"And looking down I saw the old town lie
Black in the shade of the o'erhanging hill,
Stricken with death, and dreary."
_The Earthly Paradise_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It had come in earnest indeed. Creeping on by little and little,
holding the ground it had conquered, fastening every day on fresh
territory, the fever was no longer the shadow with which M.
Deshoulieres did his best to frighten obstinate men, but a grim reality.
In the narrow, picturesque, ill-ventilated streets it struck down whole
families with deadly effect. Day after day the fierce sun glowed
relentlessly overhead, the air throbbed like that at the mouth of a
furnace, foul smells rose out of the earth. The churches were crowded,
the terrified people put up passionate prayers for rain, for something
to lessen the intolerable heat. The Prefet sent for M. Deshoulieres.
"This is terrible," he said. "What are we to do?"
"You must ask others that question, Monsieur le Prefet. I have now no
time for the work of prevention."
"We must draw cordons, endeavour to separate the infected streets."
"Whatever is done, permit me to offer you my last piece of advice. Lose
no more time."
There was a bright indignant flash in the doctor's eye, of which the
Prefet was not unconscious: M. Deshoulieres could not restrain it when
he thought of the wasted warnings.
The Prefet was no coward. He went down into the fever-stricken
districts, and did his utmost at last to stir the people into exertion.
But a kind of despairing apathy hung over them. They resented the
attempt to move them into fresh houses. "Better die where one has
lived," was the unfailing answer.
Among the higher classes a panic prevailed, whole families fled; but
after a time, when the fever raged more fiercely, the neighbouring towns
refused to receive them, and Charville was shunned as a plague-stricken
place. The hospital of Saint Jean was full to overflowing; other
buildings were hastily fitted up, still more room was needed, and more
nurses required. Sisters were sent from the convent, and then the fever
attacked the convent itself, and more could not be spared. Others came
from Paris, and yet hands were wanted. The doctors were overworked and
were in despair. Those who are able to thank God that they have never
seen the horrors of a pestilence have no conception of the blight which
hangs over the doomed town. There are a certain number who laugh and
jest through it all; strange to say, perhaps the number increases as the
evil days close in. There are balls, dances, theatres; it is the policy
of the authorities to keep up the hideous mask of gaiety, lest people
should realise too truly what is beneath. But every thing seems to lie
under the ban of fear. A truth, a rumour, becomes a terror, a hundred
exaggerated reports add to the actual horrors. Thank God, again, you
who have never known it.
In all Charville, perhaps, the most miserable and the most frightened of
those who had what Nannon called the fever-fright, was little Monsieur
Roulleau. He wanted to go away when first it broke out in any severity,
but madame was inexorable. Between his fear of her and his fear of the
fever he did not know what to do.
"Zenobie," he would say imploringly, "it is so long since we have had
any change!"
"It will be longer yet," answered madame, with decision. "You are
foolish to attempt to blind me, Ignace. Do you not suppose I know why
you want to go?"
For a time she held him in check, but at last the other fear became the
strongest. He came in one day with his face white and his hand shaking.
"There is a case in Place Notre Dame."
"What of that?"
"It is my nerves. They are not like yours, my angel. If we stay here
longer I shall have it by to-morrow. I feel it. And the children--"
"Bah! What folly! Do you not know that if this fever carries off some,
there will be others wanting to make their testaments? Do you not know
that your work will be doubled? He! Answer me that!"
Her voice had risen to its stormy pitch, but Ignace was beyond caring.
"I must go," he said, feebly.
Madame looked at him steadily. She saw that he was speaking truth. He
must go, or if he stayed he would soon become a victim to his terror.
"Attend then," she said, changing her tone and speaking with a touch of
scorn. "You shall go."
"Zenobie, my treasure--"
"Hush. You shall go, I say. My mother at Tours will take you in, and
you may, if you choose, depart at once.--Charles has been clerk long
enough to understand the business with my superintendence."
"Perfectly, perfectly. You need have no apprehension on that score. To
tell the truth, my health is become so indifferent that even without
this unhappy state of things I must have sought a little rest."
Madame looked at him with a peculiar expression in her face.
"That is settled then, monsieur. And I and the children, we remain
here?"
"If you think it best, my dear Zenobie. I have the most supreme
confidence in your discretion," said the little man, eagerly. "You
will, without doubt, be in perfect security. It is I only who am called
out by the peculiar nature of my avocations, who really run any risk.
You will remain here with Mademoiselle Veuillot."
"With Mademoiselle Veuillot. Exactly." There was something not unlike
a thunder-cloud in the extreme quietness of madame's manner, but the
little notary went on unheeding:
"The last letter that was forwarded from Chateau Ardron we did not
answer, you will remember. It was your idea that it might have been
supposed to have miscarried. Another would, do you not think so,
require a different treatment?"
"_Allez_," said madame, more sharply. "Will you then not stay and
conduct the affair yourself?"
The threat had the effect of stopping all Monsieur Roulleau's
injunctions. He was restless and anxious to be gone. Therese, when she
heard of it at their dinner, had no difficulty in discovering the
motive, although husband and wife put it upon business at Tours, which
required his presence. Nannon confirmed her idea.
"I shall not soon forget his face when I told him it was so near." _It_
meant the fever at this time in Charville.
"Will it come to us I wonder, Nannon?"
"_Dame_, who knows? It has its road and it will keep to it. One or two
have died of fright, that I do know, for I heard M. Deshoulieres say
so."
Nannon's cheery old face had grown sad and haggard. She knew too well
what was going on.
"This heat will kill us all, I believe," said Therese, sighing. "I feel
as if I would give any thing to get down by the river. Do let me go,
Nannon!"
"Mademoiselle must not dream of it," answered the old woman with
decision. "As it is, I believe Monsieur Deshoulieres would say I was
doing wrong in coming up here. But he positively forbade me to let
mademoiselle pass through those streets."
Amid all his labours he had thought of her.
"Do you love Monsieur Deshoulieres better by this time?" asked the girl,
suddenly.
There was a minute's silence.
"Monsieur is admirable at present," said Nannon at last, stubbornly.
"Admirable. But then it is his _metier_, mademoiselle must understand.
It has absolutely nothing to do with those other matters we have talked
about. For the sick he devotes himself like a saint. I do not know how
he can do all he does. If it were not for mademoiselle I believe I
should go to him and ask to be allowed to nurse. One can do that though
one is old and stupid. And they want nurses so terribly, the poor
things."
"How I wish I might be one."
"Mademoiselle! You!"
"Yes, I. Do you think nobody can have any good idea but you?"
"Mademoiselle jests."
"On such a subject!" Therese answered, gravely.
"But mademoiselle might catch the fever."
"One would suppose you were talking to Monsieur Roulleau," said the
girl, with impatience. "What makes my life of greater value than the
lives of those good women who risk theirs now? Bah, Nannon! I did not
expect you to take the fever-fright."
"It is not for myself. I am no longer in my youth; the fever, or
whatever it may please the good God to send, will be all one to me
soon," answered the old woman, unconsciously pathetic. "But with
mademoiselle it is different. She is young and inexperienced, and does
not know what she is asking. It is all too sad for her."
"Is it very dreadful at the hospital?"
"Not so bad as in the houses where the poor things are all together, one
lying dead on the floor and another unconscious by the side; and then
there is the weeping and the wailing which they manage to shut out of
the hospital."
Therese shuddered.
"Oh, Nannon, if it would but rain!"
She said no more on the subject, but one day when she was alone she
ventured a little way along one of the least affected of the lower
streets, one which was not closed like certain of the others to the
public. Yet this struck the girl as being, deserted: the old sleepy
cheerfulness that she remembered was gone, no knots of chatterers stood
about, one or two people might be seen on their stone house-steps, but
they looked sad and spiritless. The workshops were shut up, a heavy
languid, stagnant air was about the place. It seemed the sadder for
that brilliant sunshine streaming down upon it all. The poor pet
flowery drooped thirsty and uncared for. Therese felt a sense of
frightened guilt in being there. It was as if she had no right to
intrude, as if--as, indeed, was the case--she had come into the valley
of the shadow of death. From the door of one house some little children
looked at her wonderingly; she stopped, wishing to speak to the poor
little things; and then she heard inside low feeble moans, which scared
her away. Her heart was beating fast, a strange sort of oppression had
seized hold of her; Nannon was right, she thought, she had not known for
what she was wishing. The street was full of angles and twists and
crookednesses; she went on a little further, stumbling over the rough
paving and gasping for breath, it was so stifling between the tall
overhanging houses. Always the same deserted look, the bright cruel
sunshine, the hot sickening smells, the horror of a nameless something
in the air. Therese could bear it no longer: the moans she had heard
were in her ears, her heart beat almost to suffocation, and she turned
and ran back with all her might.
Afterwards in her room she reproached herself and cried bitterly over
what she called her cowardice. It was not cowardice, although she would
have it so. If she had been brought face to face with the fever she
would not have feared it. It was imagination which had conquered her,--
imagination acting upon Nannon's keenly drawn pictures, and quickened by
the most vivid impression she had yet received of the heavy, death-laden
atmosphere. But she did not make this excuse for herself. She felt
humiliated, almost desperate with shame. The next day she went to the
cure at a neighbouring church, and spoke more freely than was her wont,
although she told him nothing of a half-formed resolution. Perhaps he
did not quite understand her, but he helped her as much as he could;
Therese had never before looked upon him as so nearly a friend.
Then she went back to Rue St Servan, and sought Madame Roulleau.
Madame was sitting in the office, with a pen behind her ear, and her
thin hair drawn up tighter, doing her husband's work with considerable
acerbity. She would not in the least have minded bearing its whole
weight upon her shoulders had it not been that certain foolish legal
impediments in the way of women cut her off from the most lucrative part
of his profession. It was a folly, but it was undeniable. And Ignace's
cowardice just now stood in the way of golden gains. No wonder that
madame was sharp in the midst of her astonishment at seeing Therese
before her.
"You were speaking yesterday of the children having their vacation,
madame," said Therese quietly. "I am thinking of taking advantage of it
to leave you for the present."
Madame laid down her papers, stood up behind the bureau, and resting her
hands on it said, in a low furious voice, "You are going?"
"For a time only, I repeat, madame."
"Oh, I comprehend. It is the fever-fright that has hold of you," she
said, contemptuously. "Understand, however, mademoiselle, that by
leaving Charville you lose even the pitiful sum provided for your
support."
Therese winced under the scorn as the young do wince. She grew very
red, and said quickly, "You are mistaken, madame. What I propose doing
is to offer myself as a nurse at the hospital. I have no intention of
leaving Charville."
"You! A nurse!"
"Exactly so, madame."
"See then," cried madame, volubly, sinking back among her papers,--"see
then how the ingratitude I knew would come to pass, has come! We take
her in when no one else would do so, nourish her as a daughter,
disarrange ourselves, slave,--when I think of it, there is nothing we
have not done. Ah, my poor Ignace, what will it not cost you to learn
that I was right!"
"What have I said?" asked Therese, appalled at the storm.
"Oh, do not consider it, do not consider us, mademoiselle. If others
may think it base that at the time when my husband's health has failed,
and I must struggle for bread for my children, you should take the
opportunity of depriving them of even that little which might assist
them, I say nothing. I make no reproaches, I leave them to your own
heart."
Therese drew herself up proudly. "You talk strangely, Madame Roulleau,"
she said. "At one moment I am a burden, at another an assistance. Do
not fear for the little you receive from me. So long as I am provided
with a bare support, the rest may remain in your hands until my return.
Only these scenes are not agreeable."
Madame recognised her false step, and did her best to retrieve it. She
calmed, not suddenly, but by degrees, and tried to draw out the girl's
sympathy for her position, with so many business matters on her hands.
There was the risk that Therese might catch the fever and die, but she
did not dread the fever herself sufficiently to fear that inconvenience
greatly. At all events Therese meant to go, and therefore it only
remained for her to put matters in the best train for herself. The
girl, who was sweet-tempered, came round before long. Madame threw
herself into her idea at last with enthusiasm. But Therese shook her
head when she asked her plans.
"I am going at once, and I do not think I shall come back again," was
all she would say.
Then she went upstairs, put what things she wanted quietly and
expeditiously into a bundle, and left the house. "M. Deshoulieres may
not allow it," madame had objected, and Therese, who thought the same,
was bringing some feminine tact to bear upon that probability. She was
passing the Cathedral, but suddenly turned and went in. There was a
little dark corner in a side aisle, which only caught a few rays of
light through the nearest window, gorgeous with painted glass in glowing
prodigality of colour. She drew her chair there and knelt down.
Presently, far away in the choir, half-a-dozen priests began reciting
their office with deep, rich voices. Therese fancied it was like the
distant roll of the sea. There was not much music in it, but it was
full and solemn-sounding; she stopped her prayer and listened. And then
her heart went up in a cry, "O my God, make this work I desire a psalm
of Thine."
She went out of the Cathedral, crossed the Place, and turned down the
street from which she had fled only the day before. There was the same
strange oppressive stillness about it, but her steps only faltered for a
moment. Then she went on bravely, except that she drew her breath a
little quicker. She reached the house from which the children had
looked out at her, her heart sank a little when she saw they were not
there; she had somehow trusted to them as friends. A woman came to a
narrow quaint window opposite and stared indifferently at her. Therese
went slowly up the steps, hot from the burning sun, and softly opened a
door.
If it was hot outside, what was this room like? It was all she could do
in her first horror to keep her ground, and not to run away as once
before. She stood still, however, and a woman, who was sitting by a low
miserable bed, glanced languidly at this strange young figure who was
standing there with the old street behind her, and the glow of the
sunshine round her head. In another minute or two Therese recovered
herself and came forward timidly.
"Can I do any thing for you?" she asked in a low voice full of awe.
"No."
It was not repulse, but simply despair.
"I think I could help you a little," Therese said gently. "Once my aunt
had a fever, and I used to nurse her. And you seem so ill yourself."
This time there was no answer. The woman, who had her arm on the pillow
of the bed, on which lay a girl, a little younger than Therese, neither
moved nor objected, but watched mechanically while Therese drew off the
quilt from the bed, fastened open the window, and moistened the lips of
the sufferer, who was unconscious of her presence. Afterwards the woman
said she had believed it was the Blessed Virgin, or one of the saints,
who came in so strangely; but even this conviction did not astonish her.
She sat there, and watched dully until the sick girl started up, and
poured out a wild torrent of delirious words. They were obliged to hold
and soothe her while it lasted; but when it was over she sank down in
utter exhaustion.
"Is there medicine to give her?" asked Therese. The woman nodded, and
pointed to a bottle, on which the directions were clearly written.
Therese poured out the quantity and gave it to her.
"See there," she said cheerfully; "she is tranquil now. Is she your
daughter?"
"My daughter," answered the woman in a low hoarse voice. "As you know,
her father is dead, and they have just carried him away. I have had it,
too, and she nursed me."
Therese, wondering over the phrase "as you know," asked where were the
children.
"M. Pinot has taken them."
"Is M. Pinot coming again?"
"He or the other. I do not know," said the woman wearily. She would
not speak again, but she did not interfere with any of Therese's
movements. The girl found wine in a bottle, and made her drink a
little, after she had poured some between poor Fanchon's lips; the same
girl who had chattered so merrily at the fountain the year before. Then
she heated some soup for the poor mother, and made the room look a
little less deplorable than it had done when she entered it. Her fear
had left her utterly--a great pity had swallowed it. But her heart beat
fast, when as evening was coming on she heard a step at the door.
It was M. Deshoulieres. Therese saw that with a glad throb, but she
was standing a little behind the door in the shadow, and he came in
quickly, and passed to the bed without noticing that a third person was
in the room. Neither did he speak for a few moments, but at last turned
to the poor mother and said,--
"This is good. She is a little better. Have you given her the
medicine?"