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

present in Paris, for he did not wish her to return to her family, and had made up his mind that if it became absolutely necessary for her to leave Paris she should arrange to go straight down to Newquay and stay there with her friends.

As he alighted from the carriage at the Northern Railway Station he found the place occupied by National Guards. There was no semblance of discipline among them; they smoked, lounged about, scowled at the few passengers who arrived, or slept upon the benches, wrapt in their blankets. There were none of the usual hotel omnibuses outside and but one or two fiacres; hailing one of these he was driven to his lodgings. He was greeted by the concierge with surprise and pleasure.

"So monsieur has come back. We did not expect you, though Monsieur Caillard, who comes here every day, told us that you would be sure to be back again in spite of the Reds. Ah, monsieur, what horror to think that after all Paris has gone through, these monsters should have become masters of the city! It would have been a thousand times better to have had the Prussians here, they would have kept order, and those wild beasts of Montmartre would not have dared even to have murmured. You have heard how they shot down peaceful citizens in the Rue de la Paix? Have you come to stay, monsieur?"

"For a time, anyhow;" and taking the key of his rooms Cuthbert carried up his pormanteau, and then at once came down and drove to Madame Michaud's.

Mary was half expecting him, for in his last letter to her he had told her he hoped to arrive in Paris that evening.[Pg 277]

"I have been horribly anxious about you, Mary," he said, after the first greeting.

"There was no occasion for your being so," she replied, "everything is pefectly quiet here, though from what they say there may be fighting any day, but if there is it will be outside the walls and will not affect us here."

"I don't think there will be much fighting," he said; "if the troops fraternize with the Communists there's an end of the business, all France will join them, and we shall have the Reign of Terror over again, though they will not venture upon any excesses here in Paris, for, fortunately, the Germans are still within gunshot, and they would have the hearty approval of all Europe in marching in here, and stamping the whole thing out. If the troops, on the other hand, prove faithful, I feel sure, from what I saw of the Belleville battalions, that there will be very little fighting outside the walls. They may defend Paris for a time, and perhaps bravely, for they will know they are fighting with ropes round their necks, and the veriest cur will fight when cornered. Your people here are not thinking of leaving, I hope?"

"No, and they could not now if they wanted; the Commune has put a stop to emigration, and though the trains still run once or twice a day, they go out as empty as they come in. Have you got through your business?" she asked, with a shade of anxiety.

"Yes, dear, and most satisfactorily; everything has been arranged in the happiest way. I unexpectedly obtained proofs that the sale of Fairclose was altogether irregular, and indeed, invalid. I have seen your father, who at once, upon my laying the proofs before him, recognized the position. Our arrangement has been a perfectly amicable one. He is going to retire altogether from business, and will probably take up his residence at some seaside place where there is a bracing climate. The doctor recommends Scarborough, for I may tell you that he has had a slight stroke of apoplexy, and is eager himself for rest and quiet. Fairclose and the estate comes back to me, nominally as your dowry, and with the exception that there is a[Pg 278] mortgage on it for £20,000, I shall be exactly in the same position that I was on the day my father died. I may say that your mother and the girls are delighted with the arrangement, for, somehow, they have not been received as cordially as they had expected in the county—owing of course to a foolish prejudice arising from your father's connection with the bank, whose failure hit everyone heavily—and they are, in consequence, very pleased indeed at the prospect of moving away altogether."

Mary's forehead was puckered up in little wrinkles of perplexity as she listened. "I am glad of course, very glad, that you have got Fairclose back," she said, "though it all seems very strange to me—is that all that I am to know, Cuthbert?"

"That is all it is necessary that you should know, Mary, and no one else will know any more. Your father's illness and the doctor's injunctions that he should retire from business altogether and settle in some place with a mild climate, is an ample reason for his leaving Fairclose, and your engagement to me, and my past connection with the place are equally valid reasons why I should be his successor there. I do not say, Mary, that there may not have been other causes which have operated to bring about this result, but into these there is no need, whatever, for us to enter. Be contented, dear, to know that all has turned out in the best possible way, that I have recovered Fairclose, that your family are all very pleased at the prospect of leaving it, and in that fact the matter ends happily for everyone."

"I lunched at the old place only yesterday," he went on lightly, "and the girls were in full discussion as to where they should go. Your father is picking up his strength fast, and with rest and quiet, will, I hope, soon be himself again. I expect, between ourselves, that he will be all the better for getting away from that work in the town, with its lunches and dinners. The Doctor told me that he had warned him that he was too fond of good living, specially as he took no exercise. Now that he will be free from the office, and from all that corporation business, he will no doubt walk a good deal more than he has done for many years and live more simply, and as the doctor told me yesterday, the chances are that he will have no recurrence[Pg 279] of his attack. I may tell you that from a conversation I had with him I learned that your father will still draw a very comfortable income from the business, and will have amply sufficient to live in very good style at Scarborough."

The fact that Cuthbert had lunched at Fairclose did more to soothe Mary's anxiety than anything else he had said. It seemed a proof that however this strange change had come about, an amicable feeling existed between Cuthbert and her father, and when he wound up with "Are you contented, dear?" she looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

"More than contented, Cuthbert. I have been worrying myself greatly while you have been away, and I never thought that it would end as happily as this. I know, dear, that you have concealed a great deal from me, but I am contented to know no more than that. I am as sure as if you had told me that you have brought all these things about in this friendly way for my sake. And now," she said after a pause, "what are your plans for yourself?"

"You mean for us, Mary. Well, dear, my plan is that we shall wait on here and see how things turn out. I don't want to go back to England till all these arrangements are carried out. I don't intend to have to go to Scarborough to marry you, and I think it will be vastly better for us to be married quietly here as soon as the chaplain at the embassy returns, which, of course, he will do directly these troubles are over. My present idea is, that I shall let the house at Fairclose, or shut it up if I cannot let it, and let the rents of the property go to paying off this mortgage, and I intend to take a modest little place near London, to live on our joint income, and to work hard until Fairclose is clear of this incumbrance."

"That is right, Cuthbert. I have been wondering ever since you told me you were to have Fairclose again, if you would give up painting, and hoping that you would still go on with it. I should so like you to win a name for yourself as a great painter."

Cuthbert laughed. "My dear child, you are jumping a great deal too fast at conclusions. I am not yet out from school. I[Pg 280] have painted my two first pictures, which you like, principally because your face is in one of them, but that is a short step towards becoming a great artist. You are like a young lady in love with a curate, and therefore convinced that some day he will be Archbishop of Canterbury, and with almost equally good foundation; however, I shall do my best, and as I shall still have a strong motive for work, and shall have you to spur me on I hope I may make a modest success."

"I am sure you will, and more than that," she said, warmly; "if not," she added, with a saucy laugh, "I think you might as well give it up altogether; a modest success means mediocrity, and that is hateful, and I am sure you yourself would be no more satisfied with it than I should."

"Well, I will go on for a bit and see. I agree with you, that a thing is not worth doing unless it is done well, but I won't come to any final decision for another year or two. Now it is past ten o'clock, and I must be going."

"When will you come? To-morrow?"

"I will come at three o'clock. Have your things on by that time, and we will go for a ramble."

René Caillard came into Cuthbert's room at nine o'clock the next morning.

"I came round yesterday evening, Cuthbert, and heard from the concierge that you had arrived and had gone out again. As she said you had driven off in a fiacre, it was evidently of no use waiting. I thought I would come down and catch you the first thing this morning. You look well and strong again, your native air evidently suits you."

"I feel quite well again, though not quite so strong. So things have turned out just as I anticipated, and the Reds are the masters of Paris."

René shrugged his shoulders. "It is disgusting," he said. "It does not trouble us much, we have nothing to lose but our heads, and as these scoundrels would gain nothing by cutting them off, I suppose we shall be allowed to go our own way."

"Is the studio open again?"

"Oh, yes, and we are all hard at work, that is to say, the few[Pg 281] that remain of us. Goudé has been fidgeting for you to come back. He has asked several times whether I have news of you, and if I was sure you had not left Paris forever. I know he will be delighted when I tell him that you have returned; still more so if you take the news yourself."

"I suppose Minette has resumed her duties as model?"

"Not she," René said scornfully, "she is one of the priestesses of the Commune. She rides about on horseback with a red flag and sash. Sometimes she goes at the head of a battalion, sometimes she rides about with the leaders. She is in earnest but she is in earnest theatrically, and that fool, Dampierre, is as bad as she is."

"What! Has he joined the Commune?".

"Joined, do you say? Why, he is one of its leaders. He plays the part of La Fayette, in the drama, harangues the National Guards, assures them of the sympathy of America, calls upon them to defend the freedom they have won by their lives and to crush back their oppressors, as his countrymen crushed their British tyrants. Of course it is all Minette's doing; he is as mad as she is. I can assure you that he is quite a popular hero among the Reds, and they would have appointed him a general if he had chosen to accept it, but he said that he considered himself as the representative of the great Republic across the sea, that he would accept no office, but would fight as a simple volunteer. He, too, goes about on horseback, with a red