The Hour and the Man Part 64

"Madame Leclerc is very kind; and Vincent's love is everything that ought to make me happy, but--"

"Will you go home with me, my child?"

"How glad I should be, if only you loved Vincent!"

"I cannot, Aimee. Would that I could!"

"Then, when I have married him, you will see him as my husband? I cannot marry till my heart is more at ease--till I see everybody as friendly as Vincent said they were. But when we are married we will come to Pongaudin. May we?"

"Come, my dear, when you will. Your parents' home and hearts will always be open to you. Meantime, write often to us, Aimee."

"Oh, yes! I will. I will write very often; and you will answer. I have heard perpetually of my mother, and of poor Genifrede. But where is Placide? I thought we should have met him. Was not he at Cap?"

"At Cap! No, indeed! He was too heart-broken to be at Cap to-day."

"I wish I could understand it all!" said Aimee, sadly. "I am sure there are many things that I do not know or comprehend. I thought all had been right now; and yet you and Placide are unhappy. I cannot understand it all."

"Time will explain, my child. There will come a day when all doubts will be cleared up, and all woes at an end--when the wicked will cease from troubling, love, and the weary be at rest."

"Must you be going, father, already? Oh! I wish--"

And she looked at Isaac, as if purposing to go to Pongaudin. Isaac, had, however, promised Madame Leclerc to return by an appointed hour.

There could be no difficulty, he said, in going to Pongaudin any day: but to-day he had promised that they would both return to Madame Leclerc. Aimee, therefore, bade her father farewell for the present-- only for a very little while. He must tell her mother that they should certainly meet very soon.

In the piazza, at Pongaudin, Toussaint found Christophe.

"I wish," said Christophe, "you would send to Dessalines not only the Captain-General's message, but your own request that he will yield."

"I cannot, Henri."

"But he may spoil all by holding out."

"I have done what I can in yielding myself. I can do no more."

"You approve our act? Surely you do not repent of what you have done?"

"I cannot repent of what I could not avoid. But enough of business for to-day, my friend. Where is Madame Christophe? Where are your children? Bring them here; and let us enjoy leisure and friends.h.i.+p once more, while we can."

"We will. But, Toussaint, if you could only say that you are satisfied that we have done what is best, it would relieve me much."

"I cannot, Henri. But, be a.s.sured, I fully acquiesce. One has not always the comfort of being able to acquiesce."

"Can you say, then, that you forgive me, in as far as you think me wrong?"

"Can you doubt it?" replied Toussaint, turning upon him a countenance full of frank affection. "Are you not a friend of many years?"

"G.o.d forgive me if I have misled you, Toussaint!"

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

SUSPENSE.

Nature wrought with the blacks this season for the fulfilment of their hopes, and the defence of their precarious liberties. Never, within the remembrance of the young people at Pongaudin, had the heat set in so early, and the month of May been so sickly in the towns. To the eyes of such as Genifrede, who were ever on the watch for signs, it might almost seem that they saw Pestilence floating, on her poison-dropping wings, beneath the clouds which sailed from all quarters of the sky to the mountain-peaks; clouds muttering in thunder, and startling the intruders with terrific lightnings, from night-to-night. The reports of fever having broken out here and there among the invaders became more and more frequent. At first, those who were watching the times the most intently concluded that, early as the season was, "the wish" must be "father to the thought," and believed little of what they heard. But before Toussaint had been ten days at Pongaudin, it was certain that disease was raging to such an extent among the French troops at Cap, that the Captain-General had retired to Tortuga, to join his lady, and others of the expedition who were the most carefully guarded. The garrison at Saint Marc was thinning, Therese sent word; and the country people conveyed to Pongaudin the news that funerals were becoming daily more frequent at Limbe, Le Dauphin, and other posts along the northern sh.o.r.e.

Not for this, however, was there any relaxation of the vigilance with which L'Ouverture was watched by the foe. His mode of life was simple, and open to the observation of any who chose to look on. He improved his gardens; he read much; he interested himself in Denis's studies; he rode out daily, and conversed everywhere with the people by the wayside.

He wrote many letters, sometimes with his own hand, and sometimes employing that of his friend, Monsieur Pascal, who, with his wife, resided with the Ouvertures. Toussaint also received many letters, and a perpetual succession of visitors--of applicants about matters of business, as it seemed. The only mystery was, how all his despatches were sent to their destination. This was a mystery which grew out of the French practice of intercepting his correspondence. Accidents had happened to so many of his letters during the first week, that he presently learned the necessity of some plan for securing the privacy of his correspondence: and some plan he did devise, which quite succeeded; as appeared from the French General having recourse to a new mode of surveillance--that of setting spies on the person and movements of the black chief.

Toussaint's family were alarmed at finding his steps tracked, and his repose watched. They heard incessantly of his path being crossed in his rides; and they knew that many of the trifling messages which were brought, at all hours of the day and night, to be delivered into L'Ouverture's own ear, were mere devices to learn whether he was at home. They saw that their grounds were never private; and felt that eyes watched them from the outer darkness when their saloon was lighted for their evening employments and amus.e.m.e.nts. Toussaint smiled at the alarms of his family, admitting the fact of this incessant _espionnage_, but asking what harm it did, and pointing out that it was only an inconvenience of a few weeks' duration. He would not hear of any strengthening of his guard. To increase his guard would be to encourage and authorise the suspicions which he was now daily weakening. He had nothing to conceal; and the sooner the invaders satisfied themselves of this, the better for all parties.

In answer to Madame L'Ouverture's frequent speculations as to what Leclerc could fix his suspicions on, Toussaint said he was probably supposed to be in communication with Dessalines. He thought so from his never approaching the mornes, in his rides, without finding French soldiers overlooking his proceedings from every point of the hills. He was not in communication with Dessalines. He did not know, and he wished not to know even where he was--whether with the Bellairs, or training his soldiers elsewhere for further warfare. Dessalines had never submitted; and while this was the case, it was obviously prudent for those who had made terms to know nothing of any plans of his to which they might wish success. Therese would not compromise the Ouvertures by living with them, in the present state of affairs. She remained quietly on her husband's estate, near Saint Marc, only corresponding frequently with her friends at Pongaudin, in letters which all the world might see.

The chief subject of this correspondence was the fever-hospitals preparing at Saint Marc, as at all the other towns on the coast, for the reception of the sick whites. Whatever might be Therese's feelings towards the whites, her compa.s.sion towards sick persons of every colour was stronger. Her gentle nature a.s.serted itself whenever weakness and suffering appealed to it; and this season she began to inspire that affection in her neighbours--to establish that character for devoted charity, which afterwards made her the idol of the people. If her husband had been with her, he would probably have forbidden her to save the lives of any of that race whom he desired to exterminate. But though she could perhaps have taken away life, with her own hand, on the battlefield, with the cry of liberty in her ear, she could form no compact with such an ally as pestilence. In the season of truce and retreat, in the absence of the sounds and sights of conflict, she became all the woman--the gentle spirit--to whom the colony from this time looked up, as sent to temper her husband's ferocity, and wisely to direct his strengthening pa.s.sions. She who was so soon after "the Good Empress," was now the Sister of Charity, actually forgetting former wrongs in present compa.s.sion for the helpless; and ministering to the sick without thought whether, on recovery, they would be friends or foes. It was matter of speculation to many besides the Ouvertures, whether the invaders omitted the opportunity of making a hostage of her, because their sick needed her services, or because they were grateful for her offices, or because they knew Dessalines well enough to be aware that, so far from such an act bringing him to submission, it would exasperate his ferocity, and draw down new sufferings and danger upon the discouraged whites.

One evening, the household of the Ouvertures were where it was now their wont to be at sunset--under the trees, on a gra.s.sy slope of the gardens, fronting the west. There they usually sat at this hour, to see the sun sink into the ocean; the darkness following almost as quickly as if that great fire were indeed quenched in the waters. On this occasion, the sun was still half-an-hour above the horizon, when Madame Dessalines appeared, in her riding-dress, and, as she said, in haste. She spoke apart with Madame L'Ouverture and Toussaint; and presently called Genifrede to the conference.

Therese had of late wanted help at Saint Marc--help in directing the nursing of the sick. Now she must have it. Monsieur Papalier was ill-- very ill. The people of the house where he lived insisted upon sending him into the hospital this very night, if good attendance were not provided for him; and now--

Therese did not yet seem quite clear why this event had determined the moment of her application for Genifrede's a.s.sistance. She was agitated.

She could only say that Genifrede had nursed Dessalines well; and she must have her help again now.

"You will go, Genifrede," said her father; "that Madame Dessalines may be at liberty to nurse Monsieur Papalier herself."

"No, no," said Therese, trembling. Genifrede also said "No."

"You would not have me nurse _him_?" said Therese. "Any one else! Ask me to save Rochambeau. Send me to Tortuga, to raise Leclerc from the brink of the grave; but do not expect me to be _his_ nurse again."

"I do hope it from you. I expect it of you, when you have considered the tenfold mercy of nursing _him_ with your own hands. Think of the opportunity you will give him of retrieving wrongs, if he lives, and of easing his soul, if he dies. How many of us would desire, above all things, to have those whom we have injured beside our dying pillow, to make friends of them at last? Let Monsieur Papalier die grateful to you, if he must die; and give him a new heart towards you, if he survives."

"It was not this that I intended," said Therese. "Genifrede will do everything, under my care. You shall have my help, Genifrede."

"No," said Genifrede. "Do not play the tempter with me. Find some one else. You will have much to answer for, if you make me go."

"What temptation, Genifrede?" asked her mother.

"Do not press her," said Toussaint, who read his child's mind. "You shall not be urged, Genifrede."

"You do not know--I myself do not know," said Genifrede, hurriedly, to Madame Dessalines, "what might happen--what I might be tempted to do.

You know--you have read what some nurses did in the plague at Milan--in the plague in London--in the night--with wet cloths--"

"Do not speak of it. Stay here, Genifrede. I can do without you."

"If," continued Genifrede, "they could do that for money--if the tempter moved their hands to that deed with whispers of money, with the sight of mere rings and watches, what might not a wretched creature do, at such a time, with revenge muttering for ever in her heart! My ear is weary of it here; and there--I cannot go."

"No, you cannot," said Therese.

"Christ strengthen you, my child," said Toussaint, "as Therese is strengthening! She can already serve those whom she and you once hated alike: and she is about to save her foe of foes."