"Yes," replied the baron, gravely. And then they continued their meal in silence by the light of the flickering candle.
"Have you any one looking for him?" asked mademoiselle, as she rose from the table and began to clear it.
"I have sent two of my men to do so," replied the baron, who was by nature no more expansive than his old governess. And for some days there was no mention of de Va.s.selot between them.
Mademoiselle found plenty of work to do besides the menial labours of which she had relieved the man who deemed himself fit for nothing more complicated than washing dishes and providing funds. She wrote letters for the wounded, and also for the dead. She had a way of looking at those who groaned unnecessarily and out of idle self-pity, which was conducive to silence, and therefore to the comfort of others. She smoothed no pillows and proffered no soft words of sympathy. But it was she who found out that the cure had a piano. She it was who took two hospital attendants to the priest"s humble house and brought the instrument away.
She had it placed inside the altar rails, and fought the cure afterwards in the vestry as to the heinousness of the proceeding.
"You will not play secular airs?" pleaded the old man.
"All that there is of the most secular," replied she, inexorably. "And the recording angels will, no doubt, enter it to my account--and not yours, monsieur le cure".
So Mademoiselle Brun played to the wounded all through the long afternoons until her fingers grew stiff. And the doctors said that she saved more than one fretting life. She was not a great musician, but she had a soothing, old-fashioned touch. She only played such ancient airs as she could remember. And the more she played the more she remembered. It seemed to come back to her--each day a little more. Which was odd, for the music was, as she had promised the cure, secular enough, and could not, therefore, have been inspired by her sacred surroundings within the altar rails. Though, after all, it may have been that those who recorded this sacrilege against Mademoiselle Brun, not only made a cross-entry on the credit side, but helped her memory to recall that forgotten music.
Thus the days slipped by, and little news filtered through to the quiet Ardennes village. The tide of war had rolled on. The Germans, it was said, were already halfway to Paris. And from Paris itself the tidings were well-nigh incredible. One thing alone was certain; the Bonaparte dynasty was at an end and the mighty schemes of an ambitious woman had crumbled like ashes within her hands. All the plotting of the Regency had fallen to pieces with the fall of the greatest schemer of them all, whom the Paris government fatuously attempted to hookwink. Napoleon the Third was indeed a clever man, since his own wife never knew how clever he was.
So France was now a howling Republic--a Republic being a community wherein every man is not only equal to, but better than his neighbour, and may therefore shout his loudest.
No great battles followed Sedan. France had but one army left, and that was shut up in Metz, under the command of another of the Paris plotters who was a bad general and not even a good conspirator.
Poor France had again fallen into bad hands. It seemed the end of all things. And yet for Mademoiselle Brun, who loved France as well as any, all these troubles were one day dispersed by a single note of a man"s voice. She was at the piano, it being afternoon, and was so used to the shuffling of the bearer"s feet that she no longer turned to look when one was carried in and another, a dead one perhaps, was carried out.
She heard a laugh, however, that made her music suddenly mute. It was Lory de Va.s.selot who was laughing, as they carried him into the little church. He was explaining to the baron that he had heard of his hospital, and had caused himself to be carried thither as soon as he could be moved from the cottage, where he had been cared for by some peasants.
The laugh was silenced, however, at the sight of Mademoiselle Brun.
"You here, mademoiselle?" he said. "Alone, I hope," he added, wincing as the bearers set him down.
"Yes, I am alone. Denise is safe at Frejus with Jane de Melide."
"Ah!"
"And your wounds?" said Mademoiselle Brun.
"A sabre-cut on the right shoulder, a bullet through the left leg--voila tout. I was in Sedan, and we tried to get out. That is all I know, mademoiselle."
Mademoiselle stood over him with her hands crossed at her waist, looking down at him with compressed lips.
"Not dangerous?" she inquired, glancing at his bandages, which indeed were numerous enough.
"I shall be in the saddle again in three weeks, they tell me. If the war only lasts--" He gave an odd, eager laugh. "If the war only lasts--"
Then he suddenly turned white and lost consciousness.
CHAPTER XX.
WOUNDED.
"Le temps fortifle ce qu"il n"ebranle pas."
That night mademoiselle wrote to Denise at Frejus, breaking at last her long silence. That she gave the barest facts, may be safely concluded.
Neither did she volunteer a thought or a conclusion. She was as discreet as she was secretive. There are some secrets which are infinitely safer in a woman"s custody than in a man"s. You may tell a man in confidence the amount of your income, and it will go no further; but in affairs of the heart, and not of the pocket, a woman is safer. Indeed, you may tell a woman your heart"s secret, provided she keeps it where she keeps her own. And Mademoiselle Brun had only one thought night and day: the happiness of Denise. That, and a single memory--the secret, perhaps, which was such a standing joke at the school in the Rue du Cherche-Midi--made up the whole life of this obscure woman.
Two days later she gave Lory Susini"s message; and de Va.s.selot sent for the surgeon.
"I am going," he said. "Patch me up for a journey."
The surgeon had dealt so freely with life and death that he only shrugged his shoulders.
"You cannot go alone," he said--"a man with one arm and one leg."
Mademoiselle looked from one to the other. She was willing enough that Lory should undertake this journey, for he must needs pa.s.s through Provence to get to Corsica. She did not attempt to lead events, but was content to follow and steer them from time to time.
"I am going to the south of France," she said. "The baron needs me no longer since the hospital is to be moved to Paris. I can conduct Monsieur de Va.s.selot--a part of the way, at all events."
And the rest arranged itself. Five days later Lory de Va.s.selot was lifted from the railway carriage to the Baroness de Melide"s victoria at Frejus station.
"Madame"s son is, no doubt, from Sedan?" said the courteous station-master, who personally attended to the wounded man.
"He is from Sedan--but he is not my son. I never had one," replied mademoiselle with composure.
She was tired, for she had hardly slept since Lory came under her care.
She sat open-eyed, with that knowledge which is given to so few--the knowledge of the gradual completion of a set purpose.
They had travelled all night, and it was not yet midday when mademoiselle first saw, and pointed out to Lory, the white turret of the chateau among the pines.
The baroness was on the steps to greet them. Like many persons of a gay exterior, she had a kind heart and a quick sympathy. She often did, and said, the right thing, when cleverer people found themselves at fault.
She laughed when she saw Lory lying full length across her smart carriage--laughed, despite his white cheeks and the grey weariness of mademoiselle"s face. She seemed part of the sunshine and the brisk resinous air.
"Ah, my cousin," she cried, "it does the eyes good to see you! I should like to carry you up these steps."
"In three weeks," answered de Va.s.selot, "I will carry you down."
"His room is on the ground floor," said the baroness to mademoiselle, in an aside. "You are tired, my dear--I see it. Your room is the same as before; you must lie down this afternoon. I will take care of Lory, and Denise will--but, where is Denise? I thought she was behind me."
She paused to guide the men who were carrying de Va.s.selot through the broad doorway.
"Denise!" she cried without looking round, "Denise! where are you?"
Then turning, she saw Denise coming slowly down the stairs. Her face was whiter than Mademoiselle Brun"s. Her eyes, clear and clever, were fixed on Lory"s face as if seeking something there. There was an odd silence for a moment--such as the superst.i.tious say, is caused by the pa.s.sage of an angel among human beings--even the men carrying Lory seemed to tread softly. It was he who broke the spell.
"Ah, mademoiselle!" he said gaily, "the fortune of war, you see!"
"But it might have been so much worse," said the baroness in a whisper to Mademoiselle Brun. "Bon Dieu, it might have been so much worse!"