Part 44 (2/2)

It did not seem to him possible. Vehicles could not be obtained at any price. The very request would seem suspicious, and suspicion at that hour was enough to condemn a man unheard. The difficulties in the way would be enormous. Indeed, it would matter nothing. Arnold and Minette.

They had fallen together and would lie together in one of the great common graves in which the dead would be buried. It would be little short of a mockery to have the burial service read over her, and had Arnold been consulted he would have preferred to lie beside her to being laid in a grave apart.

So after a pause of five minutes Cuthbert moved away without venturing a single look back at the group huddled down by the wall, but walked away feeling crushed and overwhelmed by the untimely fate that had befallen two persons of whom he had seen so much during the past year, and feeling as feeble as he did when he first arose from his bed in the American ambulance.

Several times he had to pause and lean against the wall, and when he had pa.s.sed the barricade at the Place de la Concorde, towards which he had almost instinctively made his way, he sat down on one of the deserted seats in the Champs Elysees, and burst into tears. It had hardly come upon him as a surprise, for he had felt that, conspicuous as he had made himself, the chances of Arnold making his escape were small indeed, especially as Minette would cling to the Commune until the very end. Still it never struck him as being possible that he himself might witness the end. He had thought that the same obscurity that hung over the fate of most of the other leaders of the Commune would envelop that of Arnold. He would have fallen, but how or when would never have been known. He would simply have disappeared. Rumor would have mentioned his name for a few days, the rumor that was already busy with the fate of other leaders of the insurrection, and he had never dreamt that it would be brought home to him in this fas.h.i.+on. After a time Cuthbert pulled himself together, waited until a fiacre came along for on this side of Paris things were gradually regaining their usual aspect and then drove back to Pa.s.sy.

”What is the matter, Cuthbert?” Mary exclaimed as she caught sight of his face. ”Are you ill? You look terribly pale and quite unlike yourself. What has happened?”

”I have had a shock, Mary,” he said, with a faint attempt at a smile, ”a very bad shock. Don't ask me about it just at present. Please get me some brandy. I have never fainted in my life, but I feel very near it just at present.”

Mary hurried away to Madame Michaud, who now always discreetly withdrew as soon as Cuthbert was announced, and returned with some cognac, a tumbler, and water. She poured him out a gla.s.s that seemed to herself to be almost alarmingly strong, but he drank it at a draught.

”Don't be alarmed, Mary,” he said, with a smile, at the consternation in her face. ”You won't often see me do this, and I can a.s.sure you that spirit-drinking is not an habitual vice with me, but I really wanted it then. They are still fighting fiercely from Porte St. Martin down to the Place de la Bastille. I believe all resistance has been crushed out on the south side of the river, and in a couple of days the whole thing will be over.”

”Fancy a week of fighting. It is awful to think of, Cuthbert. How many do you suppose will be killed altogether?”

”I have not the least idea, and I don't suppose it will ever be known; but if the resistance is as desperate for the next two days as it has been for the last three, I should say fully 20,000 will have fallen, besides those taken with arms in their hands, tried, and shot. I hear there are two general court-martials sitting permanently, and that seven or eight hundred prisoners are shot every day. Then there are some eighteen or twenty thousand at Versailles, but as these will not be tried until the fighting is over, and men's blood cooled down somewhat, no doubt much greater leniency will be shown.”

”There is a terrible cloud of smoke over Paris, still.”

”Yes, fresh fires are constantly breaking out. The Louvre is safe, and the firemen have checked the spread of the flames at the public buildings, but there are streets where every house is alight for a distance of a quarter of a mile; and yet, except at these spots, the damage is less than you would expect considering how fierce a battle has been raging. There are streets where scarce a bullet mark is to be seen on the walls or a broken pane of gla.s.s in a window, while at points where barricades have been defended, the scene of ruin is terrible.”

Two days later a strange stillness succeeded the din and uproar that had for a week gone on without cessation night and day. Paris was conquered, the Commune was stamped out, its chiefs dead or fugitives, its rank and file slaughtered, or prisoners awaiting trial. France breathed again. It had been saved from a danger infinitely more terrible than a German occupation. In a short time the hotels were opened and visitors began to pour into Paris to gaze at the work of destruction wrought by the orgie of the Commune. One day Cuthbert, who was now installed in his own lodging, went up to Pa.s.sy.

”I hear that the English Church is to be open to-morrow, Mary. I called on the clergyman to-day and told him that I should probably require his services next week.”

”Cuthbert!” Mary exclaimed in surprise, ”you cannot mean----” and a flush of color completed the sentence.

”Yes, that is just what I do mean, Mary. You have kept me waiting three years and I am not going to wait a day longer.”

”I have given up much of my belief in women's rights, Cuthbert, but there are some I still maintain, and one of these is that a woman has a right to be consulted in a matter of this kind.”

”Quite so, dear, and therefore I have left the matter open, and I will leave you to fix the day and you can choose any one you like from Monday to Sat.u.r.day next week.”

”But I must have time, Cuthbert,” she said, desperately. ”I have, of course, things to get.”

”The things that you have will do perfectly well, my dear. Besides, many of the shops are open and you can get anything you want. As for a dress for the occasion, if you choose to fix Sat.u.r.day you will have twelve days, which is twice as long as necessary. Putting aside my objection to waiting any longer I want to get away from here to some quiet place where we can forget the events of the past month, and get our nerves into working order again. If there is any reason that you can declare that you honestly believe to be true and valid of course I must give way, but if not let it be Sat.u.r.day week. That is right. I see that you have nothing to urge,” and a fortnight later they were settled in a chalet high up above the Lake of Lucerne.

Rene and Pierre acted as Cuthbert's witnesses at the marriage. Pierre had escaped before the fighting began. Rene had done service with the National Guard until the news came that the troops had entered Paris, then he had gone to M. Goude's who had hidden him and seven or eight of the other students in an attic. When the troops approached, they had taken refuge on the roof and had remained there until the tide of battle had swept past, and they then descended, and arraying themselves in their painting blouses had taken up their work at the studio; and when, three days later, the general search for Communists began, they were found working so diligently that none suspected that they had ever fired a shot in the ranks of the Communists.

When the salon was opened, long after its usual time, Cuthbert's pictures were well hung and obtained an amount of praise that more than satisfied him, although his wife insisted that they were not half as warm as the pictures deserved. It was not until they had been for some time in Switzerland that Mary had learned the details of the deaths of Arnold and Minette Dampierre. That both were dead she knew, for when she mentioned their names for the first time after the close of the fighting, Cuthbert told her that he had learned that both were dead, and begged her to ask no question concerning them until he himself returned to the subject.

Mary wrote to her mother a day or two after she was married giving her the news. An answer was received from Scarborough expressing great satisfaction, and saying that it was probable that the family would settle where they were. Neither Cuthbert nor his wife liked the thought of returning to England, and for the next five years remained abroad.

After spending a few months at Dresden, Munich, Rome, and Florence, they settled at Venice. Cuthbert continued to work hard, and each year two or three of his pictures hung on the walls of the Academy and attracted much attention, and were sold at excellent prices. All his earnings in this way and the entire income of Fairclose were put aside to pay off the mortgage, and when, at the end of the five years, Cuthbert, his wife, and two children returned to Fairclose, the greater portion of the mortgage had been paid off, and three years later it was entirely wiped out.

Although very warmly received by the county, Cuthbert retained his preference for London, and during the winter six months always moved up to a house in the artists' quarter at St. John's Wood. Although he no longer painted as if compelled to do so for a living, he worked regularly and steadily while in town, and being able to take his time in carrying out his conceptions, his pictures increased in value and he took a place in the front rank of artists, and some fifteen years after the siege of Paris was elected Academician. Before this he had sold Fairclose and built himself a house in Holland Park, where he was able to indulge his love for art to the fullest extent.

Of his wife's family he saw but little. Mary's sisters both married before he and his wife returned from abroad. Mary went down occasionally to Scarborough, and stayed with her father and mother, but Mr. Brander steadily refused all invitations to visit them in London, and until his death, fifteen years later, never left Scarborough, where he became a very popular man, although no persuasions could induce him to take a part in any of its inst.i.tutions or public affairs.

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