calm-mannered man, with that quietness which means
the determined holding down of a far from placid nature. Some words of
fierce wrath broke from him that day. He was compelled to go and give
his parole, infection or no infection; and indignant utterances were
exchanged between him and Colonel Baron, whom he chanced to meet on the
same errand. Then he had to hasten back to the boy, with a heavy weight
at his heart.
It meant to Ivor, not only indefinite separation from Polly, but also a
complete deadlock in his military career.
He was passionately attached to Polly. He was not less ardently
attached to his Chief. If one half of his spare thoughts was given to a
future with Polly for his wife, the other half was given to a future of
campaigning under Moore.
Had imprisonment come in the ordinary way, through reverse or capture
in actual warfare, he would have borne it more easily. The sense of
injustice rankled. He foresaw, too, the complications likely to arise,
and the possibility of long delay in the exchange of prisoners. As he
patiently tended the boy, his brain went round at the thought of his
position, and that of Colonel Baron.
Three or four more days of strain, and then the abscess in the ear
broke, causing speedy relief. The first thing Roy did was to fall into
a profound sleep. When he woke up, feeling much better, his murmur was
as usual for "Den!" No answer came.
He took a look round. The light from the window was growing dim, and
the pain in his ear had vanished. Denham, near at hand, was leaning
back in the only pretence at an easy-chair which the room held. His
head rested against the wall, and he seemed to be heavily asleep.
Boys of twelve are not always very thoughtful about other people,
but an odd feeling came over Roy, as he noted the fine-looking young
soldier in that attitude of utter weariness. Through his illness he had
actually never once seen Ivor asleep till now.
"He must be tired, I'm sure. But I wish he'd wake."
The door opened slowly, and Roy's eyes grew round with surprise. Nobody
entered this infected place, as he knew, except Ivor, the doctor, and
the old woman. This newcomer stepped quietly up to the bed. She was
quite a girl, perhaps two or three years older than Polly. She was very
slight, with a neatly-fitting dress. The lighted candle in her hand
threw a glow upon her face. It was a sweet face, delicate and gentle,
and it would have been exceedingly pretty but for the evident ravages
of a long-past attack of smallpox. There were no "pits" on her skin,
but a certain soft roughness marked the whole, as if it had once been
closely covered with pits. The face was pale, its features were even,
short black hair curled over a wide forehead, and the dark eyes were
full of sadness.
Roy put out his hand involuntarily, only to snatch it back.
"I forgot. Den told me I must not touch anybody except him—not even
that ugly old woman. I'm so thirsty. I wish he'd wake up."
"Pauvre enfant!" She went to the table and brought a glass of milk,
which Roy drank eagerly. Then she smoothed his bedclothes.
"But you ought not, you know," observed Roy's weak voice. "You might
catch the smallpox. Den would make you go. Can you talk English?"
"Yes, I can talk English." She said the words in foreign style, with
slow distinctness, but with a pure intonation. "I learnt English in
your country. Yes, I have been there for three or four years. Monsieur
votre frère—your brother—il a l'air très fatigué."
"Den isn't really my brother, only he's just like one. He's just Den,
you know—Captain Denham Ivor, of His Majesty's Guards. He hasn't been
to sleep for ever so long, and that's why he is tired. My ear has been
awfully bad, for days and days. And Den was always here."
The girl left Roy, and went closer to the sleeping man. He remained
motionless, the eyes closed, a slight dew of exhaustion on the brow,
the face extremely pale. She sheltered the light from his eyes with her
hand, and, turning away, began putting things straight. A few touches
altered wondrously the look of the whole room. Roy lay and watched her.
"What's your name?" he asked. "Are you M. de Bertrand's daughter? I'm
deaf still, so don't whisper."
"No. I am Lucille de St. Roques." She came near, not to have to raise
her voice, and Roy again shrank from her. "It does not matter. I have
had the complaint, and I do not fear."
"I wonder where your home is."
"Ah,—for that, I have not now a true home. Cependant, I have kind
friends at Verdun, where I live. I am but just come here—unexpected."
"And have you a father and mother in that place—Ver—something?" Little
dreamt Roy how familiar a name it would become in a few months!
"Verdun. My father and mother they were of the old noblesse,
and—hélas!—thirteen years ago, in the Revolution, they were
guillotined."
"O I say, how horrid!" exclaimed Roy. "Why, you must have been quite a
little thing!"
"I was not yet eight years old. I was in prison with them, many many
weeks, before they went out to die."
Ivor woke suddenly and stood up, leaning against the solid four-poster,
since the room went round with him. He saw a girlish figure, and
vaguely felt that she had no business there.
"Do not make so great haste. Will you not rest a little longer?" a kind
voice said, and a soft hand came on his wrist.
"But indeed, mademoiselle, you must go away at once," he urged
earnestly. "It is smallpox. Pray, go. You will take the infection."
"But me, I do not intend to go," she replied cheerfully, with her
pretty foreign accent. "You need not be afraid for me, monsieur. See—I
have had it. I am not in danger—not at all. You are fatigué—n'est-ce
pas? It has been a long nursing—yes, so I have heard. When did you take
food last?"
Denham confessed that he had not eaten for some time; he had not
been hungry. Well, perhaps he was a trifle fatigué; but 'twas
nothing—nothing at all. He was ready now for anything. If mademoiselle
would only not put herself in danger! By way of showing his readiness,
he made a movement forward; but he was forced to sit hastily down,
resting his forehead on his hand. The long strain had told upon even
his vigorous constitution.
"Ah!—C'est ca!" she murmured. "But you will be the better, monsieur,
for a cup of coffee."
Ivor had no choice but to yield, and she moved daintily about, making
such coffee as only a Frenchwoman can, and bringing it presently to his
side.
"This is not right," he protested. "I cannot allow you to wait upon me,
mademoiselle!"
She would listen to no remonstrances, however; and when he had disposed
of it, she insisted that he should lie down on a couch in the small
adjoining room, while she undertook to look after Roy. She had her
friends' permission, she said, not explaining that she had refused to
be forbidden; and monsieur in his present state could do no more. How
long was it since he had slept? Ah, doubtless some days!
Ivor gave in, after much resistance, and in ten minutes he was again
heavily asleep. Nature at last claimed her due.
When he woke, after several hours' unbroken rest, he was another man.
Roy seemed much better; the doctor had paid a visit, and was gone;
the room could scarcely be recognised as the same; and Ivor warmly
expressed his gratitude, wondering as he did so at Lucille's look of
steady sadness. She insisted on coming the next day, that he might rest
and have an hour's walk.
"Isn't she jolly?" exclaimed Roy, when the door closed behind her.
"She has told me lots of things while you were asleep. Only think, her
father and mother were both guillotined! Both of them had their heads
cut off. And they hadn't done one single thing to make them deserve it.
They were awfully good and kind to everybody, she says. And she was
only a little girl then; and when they were dead, somebody took her
away to England, and she was there three or four years. And then she
came back to France, and she lives with some people at a place called
Verdun. She says they give her a home, and she works for them. And she
would like to go to England again some day."
But Lucille de St. Roques had not told Roy her more recent sorrow. She
let it out to Captain Ivor a day or two later. Only one year before
this date she had become engaged to young Théodore de Bertrand, son of
the old couple downstairs, and three months later he had been drawn
for the conscription. No use to plead that he was practically an only
son, since the second son, Jacques, was a ne'er-do-weel, who had taken
himself off nobody knew whither. More soldiers were wanted by the First
Consul for his schemes of foreign conquest, and young De Bertrand had
to go. Scarcely four months after his departure news came that he
had been shot in a sortie in the Low Countries. Large tears filled
Lucille's eyes, and dropped slowly.
"Ah! So many more!" she said. "Thousands—thousands—called upon to be
slain for nothing! Not for their country, but for the ambition of one
bad man. It makes no difference, monsieur, that they love not the
usurper. My Théodore was of the Royalist party, yet he had to go. And
the poor old father and mother—they are left without one son in their
old age!"