CHAPTER IX.

THE DEATH-BLOW.

I had been hugging this dear delicious secret to my breast for the last three days; going apart at intervals to gaze upon it and assure myself that it was mine; and quite unable to believe in so much joy after the hopeless desolation of the last few months when that happened, which any one with discernment must have foreseen long ago, _petite_ Ange succumbed to the illness which had been hanging over her for weeks past.

It was one morning when she had left the room as usual, _en route_ to her convent, and Mr. Lovett had set off on a round of what he called his parochial duties, that Tessie and I were startled by the sound of a loud clamour and confusion arising from the courtyard.

‘Good gracious!’ I exclaimed, as it struck my ears; ‘what on earth is that?’

Tessie, who had turned as white as a sheet, would have detained me in the little _salle_, but I broke from her grasp, and rushing into the kitchen, looked through the open window. There I saw assembled in the court a group of about a dozen men and women, amongst whom I immediately distinguished the figures of Madame Marmoret, the Mère Fromard, and Jean Marat, who were all surrounding my reverend guardian and preventing his egress from his own domains. They had evidently waited to waylay him on his leaving the house, and were screeching or howling, according to their various sexes, as they made their fierce demands upon him for justice.

Mutiny was strongly marked on every countenance, and they pressed upon the old man as though they would lay violent hands upon him. Of course I guessed the reason of the uproar. It was the old story; they wanted their money, and he had none to give them! I glanced from the crowd towards my guardian, and for the first time I pitied him. He looked so pale and crestfallen as he leaned against the courtyard wall, fending off his creditors with the stick on which he supported himself. It was a sickening and humiliating spectacle, and I thanked Heaven in that moment that no blood of his ran in my veins.

‘Where are the twelve francs you owe me, monsieur?’ shouted Marat the cobbler. ‘I tell you I must have them. My wife is ill in bed, and requires broth and white bread to get up her strength again. Do you think I am going to let her want for lack of that which is my own? Hand them out, I say, for I will have them.’

‘Bah!’ cried the scornful voice of Mère Fromard. ‘What is thy wife’s illness to him? Didn’t he steal my poor Guillaume’s money, and the little _dot_ I brought him on our marriage day? Five hundred and fifty francs, messieurs—every _sou_ owed us by that black-hearted old villain! and he let my husband die for want of bread and meat. I wish I could tear him in pieces, and would be too good an end for him. _Sacré!_’

‘And much good you’d get out of his carcase, Mère Fromard!’ interposed Madame Marmoret; ‘better wait, I tell you, till it’s all over, and then the law must give us our rights!’

‘Madame! Madame!’ said her master, in a mildly reproachful voice, ‘is it you that can say no better of me than that! You, who have lived under my roof and eaten my bread for more than twenty years!’

‘Lived under your roof—pig! Aye! that I have, and done you good service for it too! Haven’t I baked and boiled and mended and cleaned for you and yours for twenty-two years last Candlemass! And what wages have I received in return? None! Not a _sou_—not a _centime_! I have gone on and on, because I knew if I left you I should get nothing, and you have promised and promised till I’m sick of the sound of your voice or the sight of your face. I should have summoned you before the _préfet_ and had my rights years ago if it hadn’t been for _la petite_ Ange, and you know it—_vaurien_ as you are—and have held the child as a threat over my head in consequence.’

‘Down with him!’ shouted half a dozen voices; ‘down with the man who uses his own child as an instrument wherewith to scourge the poor, whom she is so good to! Don’t show him any pity! He has never shown any for our wives or children!’

They pressed so closely upon him, and their faces were so distorted by passion, that I became horribly alarmed for his safety. Had Mr. Charteris been in the house, I should have summoned him at once to my assistance, but he had gone out shooting with Armand, and was miles and miles away. Mr. Lovett’s face was as pale and set as marble, but he continued in the same position and evinced no outward signs of fear.

‘Cannot you speak a little lower, my friends?’ he expostulated, in a firm voice. ‘I suppose you do not wish the whole town to hear your complaints?’

‘What do we care who hears us?’ replied the man in the blouse and the peaked cap, whose name was Dubois; ‘all St. Pucelle knows you to be a robber! The wider the truth is spread the better!’

‘I know I owe you all some money,’ said Mr. Lovett, ‘and when I can pay you, I will. At present it is impossible, and you will get no good by keeping me a prisoner in my own yard. You had much better disperse quietly, and leave me in peace to see what arrangements I can make to satisfy you.’

‘Aye—aye!’ responded Dubois, ‘leave you to go out and order in more champagne and burgundy, and truffled turkeys and smoked hams, for your own table, whilst we go home to feast on rye-bread and water. That’s what you’ve been doing for the last twenty years. Eating your head off on honest people’s credit, and giving them buttered words instead of cash. But you’ve come to the end of your tether at last.’

‘_Ahi! Ahi! Ahi!_’ yelled the rest, as they brandished their bare arms and made grimaces at him.

‘Truffled turkeys and champagne!’ screamed the Mère Fromard; ‘I’ll give him a truffled turkey to remember me by!’ and, seizing a huge wooden _sabot_ from her foot, she prepared to hurl it at his head.

In a moment I had dashed through the kitchen-door, and was standing in front of the old man. My sudden and unexpected appearance created somewhat of a diversion.

‘How dare you attempt violence!’ I cried excitedly; ‘put down that _sabot_, Mère Fromard, or I will send at once for the _gendarme_. You are fools, every one of you, to risk a prison for the sake of indulging your venomous tongues.’

‘Mamselle does not understand,’ commenced the cobbler, with a view to explanation.

‘I understand everything, Jean Marat, and I see that you are a set of cowardly ruffians instead of respectable tradespeople as I took you to be. Twelve to one! That is a brave proceeding, isn’t it? Why, if you hadn’t watched Monsieur Charteris out of the house, you wouldn’t have dared to enter the yard.’

‘We want our money, mamselle,’ squeaked a woman’s voice.

‘Well, you shan’t have it! not until you have apologised to Monsieur le Curé for the indignities you have put upon him, and gone quietly away to your own homes. If you will do that, I promise you your bills shall be paid.’

‘Aye! but have you any right to promise?’ grumbled one of the men.

‘I have money of my own, and I will pay them myself. Will that satisfy you?’

‘You may trust the word of mamselle,’ said Madame Fromard, addressing the crowd. ‘I know a true face when I see it, and she has been very good to me since Guillaume died.’

‘And nicely you have requited my kindness, Madame Fromard,’ I retorted. ‘You, who call yourself a Christian, to attempt to injure an old man like this, and a minister of religion. Are you not afraid of bringing down the anger of Heaven upon your family? What would Monsieur l’Abbé say to such a disgraceful proceeding?’

‘Monsieur l’Abbé owes no man anything,’ grumbled the woman.

‘And because he is good, is that any reason you should be bad? I’m ashamed of the whole lot of you. Come now! clear out of this courtyard at once. If there is a single man or woman left here in two minutes’ time, I shall send for the _gendarme_ to restore order. And you, Marmoret, go back to your kitchen and remain there!’

I suppose my determined voice and manner had some effect in making them obey me, for they certainly disappeared with marvellous alacrity. But I was terribly frightened the while, and when the last one had filed out of the yard, I was trembling all over from excitement.

‘Mr. Lovett,’ I said quickly, as I turned to my guardian; ‘pray come back into the house. I am sure you must want a glass of wine after such an unpleasant scene.’

The old man looked just the same as he had done before: very pale and fixed, but unmoved; and I could not help admiring his British determination not to show the white feather. Yet, when he answered me, I saw that his lip trembled, and I could hardly understand what he said.

‘Thank you, my dear Hilda,’ were his first words; and then I think he added, in a lower tone, ‘I have not deserved this at your hands.’

We passed through the kitchen arm-in-arm, and I threw a defiant glance at Madame Marmoret, in exchange for the scowl with which she honoured me, and led my guardian to the little _salle_, where Tessie, who had nearly frightened herself into a fit, was waiting to receive us.

‘Oh, papa! dear papa!’ she exclaimed, as she flung herself into her father’s arms and burst into tears. ‘What _shall_ we do? Are those horrid people gone? Is there nothing we can say to keep them quiet?’

But Mr. Lovett had quite recovered himself by this time, and was ready to rebuke his daughter for her folly in making a mountain out of a mole-hill.

‘Calm yourself, my dear Tessie,’ he said, as he patted her on the back; ‘there is nothing to be so agitated about. These poor souls are certainly very ignorant of etiquette, and we must make allowances for them, although they must be taught that they cannot take the law in their own hands. They appear to have a little misunderstanding amongst them, and to fancy I do not intend to pay them their money. I must set this straight at once, and for that purpose I think it will be better if I go to Rille for a few days and consult my man of business, Monsieur Richet. Let me see, to-day is Tuesday, and I shall be back, at the latest, on Friday. Will you put a couple of shirts into my small black bag, my dear, and anything else you may think necessary, whilst our dear Hilda pours me out a glass of burgundy, for I really require something after all that talking.’

I had not been his ‘dear Hilda’ for many a long day, but I was in no frame of mind to resent the liberty then. My reverend guardian’s coolness took me completely aback. Did he think that Tessie and I were to be gulled by his proposals to see his man of business, or had he talked in that pompous manner so long that he had outgrown the perception of its absurdity? At any rate, however, I was thankful he was going to Rille. To get him out of the way for the present was the chief thing, and whilst there, we might come to some conclusion as to the best way to patch up his affairs, which were so evident a scandal in the parish.

‘Let us walk with your father to the diligence, Tessie,’ I suggested, as she reappeared with his travelling-bag, for I felt quite afraid lest something might happen in the middle of the town if he were allowed to go by himself.

Every one was agreeable to this arrangement, so we accompanied him as far as the Hôtel d’Etoile, and saw him safely seated in the coach and started on the road to Artois. And then we returned home again, I exhorting Tessie all the way to try and control her feelings, and keep her own counsel with respect to the morning’s alarm, lest some report of it should reach the ears of Ange.

When we arrived at the house we ran upstairs together to make the beds, a domestic duty which we had taken upon ourselves and should have accomplished directly after breakfast had it not been for the unfortunate interruption to which we had been subjected. The first room we entered was that occupied by Ange and Tessie. The first thing I saw on entering it was a black heap upon the floor.

‘Hullo!’ I exclaimed, thinking it was a fallen dress, and about to reprimand the Miss Lovetts for their untidiness; but the next moment my voice had changed to a shrill alarm. ‘Tessie, Tessie! look here—for God’s sake! _it is Ange!_’

We rushed up to the figure on the floor and knelt beside it. I raised the head and laid it gently back upon my arm. The girl was in a state of complete unconsciousness.

‘She has fainted!’ cried Tessie. ‘Oh, my poor darling, how ill she looks! And how did she come here? I thought she had gone to the convent.’

‘So did I! She certainly said good-bye to us as she left the _salle_. Can she have felt ill and returned whilst we were absent?’

‘But then Marmoret would have seen her, Hilda. The door of the corridor is locked; I have the key in my pocket.’

‘Well, we mustn’t stay to speculate how it happened. Put a pillow under her head, Tessie. We must lay her flat down on the ground and loosen her clothes. Oh! how I wish you had sent for Dr. Perrin when I asked you.’

‘How could I tell she was so ill?’ asked Tessie, weeping.

‘Any one could have told it! She has been ill and feverish for weeks past, and I am not sure if her mind or body are suffering the most. What a pity we didn’t find her before your father left the house. He might have sent Monsieur Perrin back from Rille at once.’

‘We must write and tell him by this afternoon’s post, Hilda. Oh! why doesn’t she open her eyes? What shall we do?’

‘Set the door and window wide open, and run down and fetch some spring water to sprinkle her face with. Don’t cry so, Tessie; it can do no good, and will distress her when she is coming to herself again.’

Tessie flew downstairs to do my bidding, and returned in company with Madame Marmoret, to whom she had confided her sister’s condition. To see that woman as she bent over the insensible form of her nursling, with all the rancour faded out of her black eyes, and her hard-lined, brown face twitching with emotion, one would never have believed she was the same creature who had urged on her master’s creditors to take their vengeance with the malignity of a she-devil.

‘_Eh! bah! ma petite Ange!_’ she exclaimed, in a tone of anguish, as she kissed the unconscious face. ‘What art thou dreaming of? It is not time to go to heaven yet, _bébé_, though thou art fitter for that than for such an earth as ours. What can have brought thee to such a state, _enfant chérie_? _Ay mi, ay mi!_’

‘It is my belief you have only yourself to thank for it, Madame,’ I said curtly, as I unceremoniously thrust her to one side.

‘Does mamselle wish to insult me?’ she demanded.

‘I wish to tell you the truth. I believe that Mademoiselle Ange never went to the convent at all this morning, but came up to her room instead, and then overheard the disgraceful tumult you permitted in the courtyard. You may fancy how that would affect her when she has been kept in ignorance even of her father’s debts.’

‘_Mon Dieu!_’ cried Madame, aghast. ‘You do not mean to tell me the child was _here_ the while?’

‘I feel sure she was. She could not have left the house and returned to it without our notice. We forgot all about her in our excitement, while she stood here and received a sword in her tender little heart. Poor Ange!’

‘Oh, my _bébé_, my _bébé_!’ said Madame, with the tears running down her cheeks; ‘it is not true—it cannot be true! For nineteen years have I borne it patiently for her sake, and would have bitten my tongue out sooner than have told her what I suffered. And now, through my own wickedness, in an evil moment, she has heard all!’

‘Hush!’ I exclaimed authoritatively. ‘She is coming to herself. Don’t make her worse by the sight of your agitation.’

As I spoke the words, Ange slowly unclosed her violet eyes—dimmed violets they looked now, as if a cloudy mist had spread over them—and turned them inquiringly upon me.

‘It is all right, darling,’ I said cheerfully, to reassure her. ‘You have been a stupid girl and fainted, but now that you have revived again, we will lift you on the bed, and let you lie still and rest’

We all three raised her as I concluded, and helped to lay her on her bed, but the only sign of consciousness she gave was the visible shudder with which she greeted Madame Marmoret’s touch.

The woman stooped down and kissed her hand, but I saw Ange draw it away—very feebly it is true, but sufficiently to mark her dislike of the action—and then I knew that I had guessed aright, and she had been witness to the indignities heaped upon her father.

‘Hilda,’ said Tessie to me that afternoon, in a frightened whisper, ‘we _must_ write for Dr. Perrin.’

I quite agreed with her; for though four hours had gone by since we had laid Ange upon her bed, she had not spoken a single word to either of us; and, except that her eyes were open, and she occasionally heaved a deep sigh, she appeared almost as unconscious as when we found her on the floor.

We had not left her for a moment since that time, but had been unable to persuade her either to speak or swallow nourishment; and I, for one, was becoming seriously alarmed.

‘We must not only send for the doctor, but your father must come home again, Tessie,’ I answered, ‘for I am afraid that Ange is going to be very ill. If you will write the letter at once, I will run down with it to the post before the afternoon diligence starts for Artois.’

‘What a pity Mr. Charteris is away to-day. He might have been so useful to us,’ sighed Tessie.

‘Oh! we can do very well without _him_,’ I responded impatiently.

I don’t know how it was, but at that moment I hated the thought of Cave Charteris in connection with our little Ange more than I had ever done before.

Some people might imagine that in an emergency Madame Marmoret, being our servant, might have taken a letter to the post for us; but such people could never know what Madame Marmoret was like.

She was far too fine and mighty to run menial errands, and this was certainly not the day on which I should have asked her to do so.

So, without taking any notice of her as she sat in the kitchen, dropping tears into the _potage_ she was preparing for our dinner, I ran through the house into the street, and made my way to the post-office with Tessie’s letter.

It was quite at the bottom of the town, and as I reascended the steep hill I came in collision with Mrs. Carolus, evidently bristling with some news of importance.

‘My dear Miss Marsh, how fortunate I am to meet you! I have just called at your house, but, hearing you were out, I refused to enter, though Sophy insisted upon going in to see Miss Lovett.’

‘I am afraid she will hardly find it worth her while, for Tessie could not stay to talk to her. We are in great distress at home to-day, Mrs. Carolus. Ange has been suddenly taken very ill, and I have just posted a letter for the doctor.’

‘Oh! indeed! I am most distressed to hear it. There seems nothing but misfortune in St. Pucelle to-day. Sophy has been nearly out of her mind all the morning, and, to tell truth, I was glad of any excuse to be rid of her company for a little while, for she quite drives me distracted by the way in which she goes on.’

‘Miss Markham has had no bad news, I hope.’

‘Well, my dear, it _ought_ not to have been bad news to her, for of what moment can the doings of a young man like Mr. Charteris be to a woman of the age of Sophy Markham? But you know how ridiculous she makes herself, and the absurd notions she gets into her head, and I suppose she was really persuaded that the man liked her and so forth, and now she says that he has blighted her whole life, and she can never be happy again.’

‘But _why_, Mrs. Carolus? You have not yet told me the reason.’

‘Oh! I suppose you have known it all along, as Mr. Charteris has been living with the Lovetts, but poor Sophy never heard till yesterday, when she was in Rille and met young Frederick Stephenson, that his cousin was a married man.’

‘Mr. Charteris _married_!’ I exclaimed. ‘Oh no! she must be mistaken. It is _impossible_. It cannot be the case.’

‘What! _You_ had not heard it either, then?’ inquired Mrs. Carolus, curiously. ‘This beats everything! But you may rely on the truth of my assertion. Young Mr. Stephenson told Sophy who his wife had been—a Miss Mary Ferrier, a great heiress, and they have a beautiful place called Parkhurst in Devonshire, and two children, and they’ve all had the scarlet fever, and that is the reason that Mr. Charteris was afraid to go home. Shabby of him, _I_ call it, to desert his family in an extremity like that; but men are all selfish, my dear. Yet why he should have considered it necessary to come amongst us as a bachelor, puzzles me altogether.’

‘_Married!_’ I repeated, as various recollections tending to confirm Mrs. Carolus’s statement floated in upon my mind, and then, a sudden fear seizing me, I exclaimed: ‘Oh! I hope Miss Markham has not gone into the Lovetts’ especially to tell them this!’

‘I can’t say, Miss Marsh, but she is very full of it, and you know what Sophy is over a piece of news. But where are you going?’

‘Home—home!’ I cried, as I commenced to run up the hill. ‘Don’t try to detain me. I must get home if I can, and prevent this story reaching Ange’s ears.’

I have no doubt I left Mrs. Carolus in a state of the utmost perplexity and bewilderment, but I had no time for explanation. All my desire was to reach Tessie’s side before she had communicated Miss Markham’s news to her sister. As I raced towards the house, I met Sophy tripping downwards, but I would not stop even to inquire how much mischief she had done. I gained the door, panting and breathless, and came upon Tessie in the _salle_, still more tearful and alarmed than she had been before.

‘Oh, Hilda! I am afraid that Ange is worse.’

‘How? why? Who has been here?’

‘Only Sophy Markham, and she didn’t stay a minute. And she told us the most wonderful news——’

‘Never mind the news! Where did you see her?’

‘She came up to Ange’s bedroom! I couldn’t leave her, you know.’

‘And she told her wonderful news by that child’s bedside, and Ange heard every word of it! Oh! Tessie—Tessie! you have killed your sister!’

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]