Dynevor Terrace; Or, The Clue of Life Volume I Part 55

'We are all right. You are as safe as if you were in your own drawing-room,' said Captain Lonsdale, walking in, and with his loud voice drowning the panic, that Louis's cool, gentle tones only irritated.

Isabel looked up and smiled, as Louis stood by her, leaving his aunt and Virginia to the martial tones of their consoler.

'I could get no one to believe me when I said it was only the soldiers,' she observed, with some secret amus.e.m.e.nt.

'The feather-bed fortress was the leading idea,' said Louis. 'Some ladies have a curious pseudo presence of mind.'

'Generally, I believe,' said Isabel, 'a woman's presence of mind should be to do as she is told, and not to think for herself, unless she be obliged.'

'Thinking for themselves has been fatal to a good many,' said Louis, relapsing into meditation--'this poor Paris among the rest, I fancy.

What a dawn for a Sunday morning! How cold the lights look, and how yellow the gas burns. We may think of home, and be thankful!' and kneeling with one knee on a chair, he leant against the shutter, gazing out and musing aloud.

'Thankful, indeed!' said Isabel, thoughtfully.

'Yes--first it was thinking not at all, and then thinking not in the right way.'

Isabel readily fell into the same strain. 'They turned from daylight and followed the glare of their own gas,' said she.

So they began a backward tracing of the calamities of France; and, as Louis's words came with more than usual slowness and deliberation, they had only come to Cardinal de Richelieu, when Captain Lonsdale exclaimed, 'I am sorry to interrupt you, Lord Fitzjocelyn, but may I ask whether you can afford to lose any more blood?'

'Thank you; yes, the bandage is loosened, but I was too comfortable to move,' said Louis, sleepily, and he reeled as he made the attempt, so that he could not have reached his room without support.

The Captain had profited sufficiently by the Sister's example to be able to staunch the blood, but not till the effusion had exhausted Louis so much that all the next day it mattered little to him that the city was in a state of siege, and no one allowed to go out or come in.

Even a constant traveller like Captain Lonsdale, fertile in resource, and undaunted in search of all that was to be seen, was obliged to submit, the more willingly that Fitzjocelyn needed his care, and the ladies' terror was only kept at bay by his protection. He sat beside the bed where lay Louis in a torpid state, greatly disinclined to be roused to attend when his aunt would hasten into the room, full of some horrible rumour brought in by Delaford, and almost petulant because he would not be alarmed. All he asked of the Tricolor or of the Drapeau Rouge for the present was to let him alone, and he would drop into a doze again, while the Captain was still arguing away her terror.

More was true than he would allow her to credit and when the little Soeur de Charite found a few minutes for visiting her patient's wound, her bright face was pale with horror and her eyes red with weeping.

'Our good Archbishop!' she sobbed, when she allowed herself to speak, and to give way to a burst of tears. 'Ah, the martyr! Ah, the good pastor! The miserable--But no--my poor people, they knew not what they did!'

And as Louis, completely awakened, questioned her, she told how the good Archbishop Affre had begun that Sunday of strife and bloodshed by offering his intercessions at the altar for the unhappy people, and then offering his own life. 'The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep,' were his words, as he went forth to stand between the hostile parties, and endeavour to check their fury against one another. She herself had seen him, followed by a few priests, and preceded by a brave and faithful ouvrier, who insisted on carrying before him a green branch, as an emblem of his peaceful mission. She described how, at the sight of his violet robes, and the white cross on his breast, the brave boy gardes mobiles came crowding round him, all black with powder, begging for his blessing, some reminding him that he had confirmed them, while others cried, 'Your blessing on our muskets, and we shall be invincible,' while some of the women asked him to carry the bandages and lint which they wished to send to the wounded.

On he went, comforting the wounded, absolving the dying, and exhorting the living, and at more than one scene of conflict the combatants paused, and yielded to his persuasions; but at the barricade at the Faubourg St. Antoine, while he was signing to the mob to give him a moment to speak, a ball struck him, and followed by the weeping and horror-struck insurgents, he was borne into the curate's house, severely wounded, while the populace laid down their weapons, to sign a declaration that they knew not who had fired the fatal shot.

'No, no, it was none of our people!' repeated the little nun. 'Not one of them, poor lost creatures as too many are, would have committed the act--so sacrilegious, so ungrateful! Ah! you must not believe them wicked. It is misery that drove them to rise. Hold! I met a young man--alas! I knew him well when he was a child--I said to him, 'Ah! my son, you are on the bad train.' 'Bread, mother--it is bread we must have,' he answered. 'Why, would you speak to one who has not eaten for twenty-four hours?' I told him he knew the way to our kitchen. 'No, mother,' he said, 'I shall not eat; I shall get myself killed.''

Many a lamentable detail of this description did she narrate, as she busied herself with the wound; and Louis listened, as he had listened to nothing else that day, and nearly emptied his travelling purse for the sufferers. Isabel and Virginia waylaid her on the stairs to admire and ask questions, but she firmly, though politely, put them aside, unable to waste any time away from her children--her poor wounded!

On Monday forenoon tranquillity was restored, the rabble had been crushed, and the organized force was triumphant. Still the state of siege continued, and no one was allowed free egress or ingress, but the Captain p.r.o.nounced this all nonsense, and resolutely set out for a walk, taking the pa.s.sports with him, and promising Lady Conway to arrange for her departure.

By-and-by he came in, subdued and affected by the procession which he had encountered--the dying Archbishop borne home to his palace on a litter, carried by workmen and soldiers, while the troops, who lined the streets, paid him their military salutes, and the people crowded to their doors and windows--one voice of weeping and mourning running along Paris--as the good prelate lay before their eyes, pale, suffering, peaceful, and ever and anon lifting his feeble hand for a last blessing to the flock for whom he had devoted himself.

The Captain was so much impressed that, as he said, he could not get over it, and stayed for some time talking over the scene with the young ladies, before starting up, as if wondering at his own emotion, he declared that he must go and see what they would do next.

Presently afterwards, Fitzjocelyn came down stairs. His aunt was judiciously lying down in her own apartment to recruit her nerves after her agitation, and had called Virginia to read to her, and Isabel was writing her journal, alone, in the sitting-room. Lady Conway would have been gratified at her eager reception of him, but, as he seemed very languid, and indisposed for conversation, she continued her occupation, while he rested in an arm-chair.

Presently he said, 'Is it possible that you could have left that bracelet at Miss Longman's?'

'Pray do not think about it,' exclaimed Isabel; 'I am ashamed of my childishness! Perhaps, but for that delay, you would not have been hurt,' and her eyes filled with tears, as her fingers encircled the place where the bracelet should have been.

'Perhaps, but for that delay, we might both have been shot,' said Louis. 'No, indeed; I could not wonder at your prizing it so much.'

'I little thought that would be the end of it,' said Isabel. 'I am glad you know its history, so that I may have some excuse;' and she tried to smile, but she blushed deeply as she dried her eyes.

'Excuse? more than excuse!' said Louis, remembering his fears that it would be thrown away upon her. 'I know--'

'He has told you!' cried Isabel, starting with bashful eagerness.

'He has told me what I understand now,' said Louis, coming near in a glow of grateful delight. 'Oh, I am so glad you appreciate him. Thank you.'

'You are inferring too much,' said Isabel, turning away in confusion.

'Don't you mean it!' exclaimed Louis. 'I thought--'

'We must not mistake each other,' said Isabel, recovering her self-possession. 'Nothing amounting to what you mean ever pa.s.sed, except a few words the last evening, and I may have dwelt on them more than I ought,' faltered she, with averted head.

'Not more than he has done, I feel certain,' said Louis; 'I see it all!

Dear old Jem! There's no such fellow in existence.' But here perceiving that he was going too far, he added, almost timidly, 'I beg your pardon.'

'You have no occasion,' she said, smiling in the midst of her blushes.

'I feared I had said what I ought not. I little expected such kind sympathy.'

She hastily left him, and Lady Conway soon after found him so full of bright, half-veiled satisfaction, that she held herself in readiness for a confession from one or both every minute, and, now that the panic was over, gave great credit to the Red Republicans for having served her so effectually, and forgave the young people for having been so provoking in their coolness in the time of danger, since it proved how well they were suited to each other. She greatly enjoyed the universally-implied conviction with regard to the handsome young pair.

Nor did they struggle against it; neither of them made any secret of their admiration for the conduct of the other, and the scrupulous appellations of Miss Conway and Lord Fitzjocelyn were discarded for more cousinly t.i.tles.

The young hero fell somewhat in his aunt's favour when he was missing at the traveller's early breakfast, although Delaford reported him much better and gone out. 'What if he should be late for the train?--what if he should be taken up by the police?' Virginia scolded her sister for not being equally restless, and had almost hunted the Captain into going in search of him; when at last, ten minutes before the moment of departure, in he came, white, lame, and breathless, but his eyes dancing with glee, and his lips archly grave, as he dropped something into Isabel's lap.

'Her bracelet!' exclaimed Virginia, as Isabel looked up with swimming eyes, unable to speak. 'Where did you find it?'

'In the carriage, in the heart of the barricade at the Porte St. Denis.'

'It is too much!' cried Isabel, recovering her utterance, and rising with her hands locked together in her emotion. 'You make me repent my having lamented for it!'

'I had an old respect for Clara's clasp.'

'I never saw a prettier attention,' said his aunt.

'It is only a pity that you cannot fasten it on for her.'

'That could only be done by the right hand,' muttered Louia, under his breath, enjoying her blush.

'You have not told us how you got it!' said Virginia.

'It struck me that there was a chance, and I had promised to lose none.

I found the soldiers in the act of pulling down the barricade. What an astonis.h.i.+ng construction it is! I spoke to the officer, who was very civil, and caused me to depose that I had hired the carriage, and belonged to the young lady. I believe my sling had a great effect; for they set up a shout of acclamation when the bracelet appeared, lying on the cus.h.i.+on as quietly as if it were in its own drawer.'

'The value will be greater than ever _now_, Isabel,' said Lady Conway.

'You will never lose it again!'

Isabel did not gainsay her.