“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. Who is Marie 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.”
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