"Oh, thank you--thank you, madame!" exclaimed Lorraine. "Might I beg to kiss your hand?"
Clemence presented her hand to the parched lips of Lorraine.
Half an hour afterwards, Madame d"Harville, who had been painfully affected by Lorraine"s condition, accompanied by M. de Saint-Remy, took with her the young orphan, from whom she concealed her mother"s death.
The same day, Madame d"Harville"s man of business, after having obtained favourable particulars respecting Jeanne Duport"s character, hired for her some large and airy rooms, and the same evening she was conveyed to her new residence, where she found her children and a nurse. The same individual was instructed to claim and inter the body of Lorraine when she died. After having conveyed Mlle. de Fermont to her own house, Madame d"Harville started for Asnieres with M. de Saint-Remy, in order to go to Fleur-de-Marie, and take her to Rodolph.
CHAPTER V.
HOPE.
Spring was approaching, and already the sun darted a more genial warmth, the sky was blue and clear, while the balmy air seemed to bring life and breath upon its invigorating wings. Among the many sick and suffering who rejoiced in its cheering presence was Fleur-de-Marie, who, leaning on the arm of La Louve, ventured to take gentle exercise in the little garden belonging to Doctor Griffon"s house; the vivifying rays of the sun, added to the exertion of walking, tinged the pale, wasted countenance of La Goualeuse with a faint glow that spoke of returning convalescence. The dress she had worn when rescued from a watery grave had been destroyed in the haste with which the requisite attempts had been made for her resuscitation, and she now appeared in a loose wrapping dress of dark blue merino, fastened around her slender waist by worsted cord of the same colour as the robe.
"How cheering the sun shines!" said she to La Louve, as she stopped beneath a thick row of trees, planted beside a high gravelled walk facing the south, and on which was a stone bench. "Shall we sit down and rest ourselves here a few minutes?"
"Why do you ask me?" replied La Louve, almost angrily; then taking off her nice warm shawl, she folded it in four, and, kneeling down, placed it on the ground, which was somewhat moist from the extreme shelter afforded by the overhanging trees, saying, as she did so, "Here, put your feet on this."
"Oh, but La Louve!" said Fleur-de-Marie, perceiving too late the kind intention of her companion, "I cannot suffer you to spoil your beautiful shawl in that way."
"Don"t make a fuss about nothing; I tell you the ground is cold and moist. There, that will do." And, taking the tiny feet of Fleur-de-Marie, she forcibly placed them on her shawl.
"You spoil me terribly, La Louve."
"It is not for your good behaviour, if I do; always trying to oppose me in everything I try to do for your good. Are you not very much tired? We have been walking more than half an hour; I heard twelve o"clock just strike from Asnieres."
"I do feel rather weary, but still the walk has done me good."
"There now--you were tired, and yet could not tell me so!"
"Pray don"t scold me; I a.s.sure you I was not conscious of my weariness until I spoke. It is so delightful to be able to walk out in the air, after being confined by sickness to your bed, to see the trees, the green fields, and the beautiful country again, when you had given up all hope of ever enjoying that happiness, or of feeling the warm beams of the sun fill you with strength and hope!"
"Certainly, you were desperately ill, and for two days we despaired of your life. I don"t mind telling you, now the danger is over."
"Only imagine, La Louve, that, when I found myself in the water, I could not help thinking of a very bad, wicked woman, who used to torment me when I was young, and frighten me by threatening to throw me to the fishes that they might eat me, and, even after I had grown up, she wanted to drown me; and I kept thinking that it was my destiny to be devoured by fishes, and that it was no use to try and escape from it."
"Was that really your last idea when you believed yourself perishing?"
"Oh, no!" replied Fleur-de-Marie, with enthusiasm; "when I believed I was dying, my last thought was for him whom I so reverence, and to whom I owe so much, and, when I came to myself after you had saved me, my first thought was of him likewise."
"It is a pleasure to render you any service, you think so much of it."
"No, La Louve; the pleasure consists in falling asleep with our grateful recollection of kind acts, and remembering them upon waking!"
"Ah, you would induce people to go through fire and water to serve you!
I"m sure I would, for one."
"I can a.s.sure you that one of the causes which made me thankful for life was the hope of being able to advance your happiness. Do you recollect the castles in the air we used to build at St. Lazare?"
"Oh, as for that, there is time enough to think about that."
"How delighted I should be, if the doctor would only allow me to write a few lines to Madame Georges, I am sure she must be so very uneasy; and so must M. Rodolph, too," added Fleur-de-Marie, pensively sighing.
"Perhaps they think me dead."
"As those wretches do who were set on to murder you!"
"Then you still believe my falling into the water was not an accident?"
"Accident! Yes, one of the Martial family"s accidents;--mind, when I say that, you must bear in mind that my Martial is not at all like the rest of his relations, any more than Francois and Amandine."
"But what interest could they have had in my death?"
"I don"t care for that; the Martials are such a vile set that they would murder any one, provided they were well paid for it. A few words the mother let drop when my man went to see her in prison prove that."
"Has he really been to see that dreadful woman?"
"Yes; and he tells me there is no hope of pardon for herself, Calabash, or Nicholas. A great many things have been discovered against them; and all the judges and those kind of people say they want to make a public example of them, to frighten others from doing such things."
"How very shocking for nearly a whole family to perish in this way."
"And they certainly will, unless, indeed, Nicholas manages to make his escape; he is in the same prison with a monstrous ruffian whom they call the Skeleton, and this man is getting up a plot to escape with several of his companions. Nicholas sent to tell Martial of this, by a prisoner who was discharged from prison the other day, for I must tell you, my man had been weak enough to go and see his brother in La Force; so, encouraged by this visit, that hateful wretch Nicholas sent to tell my man that he might effect his escape at any minute, and that his brother was to send money and clothes to disguise himself in, ready for him, to Father Micou"s."
"Ah, your Martial is so kind-hearted, I"m sure he will do it!"
"A fig for such kind-heartedness! I call it downright foolery to help the very man who tried to take his life. No, no, Martial shall do no such thing; quite enough if he does not tell of the scheme for breaking out of prison, without furnishing clothes and money, indeed. Besides, now you are out of danger, myself, Martial, and the two children are about to start on our rambles over France in search of work, and, depend upon it, we never mean to set our feet in Paris again. Martial found it quite galling enough to be called the son of a man who was guillotined; how, then, could he endure being taunted with the disgraceful ends of all his family?"
"Well, but, at least, you will defer your departure till I have been enabled to see and speak with M. Rodolph; you have returned to virtue, and I promised you a reward if you would but forsake evil ways, and I wish to keep my word. You saved me from death, and, not satisfied with that, have nursed me with the tenderest care during my severe illness."
"Suppose I did; well, it would seem as though I had done the little good in my power for the sake of gain, were I to allow you to ask your friends for anything for me! No, no; I say again, I am more than repaid in seeing you safe and likely to do well."
"My kind Louve, make yourself perfectly easy; it shall not be said that you were influenced by interested motives, but that I was desirous of proving my grat.i.tude to you."
"Hark!" said La Louve, hastily rising, "I fancy I hear the sound of a carriage coming this way; yes--yes, there it is! Did you observe the lady who was in it?"
"Dear me!" exclaimed Fleur-de-Marie, "I fancy I recognised a young and beautiful lady I saw at St. Lazare."
"Then she knows you are here, does she?"
"I cannot tell you whether she does or no, but one thing is very certain, that she is acquainted with the person I have so often mentioned to you, who, if he pleases, and I hope that he will please, can realise all those schemes of happiness we used to build when in prison."
"What about getting a gamekeeper"s place for my man?" asked La Louve, with a sigh; "and a cottage in the middle of the woods for us all to live in? Oh, no! That is too much like what we read of in fairy tales, and quite impossible ever to happen to a poor creature like myself."
Quick steps were heard advancing rapidly from behind the trees, and in a minute Francois and Amandine (who, thanks to the kind consideration of the Count de Saint-Remy, had been permitted to remain with La Louve, during her attendance on La Goualeuse) presented themselves, quite out of breath, exclaiming:
"La Louve, here is a beautiful lady come along with M. de Saint-Remy to see Fleur-de-Marie, and they want to see her directly!"