CHAPTER VIA DOUBTFUL SAFETYMlle de Rochambeau knelt by her open window. She had been praying, but for a long time her lips had not moved, and now it seemed as if their numbness had invaded her heart, and lay there deadening fear, emotion, sorrow, all,—all except that heavy beating, to which she listened half unconsciously, as though it were a sound from some world which hardly concerned her.She had not left the little room at all. On the first day she had been put off civilly enough."Rest a little, Ma'mselle, rest a little; to-morrow I will make my sister a little visit, and you shall accompany me. To-day I am busy, and without me you would not be admitted to the prison."But when to-morrow came, there were at first black looks, then impatient words, and finally the key turned in the lock and hours of terrifying solitude. The one small window overlooked a dark and squalid street where the refuse of the neighbourhood festered. It was noisy and malodorous, and she sickened at every sense. The sounds, the smells, the sight of the wizened, wicked-looking children, who fought, and swore, and scrabbled in the noisome gutter below, all added to her growing apprehension.Closing the cracked pane she retreated to the farther corner of the attic, and again slow hours went by.About noon a distant roar startled her to the window once more. Nothing was to be seen, but the sound came again, and yet again; increasing each time in violence, and becoming at last a heavy, continuous boom.There is scarcely anything so immediately terrifying as that dull mutter of a city in tumult. Mlle de Rochambeau's smooth years supplied her with no experience by which to measure the threat of that far uproar, and yet every nerve in her body thrilled to it and cried danger! It was then that she began to pray. The afternoon wore on, and she grew faint as well as frightened. Rosalie Leboeuf had set coffee and coarse bread before her in the early morning, but that was now many hours since.The sun was near to setting when a loud shouting arose in the street below, shocking her from the dizzy quiescence into which she had fallen. Looking out, she saw that the children had scattered, pushed aside by rapidly gathering groups of their elders. Every house appeared to be disgorging an incredible number of people, and in their midst swayed a very large man, extremely drunk, and half naked. Such clothes as he possessed appeared to have been torn and rent in a most amazing manner, and scraps of them depended fantastically from naked shoulders and battered belt. His swarthy head retained its bonnet rouge, whose original colour was dyed, here and there, a deeper and more portentous crimson.He waved great windmills of arms, and talked loudly in a thick guttural voice, adding strange gestures and stranger oaths. A sort of fascination kept Mademoiselle's eyes riveted upon him, and presently she began to catch words—phrases."Dear holy Virgin! what was he saying?—Impossible—impossible, impossible!" And then quite suddenly her shocked brain yielded to the truth. There had been a massacre of the prisoners—this man had been there; he was recounting his exploits, boasting of the number he had killed."Mother most merciful, protect! save!—" But the ghastly catalogue ran on. They say that in those days many claimed the murderer's praise who had never acted the murderer's part. Men with hands innocent of blood daubed themselves horribly, and went home boasting of unimaginable horrors, guiltless the while as the children who hung eagerly on the tale. There was a madness abroad,—a fearful, epidemic madness that seized its thousands, and time and again set Paris reeking like a shambles and laughing wantonly in the face of outraged Europe.Whether Jean Michel were innocent or not, his conversation was equally horrifying. Mlle de Rochambeau listened to it, shaking. The things said were inconceivable, and mercifully some of them passed over her innocence leaving it unbruised, save for a gradually accumulating weight of horror.Suddenly she caught her cousin's name—"that wanton, the Montargis, damned Austrian spy," the man called her, and added Sélincourt's name to hers with a foul oath."I struck them, I! My pike was the first!" he shouted. Then drawing a scrap of reeking linen from his belt he waved it aloft, proclaiming, "This is her blood!" and looked around him for applause.It was too much. A gasp broke from the girl's rigid lips, a damp dew from her brow. The twilight quivered—turned to darkness—then broke into a million sparks of flame, and a merciful oblivion overtook her.Jean Michel may be left to the tender mercies of Louison his wife, a little woman and a venomous, having that command over her husband which one sees in the small wives of large men. Having haled him home, she burned his precious trophy, and poured much cold water on his hot and muddled head. Afterwards she gave her tongue free course, and we may consider that Jean Michel had his deserts.When Mlle de Rochambeau shuddered back again to consciousness, the room was dark. Outside, quiet reigned, and a beautiful blue dusk, just tinged with starlight. She dragged herself up into a half-sitting, half-kneeling position, and looked long and tremblingly into the tranquil depths above. All was peace and a cool purity, after the red horror of the day. The lights of the city looked friendly; they spoke of homes, of children, of decent comfort and ordered lives, and over all brooded the great sapphire glooms of the darkening ether and the lights of the houses of God. A strange calm slid into her soul—the hour held her—life and death were twin points in a fathomless, endless stretch of peace eternal.The flesh no longer enchained her—weak with shock and fasting, it released its grip, and the freer spirit peered forth into the immensities.Aline's body lay motionless, but her soul floated in a calm sea of light.How long this lasted she did not know, but presently she became aware that she was listening to some rather distant sound. It came slowly nearer, and resolved itself into a man's heavy step, which mounted the narrow stairway, and paused ominously beside her door. Some of the strange calm from which she came still wrapped her, but her heart began to beat piteously. Her hearing seemed preternaturally acute, and she was aware of a pause, of one or two quickly drawn breaths, and then the dull sound of a groan—such a sound as may come from a man utterly weary and forespent when he imagines himself alone. The pause, the groan were over even as she listened, and the door opposite hers closed sharply upon Jacques Dangeau.A throb of relief shook her back into normal humanity. It was, of course, the man she had seen on the stairs, and all at once she was conscious of immense fatigue; her head sank lower and lower, the darkness closed upon her, and she slept.Rosalie stumbled over her an hour later, and took fright when the girl just stirred, and no more. She had intended her young aristocrat to pass a chastening day. Fasting was good for the soul, it rendered young girls amenable, and Rosalie wished to come to terms with this friendless but not unmoneyed demoiselle whom chance, luck, or some other god of her rather mixed beliefs had thrown her way. She had not, however, meant to leave the girl quite so long without food, but sallying out in quest of news she had been detained by her trembling sister, whose timid soul saw no safety anywhere in all red, raving Paris.Rosalie set down her light and bent over the sleeping girl. A shrewd glance showed her a drawn fatigue of feature and a collapsed discomfort of attitude beyond anything she was prepared for."Tett, tett!" she grunted; "that Michel—could she have heard him? It is certainly possible. Well, well, there will be no talk to-night, that 's a sure thing. Here, Ma'mselle! Ma'mselle!"Mlle de Rochambeau opened her eyes, but only to close them again. The lids hung half shut, and under them lay heavy violet streaks. This was slumber that was half a swoon, and with a shrug of her vast shoulders, and a mental objurgation of the tenderness of aristocrats, Rosalie set herself to getting a cup of strong hot broth down the girl's throat.Mademoiselle moaned and gasped, but when a sip or two had been chokingly swallowed, she raised her head and took the warm drink eagerly. She was about to sink back again into her old position when she felt strong arms about her, and capable hands loosened her dress and pulled off shoes and stockings. With a sigh of content, she felt herself laid down on the bed, her head touched a pillow, some one covered her, and she fell again upon a deep, deep, dreamless sleep.It was high noon before she awoke, and then it was to a sense of bewildered fatigue beyond anything she had ever experienced. She lay quite still, and watched the little patch of sky which showed above the roofs of the houses opposite. It was very blue, and small glittering clouds raced quickly across it. Slowly, slowly as she looked, yesterday came back to her, but with a strange remoteness, as if it had all happened too long ago to weep for. A great shock takes us out of time and space. Emotion crystallises and ceases to flow along its accustomed channels. Aline de Rochambeau was never to forget the experience she had just passed through, but for the time being it seemed too far away to pierce the numbness round her heart.A cry in the street did something; her cheek paled, and Rosalie coming noisily in found her sitting up in bed with wide, frightened eyes. She caught at the woman's arm and spoke in a sort of hurried whisper."Ah, Madame, is it true? For Heaven's love tell me! Or have I had some terrible dream?" and her voice sank, as if the sound of it terrified her.Rosalie's fat shoulders went shrugging up to Rosalie's thick, red ears."Is what true?" she asked. "It is certainly true that you have slept fourteen hours, no less; long enough to dream anything. They called it laziness when I was young, my girl."Mlle de Rochambeau joined both hands about her wrist. "Tell me—only tell me, Madame—I heard—oh, God!—I heard a man in the street—he said"—shuddering—"he said the prisoners were all murdered—and my cousin—oh, my poor cousin!" Words brought her tears, and she covered her face from Rosalie's convincing nod."As to all the prisoners, for that I cannot answer, but certainly there are some hundreds less of the pestilent aristocrats than there were. As to your cousin, the ci-devant Marquise de Montargis, she 's as dead as mutton."Aline looked up—she was not stupid, and this woman's altered tone was confirmation enough without any further words. Two days ago, it had been "Ma'mselle," and the respectful demeanour of a servant, smiles and smooth words had met her, and now that rough "my girl" and these brutal words! Rosalie Leboeuf was no pioneer. Had some terrible change not taken place, she would never have dared to speak and look as she was looking and speaking now.Mademoiselle had not the Rochambeau blood for nothing. She drew herself up, looked gravely in the woman's face, and said in a fine, cold voice:"I understand, Madame. Is it permitted to ask what you propose to do with me?"Rosalie stared insolently. Then planting herself deliberately on a chair, she observed:"It is certainly permitted to ask, my little aristocrat—certainly; but I should advise fewer airs and graces to a woman who has saved your life twice over, and that at the risk of her own."Mademoiselle was silent, and Rosalie took up her parable. "Where would you have been by now, if I had not brought you home with me? There 's many a citizen who would have been glad to find a cage for a pretty stray bird like you, and how would that have suited you—eh? Better rough words from respectable Rosalie Leboeuf than shameful kisses from Citizen Such-a-one. And yesterday—if I had whispered yesterday, 'Montargis is dead, but there's a chick of the breed roosting in my upper room,' as I might very well have done, very well indeed, and kept your money into the bargain—what then, Miss Mealy-mouth? Have you a fancy for being stripped and dragged at a cart's tail through Paris, or would you relish being made to drink success to the Revolution in a brimming mug of aristocrats' blood? Eh! I could tell you tales, my girl, such tales that you 'd never sleep again, and that's what I 've saved you from, and do I get thanks—gratitude? Tush! was that ever the nobles' way?""Madame—I am—grateful," said Mademoiselle faintly. Her lips were ashen, and the breath came with a gasp between every word."Grateful—yes, indeed, I should think you were grateful," responded Rosalie, her keen eyes on the girl's ghastly face. With a little nod, she decided that she had frightened her enough. "I want more than your 'Madame, I'm grateful,'" and as she mimicked the faltering tones the blood ran back into Mademoiselle's white cheeks. "So far we have talked sentiment," she continued, with a complete change of manner. Her brutality slipped from her, and she became the bargaining bourgeoise."Let us come to business.""With all my heart, Madame.""Tut—no Madame—Citoyenne, or Rosalie. Madame smells of treason, disaffection, what not. What money have you?""Only what I showed you yesterday.""But you could get more?""I do not think so, I know nothing of my affairs—but there was a good deal in that bag. I put it—yes, I 'm sure I did—under the pillow. Oh, Madame, my money 's not here! The bag is gone!""Té! té! té!" went Rosalie's tongue against the roof of her mouth; "gone it is, and for a very good reason, my little cabbage, because Rosalie Leboeuf took it!""Madame!""Ma'mselle!" mimicked the rough voice. "It is the little present that Ma'mselle makes me—the token of her gratitude. Hein! do you say anything against that?"Mademoiselle was silent. She was reflecting that she still had her pearls, and she put a timid hand to her bosom. A moment later, she sank back trembling upon her pillow. The pearls were gone. It was not for nothing that Rosalie had undressed her the night before. She bit her lip, constraining herself to silence; and Rosalie, twinkling maliciously, maintained the same reserve. She was neither a cruel nor a brutal woman, though she could appear both, if she had an end to gain, as she had now.She meant Mlle de Rochambeau no harm, and honestly considered that she had earned both gold and pearls. Indeed, who shall say that she had not? Girls had to be managed, and were much easier to deal with when they had been well frightened. When she was well in hand, Rosalie would be kind enough, but just now, a touch of the spur, a flick of the whip, was what was required—and yet not too much, for times changed so rapidly, and who knew how long the reign of Liberty would last? She must not overdo it."Well now, Citoyenne," she said suddenly, "let us see where we are. You came to Paris ten days ago. Who brought you?""The Intendant and his wife," said Mademoiselle."And they are still in Paris?" (The devil take this Intendant!)"No; they returned after two days. I think now that they were frightened.""Very likely. Worthy, sensible people!" said Rosalie, with a puff of relief. "And you came to the Montargis? Well, she 's dead. Are you betrothed?"Aline turned a shade paler. How far away seemed that betrothal kiss which she had rubbed impatiently from her reluctant hand!"I was fiancée to M. de Sélincourt.""That one? Well, he's dead, and damned too, if he has his deserts," commented Rosalie. "Hm, hm—and you knew no one else in Paris?""Only Mme de Maillé—she remembered my mother.""An old story that—she is dead too," said Rosalie composedly. "In effect, it appears that you have no friends; they are all dead."Aline shrank a little, but did not exclaim. In this nightmare-existence upon which she had entered, it was as natural that dreadful things should happen as until two days ago it had seemed to her young optimism impossible.Rosalie pursued the conversation."Yes, they are all dead. I gave myself the trouble of going to see my sister this morning on purpose to find out. Marie is a poor soft creature; she cried and sobbed as if she had lost her dearest friends, and Bault, the great hulk, looked as white as chalk. I always say I should make a better gaoler myself—not that I 'm not sorry for them, mind you, with all that place to get clean again, and blood, as every one knows, the work of the world to get out of things."Mademoiselle shuddered."Oh!" she breathed protestingly, and then added in haste, "They are all dead, Madame, all my friends, and what am I to do?"Rosalie crossed her arms and swayed approvingly. Here was a suitable frame of mind at last—very different from the hoity-toity airs of the beginning."Hein! that is the question, and I answer it this way. You can stay here, under my respectable roof, until your friends come forward; but of course you must work, or how will my rent be paid? A mere trifle, it is true, but still something; and besides the rent there will be your ménage to make. For one week I will feed you, but after that it is your affair, and not mine. Even a white slip of a girl like you requires food. The question is, what can you do to earn it?"Mademoiselle de Rochambeau coloured."I can embroider," she said hesitatingly. "I helped to work an altar cloth for the Convent chapel last year."Rosalie gave a coarse laugh."Eh—altar cloths! What is the good of that? Soon there will be no altars to put them on!""I learned to embroider muslin too," said Mademoiselle hastily. "I could work fine stuffs, for fichus, or caps, or handkerchiefs, perhaps."Rosalie considered."Well, that's better, though you 'll find it hard to fill even your pinched stomach out of such work; but we can see how it goes. I will bring you muslin and thread, and you shall work a piece for me to see. I know a woman who would buy on my recommendation, if it were well done.""They said I did it well," said Mademoiselle meekly. Her eyes smarted suddenly, and she thought with a desperate yearning of comfortable Sister Marie Madeleine, or even the severe Soeur Marie Mediatrice. How far away the Convent stillness seemed, and how desirable!"Good," said Rosalie; "then that is settled. For the rest, I cannot have Mlle de Rochambeau lodging with me. That will not go now. What is your Christian name?""Aline Marie.""Aline, but no—that would give every donkey something to bray over. Marie is better—any one may be Marie. It is my sister's name, and my niece's, and was my mother's. It is a good name. Well, then, you are the Citoyenne Marie Roche."Mademoiselle repeated it, her lip curling a little."Fi donc—you must not be proud," remarked Rosalie the observant. "You are Marie Roche, you understand, a simple country girl, and Marie Roche must not be proud. Neither must she wear a fine muslin robe and a silk petticoat or a fichu trimmed with lace from Valenciennes. I have brought you a bundle of clothes, and you may be glad you had Rosalie Leboeuf to drive the bargain for you. Two shifts, these good warm stockings, a neat gown, with stuff for another, to say nothing of comb and brush, and for it all you need not pay a sou! Your own clothes in exchange, that is all. That is what I call a bargain! Brush the powder from your hair and put on these clothes, and I 'll warrant you 'll be safe enough, as long as you keep a still tongue and do as I bid you.""Thank you," said Mademoiselle, with an effort. Even her inexperience was aware that she was being cheated, but she had sufficient intelligence to know herself completely in the woman's power, and enough self-control to bridle her tongue.Rosalie, watching her, saw the struggle, inwardly commended the victory, and with a final panegyric on her own skill at a bargain she departed, and was to be heard stumping heavily down the creaking stair.As soon as she was alone Aline sprang out of bed. Most of her own clothes had been removed, she found, and she turned up her nose a little at the coarse substitutes. There was no help for it, however, and on they went. Then came a great brushing of hair, which was left at last powderless and glossy, and twisted into a simple knot. Finally she put on the petticoat, of dark blue striped stuff, and the clean calico gown. There was a tiny square of looking-glass in the room, cracked relic of some former occupant, and Aline peeped curiously into it when her toilette was completed. A young girl's interest in her own appearance dies very hard, and it must be confessed that the discovery that her new dress was far from unbecoming cheered her not a little. She even smiled as she put on the coarse white cap, and turned her head this way and that to catch the side view; but the smile faded suddenly, and the next moment she was on her knees, reproaching herself for a hard heart, and praying with all dutiful earnestness for the repose of her cousin's soul.CHAPTER VIITHE INNER CONFLICTSeptember passed on its eventful way. Dangeau was very busy; there were many meetings, much to be discussed, written, arranged, and on the twenty-first the Assembly was dissolved, and the National Convention proclaimed the Republic.Dangeau as an elected member of the Convention had his hands full enough, and there was a great deal of writing done in the little room under the roof. Sometimes, as he came and went, he passed his pale fellow-lodger, and noted half unconsciously that as the days went on she grew paler still. Her gaze, proud yet timid, as she stood aside on the little landing, or passed him on the narrow stair, appealed to a heart which was really tender."She is only a child, and she looks as if she had not enough to eat," he muttered to himself once or twice, and then found to his half-shamed annoyance that the child's face was between him and his work."You are a fool, my good friend," he remarked, and plunged again into his papers.He burned a good deal of midnight oil in those days, and Rosalie Leboeuf, whose tough heart really kept a soft corner for him, upbraided him for it."Tiens!" she said one day, about the middle of October, "tiens! The Citizen is killing himself."Dangeau, sitting on the counter, between two piles of apples, laughed and shook his head."But no, my good Rosalie—you will not be rid of me so easily, I can assure you.""H'm—you are as white as a girl,—as white as your neighbour upstairs, and she looks more like snow than honest flesh and blood."Dangeau, who had been wondering how he should introduce this very subject, swung his legs nonchalantly and whistled a stave before replying. The girl's change of dress had not escaped him, and he was conscious, and half ashamed of, his curiosity. Rosalie plainly knew all, and with a little encouragement would tell what she knew."Who is she, then, Citoyenne?" he asked lightly."Eh! the Citizen has seen her—a slip of a white girl. Her name is Marie Roche, and she earns just enough to keep body and soul together by embroidery."Dangeau nodded his head. He did not understand why he wished to gossip with Rosalie about this girl, but an idle mood was on him, and he let it carry him whither it would."Why, yes, Citoyenne, I know all that, but that does n't answer my question at all. WhoisMarie Roche?"Rosalie glanced round. Indiscretion was as dear to her soul as to another woman's, and it was not every day that one had the chance of talking scandal with a Deputy. To do her justice, she was aware that Dangeau was a safe enough recipient of her confidences, so after assuring herself that there was no one within earshot, she abandoned herself to the enjoyment of the moment."Aha! The Citizen is clever, he is not to be taken in! Only figure to yourself, then, Citizen, that I find this girl, a veritable aristocrat, weeping at the gates of La Force, weeping, mon Dieu, because they will not keep her there with her friends! Singular, is it not? I bring her home, I am a mother to her, and next day, pff—all her friends are massacred, and what can I do? I have a charitable heart, I keep her,—the marmot does not eat much."Dangeau enjoyed his Rosalie."She earns nothing, then?" he observed, with a subdued twinkle in his eye."Oh, a bagatelle. I assure you it does not suffice for the rent; but I have a good heart, I do not let her starve"; and Rosalie regarded the Deputy with an air of modest virtue that sat oddly upon her large, creased face."Excellent Rosalie!" he said, with a soft, half-mocking inflection.She bridled a little."Ah, if the Citizen knew!" she said, with a toss of the head, which, aiming at the arch, merely achieved the elephantine."If it is a question of the Citoyenne's virtues, who does not know them?" said Dangeau. He made her a little bow, and kept the sarcasm out of his voice this time. He was thinking of his little neighbour's look of starved endurance, and contrasting her mentally with the well-fed Rosalie. He had not much confidence in the promptings of the latter's heart if they countered the interests of her pocket. Suddenly a plan came into his head, and before he had time to consider its possible drawbacks, he found himself saying:"Tell me, then, Citoyenne, does this Marie Roche write a good hand?""H'm—well, I suppose the nuns in that Convent of hers taught her something, and as it was neither baking nor brewing, it may have been reading and writing," said Rosalie sharply. "Does the Citizen wish her to write him a billet-doux?"To Dangeau's annoyed surprise he felt the colour rise to his cheeks as he answered:"Du tout, Citoyenne, but I do require an amanuensis, and I thought your protégée might earn my money as well as another. I imagine that much fine embroidery cannot be done in the evenings, and it would be then that I should require her services.""The girl is an aristocrat," said Rosalie suspiciously.Dangeau laughed."Are you afraid she will contaminate me?" he asked gaily. "I shall set her to copy my book on the principles of Liberty. Desmoulins says that every child in France should get it by heart, and though I do not quite look for that, I hope there will be some to whom it means what it has meant for me. Your little aristocrat shall write it out fair for the press, and we shall see if it will not convert her.""It will take too much of her time," said Rosalie sulkily."A few hours in the evening. It will save her eyes and pay better than that embroidery of hers, which as you say barely keeps body and soul together. I hope we shall be able to knit them a little more closely, for at present there seems to be a likelihood of a permanent divorce between them."Rosalie looked a little alarmed."Yes, she looks ill," she muttered; "and as you say it would be only for an hour or two.""Yes, for the present. I am out all day, and it is necessary that I should be there. I write so badly, you see; your little friend would soon get lost amongst my blots if she were alone, but if I am there, she asks a question, I answer it—and so the work goes on.""H'm—" said Rosalie; "and the pay, Citizen?"Dangeau got down from the counter, laughing."Citoyenne Roche and I will settle that," he said, a little maliciously; "but perhaps, my good Rosalie, you would speak to her and tell her what I want? It would perhaps be better than if I, a stranger, approached her on the subject. She looks timid—it would come better from you."Rosalie nodded, and caught up her knitting, as Dangeau went out. On the whole, it was a good plan. The girl was too thin—she did not wish her to die. This would make more food possible, and at the same time entail no fresh expense to herself. Yes, it was decidedly a good plan."It is true, I have a charitable disposition," sighed Rosalie.Dangeau went on his way humming a tune. The lightness of his spirits surprised him. The times were anxious. New Constitutions are not born without travail. He had an arduous part to play, heavy responsible work to do, and yet he felt the irrational exhilaration of a schoolboy, the flow of animal spirits which is induced by the sudden turn of the tide in spring, and the uplifted heart of him who walks in dreams. All this because a girl whom he had seen some half-dozen times, with whom he had never spoken, whose real name he did not know, was going to sit for an hour or two where he could look at her, copy some pages of his, which she would certainly find dull, and take money, which he could ill spare, to bring a little more colour into cheeks whose pallor was beginning to haunt his sleep.Dangeau bit his lip impatiently. He did not at all understand his own mood, and suddenly it angered him."The girl is an aristocrat—nourished on blind superstition, cradled in tyranny," said his brain."She is only a child, and starved," said his heart; and he quickened his steps, almost to a run, as if to escape from the two voices. Once at the Convention business claimed him altogether, Marie Roche was forgotten, and it was Dangeau the patriot who spoke and listened, took notes and made suggestions. It was late when he returned, and he climbed the stair somewhat wearily. He was aware of a reaction from the unreasoning gaiety of the morning. It seemed cold and cheerless to come back night after night to an empty room and an uncompanioned evening, and yet he could remember the time, not so long ago, when that dear solitude was the birthplace of burning dreams, and thoughts dearer than any friend.He had not felt so dull and dreary since the year of his mother's death, his first year alone in life, and once or twice he sighed as he lighted a lamp and bent to the heaped-up papers which littered his table. Half an hour later, a low knocking at the door made him pause."Enter!" he called out, expecting to see Rosalie.The door opened rather slowly, and Mlle de Rochambeau stood hesitating on the threshold. Her eyes were wide and dark with shyness, but her manner was prettily composed as she said in her low, clear tones:"The Citizen desires my services as a secretary? Rosalie told me you had asked her to speak to me——"Dangeau sprang up. His theory of universal equality, based upon universal citizenship, was slipping from him, and he found himself saying:"If Mademoiselle will do me so much honour."Mademoiselle's beautifully arched eyebrows rose a little. What manner of Deputy was this? She had observed and liked the gravity of his face and the distant courtesy of his manner, or utmost privation would not have brought her to accept his offer; but she had not expected expressions of the Court, or a bow that might have passed at Versailles."I am ready, Citizen," she said, with a faint smile and a fainter emphasis on the form of address.For the second time that day Dangeau flushed like a boy. He was glad that a table had to be drawn nearer the lamp, a chair pushed into position, ink and paper fetched. The interval sufficed to restore him to composure, and Mademoiselle being seated, he returned to his papers and to silence.When the first page had been transcribed, Mademoiselle brought it over to him."Is that clear, and as you wish it, Citizen?""It is very good indeed, Citoyenne"; and this time his tongue remembered that it belonged to a Republican Deputy. If Mademoiselle smiled, he did not see it, and again the silence fell. At ten o'clock she rose."I cannot give you more time than this, I fear, Citizen," she said, and unconsciously her manner indicated that an audience was terminated. "My embroidery is still my 'cheval de bataille,' and I fear it would suffer if my eyes keep too late hours."Her low "Good-night," her scarcely hinted curtsey passed, even whilst Dangeau rose, and before he could reach and open the door, she had passed out, and closed it behind her. Dangeau wrote late that night, and waked later still. His thoughts were very busy.After some evenings of silent work, he asked her abruptly:"What is your name?"Mademoiselle gave a slight start, and answered without raising her head:"Marie Roche, Citizen.""I mean your real name.""But yes, Citizen"; and she wrote a word that had to be erased.Dangeau pushed his chair back, and paced the room. "Marie Roche neither walks, speaks, nor writes as you do. Heavens! Am I blind or deaf?""I have not remarked it," said Mademoiselle demurely. Her head was bent to hide a smile, which, if a little tremulous, still betokened genuine amusement—amusement which it certainly would not do for the Citizen to perceive."Then do you believe that I am stupid, or"—with a change of tone—"not to be trusted?"Mademoiselle de Rochambeau looked up at that."Monsieur," she said in measured tones, "why should I trust you?""Why should you trust Rosalie Leboeuf?" asked Dangeau, with a spice of anger in his voice. "Do you not consider me as trustworthy as she?""As trustworthy?" she said, a little bitterly. "That may very easily be; but, Monsieur, if I trusted her, it was of necessity, and what law does necessity know?""You are right," said Dangeau, after a brief pause; "I had no right to ask—to expect you to answer."He sat down again as he spoke, and something in his tone made Mademoiselle look quickly from her papers to his face. She found it stern and rather white, and was surprised to feel herself impelled towards confidence, as if by some overwhelming force."I was jesting, Monsieur," she said quickly; "my name is Aline de Rochambeau, and I am a very friendless young girl. I am sure that Monsieur would do nothing that might harm me."Dangeau scarcely looked up."I thank you, Citoyenne," he said in a cold, constrained voice; "your confidence shall be respected."Perhaps Mademoiselle was surprised at the formality of the reply,—perhaps she expected a shade more response. It had been a condescension after all, and if one condescended, one expected gratitude. She frowned the least little bit, and caught her lower lip between her white, even teeth for a moment, before she bent again to her writing.Dangeau's pen moved, but he was ignorant of what characters it traced. There is in every heart a moment when the still pool becomes a living fountain, because an angel has descended and the waters are divinely troubled. To Jacques Dangeau such a moment came when he felt that Aline de Rochambeau distrusted him, and by the stabbing pain that knowledge caused him, knew also that he loved her. When he heard her speak her name, those troubled waters leapt towards her, and he constrained his voice, lest it should call her by the sweet name she herself had just spoken—lest it should terrify her with the resonance of this new emotion, or break treacherously and leave her wondering if he were gone suddenly mad.He forced his eyes upon the page that he could not see, lest the new light in them should drive her from her place. He kept his hand clenched close above the pen, lest it should catch at her dress—her hand—the white, fine hand which wrote with such clear grace, such maidenly quiet, and all the while his heart beat so hard that he could scarcely believe she did not hear it.Ten o'clock struck solemnly, and Mademoiselle began to put away her writing materials in her usual orderly fashion."You are going?" he stammered."Since it is the hour, Citizen," she answered, in some surprise.He held the door, and bowed low as she passed him."Good-night, Citizen.""Good-night, Citoyenne."Mlle de Rochambeau passed lightly out. He heard her door close, and shut his own. He was alone. A torrent as of emotion sublimed into fire swept over him, and soul and body flamed to it. He paced the room angrily. Where was his self-control, his patriotism, his determination to live for one only Mistress, the Republic of his ardent dreams? A shocked consciousness that this aristocrat, this child of the enemy, was more to him than the most ardent of them, assaulted his mind, but he repulsed it indignantly. This was a madness, a fever, and it would pass. He had led too solitary a life, hence this girl's power to disturb him. Had he mixed more with women he would have been safe,—and suddenly he recalled Rosalie's handsome cousin, the Thérèse of his warning to young Cléry. She had made unmistakable advances to him more than once, but he had presented a front of immovable courtesy to her inviting smiles and glances. Certainly an affair with her would have been a liberal education, he reflected half scornfully, half whimsically disgusted, and no doubt it would have left him less susceptible. Fool that he was!Far into the night he paced his room, and continued the mental struggle. Love comes hardly to some natures, and those not the least noble. A man trained to self-control, master of his own soul and all its passions, does not without a struggle yield up the innermost fortress of his being. He will not abdicate, and love will brook no second place. The strong man armed keepeth his house, but when a stronger than he cometh— All that night Dangeau wrestled with that stronger than he!It was some days before the evening task was interrupted again. If Dangeau could not speak to her without a thousand follies clamouring in him for utterance, he could at least hold his tongue. Once or twice the pen in those resolute fingers flagged, and his eyes rested on his secretary longer than he knew. Heavy shadows begirt her. The low roof sloped to the gloom of the unlighted angles in the wall. Outside the lamp-light's contracted circle, all seemed strange, unformed, grotesque. Weird shadows hovered in the dusk background, and curious flickers of light shot here and there, as the ill-trimmed flame flared up, or suddenly sank. The yellow light turned Mademoiselle's hair to burnished gold, and laid heavy shadows under her dark blue eyes. Its wan glow stole the natural faint rose from her cheeks and lips, giving her an unearthly look, and waking in Dangeau a poignant feeling, part spiritual awe, part tender compassion for her whiteness and her youth, that sometimes merged into the wholly human longing to touch, hold, and comfort.Once she looked up and caught that gaze upon her. Her face whitened a little more, and she bent rather lower over her writing, but afterwards, in her own room, she blushed angrily, and wondered at herself, and him.What a look! How dared he? And yet, and yet—there was nothing in it to scare the most sensitive maidenliness, not a hint of passion or desire.Out of the far-away memories of her childhood, Aline caught the reflection of that same look in other eyes—the eyes of her beautiful mother, haunted as she gazed by the knowledge that the little much-loved daughter must be left to walk the path of life alone, unguarded by the tender mother's love. Those eyes had closed in death ten years before, but at the recollection Aline broke into a passionate weeping, which would not be stilled. One of her long-drawn sobs reached waking ears across the way, and Dangeau caught his own breath, and listened. Yes, again,—it came again. Oh God! she was weeping! The unfamiliar word came to his lips as it comes to those most unaccustomed in moments of heart strain."O God, she is in trouble, and I cannot help her!" he groaned, and in that moment he ceased to fight against his love. To himself he ceased to matter. It was of her, of the beloved, of the dear sadness in her voice, of the sweet loneliness in her eyes that he thought, and something like a prayer went up that night from the heart of a man who had pronounced prayer to be a degrading superstition. Long after Aline lay sleeping, her wet lashes folded peacefully over dreaming eyes, he waked, and thought of her with a passion of tenderness.
CHAPTER VI
A DOUBTFUL SAFETY
Mlle de Rochambeau knelt by her open window. She had been praying, but for a long time her lips had not moved, and now it seemed as if their numbness had invaded her heart, and lay there deadening fear, emotion, sorrow, all,—all except that heavy beating, to which she listened half unconsciously, as though it were a sound from some world which hardly concerned her.
She had not left the little room at all. On the first day she had been put off civilly enough.
"Rest a little, Ma'mselle, rest a little; to-morrow I will make my sister a little visit, and you shall accompany me. To-day I am busy, and without me you would not be admitted to the prison."
But when to-morrow came, there were at first black looks, then impatient words, and finally the key turned in the lock and hours of terrifying solitude. The one small window overlooked a dark and squalid street where the refuse of the neighbourhood festered. It was noisy and malodorous, and she sickened at every sense. The sounds, the smells, the sight of the wizened, wicked-looking children, who fought, and swore, and scrabbled in the noisome gutter below, all added to her growing apprehension.
Closing the cracked pane she retreated to the farther corner of the attic, and again slow hours went by.
About noon a distant roar startled her to the window once more. Nothing was to be seen, but the sound came again, and yet again; increasing each time in violence, and becoming at last a heavy, continuous boom.
There is scarcely anything so immediately terrifying as that dull mutter of a city in tumult. Mlle de Rochambeau's smooth years supplied her with no experience by which to measure the threat of that far uproar, and yet every nerve in her body thrilled to it and cried danger! It was then that she began to pray. The afternoon wore on, and she grew faint as well as frightened. Rosalie Leboeuf had set coffee and coarse bread before her in the early morning, but that was now many hours since.
The sun was near to setting when a loud shouting arose in the street below, shocking her from the dizzy quiescence into which she had fallen. Looking out, she saw that the children had scattered, pushed aside by rapidly gathering groups of their elders. Every house appeared to be disgorging an incredible number of people, and in their midst swayed a very large man, extremely drunk, and half naked. Such clothes as he possessed appeared to have been torn and rent in a most amazing manner, and scraps of them depended fantastically from naked shoulders and battered belt. His swarthy head retained its bonnet rouge, whose original colour was dyed, here and there, a deeper and more portentous crimson.
He waved great windmills of arms, and talked loudly in a thick guttural voice, adding strange gestures and stranger oaths. A sort of fascination kept Mademoiselle's eyes riveted upon him, and presently she began to catch words—phrases.
"Dear holy Virgin! what was he saying?—Impossible—impossible, impossible!" And then quite suddenly her shocked brain yielded to the truth. There had been a massacre of the prisoners—this man had been there; he was recounting his exploits, boasting of the number he had killed.
"Mother most merciful, protect! save!—" But the ghastly catalogue ran on. They say that in those days many claimed the murderer's praise who had never acted the murderer's part. Men with hands innocent of blood daubed themselves horribly, and went home boasting of unimaginable horrors, guiltless the while as the children who hung eagerly on the tale. There was a madness abroad,—a fearful, epidemic madness that seized its thousands, and time and again set Paris reeking like a shambles and laughing wantonly in the face of outraged Europe.
Whether Jean Michel were innocent or not, his conversation was equally horrifying. Mlle de Rochambeau listened to it, shaking. The things said were inconceivable, and mercifully some of them passed over her innocence leaving it unbruised, save for a gradually accumulating weight of horror.
Suddenly she caught her cousin's name—"that wanton, the Montargis, damned Austrian spy," the man called her, and added Sélincourt's name to hers with a foul oath.
"I struck them, I! My pike was the first!" he shouted. Then drawing a scrap of reeking linen from his belt he waved it aloft, proclaiming, "This is her blood!" and looked around him for applause.
It was too much. A gasp broke from the girl's rigid lips, a damp dew from her brow. The twilight quivered—turned to darkness—then broke into a million sparks of flame, and a merciful oblivion overtook her.
Jean Michel may be left to the tender mercies of Louison his wife, a little woman and a venomous, having that command over her husband which one sees in the small wives of large men. Having haled him home, she burned his precious trophy, and poured much cold water on his hot and muddled head. Afterwards she gave her tongue free course, and we may consider that Jean Michel had his deserts.
When Mlle de Rochambeau shuddered back again to consciousness, the room was dark. Outside, quiet reigned, and a beautiful blue dusk, just tinged with starlight. She dragged herself up into a half-sitting, half-kneeling position, and looked long and tremblingly into the tranquil depths above. All was peace and a cool purity, after the red horror of the day. The lights of the city looked friendly; they spoke of homes, of children, of decent comfort and ordered lives, and over all brooded the great sapphire glooms of the darkening ether and the lights of the houses of God. A strange calm slid into her soul—the hour held her—life and death were twin points in a fathomless, endless stretch of peace eternal.
The flesh no longer enchained her—weak with shock and fasting, it released its grip, and the freer spirit peered forth into the immensities.
Aline's body lay motionless, but her soul floated in a calm sea of light.
How long this lasted she did not know, but presently she became aware that she was listening to some rather distant sound. It came slowly nearer, and resolved itself into a man's heavy step, which mounted the narrow stairway, and paused ominously beside her door. Some of the strange calm from which she came still wrapped her, but her heart began to beat piteously. Her hearing seemed preternaturally acute, and she was aware of a pause, of one or two quickly drawn breaths, and then the dull sound of a groan—such a sound as may come from a man utterly weary and forespent when he imagines himself alone. The pause, the groan were over even as she listened, and the door opposite hers closed sharply upon Jacques Dangeau.
A throb of relief shook her back into normal humanity. It was, of course, the man she had seen on the stairs, and all at once she was conscious of immense fatigue; her head sank lower and lower, the darkness closed upon her, and she slept.
Rosalie stumbled over her an hour later, and took fright when the girl just stirred, and no more. She had intended her young aristocrat to pass a chastening day. Fasting was good for the soul, it rendered young girls amenable, and Rosalie wished to come to terms with this friendless but not unmoneyed demoiselle whom chance, luck, or some other god of her rather mixed beliefs had thrown her way. She had not, however, meant to leave the girl quite so long without food, but sallying out in quest of news she had been detained by her trembling sister, whose timid soul saw no safety anywhere in all red, raving Paris.
Rosalie set down her light and bent over the sleeping girl. A shrewd glance showed her a drawn fatigue of feature and a collapsed discomfort of attitude beyond anything she was prepared for.
"Tett, tett!" she grunted; "that Michel—could she have heard him? It is certainly possible. Well, well, there will be no talk to-night, that 's a sure thing. Here, Ma'mselle! Ma'mselle!"
Mlle de Rochambeau opened her eyes, but only to close them again. The lids hung half shut, and under them lay heavy violet streaks. This was slumber that was half a swoon, and with a shrug of her vast shoulders, and a mental objurgation of the tenderness of aristocrats, Rosalie set herself to getting a cup of strong hot broth down the girl's throat.
Mademoiselle moaned and gasped, but when a sip or two had been chokingly swallowed, she raised her head and took the warm drink eagerly. She was about to sink back again into her old position when she felt strong arms about her, and capable hands loosened her dress and pulled off shoes and stockings. With a sigh of content, she felt herself laid down on the bed, her head touched a pillow, some one covered her, and she fell again upon a deep, deep, dreamless sleep.
It was high noon before she awoke, and then it was to a sense of bewildered fatigue beyond anything she had ever experienced. She lay quite still, and watched the little patch of sky which showed above the roofs of the houses opposite. It was very blue, and small glittering clouds raced quickly across it. Slowly, slowly as she looked, yesterday came back to her, but with a strange remoteness, as if it had all happened too long ago to weep for. A great shock takes us out of time and space. Emotion crystallises and ceases to flow along its accustomed channels. Aline de Rochambeau was never to forget the experience she had just passed through, but for the time being it seemed too far away to pierce the numbness round her heart.
A cry in the street did something; her cheek paled, and Rosalie coming noisily in found her sitting up in bed with wide, frightened eyes. She caught at the woman's arm and spoke in a sort of hurried whisper.
"Ah, Madame, is it true? For Heaven's love tell me! Or have I had some terrible dream?" and her voice sank, as if the sound of it terrified her.
Rosalie's fat shoulders went shrugging up to Rosalie's thick, red ears.
"Is what true?" she asked. "It is certainly true that you have slept fourteen hours, no less; long enough to dream anything. They called it laziness when I was young, my girl."
Mlle de Rochambeau joined both hands about her wrist. "Tell me—only tell me, Madame—I heard—oh, God!—I heard a man in the street—he said"—shuddering—"he said the prisoners were all murdered—and my cousin—oh, my poor cousin!" Words brought her tears, and she covered her face from Rosalie's convincing nod.
"As to all the prisoners, for that I cannot answer, but certainly there are some hundreds less of the pestilent aristocrats than there were. As to your cousin, the ci-devant Marquise de Montargis, she 's as dead as mutton."
Aline looked up—she was not stupid, and this woman's altered tone was confirmation enough without any further words. Two days ago, it had been "Ma'mselle," and the respectful demeanour of a servant, smiles and smooth words had met her, and now that rough "my girl" and these brutal words! Rosalie Leboeuf was no pioneer. Had some terrible change not taken place, she would never have dared to speak and look as she was looking and speaking now.
Mademoiselle had not the Rochambeau blood for nothing. She drew herself up, looked gravely in the woman's face, and said in a fine, cold voice:
"I understand, Madame. Is it permitted to ask what you propose to do with me?"
Rosalie stared insolently. Then planting herself deliberately on a chair, she observed:
"It is certainly permitted to ask, my little aristocrat—certainly; but I should advise fewer airs and graces to a woman who has saved your life twice over, and that at the risk of her own."
Mademoiselle was silent, and Rosalie took up her parable. "Where would you have been by now, if I had not brought you home with me? There 's many a citizen who would have been glad to find a cage for a pretty stray bird like you, and how would that have suited you—eh? Better rough words from respectable Rosalie Leboeuf than shameful kisses from Citizen Such-a-one. And yesterday—if I had whispered yesterday, 'Montargis is dead, but there's a chick of the breed roosting in my upper room,' as I might very well have done, very well indeed, and kept your money into the bargain—what then, Miss Mealy-mouth? Have you a fancy for being stripped and dragged at a cart's tail through Paris, or would you relish being made to drink success to the Revolution in a brimming mug of aristocrats' blood? Eh! I could tell you tales, my girl, such tales that you 'd never sleep again, and that's what I 've saved you from, and do I get thanks—gratitude? Tush! was that ever the nobles' way?"
"Madame—I am—grateful," said Mademoiselle faintly. Her lips were ashen, and the breath came with a gasp between every word.
"Grateful—yes, indeed, I should think you were grateful," responded Rosalie, her keen eyes on the girl's ghastly face. With a little nod, she decided that she had frightened her enough. "I want more than your 'Madame, I'm grateful,'" and as she mimicked the faltering tones the blood ran back into Mademoiselle's white cheeks. "So far we have talked sentiment," she continued, with a complete change of manner. Her brutality slipped from her, and she became the bargaining bourgeoise.
"Let us come to business."
"With all my heart, Madame."
"Tut—no Madame—Citoyenne, or Rosalie. Madame smells of treason, disaffection, what not. What money have you?"
"Only what I showed you yesterday."
"But you could get more?"
"I do not think so, I know nothing of my affairs—but there was a good deal in that bag. I put it—yes, I 'm sure I did—under the pillow. Oh, Madame, my money 's not here! The bag is gone!"
"Té! té! té!" went Rosalie's tongue against the roof of her mouth; "gone it is, and for a very good reason, my little cabbage, because Rosalie Leboeuf took it!"
"Madame!"
"Ma'mselle!" mimicked the rough voice. "It is the little present that Ma'mselle makes me—the token of her gratitude. Hein! do you say anything against that?"
Mademoiselle was silent. She was reflecting that she still had her pearls, and she put a timid hand to her bosom. A moment later, she sank back trembling upon her pillow. The pearls were gone. It was not for nothing that Rosalie had undressed her the night before. She bit her lip, constraining herself to silence; and Rosalie, twinkling maliciously, maintained the same reserve. She was neither a cruel nor a brutal woman, though she could appear both, if she had an end to gain, as she had now.
She meant Mlle de Rochambeau no harm, and honestly considered that she had earned both gold and pearls. Indeed, who shall say that she had not? Girls had to be managed, and were much easier to deal with when they had been well frightened. When she was well in hand, Rosalie would be kind enough, but just now, a touch of the spur, a flick of the whip, was what was required—and yet not too much, for times changed so rapidly, and who knew how long the reign of Liberty would last? She must not overdo it.
"Well now, Citoyenne," she said suddenly, "let us see where we are. You came to Paris ten days ago. Who brought you?"
"The Intendant and his wife," said Mademoiselle.
"And they are still in Paris?" (The devil take this Intendant!)
"No; they returned after two days. I think now that they were frightened."
"Very likely. Worthy, sensible people!" said Rosalie, with a puff of relief. "And you came to the Montargis? Well, she 's dead. Are you betrothed?"
Aline turned a shade paler. How far away seemed that betrothal kiss which she had rubbed impatiently from her reluctant hand!
"I was fiancée to M. de Sélincourt."
"That one? Well, he's dead, and damned too, if he has his deserts," commented Rosalie. "Hm, hm—and you knew no one else in Paris?"
"Only Mme de Maillé—she remembered my mother."
"An old story that—she is dead too," said Rosalie composedly. "In effect, it appears that you have no friends; they are all dead."
Aline shrank a little, but did not exclaim. In this nightmare-existence upon which she had entered, it was as natural that dreadful things should happen as until two days ago it had seemed to her young optimism impossible.
Rosalie pursued the conversation.
"Yes, they are all dead. I gave myself the trouble of going to see my sister this morning on purpose to find out. Marie is a poor soft creature; she cried and sobbed as if she had lost her dearest friends, and Bault, the great hulk, looked as white as chalk. I always say I should make a better gaoler myself—not that I 'm not sorry for them, mind you, with all that place to get clean again, and blood, as every one knows, the work of the world to get out of things."
Mademoiselle shuddered.
"Oh!" she breathed protestingly, and then added in haste, "They are all dead, Madame, all my friends, and what am I to do?"
Rosalie crossed her arms and swayed approvingly. Here was a suitable frame of mind at last—very different from the hoity-toity airs of the beginning.
"Hein! that is the question, and I answer it this way. You can stay here, under my respectable roof, until your friends come forward; but of course you must work, or how will my rent be paid? A mere trifle, it is true, but still something; and besides the rent there will be your ménage to make. For one week I will feed you, but after that it is your affair, and not mine. Even a white slip of a girl like you requires food. The question is, what can you do to earn it?"
Mademoiselle de Rochambeau coloured.
"I can embroider," she said hesitatingly. "I helped to work an altar cloth for the Convent chapel last year."
Rosalie gave a coarse laugh.
"Eh—altar cloths! What is the good of that? Soon there will be no altars to put them on!"
"I learned to embroider muslin too," said Mademoiselle hastily. "I could work fine stuffs, for fichus, or caps, or handkerchiefs, perhaps."
Rosalie considered.
"Well, that's better, though you 'll find it hard to fill even your pinched stomach out of such work; but we can see how it goes. I will bring you muslin and thread, and you shall work a piece for me to see. I know a woman who would buy on my recommendation, if it were well done."
"They said I did it well," said Mademoiselle meekly. Her eyes smarted suddenly, and she thought with a desperate yearning of comfortable Sister Marie Madeleine, or even the severe Soeur Marie Mediatrice. How far away the Convent stillness seemed, and how desirable!
"Good," said Rosalie; "then that is settled. For the rest, I cannot have Mlle de Rochambeau lodging with me. That will not go now. What is your Christian name?"
"Aline Marie."
"Aline, but no—that would give every donkey something to bray over. Marie is better—any one may be Marie. It is my sister's name, and my niece's, and was my mother's. It is a good name. Well, then, you are the Citoyenne Marie Roche."
Mademoiselle repeated it, her lip curling a little.
"Fi donc—you must not be proud," remarked Rosalie the observant. "You are Marie Roche, you understand, a simple country girl, and Marie Roche must not be proud. Neither must she wear a fine muslin robe and a silk petticoat or a fichu trimmed with lace from Valenciennes. I have brought you a bundle of clothes, and you may be glad you had Rosalie Leboeuf to drive the bargain for you. Two shifts, these good warm stockings, a neat gown, with stuff for another, to say nothing of comb and brush, and for it all you need not pay a sou! Your own clothes in exchange, that is all. That is what I call a bargain! Brush the powder from your hair and put on these clothes, and I 'll warrant you 'll be safe enough, as long as you keep a still tongue and do as I bid you."
"Thank you," said Mademoiselle, with an effort. Even her inexperience was aware that she was being cheated, but she had sufficient intelligence to know herself completely in the woman's power, and enough self-control to bridle her tongue.
Rosalie, watching her, saw the struggle, inwardly commended the victory, and with a final panegyric on her own skill at a bargain she departed, and was to be heard stumping heavily down the creaking stair.
As soon as she was alone Aline sprang out of bed. Most of her own clothes had been removed, she found, and she turned up her nose a little at the coarse substitutes. There was no help for it, however, and on they went. Then came a great brushing of hair, which was left at last powderless and glossy, and twisted into a simple knot. Finally she put on the petticoat, of dark blue striped stuff, and the clean calico gown. There was a tiny square of looking-glass in the room, cracked relic of some former occupant, and Aline peeped curiously into it when her toilette was completed. A young girl's interest in her own appearance dies very hard, and it must be confessed that the discovery that her new dress was far from unbecoming cheered her not a little. She even smiled as she put on the coarse white cap, and turned her head this way and that to catch the side view; but the smile faded suddenly, and the next moment she was on her knees, reproaching herself for a hard heart, and praying with all dutiful earnestness for the repose of her cousin's soul.
CHAPTER VII
THE INNER CONFLICT
September passed on its eventful way. Dangeau was very busy; there were many meetings, much to be discussed, written, arranged, and on the twenty-first the Assembly was dissolved, and the National Convention proclaimed the Republic.
Dangeau as an elected member of the Convention had his hands full enough, and there was a great deal of writing done in the little room under the roof. Sometimes, as he came and went, he passed his pale fellow-lodger, and noted half unconsciously that as the days went on she grew paler still. Her gaze, proud yet timid, as she stood aside on the little landing, or passed him on the narrow stair, appealed to a heart which was really tender.
"She is only a child, and she looks as if she had not enough to eat," he muttered to himself once or twice, and then found to his half-shamed annoyance that the child's face was between him and his work.
"You are a fool, my good friend," he remarked, and plunged again into his papers.
He burned a good deal of midnight oil in those days, and Rosalie Leboeuf, whose tough heart really kept a soft corner for him, upbraided him for it.
"Tiens!" she said one day, about the middle of October, "tiens! The Citizen is killing himself."
Dangeau, sitting on the counter, between two piles of apples, laughed and shook his head.
"But no, my good Rosalie—you will not be rid of me so easily, I can assure you."
"H'm—you are as white as a girl,—as white as your neighbour upstairs, and she looks more like snow than honest flesh and blood."
Dangeau, who had been wondering how he should introduce this very subject, swung his legs nonchalantly and whistled a stave before replying. The girl's change of dress had not escaped him, and he was conscious, and half ashamed of, his curiosity. Rosalie plainly knew all, and with a little encouragement would tell what she knew.
"Who is she, then, Citoyenne?" he asked lightly.
"Eh! the Citizen has seen her—a slip of a white girl. Her name is Marie Roche, and she earns just enough to keep body and soul together by embroidery."
Dangeau nodded his head. He did not understand why he wished to gossip with Rosalie about this girl, but an idle mood was on him, and he let it carry him whither it would.
"Why, yes, Citoyenne, I know all that, but that does n't answer my question at all. WhoisMarie Roche?"
Rosalie glanced round. Indiscretion was as dear to her soul as to another woman's, and it was not every day that one had the chance of talking scandal with a Deputy. To do her justice, she was aware that Dangeau was a safe enough recipient of her confidences, so after assuring herself that there was no one within earshot, she abandoned herself to the enjoyment of the moment.
"Aha! The Citizen is clever, he is not to be taken in! Only figure to yourself, then, Citizen, that I find this girl, a veritable aristocrat, weeping at the gates of La Force, weeping, mon Dieu, because they will not keep her there with her friends! Singular, is it not? I bring her home, I am a mother to her, and next day, pff—all her friends are massacred, and what can I do? I have a charitable heart, I keep her,—the marmot does not eat much."
Dangeau enjoyed his Rosalie.
"She earns nothing, then?" he observed, with a subdued twinkle in his eye.
"Oh, a bagatelle. I assure you it does not suffice for the rent; but I have a good heart, I do not let her starve"; and Rosalie regarded the Deputy with an air of modest virtue that sat oddly upon her large, creased face.
"Excellent Rosalie!" he said, with a soft, half-mocking inflection.
She bridled a little.
"Ah, if the Citizen knew!" she said, with a toss of the head, which, aiming at the arch, merely achieved the elephantine.
"If it is a question of the Citoyenne's virtues, who does not know them?" said Dangeau. He made her a little bow, and kept the sarcasm out of his voice this time. He was thinking of his little neighbour's look of starved endurance, and contrasting her mentally with the well-fed Rosalie. He had not much confidence in the promptings of the latter's heart if they countered the interests of her pocket. Suddenly a plan came into his head, and before he had time to consider its possible drawbacks, he found himself saying:
"Tell me, then, Citoyenne, does this Marie Roche write a good hand?"
"H'm—well, I suppose the nuns in that Convent of hers taught her something, and as it was neither baking nor brewing, it may have been reading and writing," said Rosalie sharply. "Does the Citizen wish her to write him a billet-doux?"
To Dangeau's annoyed surprise he felt the colour rise to his cheeks as he answered:
"Du tout, Citoyenne, but I do require an amanuensis, and I thought your protégée might earn my money as well as another. I imagine that much fine embroidery cannot be done in the evenings, and it would be then that I should require her services."
"The girl is an aristocrat," said Rosalie suspiciously.
Dangeau laughed.
"Are you afraid she will contaminate me?" he asked gaily. "I shall set her to copy my book on the principles of Liberty. Desmoulins says that every child in France should get it by heart, and though I do not quite look for that, I hope there will be some to whom it means what it has meant for me. Your little aristocrat shall write it out fair for the press, and we shall see if it will not convert her."
"It will take too much of her time," said Rosalie sulkily.
"A few hours in the evening. It will save her eyes and pay better than that embroidery of hers, which as you say barely keeps body and soul together. I hope we shall be able to knit them a little more closely, for at present there seems to be a likelihood of a permanent divorce between them."
Rosalie looked a little alarmed.
"Yes, she looks ill," she muttered; "and as you say it would be only for an hour or two."
"Yes, for the present. I am out all day, and it is necessary that I should be there. I write so badly, you see; your little friend would soon get lost amongst my blots if she were alone, but if I am there, she asks a question, I answer it—and so the work goes on."
"H'm—" said Rosalie; "and the pay, Citizen?"
Dangeau got down from the counter, laughing.
"Citoyenne Roche and I will settle that," he said, a little maliciously; "but perhaps, my good Rosalie, you would speak to her and tell her what I want? It would perhaps be better than if I, a stranger, approached her on the subject. She looks timid—it would come better from you."
Rosalie nodded, and caught up her knitting, as Dangeau went out. On the whole, it was a good plan. The girl was too thin—she did not wish her to die. This would make more food possible, and at the same time entail no fresh expense to herself. Yes, it was decidedly a good plan.
"It is true, I have a charitable disposition," sighed Rosalie.
Dangeau went on his way humming a tune. The lightness of his spirits surprised him. The times were anxious. New Constitutions are not born without travail. He had an arduous part to play, heavy responsible work to do, and yet he felt the irrational exhilaration of a schoolboy, the flow of animal spirits which is induced by the sudden turn of the tide in spring, and the uplifted heart of him who walks in dreams. All this because a girl whom he had seen some half-dozen times, with whom he had never spoken, whose real name he did not know, was going to sit for an hour or two where he could look at her, copy some pages of his, which she would certainly find dull, and take money, which he could ill spare, to bring a little more colour into cheeks whose pallor was beginning to haunt his sleep.
Dangeau bit his lip impatiently. He did not at all understand his own mood, and suddenly it angered him.
"The girl is an aristocrat—nourished on blind superstition, cradled in tyranny," said his brain.
"She is only a child, and starved," said his heart; and he quickened his steps, almost to a run, as if to escape from the two voices. Once at the Convention business claimed him altogether, Marie Roche was forgotten, and it was Dangeau the patriot who spoke and listened, took notes and made suggestions. It was late when he returned, and he climbed the stair somewhat wearily. He was aware of a reaction from the unreasoning gaiety of the morning. It seemed cold and cheerless to come back night after night to an empty room and an uncompanioned evening, and yet he could remember the time, not so long ago, when that dear solitude was the birthplace of burning dreams, and thoughts dearer than any friend.
He had not felt so dull and dreary since the year of his mother's death, his first year alone in life, and once or twice he sighed as he lighted a lamp and bent to the heaped-up papers which littered his table. Half an hour later, a low knocking at the door made him pause.
"Enter!" he called out, expecting to see Rosalie.
The door opened rather slowly, and Mlle de Rochambeau stood hesitating on the threshold. Her eyes were wide and dark with shyness, but her manner was prettily composed as she said in her low, clear tones:
"The Citizen desires my services as a secretary? Rosalie told me you had asked her to speak to me——"
Dangeau sprang up. His theory of universal equality, based upon universal citizenship, was slipping from him, and he found himself saying:
"If Mademoiselle will do me so much honour."
Mademoiselle's beautifully arched eyebrows rose a little. What manner of Deputy was this? She had observed and liked the gravity of his face and the distant courtesy of his manner, or utmost privation would not have brought her to accept his offer; but she had not expected expressions of the Court, or a bow that might have passed at Versailles.
"I am ready, Citizen," she said, with a faint smile and a fainter emphasis on the form of address.
For the second time that day Dangeau flushed like a boy. He was glad that a table had to be drawn nearer the lamp, a chair pushed into position, ink and paper fetched. The interval sufficed to restore him to composure, and Mademoiselle being seated, he returned to his papers and to silence.
When the first page had been transcribed, Mademoiselle brought it over to him.
"Is that clear, and as you wish it, Citizen?"
"It is very good indeed, Citoyenne"; and this time his tongue remembered that it belonged to a Republican Deputy. If Mademoiselle smiled, he did not see it, and again the silence fell. At ten o'clock she rose.
"I cannot give you more time than this, I fear, Citizen," she said, and unconsciously her manner indicated that an audience was terminated. "My embroidery is still my 'cheval de bataille,' and I fear it would suffer if my eyes keep too late hours."
Her low "Good-night," her scarcely hinted curtsey passed, even whilst Dangeau rose, and before he could reach and open the door, she had passed out, and closed it behind her. Dangeau wrote late that night, and waked later still. His thoughts were very busy.
After some evenings of silent work, he asked her abruptly:
"What is your name?"
Mademoiselle gave a slight start, and answered without raising her head:
"Marie Roche, Citizen."
"I mean your real name."
"But yes, Citizen"; and she wrote a word that had to be erased.
Dangeau pushed his chair back, and paced the room. "Marie Roche neither walks, speaks, nor writes as you do. Heavens! Am I blind or deaf?"
"I have not remarked it," said Mademoiselle demurely. Her head was bent to hide a smile, which, if a little tremulous, still betokened genuine amusement—amusement which it certainly would not do for the Citizen to perceive.
"Then do you believe that I am stupid, or"—with a change of tone—"not to be trusted?"
Mademoiselle de Rochambeau looked up at that.
"Monsieur," she said in measured tones, "why should I trust you?"
"Why should you trust Rosalie Leboeuf?" asked Dangeau, with a spice of anger in his voice. "Do you not consider me as trustworthy as she?"
"As trustworthy?" she said, a little bitterly. "That may very easily be; but, Monsieur, if I trusted her, it was of necessity, and what law does necessity know?"
"You are right," said Dangeau, after a brief pause; "I had no right to ask—to expect you to answer."
He sat down again as he spoke, and something in his tone made Mademoiselle look quickly from her papers to his face. She found it stern and rather white, and was surprised to feel herself impelled towards confidence, as if by some overwhelming force.
"I was jesting, Monsieur," she said quickly; "my name is Aline de Rochambeau, and I am a very friendless young girl. I am sure that Monsieur would do nothing that might harm me."
Dangeau scarcely looked up.
"I thank you, Citoyenne," he said in a cold, constrained voice; "your confidence shall be respected."
Perhaps Mademoiselle was surprised at the formality of the reply,—perhaps she expected a shade more response. It had been a condescension after all, and if one condescended, one expected gratitude. She frowned the least little bit, and caught her lower lip between her white, even teeth for a moment, before she bent again to her writing.
Dangeau's pen moved, but he was ignorant of what characters it traced. There is in every heart a moment when the still pool becomes a living fountain, because an angel has descended and the waters are divinely troubled. To Jacques Dangeau such a moment came when he felt that Aline de Rochambeau distrusted him, and by the stabbing pain that knowledge caused him, knew also that he loved her. When he heard her speak her name, those troubled waters leapt towards her, and he constrained his voice, lest it should call her by the sweet name she herself had just spoken—lest it should terrify her with the resonance of this new emotion, or break treacherously and leave her wondering if he were gone suddenly mad.
He forced his eyes upon the page that he could not see, lest the new light in them should drive her from her place. He kept his hand clenched close above the pen, lest it should catch at her dress—her hand—the white, fine hand which wrote with such clear grace, such maidenly quiet, and all the while his heart beat so hard that he could scarcely believe she did not hear it.
Ten o'clock struck solemnly, and Mademoiselle began to put away her writing materials in her usual orderly fashion.
"You are going?" he stammered.
"Since it is the hour, Citizen," she answered, in some surprise.
He held the door, and bowed low as she passed him.
"Good-night, Citizen."
"Good-night, Citoyenne."
Mlle de Rochambeau passed lightly out. He heard her door close, and shut his own. He was alone. A torrent as of emotion sublimed into fire swept over him, and soul and body flamed to it. He paced the room angrily. Where was his self-control, his patriotism, his determination to live for one only Mistress, the Republic of his ardent dreams? A shocked consciousness that this aristocrat, this child of the enemy, was more to him than the most ardent of them, assaulted his mind, but he repulsed it indignantly. This was a madness, a fever, and it would pass. He had led too solitary a life, hence this girl's power to disturb him. Had he mixed more with women he would have been safe,—and suddenly he recalled Rosalie's handsome cousin, the Thérèse of his warning to young Cléry. She had made unmistakable advances to him more than once, but he had presented a front of immovable courtesy to her inviting smiles and glances. Certainly an affair with her would have been a liberal education, he reflected half scornfully, half whimsically disgusted, and no doubt it would have left him less susceptible. Fool that he was!
Far into the night he paced his room, and continued the mental struggle. Love comes hardly to some natures, and those not the least noble. A man trained to self-control, master of his own soul and all its passions, does not without a struggle yield up the innermost fortress of his being. He will not abdicate, and love will brook no second place. The strong man armed keepeth his house, but when a stronger than he cometh— All that night Dangeau wrestled with that stronger than he!
It was some days before the evening task was interrupted again. If Dangeau could not speak to her without a thousand follies clamouring in him for utterance, he could at least hold his tongue. Once or twice the pen in those resolute fingers flagged, and his eyes rested on his secretary longer than he knew. Heavy shadows begirt her. The low roof sloped to the gloom of the unlighted angles in the wall. Outside the lamp-light's contracted circle, all seemed strange, unformed, grotesque. Weird shadows hovered in the dusk background, and curious flickers of light shot here and there, as the ill-trimmed flame flared up, or suddenly sank. The yellow light turned Mademoiselle's hair to burnished gold, and laid heavy shadows under her dark blue eyes. Its wan glow stole the natural faint rose from her cheeks and lips, giving her an unearthly look, and waking in Dangeau a poignant feeling, part spiritual awe, part tender compassion for her whiteness and her youth, that sometimes merged into the wholly human longing to touch, hold, and comfort.
Once she looked up and caught that gaze upon her. Her face whitened a little more, and she bent rather lower over her writing, but afterwards, in her own room, she blushed angrily, and wondered at herself, and him.
What a look! How dared he? And yet, and yet—there was nothing in it to scare the most sensitive maidenliness, not a hint of passion or desire.
Out of the far-away memories of her childhood, Aline caught the reflection of that same look in other eyes—the eyes of her beautiful mother, haunted as she gazed by the knowledge that the little much-loved daughter must be left to walk the path of life alone, unguarded by the tender mother's love. Those eyes had closed in death ten years before, but at the recollection Aline broke into a passionate weeping, which would not be stilled. One of her long-drawn sobs reached waking ears across the way, and Dangeau caught his own breath, and listened. Yes, again,—it came again. Oh God! she was weeping! The unfamiliar word came to his lips as it comes to those most unaccustomed in moments of heart strain.
"O God, she is in trouble, and I cannot help her!" he groaned, and in that moment he ceased to fight against his love. To himself he ceased to matter. It was of her, of the beloved, of the dear sadness in her voice, of the sweet loneliness in her eyes that he thought, and something like a prayer went up that night from the heart of a man who had pronounced prayer to be a degrading superstition. Long after Aline lay sleeping, her wet lashes folded peacefully over dreaming eyes, he waked, and thought of her with a passion of tenderness.