Mary Brander made her way wearily home.
"You have had another terrible time, I can see it in your face," Madame
Michaud said, as she entered. "They say there have been four thousand
wounded and fifteen hundred killed. I cannot understand how you support
such scenes."
"It has been a hard time," Mary said; "I will go up to my room at once,
madame. I am worn out."
"Do so, my dear. I will send you in a basin of broth."
Without even taking her bonnet off Mary dropped into a chair when she
entered her room and sat there till Margot brought in the broth.
"I don't think I can take it, thank you, Margot."
"But you must take it, mademoiselle," the servant said, sturdily; "but
wait a moment, let me take off your bonnet and brush your hair. There is
nothing like having your hair brushed when you are tired."
Passively Mary submitted to the woman's ministrations, and presently
felt soothed, as Margot with, by no means ungentle hands, brushed
steadily the long hair she had let down.
"You feel better, mademoiselle?" the woman asked, presently. "That is
right, now take a little of this broth. Please try, and then I will take
off your cloak and frock and you shall lie down, and I will cover you
up."
Mary made an effort to drink the broth, then the servant partly
undressed her and covered her up warmly with blankets, drew the curtains
across the window and left her with the words. "Sleep well,
mademoiselle."
But for a time Mary felt utterly unable to sleep. She was too worn out
for that relief. It had been a terrible time for her. For twenty-four
hours she had been engaged unceasingly in work of the most trying
description. The scent of blood still seemed to hang about her, and she
vaguely wondered whether she should ever get rid of it. Then there had
been her own special anxiety and suspense, and the agony of seeing
Cuthbert brought in apparently wounded to death. The last blow had been
dealt by this woman. She said she was his fiancée, but although she had
it from her lips, Mary could not believe it. She might be his mistress
but surely not the other. Surely he could never make that wild
passionate woman his wife. Then she felt she was unjust. This poor
creature would naturally be in a passion of grief and agony, at finding
that she could not go to the bedside of the man she loved. She should
not judge her from that. She remembered how different was her expression
in some of the sketches she had seen in Cuthbert's book.
"At any rate," she said to herself with a hard sob, "I have no right to
complain. He told me he loved me and I was almost indignant at the idea,
and told him he was not worthy of my love. There was an end of it. He
was free to do as he liked, and of course put it out of his mind
altogether as I did out of mine. How could I tell that the time would
come when I should find out what a terrible mistake I had made, how
could I dream of such a thing! How could I guess that he would come into
my life again and that he would have the power to spoil it! What a fool,
I have been. What a conceited, silly fool," and so Mary Brander's
thoughts ran on till they become more and more vague, and sleep at last
arrested them altogether. She was awakened by Madame Michaud coming into
the room with a cup of coffee.
"Well, my child, have you slept well?"
"Have I slept, madame? It cannot have been for more than a minute or
two." She looked round in surprise. "Why, it is broad daylight, what
time is it?"
"It is eleven o'clock, my dear. I thought it was time to arouse you, and
in truth I was getting anxious that you had not made your appearance. It
is seventeen hours since you lay down."
"Good gracious!" Mary exclaimed. "And I was due at the ambulance at
eight. I must have been asleep hours and hours, madame. I lay awake for
a time--two hours, perhaps, and the last thing I thought was that I
should never get to sleep, and then I have slept all this dreadful
time."
"Not a dreadful time at all," Madame Michaud said with a smile. "You
have not slept a minute too long. I feared for you when you came in
yesterday. I said to my husband in the evening, 'That angel is killing
herself. She could scarce speak when she came in, and I cry when I think
of her face.' You may thank the good God that you have slept so long and
so soundly. I can tell you that you look a different being this
morning."
"I feel different," Mary said, as she sprang up, "will you ask Margot to
bring me my can of water at once."
"Yes, but drink your coffee and eat your bread first. Margot said you
only took a few spoonsful of broth last night."
"I must have my bath first and then I will promise you I will drink the
coffee and eat the last crumb of bread. You will see I shall be quite
blooming by the time I come down."
Madame Michaud was obliged to admit that Mary looked more herself than
she had done for days past when, half an hour later, she came downstairs
ready to start.
"I shall be scolded dreadfully, madame, when I get to the ambulance four
hours after my time."
"You look so much fitter for work, my dear, that if the doctor has eyes
in his head, he will be well content that you have taken it out in
sleep."
Mary walked with a brisk step down to the hospital.
"I will think no more of it," she said resolutely to herself. "I have
chosen to be a nurse and I will go through with it. I think when I get
home after this is over I will become a nursing sister--at any rate I
may do some good at that; there is plenty of work in the world, even if
it is not in the way I thought of doing it."
But she hesitated when she reached the tents, afraid to go in. One of
the other nurses came out presently.
"Which tent is Dr. Swinburne in?" she asked.
"In this," she said, "I was just speaking to him."
"Would you mind going in again and asking him to come out. I am
dreadfully late this morning and I should like to see him before I go
in."
A minute later the surgeon came out.
"What is it, Miss Brander?" he said, kindly. "I missed you this morning,
and hoped you were taking a good sleep."
"That was just it, Doctor, and I do feel so ashamed of myself. They
thought I looked tired, when I came in, and were silly enough not to
wake me this morning."
"Not silly at all, my dear. They did the very best thing for you, for
you had gone through a terrible strain here. I am glad, indeed, it was
sleep and not illness that kept you away. You are looking quite a
different woman this morning."
"I am so glad that you are not angry. Please tell me how the wounded are
getting on?"
"There were ten deaths in the night," he said, "but as a whole they are
going on well. You will be glad to hear that the young Englishman who
was shot through the body has passed a quiet night, and I have now an
almost assured hope that he will recover. Had there been any vital
injury its effects would be visible by now. Now run in and take up your
work."
With a grateful look Mary entered the tent and was soon engaged at her
work. She was some little time before she made her way to the farther
end of the tent. Then she went quietly up to Cuthbert's bedside.
"I have just had good news of you, Cuthbert. The doctor says he has the
strongest hopes now of your recovery."
"Yes, he has been telling me that I am doing well," he said. "Have you
only just come? I have been wondering what had had become of you. You
looked so pale, yesterday, that I was afraid you might be ill."
"I have been sleeping like a top," she said, "for I should be ashamed to
say how many hours. Of course I ought to have been here at eight, but
they did not wake me, and I feel all the better for it."
"I remember not so long ago," he said, "that a certain young lady
declared that it was ridiculous for persons to interfere in business
which did not concern them. Now here you are knocking yourself up and
going through horrible work for people who are nothing to you. That is a
little inconsistent."
"I do not argue with people who cannot speak above a whisper," she said.
"Another time I shall be able to prove to you that there is nothing
inconsistent whatever in it. Well, thank God that you are better,
Cuthbert. I should not have gone away yesterday afternoon if Dr.
Swinburne had not assured me that there was nothing that I could do for
you, and that he really thought you might recover. You believe me, don't
you?"
He nodded.
"I do believe you, Mary. I did not think myself that I had a shadow of a
chance, but this morning I began to fancy that the doctor may be right,
and that I may possibly live to be a shining light among artists."
"Did you sleep at all?" she asked.
"Yes, I have been dozing on and off ever since you went away. I have
drunk a good deal of brandy and water and I really think I could take
some broth. I told the doctor so this morning, but he said I had better
wait another twelve hours, and then I might have two or three spoonsful
of arrowroot, but the less the better. I suppose there is no list of
killed and wounded published yet. I should like to know who had gone.
They were good fellows, every one of them."
"I don't know, Cuthbert, but I should hardly think so. I think Madame
Michaud would have told me had there been a list published this
morning."
Mary now turned to the next bed, but the patient was lying with his eyes
closed.
"I expect he has gone off to sleep," Cuthbert said, "he has been in a
lot of pain all night and half an hour ago they took off his bandages
and put on fresh ones, and I fancy they must have hurt him amazingly. I
could tell that by his quick breathing, for he did not utter a moan. I
am glad that he has gone off to sleep. I heard the doctor tell him that
he thought he might get the use of his arm again, though it would
probably be stiff for some time."
"You must not talk, indeed you mustn't," she said, facing round again.
"I am sure the doctor must have told you to keep perfectly quiet. If you
are quiet and good, I will come to you very often, but if not I shall
hand you over to the charge of another nurse. I blame myself for asking
you any questions. Indeed I am quite in earnest; you are not fit to
talk; the slightest movement might possibly set your wound off bleeding;
besides you are not strong enough; it is an effort to you, and the great
thing is for you to be perfectly quiet and tranquil. Now shut your eyes
and try to doze off again."
She spoke in a tone of nursely authority, and with a faint smile he
obeyed her orders. She stood for a minute looking at him, and as she did
so her eyes filled with tears at the change that a few days had made,
and yet her experience taught her that it would be far greater before
long. As yet weakness and fever, and pain, had scarcely begun their work
of hollowing the cheeks and reducing him to a shadow of himself. There
was already scarcely a tinge of color in his face, while there was a
drawn look round the mouth and a bluish tinge on the lips. The eyes
seemed deeper in the head and the expression of the face greatly
changed--indeed, it was rather the lack of any expression that
characterized it. It might have been a waxen mask.
From time to time she went back to him, and although the soft clinging
material of her dress and her list slippers rendered her movements
noiseless, he always seemed conscious of her presence, and opened his
eyes with a little welcoming smile, as she stood beside him, sipped a
few drops from the glass she held to his lips, and then closed his eyes
again without a word. After a few hours the period of pain and fever set
in, but the doctor found no reason for anxiety.
"You must expect it, my dear," he said to Mary one day when the fever
was at its height. "A man cannot get through such a wound as his without
a sharp struggle. Nature cannot be outraged with impunity. It is
certain now that there was no vital injury, but pain and fever almost
necessarily accompany the efforts of nature to repair damages. I see no
reason for uneasiness at present. I should say that he has an excellent
constitution, and has never played the fool with it. In a few days in
all probability the fever will abate, and as soon as it does so, he will
be on the highway to convalescence."
During that ten days Mary seldom left the hospital, only snatching a few
hours sleep occasionally in a tent which had now been erected for the
use of the nurses on duty. At the end of that time the struggle was over
and the victory won, and Cuthbert lay terribly weak and a mere shadow of
himself, but free from fever and with perfect consciousness in his eyes.
"How long have I been here?" he asked Mary.
"I think it is a fortnight to-day since you came in, Cuthbert," she
answered, quietly. "Thank God you are quite out of danger now, and the
doctor says all we have got to do is to build you up."
"You have had a hard time of it, child," he said, "though I knew nothing
else, I seemed to be conscious that you were always near me."
"I have had plenty of sleep, Cuthbert, and am perfectly well," she said,
cheerfully.
"Then your look belies you," he said, "but I know that it is no use
arguing. What has been happening outside?"
"Nothing. The troops were withdrawn the day after the fight when you
were wounded, and nothing has been done since."
"How is Dampierre getting on?" he asked.
"He is getting on well, I believe," she replied. "He was delirious and
so restless, and talked so loud that the doctor had him carried into
another ward so that you should not be disturbed by it. I have not seen
him since, but I hear he is going on very well. Your friend René has
been here twice--indeed he has been every day to inquire--but he was
only let in twice. He seems a very kind-hearted fellow and was very cut
up about you. I am sure he is very fond of you. He says that Monsieur
Goudé and the other students have all been most anxious about you, and
that he comes as a sort of deputation from them all."
René had, indeed, quite won Mary's heat by the enthusiastic way in which
he had spoken of Cuthbert, and had quite looked forward to the little
chat she had with him every morning when he came to the ambulance for
news.
"He is a grand fellow, mademoiselle," he would say, with tears in his
eyes, "we all love him. He has such talents and such a great heart. It
is not till now that we quite know him. When a man is dying men speak of
things they would not tell otherwise. There are four or five that he has
helped, and who but for him must have given up their studies. The rest
of us had no idea of it. But when they knew how bad he was, first one
broke down and then another, and each told how generously he had come to
their aid and how delicately he had insisted upon helping them, making
them promise to say no word of it to others. Ma foi, we all cried
together. We have lost six of our number besides the five here. The
rest, except Dampierre, are our countrymen, and yet it is of your
Englishman that we think and talk most."
All this was very pleasant to Mary. Cuthbert was now of course nothing
to her, but it soothed her to hear his praises. He had been wicked in
one respect, but in all others he seemed to have been what she had
thought of him when he was a child, save that he developed a talent and
the power of steady work, for which she had never given him credit, for
on this head René was as emphatic as on other points.
"He will be a great artist, mademoiselle, if he lives. You do not
know how much the master thought of him and so did we all. He worked
harder than any of us, much harder; but it was not that only. He has
talent, great talent, while the rest of us are but daubers. You will
see his pictures hung on the line and that before long. We are all
burning to see those he was painting for the Salon this year. There
are only three of us painting for that, the master would not let any
others think of it. Pierre Leroux is the third and he would have had
little chance of being hung had not the Englishman gone into his room
one day, and taking his brush from his hand transformed his picture
altogether--transformed it, mademoiselle--and even Goudé says now that
it is good and will win a place. But Pierre declares that he has not
the heart to finish it. If Cuthbert dies he will put it by for another
year."
René was admitted to see Cuthbert the day after the fever had left him
and sat for an hour by his bedside telling, after his first burst of
emotion on seeing the change that had taken place in him, about the fate
of his comrades in the studio. Mary did not go near them. There were
questions Cuthbert would want to ask. Messages that he would want to
send that she ought not to hear. She had wondered that this woman, who
had for a time come every day and had as regularly made a scene at the
entrance to the ambulance, had, since Cuthbert was at his worst, ceased
coming.
She had never asked about her, and was ignorant that for the last four
days she had been allowed to sit for a time by the side of a patient in
another ward. She thought most likely that she was ill and had broken
down under the stress of her grief and anxiety. She had even in thought
pitied her. It was she and not herself that ought to be watching
Cuthbert's bedside. She might not be good, but she was a woman and she
loved, and it must be terrible for her to know how ill he was and never
to be allowed even to see him for a moment. It was evident that she had
been taken ill, and when on René's leaving she went to her patient she
expected to find him downcast and anxious. Sad he certainly was, but he
did not seem to her restless or excited as she had expected.
"I have been hearing of the others," he said. "Six of them are gone, all
merry lads, taking life easily, as students do, but with plenty of good
in them, that would have come to the surface later on. It will make a
sad gap in our ranks when the rest of us come together again. The
wounded are all going on well, I hear, that of course is a great
comfort. I hear the other two companies suffered much more than we did.
The walls we fought behind saved us a good deal you see. René says the
troops all went out again three days ago, and that there was a talk of
a great fight, but there has only been some skirmishing and they have
begun to come back into the town again. Our corps did not go out. They
think they have done a fair share of the work, and I think so too. René
says the old major, who is now in command, is so furious at the
cowardice shown last time by the National Guards and some of the troops
that he declares he will not take out his brave lads to throw away their
lives when the Parisians will not venture within musket-shot of the
enemy.
"I think he is quite right. I hope there will be no more sorties, for I
am sure it would be useless. If you had seen, as I did, seven or eight
thousand men running like a flock of frightened sheep, you would agree
with me that it would be hopeless to think of breaking through the
Germans with such troops as this. One victory would make all the
difference in the world to their morale, but they will never win that
one victory, and it will take years before the French soldier regains
his old confidence in himself. Have you taken to rats yet, Mary?" he
asked, with a flash of his old manner.
"No, sir, and do not mean to. We are still going on very fairly. The
meat rations are very small, but we boil them down into broth, and as we
have plenty of bread to sop into it we do very well; our store of eggs
have held on until now. We have been having them beaten up in our
morning coffee instead of milk, but they are just gone, and Madame
Michaud says that we must now begin upon the preserved meat. We are a
long way from rats yet, though I believe they are really hunted and
eaten in great numbers in the poorer quarters."
"And there is no talk of surrender?"
"No talk at all; they say we can hold on for another month yet."
"What is the news from the provinces?"
"Everywhere bad. Bourbaki has been obliged to take refuge in Switzerland
and his force has been disarmed there. Chanzy has been beaten badly near
New Orleans, and the Prussians have probably by this time entered Tours.
Faidherbe has gained some successes in the north, but as the Germans
are pushing forward there, as well as everywhere else, that does not
make very much difference to us."
"Then what on earth's the use of holding out any longer," he said. "It
is sheer stupidity. I suppose the Parisians think that, as they can't
fight, they will at least show that they can starve. What is the weather
like? I felt very cold last night though I had plenty of blankets on."
"It is terribly cold," she said. "The snow is deep on the ground--it is
one of the coldest winters that has been for years."
"What is the day of the month?"
"The 26th."
"Then yesterday was Christmas Day."
"Yes," she said, "not a merry Christmas this year to any of us--no roast
beef, no plum-pudding, no mince-pies--and yet, Cuthbert, I had every
reason to be thankful, for what a much more unhappy Christmas it might
have been to me."
He nodded.
"I know what you mean. Yes, you would have missed me, child, cut off as
we are from the world here. I am, as it were, the sole representative of
your family. Of course, you have not heard from them."
She shook her head.
"I don't suppose they trouble much about me," she said, a little
bitterly, "I am a sort of disappointment, you know. Of course I have
been away now for nearly two years, except for the fortnight I was over
there, and even before that I scarcely seemed to belong to them. I did
not care for the things that they thought a great deal of, and they had
no interest in the things I cared for. Somehow I don't think I have got
on well with them ever since I went up to Girton. I see now it was
entirely my own fault. It does not do for a girl to have tastes
differing from those of her family."
"I felt that, Mary. I felt it very much. I have told myself ever since
the day of dear old father's death that I have been a brute, and I wish
with all my heart I had put aside my own whims and gone in for a country
life. It is all very well to say I did not like it, but I ought to have
made myself like it; or if I could not do that, I ought to have made a
pretence of liking it, and to have stuck to him as long as I lived. I
hadn't even the excuse of having any high purpose before me."
"We all make mistakes in our lives, Cuthbert," the girl said, quietly,
"and it is of no use bemoaning them--at any rate you have done your best
to retrieve yours, and I mean to do my best to retrieve mine. I have
quite made up my mind that when this is over I shall go to London and be
regularly trained as a hospital nurse, and then join a nursing
sisterhood."
"What! and give up woman in general?" Cuthbert said, with a faint laugh.
"Will you abandon your down-trodden sisters? Impossible, Mary."
"It is quite possible," she said, in a business-like manner.
"Become a back-slider! Mary, you absolutely shock me. At present you
have got nursing on the brain. I should have thought that this ambulance
work would have been enough for a life-time. At any rate I should advise
you to think it over very seriously before you commit yourself too
deeply to this new fad. Nursing is one of the greatest gifts of women,
but after all woman wasn't made only to nurse, any more than she was to
devote her life to championing her sex."
Mary did not reply but silently moved off with an air of deeply-offended
dignity.
"What an enthusiastic little woman she is," Cuthbert laughed quietly to
himself; "anyhow she is a splendid nurse, and I would infinitely rather
see her so, than as a female spouter on platforms. I fancied the siege
might have had some effect on her. She has seen something of the
realities of life and was likely to give up theorizing. She looks older
and more womanly, softer a good deal than she was. I think I can improve
that picture now. I had never seen her look soft before, and had to
trust to my imagination. I am sure I can improve it now."
Another fortnight and Cuthbert was out of bed and able to walk about in
the ward and to render little services to other patients.
"Do you know, Mary," he said, one day, when she happened to be idle and
was standing talking to him as he sat on the edge of his bed, "a curious
thing happened to me the very day before we went out on that sortie. I
saw that fellow, Cumming, the rascal that ruined the bank, and then
bolted, you know. For a moment I did not recall his face, but it struck
me directly afterwards. I saw him go into a house. He has grown a beard,
and he is evidently living as a quiet and respected British resident. It
was a capital idea of his, for he is as safe here as he would be if he
were up in a balloon. I intended to look him up when I got back again
into Paris, but you see circumstances prevented my doing so."
"Of course you will get him arrested as soon as the siege is over,
Cuthbert. I am very glad that he is found."
"Well, I don't know that I had quite made up my mind about that. I don't
suppose that he made off with any great sum. You see the companies he
bolstered up with the bank's money, all smashed at the same time. I
don't suppose that he intended to rob the bank at the time he helped
them. Probably he had sunk all his savings in them, and thought they
would pull round with the aid of additional capital. As far as I could
make out, from the report of the men who went into the matter, he did
not seem to have drawn any money at all on his own account, until the
very day he bolted, when he took the eight or ten thousand pounds there
was in the safe. No. I don't think I meant to hand him over or indeed to
say anything about it. I thought I would give him a good fright, which
he richly deserves, and then ask him a few questions. I have never quite
understood how it was that dear old dad came to buy those shares. I did
inquire so far as to find out it was Cumming himself who transferred
them to him, and I should really like to hear what was said at the time.
If the man can prove to me that when he sold them he did not know that
the bank was going to break, I should have no ill-will against him, but
if I were sure he persuaded him to buy, knowing that ruin would follow,
I would hunt him down and spare no pains to get him punished."
"Why should he have persuaded your father to buy those shares?"
"That's just what I cannot make out. He could have had no interest in
involving him in the smash. Besides they were not on intimate terms in
any way. I cannot imagine that my father would have gone to him for
advice in reference to business investments. It was, of course, to your
father he would have turned in such matters."
"How long had he been a shareholder?"
"He bought the shares only two months before his death, which makes the
matter all the more singular."
"What did father say, Cuthbert?" the girl said, after a short pause. "I
suppose you spoke to him about it."
"He said that my father had heard some rumors to the effect that the
bank was not in a good state, and having no belief whatever in them, he
bought the shares, thinking that his doing so would have a good effect
upon its credit, in which as a sort of county institution, he felt an
interest."
"But did not father, who was solicitor to the bank, and must have known
something of its affairs, warn him of the danger that he was running?"
"That is what I asked him myself, but he said that he only attended to
its legal business, and outside that knew nothing of its affairs."
"It seems a curious affair altogether," Mary said, gravely, "But it is
time for me to be at work again."