“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.”