A Girl of the Commune, G. A. Henty [great novels to read txt] 📗

subject," Mrs. Brander said, almost indignantly. "Why, it must have been before——" and she stopped.

"Before my short reign here as master, Mrs. Brander. Yes, I was down at Newquay sketching, when she was staying with her friend, Miss Treadwyn, and Mary was at the time too much occupied with the idea of raising womankind in the scale of humanity to think of taking up with a useless member of society like myself."

Mrs. Brander shook her head very gravely.

"It was a sad trouble to her father and myself," she said; "I hope she has got over those ideas."

"I think she has discovered that the world is too large for her to move," Cuthbert replied, with a smile. "At any rate she has undertaken the task of looking after me instead of reforming the world; it may be as difficult, perhaps, but it sounds less arduous."

At lunch the girls were engaged in an animated discussion as[Pg 271] to where they would like to move to, but Mrs. Brander put an end to it by saying—

"We shall have plenty of time to talk that over, girls—it must depend upon many things. Your father's health will, of course, be the first consideration. At any rate, I shall set my face against London. So you can put that altogether out of your minds. An income that would be sufficient to establish one in a good position near a country or seaside town would be nothing in London. And now, Cuthbert, we want to hear a great deal more about our dear Mary. She writes so seldom, and of course she has been cut off for so long a time from us that we scarcely know what she is doing. In Germany she did not seem to be doing anything particular, but as she said in her letters, was studying the people and their language."

"That is what she was doing in Paris—at least that is what she came to do, but the siege put a stop to her studies, and she devoted herself to the much more practical work of nursing the wounded."

"Dear me, what an extraordinary girl she is," Mrs. Brander said, much shocked. "Surely there were plenty of women in Paris to nurse the wounded without her mixing herself up in such unpleasant work, of which she could know absolutely nothing."

"She was a very good nurse, nevertheless," Cuthbert said, quietly. "She worked in the American ambulance, under an American doctor, the other nurses and assistants being all American or English."

"How do you know she was a good nurse, Mr. Hartington?" Clara asked.

"Simply because I was one of her patients, Miss Brander. I joined one of the corps of Franc-tireurs, in which most of my student-friends enrolled themselves, and had the bad luck to get shot through the body in the sortie at Champigny, and as your sister was one of the nurses in the tent where I lay, I think that I am a pretty fair judge as to her powers of nursing. She was often there during the heaviest time for twenty-four hours at a stretch, and completely knocked herself up by he[Pg 272] continued labors. At any rate I consider I owe my life in no small degree to her care."

"I don't think we ever understood Mary," Mr. Brander said, in a more peremptory tone than the girls had heard him use since his seizure. "There is no doubt that it was as much our fault as it was hers. I feel proud to hear that she has done such noble work. Mr. Hartington tells me," he said, abruptly changing the conversation, "that he has been working hard with the intention of making art his profession as it has long been his amusement. He seems to think that although he will, of course, be no longer obliged to look upon it as a necessary career, he intends at any rate to pursue it for a time."

"That will be very interesting," Mrs. Brander said, "and it is quite the fashion in our days."

"It is very nice when you haven't to live by it," Cuthbert said. "When you are obliged to do that, and instead of painting what you like, have to paint things that will sell, it is up-hill work, and none but men of real talent can push their way up out of the crowd. I shall be more happily situated, and shall therefore be able to devote an amount of care and time to a picture that would be impossible to a man who had his daily bread and cheese to earn by his brush. And now, Mr. Brander, we will have a few more words together and then I must be off. I shall most likely return to town this evening."

"It must be for you to decide, Mr. Brander," he went on, when they were alone in the study, "how this news shall be broken to the public. I am quite ready to be guided entirely by your wishes in the matter."

"The sooner the better. I would suggest that you should see Dr. Edwardes before you go up to town. If you will tell him what I told them in the next room, that it has been discovered that there is a flaw in the sale of Fairclose, and that as you are engaged to marry Mary, we have arrived at an amicable agreement under which you will return at once to Fairclose, while I intend to seek an entirely new scene and to retire altogether from business, there will be very little more needful. The news will spread like wildfire over the town and county.[Pg 273] After that I shall have very few questions asked me. None that I shall not be able to answer without difficulty. The state of my health will form an excuse for my cutting my farewells short. There will, no doubt, be some gossip and wonder as to how it has come about, but the county will be so pleased at your coming back again to your father's place, that they will not be very curious as to how it occurred. I shall go off as quickly and as quietly as I can, after calling to say good-bye to those with whom I have been so long associated in the municipal business.

"It matters not where we go. I can take a furnished house at some seaside watering-place. The doctor will advise which is most likely to suit me, and we can then look round and settle on our future plans at our leisure. If I gain strength I think it likely enough we may travel on the Continent for a time. The girls have never been abroad and the prospect would go a long way towards reconciling them entirely to the change."

"I think that a very good plan," Cuthbert said. "I was intending to call upon the doctor on my way down and he will at once set the ball rolling."

Mr. Brander went to the door where the fly had been waiting for two hours.

"God bless you!" he said. "I cannot tell you how deeply grateful I am to you for your forbearance and generosity."

"Don't worry any more about it, Mr. Brander," Cuthbert said, as he shook his hand, "it has been a temporary change, and good rather than bad has come of it. Believe me, I shall put the matter out of my mind altogether."

"Back again, Cuthbert," the doctor said, when he was shown into the consulting-room. "I was down just now at the station to see a man off, and the station-master said you had arrived by the 11.30 train, and that he had seen you drive off in a fly. I could hardly believe it, but as you are here in person I suppose that there can be no mistake about it. Of course you have been up to Brander's again?"

"I have, Doctor, and for the last time. That is, the next time I shall go up it will be to take possession of Fairclose."[Pg 274]

"My dear lad, I am delighted," the doctor said, shaking him heartily by the hand, "how has this miracle come about?"

"I cannot give you all the details, Doctor. I will simply give you the facts, which, by the way, I shall be glad if you will retail to your patients for public consumption," and he then repeated the statement that he had arranged with Mr. Brander that he should make.

"And that is the tale you wish me to disseminate?" the doctor said, with a twinkle of his eye, when Cuthbert concluded.

"That is the statement, Doctor, and it has the merit of being, as far as it goes, true. What the nature of the illegality of this sale was, I am not at liberty to disclose, not even to you, but I have discovered that beyond all question it was irregular and invalid, and Brander and I have come to a perfectly amicable understanding. I may tell you that to prevent the trouble inseparable even from a friendly lawsuit he assigns the property to me as Mary's dowry, and as a sort of recognition of the fact that he acted without sufficient care in advising my father to take those shares in the bank. Thus all necessity for the reopening of bygone events will be obviated."

"A very sensible way, lad. You will understand, of course, that I know enough of Jeremiah to be quite sure that he would not relinquish a fine property if he had a leg to stand upon. However, that is no business of mine, and I have no doubt that the fact that he is going to be your father-in-law, has had no small influence in bringing about this very admirable arrangement. Of course the matter will make a good deal of talk, but these things soon die out, and the county will welcome you back too heartily to care how your return has been brought about. You can rely upon my action in the part of town-crier, and I am sure to some of my patients the flutter of excitement the news will occasion will do a great deal more good than any medicine I could give them. Of course you are going to stay here?"

"Only to dinner, Doctor. I shall run up to town again this evening."

[Pg 275]

CHAPTER XXI.

It was on the last day of March that Cuthbert Hartington reached Paris. During the six weeks that had elapsed since he had left it many events had taken place. He himself had gone away a comparatively poor man, and returned in the possession of the estates inherited from his father, unimpaired save by the mortgage given upon them by Mr. Brander. He had succeeded beyond his hopes; and having obtained unlooked-for proofs of the fraud that had been practised, had been able to obtain restitution—which was to him the most important point—and all had been done without the slightest publicity. In Paris, the danger he had foreseen had culminated in the Commune. The battalions of National Guards from Montmartre and Belleville had risen against the Provisional Government; the troops had fraternized with them and their generals had been murdered in cold blood.

The National Guards of the business quarters had for a time held aloof, but, in the absence of support from without and being enormously outnumbered, they were powerless, and the extreme party were now in absolute possession of the city. M. Thiers and the Assembly at Versailles had so far been unable to take any steps to reduce the revolted capital. Such troops as had been hastily collected could not be relied upon to act and it seemed probable that the National Guards and Paris would, in a short time, take the offensive and obtain possession of Versailles, in which case the flame of insurrection would spread at once to all the great towns of France, and the horrors of the Terror might be repeated.

The line of railway to Paris was still open, for upon the Communists preparing to cut off all communications, the Germans, still in great force near the town, pending the carrying out of the terms of the treaty of peace, threatened to enter Paris were[Pg 276] such a step taken. A vast emigration had taken place among the middle classes, and over fifty thousand persons had left Paris. So far the Communists had abstained from excesses, and from outrage upon peaceable citizens; had it been otherwise, Cuthbert would have returned to fetch Mary away at once. Her letters to him, however, had assured him that there was no cause whatever for uneasiness about her, and that everything was going on precisely as it had done, during the siege by the Germans. He had been anxious that she should, if possible, remain for the