AMONG THE FLOWERS.
When St. Just and Marguerite left the ruins of the Bastille, a man came
out of a half destroyed building near which they had stood, and followed
them at a distance. His step was heavy, his head drooped, once or twice
he pressed a clenched hand over his heart as if the pain there was
intolerable.
This man was Monsieur Jacques. Every evening when Marguerite sought the
ruins he had followed in sad solicitude, but faithful as a dog. She had
never seen him nor dreamed of his loving vigilance. Indeed, he seldom
sought her now, and seemed to have forgotten the suit he had urged or
the promise she had made.
Sometimes she thought of this with thankfulness, but never guessed the
cause, or dreamed of the suffering which locked that noble heart in
silence.
This evening he saw the lovers pause in the Cour de Gouvernment, and by
the glorified light in their faces knew what was passing between them.
Then the last hope went out of that strong heart.
But Monsieur Jacques knew how to suffer and be strong. He watched that
couple from a distance as, in the sweet silence of contented love, they
slowly approached the humble dwelling, which was the only home the poor
girl could claim in the wide, wide world.
He saw them hesitate a little at the door and pass in. Then he turned
away into the darkness.
The passage was dark which St. Just and Marguerite entered.
“You will not leave me yet!” pleaded the girl, unconscious of wrong as a
child; “no one is home; it will be lonely waiting for them.”
The young man had no heart to leave her, and they went up the dark
stair-case together. Marguerite opened a door under the roof, and led
her guest into a little room with one window, neat as a flower, and
tasteful as only a French girl could make it.
“I was sure they would not be home,” said Marguerite, striking a light,
which fell pleasantly on the muslin curtains at the window, looped up
with knots of rose-colored ribbon, which shaded a plant or two in rich
leafiness. “Dame Doudel will come up here the first thing—till then I
hope you will wait.”
The young man seated himself and looked around the room, which contained
two flag-bottomed chairs, a small table, and in the furthest corner a
little cot-bed, white as a cloud, and fragrant with the breath of many
flowers. Directly at its foot stood a basket crowded full of bouquets
ready for the market, from which a scent of heliotrope, violets, and
jasmines, would have perfumed the atmosphere too heavily but for the
open window, through which a soft current of air was floating.
“You see that all my work was done before I went out,” said the girl,
pointing to the basket.
“Not a hard task, I should think,” said the young man smiling.
“Hard! No one ever gives me anything hard to do. It is only play to make
up these little bunches; and who would think of harming me when I go
about to sell them? Dame Doudel is like a queen in the market, and she
lets all the women think that I am one of them though I cannot be made
to hate the king. I wish you could know how good the dame has been to
me.”
“But she leaves you here alone to wander about in dangerous places. Is
that kind or wise, Marguerite?”
“Oh! but she knows why, and is ready to help me; the dame has a heart as
soft as dew.”
“And have you found it safe?”
“Oh yes; no one speaks to me in the street. I hold my mantle close over
my face, and walk on without looking to the right or the left. Then I
come to the Bastille, but find it all alone. May I ask, monsieur, what
takes you there?”
The man’s eyes sparkled as he answered,
“I go because that mountain of ruins is the first battlefield of liberty
in France. When those old towers fell, the very heart in my bosom was
unchained.”
Marguerite looked at him a little wildly, and her eyes filled with
tears.
“_Mon Dieu!_ Is it that you belong to them?” she said, dropping into the
only chair her visitor did not occupy. “How can it be?”
The young man instantly repented of the ardor in his speech. It seemed
to him like frightening a singing bird with fire-arms, and he reassured
her with a smile.
“Believe me, I shall never be anything that you fear or dislike. Heaven
forbid that I should bring the turmoil of the street into this quiet
place!”
Marguerite drew a deep breath, and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Forgive me, monsieur,” she said, in gentle penitence; “but since that
day I weep so easily. Sometimes, as I sit here weaving the flowers
together, the tears will drop in among their leaves like rain; but that
is when I am thinking of him.”
“But you must shed no more tears.”
“Not if I can help it; but when I thought of your belonging to those
fierce men, I could not keep the tears back. Forgive me, but I could
not.”
“But I do not belong to those fierce men; if anything they belong to
me,” said St. Just. “Come, come, let us be friends. Some loose flowers
are lying on the table there—while we wait for the dame, let me see you
work.”
“I did not know that one was left! She must have brought them after I
went away,” said the girl, starting up and drawing her chair to the
table. “How stupid; but it will only take a little time.”
While Marguerite was busy assorting her flowers, the young man drew his
chair to the table, and watched her slender fingers as they twined the
stems together; then, as if unconsciously, he took up the blossoms one
by one, and held them for her use. He saw that her little hand trembled
as she took the flowers, and a smile stole over his face as he remarked
the color come and go in hers. Something was evidently on her mind, as
she arranged one bouquet with wonderful care—a tiny thing, in which a
half-open blush-rose was laid softly in a nest of violets. Marguerite
tied this with a delicate bit of ribbon taken from her neck, examined it
critically, with her head on one side, as a bird sometimes coquets with
its food, then laid it away with a sigh, lacking courage for the purpose
that had dawned in her mind.
A noise below—some one coming up stairs.
“It is the dame,” said Marguerite, pausing to listen, “and coming up
here. I knew she would.”
The door was flung open, and a little woman, in a broad-bordered cap,
tied around the head with a black ribbon, stood on the threshold with a
half-uttered sentence on her lips.
“I find you here, little one—so much the better.”
Her words were cut short by the utter astonishment that possessed her on
seeing a strange man in the room.
“Oh, my friend, it is the gentleman who saved me; who tried——”
“Ah, I know,” faltered the little woman, pressing a hand quickly to her
bosom. “He would have saved me from being the poor widow I am.—Ah,
monsieur! I have nothing but gratitude here.”
Dame Doudel sat down on the white bed and began to weep.
St. Just arose to go. The tears of this poor widow pained him. They
brought back that awful scene in the Bastille too vividly. Marguerite
saw the movement. She took the tiny cluster of flowers from the table,
and stood hesitating, with one foot advanced.
A faint smile crept over the young man’s lips, for he lost nothing of
this; and when she came swiftly toward him, he held out his hand for the
flowers.
Marguerite gave him her little bouquet, and turning to Dame Doudel,
said, in modest apology for what she had done,
“It took only a few, and he saved my life.”
Dame Doudel nodded her head, and waved her hand, thus signifying her
approbation, and followed the young man down stairs, while Marguerite
stood gazing after him in wistful silence.