In the Reign of Terror Part 33

"Oh, so much happier, Harry! But there is one thing I want to tell you. It might seem strange to you that I should tell you I loved you on my own account without your speaking to the head of the family."

"But there was no time for that, Jeanne," Harry said smiling.

"No," Jeanne said simply. "I suppose it would have been the same anyhow; but I want to tell you, Harry, that in the first letter which she sent me when she was in prison, Marie told me, that as she might not see me again, she thought it right I should know that our father and mother had told her that night we left home that they thought I cared for you. You didn't think so, did you, Harry?"

she broke off with a vivid blush. "You did not think I cared for you before you cared for me?"

"No, indeed, Jeanne," he said earnestly. "It never entered my mind.

You see, dear, up to the beginning of that time I only felt as a boy, and in England lads of eighteen or nineteen seldom think about such things at all. It was only afterwards, when somehow the danger and the anxiety seemed to make a man of me, when I saw how brave and thoughtful and unselfish you were, that I knew I loved you, and felt that if you could some day love me, I should be the happiest fellow alive. Before that I thought of you as a dear little girl who inclined to make rather too much of me because of that dog business. And did you really care for me then?"

"I never thought of it in that way, Harry, any more than you did, but I know now that my mother was right, and that I loved you all along without knowing it. My dear father and mother told Marie that they thought I was fond of you, and that, if at any time you should get fond of me too and ask for my hand, they gave their approval beforehand, for they were sure that you would make me happy.

"So they told Marie and Ernest, who, if ill came to them, would be the heads of the family, that I had their consent to marry you. It makes me happy to know this, Harry."

"I am very glad, too, dear," Harry said earnestly.

"It is very satisfactory for you, and it is very pleasant to me to know that they were ready to trust you to me. Ah!" he said suddenly, "that was what was in the letter. I wondered a little at the time, for somehow after that, Jeanne, you were a little different with me. I thought at first I might somehow have offended you. But I did not think that long," he went on, as Jeanne uttered an indignant exclamation, "because if anything offended you, you always spoke out frankly. Still I wondered over it for some time, and certainly I was never near guessing the truth."

"I could not help being a little different," Jeanne said shyly. "I had never thought of it before, and though I am sure it made me happy, I could not feel quite the same with you, especially as I knew that you never thought of me like that."

"But you thought of me so afterwards, Jeanne?"

"Sometimes just for a moment, but I tried not to think of it, Harry. We were so strangely placed, and it made it easier for you to be a brother, and I felt sure you would not speak till we were safely in England, and I was in Ernest's care. But," she said with a little laugh, "you were nearly speaking that evening in the cottage when you felt so despairing."

"Very nearly, Jeanne; I did so want comfort."

And so they talked happily together for an hour.

"I wonder Pierre does not come down to his boat," Harry said at last. "There were several more things wanting doing to it. Why, there he is calling. Surely it can never be dinner-time; but that's what he says. It doesn't seem an hour since breakfast."

Jeanne hurried on into the hut.

"Why, Pierre," Harry said to the fisherman, who was waiting outside for him, "I thought you were going on with your boat."

"So I was, monsieur, but Henriette told me I should be in the way."

"In the way, Pierre!" Harry repeated in surprise.

"Ah, monsieur," Pierre said with a twinkle in his eye, "you have been deceiving us. My wife saw it in a moment when the young lady came to breakfast.

"'Brother!' she said to me when you went out; 'don't tell me!

Monsieur is the young lady's lover. Brother and sister don't look at each other like that. Why, one could see it with half an eye.'

"Your wife is right, Pierre; mademoiselle is my fiance. I am really an Englishman. She and her sister had their old nurse with them, till the latter died some three weeks since; but I have always been called their brother, because it made it easier for her."

"Quite right, monsieur; but my wife and I are glad to see that it is otherwise, and that, after all you have risked for that pretty creature, you are going to be happy together. My wife was not surprised. Women are sharper than men in these matters, and she said to me, when she heard what you were going to do to save them, 'I would wager, Pierre, that one of these mesdemoiselles is not monsieur's sister. Men will do a great deal for their sister, but I never heard of a man throwing away his life as he is going to do on the mere chance of saving one.'"

"I should have done just the same had it been one of my sisters,"

Harry said a little indignantly.

"Perhaps you would, monsieur, I do not say no," the fisherman said, shaking his head; "but brothers do not often do so."

A stop was put to the conversation by Henriette putting her head outside the door and demanding angrily what they were stopping talking there for when the fish was getting cold.

In the evening Adolphe and his wife came in.

"Ah, mademoiselle," the woman said as she embraced Jeanne with tears in her eyes, "how thankful I am to see you again! I never thought I should do so. My heart almost stopped beating yesterday when I heard the guns. I and my little one were on our knees praying to the good G.o.d for the dear lady who had saved her life. Adolphe had spoken hopefully, but it hardly seemed to me that it could be, and when he brought back the news that he had left you all safely here, I could hardly believe it was true."

"And I must thank you also, mademoiselle," Adolphe said, "for saving the life of my little one. I never expected to see her alive again, and when the lugger made fast to the wharf I was afraid to go home, and I hung about till Marthe had heard we were in and came down to me with Julie in her arms, looking almost herself again. Ah, mademoiselle, you cannot tell how glad I was when she told me that there was a way of paying some part of my debt to you."

"You have been able to pay more than your debt," Jeanne said gently; "if I saved one life you have helped to save three."

"No, we shall be only quits, mademoiselle, for what would Marthe's life and mine be worth if the child had died?

"There are fresh notices stuck up," he went on, "warning all masters of ships, fishermen, and others, against taking pa.s.sengers on board, and saying that the penalty of a.s.sisting the enemies of France to escape from justice is death."

"That is rather serious," Harry said.

"It is nothing," Adolphe replied confidently. "After yesterday's work there is not a sailor or fisherman in the port but would do all he could to help people to escape from the hands of the butchers, and once on board, it will help you. You may be sure the sailors will do their best to run away if they can, or to hide any on board, should they be overhauled, now they know that they will be guillotined if anyone is found. However, our captain has made the agreement, and he is a man of his word; besides, he hates the Reds.

I have been helping ship the casks to-day, and we have stowed them so as to leave s.p.a.ce into which your sisters can crawl and the entrance be stopped up with casks, if we should be overhauled. As for you, monsieur, you will pa.s.s anywhere as one of the crew, and we have arranged that one of the men shall at the last moment stay behind, so that the number will be right, and you will answer to his name. We have thought matters over, you see, and I can tell you that the captain does it more because he hates the Reds than for the money. The day before, he would give me no answer. He said he thought the risk was too great; but when I saw him last night he was a different man altogether. His face was as white as a sheet, and his eyes seemed on fire, and he said, 'I will take your friends, Adolphe. I would take them without a penny. I should never sleep again if, owing to me, they fell into the hands of these monsters.'

So you see he is in it heart and soul."

After half an hour's talk Adolphe and Marthe took their leave. Both refused the reward which Harry had promised, but Harry insisted, and at last Jeanne said:

"You can refuse for yourselves, but you will make me unhappy if you do not take it. Put it by for Julie; it will help swell her dot when she marries, and will set her husband up in a good fishing-boat if she takes to a sailor."

So it was arranged, and Adolphe and his wife went off invoking blessings on the heads of the fugitives. At daybreak the party took their places in the boat with the fishermen. Virginie was still weak, but was able to walk with Harry's help. Half an hour later a lugger was seen coming down with the wind and tide. She carried a small white flag flying on the mizzen.

"That is her," the fisherman said; "that is the signal."

He rowed out into the middle of the river. In a few minutes the lugger came dashing along, her course took her within a few feet of the boat, a rope was thrown, and in an instant the boat was tearing through the water alongside her. Half a dozen hands were stretched out, the girls and Harry sprang on board, the rope was cast off, and the fisherman, with a cheery "G.o.d speed you," put out his oars again and rowed to sh.o.r.e.

CHAPTER XV

England

"Go below, mesdemoiselles," the captain of the lugger said as soon as they had put foot on the deck. "If anyone on the sh.o.r.e were to see us as we ran down, and notice women on deck, he would think it strange. At anyrate it's best to be on the safe side."

So saying he led the way to his cabin below.

"It is a rough place, mesdemoiselles," he said, removing his cap, "but it is better than the prisons at Nantes. I am sorry to say that when we get down near the forts I shall have to ask you to hide down below the casks. I heard last night that in future every boat going out of the river, even if it is only a fishing-boat, is to be searched. But you needn't be afraid; we have constructed a hiding-place, where they will never find you unless they unloaded the whole lugger, and that there is no chance of their doing."

"We do not mind where we hide, captain," Jeanne said. "We have been hiding for the last six months, and we are indeed grateful to you for having consented to take us with you."

"I hope that you will not be the last that the Trois Freres will carry across," the captain said. "Whatever be the risk, in future I will take any fugitives who wish to escape to England. At first I was against the government, for I thought the people were taxed too heavily, and that if we did away with the n.o.bles things would be better for those who work for their living, but I never bargained for bloodshed and murder, and that affair I saw yesterday has sickened me altogether; and fond as I am of the Trois Freres, I would myself bore holes in her and sink her if I had Carrier and the whole of his murderous gang securely fastened below hatches.