Part 15 (1/2)
It was necessary for them to remain, if possible, as it was in the city that Theresa's work lay. She went daily to one of the shops where fine starching and ironing was done, and, with the money she earned in this way, she had kept the little home comfortable for some time. Her mother was a cripple, and could only do a little needlework when she was able to procure it. Sometimes Theresa was enabled to bring her home some from the shop, but for the rest they were dependent upon the earnings of the girl. If they were to seek to fly the city they had nowhere to go, and would lose their only means of support. It seemed better to remain and risk the peril within the walls than fly they knew not where.
And now they were fast shut in, and had grown so well used to the booming of the guns or the sharp scream of the sh.e.l.l hurtling through the air, that they spoke and moved in the midst of the tumult as quietly as they had done before it began. Indeed, sometimes, when for a night, or for part of a day, the batteries became suddenly silent, the stillness would seem almost more awful than the roar that had gone before. It would cause them to awake from sleep with a start, or to stop suddenly in what they were saying or doing, and always the question arose in the heart, or to the lips:
”What is it that has happened? Has the city fallen?”
The tall house in which they lived was far more silent and empty now than it had been before the siege began. The authorities had encouraged all those who were able, to depart before escape should be impossible.
They foresaw that food was likely to become scarce, and the fewer useless mouths there were to fill the better for all. But those who had sons, or husbands, or brothers in the army were suffered to remain, as were all who could not leave without suffering heavily; and it was known to Theresa, from what she heard spoken about her, that should famine threaten, and the city be put upon rations, she and her mother would be ent.i.tled to receive a share, as being among those whose bread-winner was with the army.
But at first there seemed little fear of this, and Theresa's work went on as before. The tall house where they lived was not in range of any of the batteries, and though their hearts were often torn by fear for others, and by sorrow for their beautiful buildings being so sorely shattered and ruined, they themselves did not suffer, and they grew accustomed to the conditions which had seemed at first so strange and terrible.
But day after day pa.s.sed by, and the days lengthened into weeks, and still the hoped-for relief did not come; those within the beleaguered city only heard whispers from the world without, and knew not what was pa.s.sing there.
”If only our Pierre could get a letter to us!” the widow would say, again and again; ”then we should know how it was faring with him and with the army.”
Theresa going daily to her work heard all the flying rumours which reached the city; but she did not speak of them always to her mother, for she knew not how much or how little to believe, and she feared either to buoy her up by false hopes, or to crush her with needless fears.
Gay Paris is slow to believe in disaster, or to credit that the arms of France can meet with any severe reverse. Each generation is as full of hopeful confidence as the one that has gone before, as full of enthusiasm and patriotic fervour, as little disposed to believe in misfortune.
”The victorious army will march to our relief!” was the cry that was always finding expression. ”A little more patience--only a little more!--and these accursed foes will be flying before our brave _garcons_ of soldiers like chaff before the wind.”
And n.o.body believed this more implicitly than Theresa for a long, long time. The soldiers would come, and Pierre with them. They would see them marching in, in all the bravery of their gay trappings. Oh, what a day that would be! How the bells would ring, and the guns salute, and the people go mad with joy! She lived through the experience a hundred times a day as she stood at her ironing-table and worked at her piles of snowy linen. But the sullen boom of the guns was still the accompaniment of all her musings. And every week as it pa.s.sed brought home to her heart the conviction that things were not going well: that the lines of the enemy were being drawn ever closer and closer: that there could not be good news from the outer world, else surely it would be noised abroad with acclamation.
But soon a trouble was to fall upon her for which she was quite unprepared. Fires had become sadly common in the city. A glare in the sky was such an ordinary sight that it scarcely aroused any interest or speculation, save in the immediate neighbourhood where it occurred.
Soldiers and citizens were always on the alert to put it out wherever a conflagration occurred, and often the flames were speedily extinguished.
Nevertheless, the number of burnt and uninhabitable houses was becoming daily larger, and persons were removing their goods and furniture from those streets where the danger threatened into safer localities; so that the house where the Durocs lived had already been invaded by various newcomers, seeking an asylum from the storm of shot and sh.e.l.l.
Theresa, however, knew little or nothing of their new neighbours. She was busy with her work by day, and her mother did not get about easily enough to learn much of those who had arrived in this sudden fas.h.i.+on.
They were of the cla.s.s that, in the English phrase, preferred to ”keep themselves to themselves.”
One morning Theresa started forth to her work as usual, and, after taking the accustomed turnings, found herself in the familiar street.
But once there she stopped short and rubbed her eyes. For what did she see? The whole side of the street, where her workshop had stood, lay a ma.s.s of smoking ruins; and the people from the opposite houses were hurrying away, carrying their goods and chattels with them.
The terrible news was pa.s.sing from mouth to mouth. A new battery had been opened. A new portion of the city was in peril. People small and great were hastening away before another fusillade should shatter the remaining part of the quarter. Theresa stood gazing in great dismay at what she saw. Where was her occupation now? Where was her kindly employer whom she had served so long?
Even as she asked herself the question a woman from an adjacent house, well known to Theresa, came hurrying out, the tears raining down her face.
”Alas! alas! little one, she is dead--G.o.d rest her soul!--buried beneath the fall of the house in the dead of night! Ah, those accursed Germans!
What have they not to answer for? Our good neighbour Clisson!--so kindly, so merry, so ready to lend a helping hand. And thou, my poor child--what wilt thou do? Everything swept away in one night! And who knows whose turn may come next?”
Theresa was indeed dismayed for herself as well as for others. The terrible fate of her kind mistress cut her to the heart; but when that shock had pa.s.sed by, there came the other thought suggested by the kindly neighbour. What was to become of her and her mother, now their only means of support was taken from her?
”Thou wilt have to apply for rations as others do,” said her friend, with a look into the troubled face. ”Courage, little one! These black days cannot last for ever! We shall soon see those _canaille_ of Prussians flying helter-skelter before our brave _garcons_. The good G.o.d will hear our prayers and will send us succour. It will only be for a time, and then our beautiful city will be gayer and more beautiful than ever!”
But Theresa had heard words like these too often to put the old faith in them. Her heart was heavy as lead within her. She was revolving many plans by which she might still earn something and support her mother.
But the price of food was rising so fearfully that already she scarcely knew how to keep the wolf from the door; she knew, too, that her mother desired, if possible, not to be forced to send for the doled-out rations from the great Government building; and no one could more desire to be spared the task of fetching it daily than Theresa herself.
She had heard what that meant from others. The long, long, weary wait in the daily increasing crowd; the hustling and the jostling before one could get a place in the _queue_; the bitter cold often to be faced when the wind blew down upon the crowd; the peril, sometimes, of having the hardly earned food s.n.a.t.c.hed away in some back street by a hungry ragam.u.f.fin before ever it had reached its destination.