AT HOME AND AFIELD
Aline slept late in the morning after her arrival. Everything was so
fresh, and sweet, and clean that it was a pleasure just to lie between
the lavender-scented sheets, and smell the softness of the summer air
which came in at the open casement. She had meant to rise early, but
whilst she thought of it, she slept again, drawn into the pleasant peace
of the hour.
When she did awake the sun was quite high, and she dressed hastily and
went down into the garden. Here she was aware of Mlle Ange, basket on
arm, busily snipping, cutting, and choosing amongst the low herbs which
filled this part of the enclosure. She straightened herself, and turned
with a kind smile and kiss, which called about her the atmosphere of
home. The look and touch seemed things at once familiar and comfortable,
found again after many days of loss.
"Are you rested then, my dear?" asked the pleasant voice. "Yesterday
you looked so tired, and pale. We must bring some roses into those
cheeks, or Jacques will surely chide us when he comes."
On the instant the roses were there, and Aline stood transfigured; but
they faded almost at once, and left her paler than before.
Mlle Ange opened her basket, and showed neat bunches of green herbs
disposed within.
"I make ointments and tinctures," she said, "and to-day I must be busy,
for some of the herbs I use are at their best just now, and if they are
not picked, will spoil. All the village comes to me for simples and
salves, so that between them, and the children, and my poor Marthe, I am
not idle."
"May I help?" asked Aline eagerly; and Mlle Ange nodded a pleased "Yes,
yes."
That was a pleasant morning. The buzz of the bees, the scent of the
flowers, the warm freshness of the day--all were delightful; and
presently, to watch Ange boiling one mysterious compound, straining
another, distilling a third, had all the charm of a child's new game.
Life's complications fell back, leaving a little space of peace like a
fairy ring amongst new-dried grass. Mlle Marthe lay on her couch
knitting, and watching. Every now and again she flashed a remark into
the breathless silence, on which Ange would look up with her sweet
smile, and then turn absently to her work again.
"There is then to be no food to-day?" said Marthe at last, her voice
calmly sarcastic.
Ange finished counting the drops she was transferring from one
mysterious vessel to another.
"Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve--what was that you said, cherie?"
"Nothing, my dear. Angels, of course, are not dependent on food, and
Jacques is too far away to prosecute us if we starve his wife."
"Oh, tres chere, is it so late? Why did you not say? And after such a
night, too--my poor dearest. See, I fly. Oh, I am vexed, and to-day
too, when I told Jeanne I would make the omelette."
Marthe's eyebrows went up, and Ange turned in smiling distress to Aline.
"She will be so cross, our old Jeanne! She loves punctuality, and she
adores making omelettes; but then, see you, she has no gift for making
an omelette--it is just sheer waste of my good eggs--so to-day I said I
would do it myself, in your honour."
"And mine," observed Marthe, with a click of the needles. "Jeanne's
omelettes I will not eat."
"Oh, tres chere, be careful. She has such ears, she heard what you said
about the last one, and she was so angry. Aline must come with me now,
or I dare not face her."
They went down together and into the immaculate kitchen, where Jeanne,
busily compounding a pie, turned a little cross, sallow face upon them,
and rose, grumbling audibly, to fetch eggs and the pan.
"That good Jeanne," said Ange in an undertone, "she has all the virtues
except a good temper. Marthe says she is like food without salt--all
very good and wholesome, but so nasty; but she is really attached to us
and after twenty years thinks she has a right to her temper."
Here, the returning Jeanne banged down a dish, and clattered with a
small pile of spoons and forks.
Ange Desaix broke an egg delicately, and watched the white drip from the
splintered shell.
"Things are beautiful, are they not, little niece? Just see this gold
and white, and the speckled shell of this one, and the pink glow shining
here. One could swear one saw the life brooding within, and here I
break it, and its little embryo miracle, in order to please a taste
which Jeanne considers the direct temptation of some imp who delights to
plague her."
She laughed softly, and putting the egg-shells on one side, began to
chop up a little bunch of herbs.
"An omelette is very much like a life, I think," she said after a
moment. "No two are alike, though all are made with eggs. One puts in
too many herbs, and the dish is bitter; another too few, and it is
tasteless. Or we are impatient, and snatch at life in the raw; or idle,
and burn our mixture. It is only one here and there who gets both
matter and circumstance right."
Jeanne was hovering like an angry bird, and as Mlle Desaix' voice became
more dreamy, and her eyes looked farther and farther away into space,
she twitched out a small, vicious claw of a hand, and stealthily drew
away the bowl that held the eggs.
"One must just make the most of what one has," Ange was saying. Was she
thinking of that sudden blush and pallor of a few hours back, or of her
sister's words the night before?
"If one's lot is tasteless, one must flavour it with cheerfulness; and
if it is bitter, drink clear water after it, and forget."
Aline shivered a little, and then, in spite of herself, she smiled.
Jeanne had her pan on the fire, and a sudden raw smell of burning rose
up, almost palpably. The mistress of the house came back from her dreams
with a start, looked wildly round, and missed her eggs, her herbs, her
every ingredient. "Jeanne! but truly, Jeanne!" she cried hotly; and as
she spoke the little figure at the fire whisked round and precipitated a
burnt, sodden substance on to the waiting dish.
"Ma'mselle is served," she said snappishly, but there was a glint of
triumph in her eye.
"No, Jeanne, it is too much," said Ange, flushing; whereat Jeanne merely
picked up the dish and observed:
"If Ma'mselle will proceed into the other room, I will serve the
dejeuner. Ma'mselle has perhaps not remarked that it grows late."
After which speech Mlle Desaix walked out of the room with a fine
dignity, and the smell of the burnt omelette followed her.
Then began a time of household peace and quiet healing, in which at
first Aline rested happily. In this small backwater, life went on very
uneventfully,--birth and death in the village being the only happenings
of note,--the state of Jeanne's temper the most pressing anxiety, since
Mlle Marthe's suffering condition was a thing of such long standing as
to be accepted as a matter of course, even by her devoted sister.
Of France beyond the hills--of Paris, only thirty miles away--they heard
very little. The news of the Queen's trial and death did penetrate, and
fell into the quiet like a stone into a sleeping pond. All the village
rippled with it--broke into waves of discussion, splashes of
lamentation, froth of approval, and then settled again into its wonted
placidity.
Aline felt a pang of awakening. Whilst she was dreaming here amongst
the peace of herby scents and the drowse of harvesting bees, tragedy
still moved on Fate's highways, and she felt sudden terror and the sting
of a sharp self-reproach. She shrank from Mlle Ange's kind eyes of
pity, touched--just touched--with an unfaltering faith in the necessity
for the appalling judgment. The misty hazel eyes wept bitterly, but the
will behind them bowed loyally to the decrees of the Revolution.
"There 's no great cause without its victim, no new faith without
bloodshed," she said to Marthe, with a kindling glance.
"I said nothing, my dear," was the dry reply.
Ange paced the room, brushing away hot tears.
"It is for the future, for the new generations, that we make these
sacrifices, these terrible sacrifices," she cried.
"Oh, my dear!" said Marthe quickly, and then added with a shrug: "For
me, I never felt any vocation for reforming the world; and if I were
you, my Angel, I would let it alone. The devil has too much to do with
things in general, that is my opinion."
"There is nothing I can do," said Ange, at her saddest.
"Thank Heaven for that!" observed her sister piously. "But I will tell
you one thing--you need not talk of noble sacrifices and such-like toys
in front of Jacques's wife."
"I would not hurt her," said Ange; "but, cherie, she is a Republican's
wife--she must know his views, his aims. Why, he voted for the King's
death!"
"Just so," nodded Marthe: "he voted for the King's death. I should keep
a still tongue, if I were you."
"You still think----?"
"Think?" with scorn. "I am sure."
A few days later there was a letter from Dangeau, just a few lines. He
was well. Lyons still held out, but they hoped that any day might end
the siege. He begged to be commended to his aunts. Aline read the
letter aloud, in a faltering voice, then laid it in her lap, and sat
staring at it with eyes that suddenly filled, and saw the letters now
blurred, now unnaturally black and large. Mlle Ange went out of the
room, leaving her alone under Marthe's intent regard; but for once she
was too absorbed to heed it, and sat there looking into her lap and
twisting her wedding-ring round and round. Marthe's voice broke crisply
in upon her thoughts.
"So he married you with his mother's ring?"
She started, covering it quickly with her other hand.
"Is it? No, I didn't know," she murmured confusedly. Then, with an
effort at defence: "How do you know, Mademoiselle Marthe?"
"How does one know anything, child? By using one's eyes, and putting
two and two together. Sometimes they make four, and sometimes they
don't, but it 's worth trying. The ring is plainly old, and my sister
wore just such another; and after her death Jacques wore it too, on his
little finger. He adored his mother."
The scene of her wedding flashed before Aline. At the time she had not
seemed to be aware of anything, but now she distinctly saw the priest's
hand stretched out for the ring, and Dangeau's little pause of
hesitation before he took it off and gave it.
Marthe's brows were drawn together.
"Now, did he give it her for love, or because there was need for haste?"
she was thinking, and decided: "No, not for love, or he would have told
her it was his mother's." And aloud she said calmly: "You see, you were
married in such a hurry that there was no time to get a new one."
Aline looked up and spoke on impulse.
"What did he tell you about our marriage?" she asked.
"My dear, what was there to tell? He wrote a few lines--he does not
love writing letters, it appears--he had married a young girl. Her name
was Marie Aline Roche, and he commended her to our protection."
"Was that all?"
"Certainly."
"Then do you think I had better tell you more?" said Aline unsteadily.
Marthe looked at her with a certain pity in her glance.
"You did not learn prudence in an easy school," she said slowly, and
then added: "No, better not; and besides, there 's not much need--it's
all plain enough to any one who has eyes."
Dangeau's letter of about this date to Danton contained a little more
information than that he sent his wife.
"The scoundrels have thrown off the mask at last," he wrote in a
vigorous hand, which showed anger. "Yesterday Precy fought under the
fleur-de-lys. Well, better an open enemy, an avowed Royalist, than a
Girondist aping of Republican principles, and treachery under the
surface. France may now guess at what she has been saved by the fall of
the Gironde. They hope for reinforcements here. Our latest advices are
that Sardinia will not move. As to Autichamp, he promises help, and
instigates plots from a judicious distance; but he and his master,
Artois, feel safer on any soil but that of France, and I gather that he
will not leave Switzerland at present. Losses on both sides are
considerable. To give the devil his due, Precy has the courage of ten,
and we never know when he will be at our throats. Very brilliant work,
those sallies of his. I wish we had half a dozen like him."
On the ninth of October Lyons fell, and the fiat of the Republic went
forth. "Lyons has no longer a name among cities. Down with her to the
dust from which she rose, and on the bloodstained site let build a
pillar bearing these warning words: 'Lyons rebelled against the
Republic: Lyons is no more.'"
Forthwith terror was let loose, and the town ran blood, till the shriek
of its torment went up night and day unceasingly, and things were done
which may not be written.
At this time Dangeau's letters ceased, and it was not until Christmas
that news of him came again to Rancy. Then he wrote shortly, saying he
had been wounded on the last day of the siege, and had lain ill for
weeks, but was now recovered, and had received orders to join Dugommier,
the Victor of Toulon, on his march against Spain. The letter was short
enough, but something of the writer's longing to be up and away from
reeking Lyons was discernible in the stiff, curt sentences.
In truth the tide of disgust rose high about him, and raise what
barriers he would, it threatened to break in upon his convictions and
drown them. News from Paris was worse and worse. The Queen's trial
sickened, the Feast of Reason revolted him.
Down with tyrants, but for liberty's sake with decency! Away with
superstition and all the network of priests' intrigues; but, in the
outraged name of reason, no more of these drunken orgies, these feasts
which defied public morality, whilst a light woman postured half naked
on the altar where his mother had worshipped. This nauseated him, and
drew from his pen an imprudently indignant letter, which Danton frowned
over and consigned to the flames. He wrote back, however, scarcely less
emphatically, though he recommended prudence and a still tongue.
"Mad times these, my friend, but decency I will have, though all Paris
runs raving. It's a fool business, but you 'd best not say so. Take my
advice and hold your tongue, though I 've not held mine."
Dangeau made haste to be gone from blood-drenched Lyons, and to wipe out
his recollections of her punishment in the success which from the first
attended Dugommier's arms.
Spain receded to the Pyrenees; and over the passes in wild wet weather,
stung by the cold, and tormented by a wind that cut like a sword of ice,
the French army followed.
Here, heroism was the order of the day. If in Paris, where Terror
stalked, men were less than men and worse than brutes, because possessed
by some devil soul, damned, and dancing, here they were more than men,
animated by a superhuman courage and persistence. Yet, terrible puzzle
of human life, the men were of the same breed, the same stuff, the same
kin.
Antoine, shouting lewd songs about a desecrated altar, or watching with
red, cruel eyes the death-agony of innocent women and young boys, was
own brother to Jean, whose straw-shod feet carried his brave, starving
body over the blood-stained Pyrenean passes, and who shared his last
crust cheerfully with an unprovided comrade. One mother bore and nursed
them both, and both were the spiritual children of that great Revolution
who bore twin sons to France--Licence and Liberty. Nothing gives one so
vivid a picture of France under the Terror as the realisation that to
find relief from the prevailing horror and inhumanity one must turn to
the battlefields.
The army fought with an empty stomach, bare back, and bleeding feet, and
Dangeau found enough work to his hand to occupy the energies of ten men.
The commissariat was disgraceful, supplies scant, and the men lacking of
every necessary.
Having made inquiries, he turned back to France, and ranged the South
like a flame, gathering stores, ammunition, arms, shoes--everything, in
fact, of which that famished but indomitable army stood in such dire
need. Summary enough the methods of those days, and Dangeau's way was
as short a one as most, and more successful than many.
He would ride into a town, establish himself at the inn, and send for
the Mayor, who, according as his nature were bold or timid, came
blustering or trembling. France had no king, but the tricoloured
feathers on her Commissioner's hat were a sign of power quite as
autocratic as the obsolete fleur-de-lys.
Dangeau sat at a table spread with papers, wrote on for a space, and
then--
"Citizen Mayor, I require, on behalf of the National Army, five hundred
(or it might be a thousand) pairs of boots, so many beds, such and such
provisions."
"But, Citizen Commissioner, we have them not."
Dangeau consulted a notebook.
"I can give you twenty-four hours to produce them, not more."
"But, Citizen, these are impossibilities. We cannot produce what we
have not got."
"And neither can our armies save your throats from being cut if they are
unprovided. Twenty-four hours, Citizen Mayor."
According to his nature, the Mayor swore or cringed.
"It is impossible."
Dangeau drew out a list. The principal towns of the South figured on it
legibly. Setting a thick mark against one name, he fixed his eyes upon
the man before him.
"Have you considered, Citizen," he said sternly, "that what is grudged
to France will be taken by Spain? Also, it were wiser to yield to my
demands than to those of such an embassy as the Republic sent to Lyons.
My report goes in to-night."
"Your report?"
"Non-compliance with requisitions is to be reported to the Convention
without delay. I have my orders, and you, Citizen Mayor, have yours."
"But, Citizen, where am I to get the things?"
Dangeau shrugged his shoulders.
"Is it my business? But I see you wear an excellent pair of shoes, I
see well-shod citizens in your streets--you neither starve nor lie on
the ground. Our soldiers do both. If any must go without, let it be
the idle. Twenty-four hours, Citizen Mayor."
And in twenty-four hours boots, beds, and provisions were forthcoming.
Lyons had not been rased for nothing, and with the smell of her burning
yet upon the air, the shriek of her victims still in the wintry wind, no
town had the courage to refuse what was asked for. Protestingly they
gave; the army was provided, and Dangeau, shutting his ears to Paris and
her madness, pressed forward with it into Spain.