Books: The Reign Of Terror

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The Trois Freres was run on until within a hundred yards of the
shore, then a light anchor was dropped. The two boats had already
been lowered and were towed alongside, and the work of transferring
the cargo at once began.

"Do you go in the first boat, monsieur, with the ladies," the
captain said. "The sooner you are ashore the better. There is no
saying whether we may not be disturbed and obliged to run out to
sea again at a moment's notice."

"Thank God!" he exclaimed, as after wading through the shallow
water he stood on the shore, while two of the sailors carried the
girls and put them beside him. "Thank God, I have got you safe on
English soil at last. I began to despair at one time."

"Thank God indeed," Jeanne said reverently; "but I never quite
despaired, Harry. It seemed to me He had protected us through so
many dangers, that He must mean that we should go safely through
them all, and yet it did seem hopeless at one time."

"We had better stand on one side, girls, or rather we had better
push on up the cliff. These people are all too busy to notice us,
and you might get knocked down; besides, the coastguard might arrive
at any moment, and then there would be a fight. So let us get well
away from them."

But they had difficulty in making their way up the cliff, for the
path was filled with men carrying up tubs or coming down for more
after placing them in the carts, which were waiting to convey them
inland. At last they got to the top. One of the carts was already
laden, and was on the point of driving off when Harry asked the man
if he could tell him of any farmhouse near, where the two ladies
who had landed with him could pass the night.

"Master's place is two miles away," the man said; "but if you like
to walk as far, he will take you in, I doubt not."

The girls at once agreed to the proposal, and in three quarters of
an hour the cart drew up at a farmhouse.

"Is it all right, Bill?" a man asked, opening the door as the cart
stopped.

"Yes, it be all right. Not one of them revenue chaps nigh the place.
Here be the load of tubs; they was the first that came ashore."

"Who have you got here?" the farmer asked as Harry came forward
with the girls.

"These are two young ladies who have crossed in the lugger," Harry
replied. "They have narrowly escaped being murdered in France by
the Revolutionists, and have gone through a terrible time. As they
have nowhere to go to-night, I thought perhaps you would kindly
let them sit by your fire till morning."

"Surely I will," the farmer said. "Get ye in, get ye in. Mistress,
here are two young French ladies who have escaped from those
bloody-minded scoundrels in Paris. I needn't tell you to do what
you can for them."

The farmer's wife at once came forward and received the girls most
kindly. They had both picked up a little English during Harry's
residence at the chateau, and feeling they were in good hands, Harry
again went out and lent his assistance to the farmer in carrying
the tubs down to a place of concealment made under the flooring of
one of the barns.

The next day the farmer drove them in his gig to a town some miles
inland. Here they procured dresses in which they could travel without
exciting attention, and took their places in the coach which passed
through the town for London next day.

That evening Harry gently broke to the girls the news of their
brothers' death, for he thought that it would otherwise come as a
terrible shock to them on their arrival at his home. Virginie was
terribly upset, and Jeanne cried for some time, then she said:

"Your news does not surprise me, Harry. I have had a feeling all
along that you knew something, but were keeping it from me. You
spoke so very seldom of them, and when you did it seemed to me that
what you said was not spoken in your natural voice. I felt sure
that had you known nothing you would have often talked to us of
meeting them in London, and of the happiness it would be. I would
not ask, because I was sure you had a good reason for not telling
us; but I was quite sure that there was something."

"I thought it better to keep it from you, Jeanne, until the danger
was all over. In the first place you had need of all your courage
and strength; in the next place it was possible that you might never
reach England, and in that case you would never have suffered the
pain of knowing anything about it."

"How thoughtful you are, Harry!" Jeanne murmured. "Oh how much
we owe you! But oh how strange and lonely we seem - everyone gone
except Marie, and we may never see her again!"

"You will see her again, never fear," Harry said confidently. "And
you will not feel lonely long, for I can promise you that before
you have been long at my mother's place you will feel like one of
the family."

"Yes; but I shall not be one of the family," Jeanne said.

"Not yet, Jeanne. But mother will look upon you as her daughter
directly I tell her that you have promised to become so in reality
some day."

Harry's reception, when with the two girls he drove up in a hackney
coach to the house at Cheyne Walk, was overwhelming, and the two
French girls were at first almost bewildered by the rush of boys
and girls who tore down the steps and threw themselves upon Harry's
neck.

"You will stifle me between you all," Harry said, after he had
responded to the embraces. "Where are father and mother?"

"Father is out, and mother is in the garden. No, there she is" -
as Mrs. Sandwith, pale and agitated, appeared at the door, having
hurried in when one of the young ones had shouted out from a back
window: "Harry has come!"

"Oh, my boy, we had given you up," she sobbed as Harry rushed into
her arms.

"I am worth a great many dead men yet, mother. But now let me
introduce to you Mesdemoiselles Jeanne and Virginie de St. Caux,
of whom I have written to you so often. They are orphans, mother,
and I have promised them that you and father will fill the place
of their parents."

"That will we willingly," Mrs. Sandwith said, turning to the girls
and kissing them with motherly kindness. "Come in, my dears, and
welcome home for the sake of my dear boy, and for that of your
parents who were so kind to him. Never mind all these wild young
people," she added, as the boys and girls pressed round to shake
hands with the new-comers. "You will get accustomed to their way
presently. Do you speak in English?"

"Enough to understand," Jeanne said; "but not enough to speak much.
Thank you, madame, for receiving us so kindly, for we are all alone
in the world."

Mrs. Sandwith saw the girl's lip quiver, and putting aside her
longing to talk to her son, said:

"Harry, do take them all out in the garden for a short time. They
are all talking at once, and this is a perfect babel."

And thus having cleared the room she sat down to talk to the two
girls, and soon made them feel at home with her by her unaffected
kindness. Dr. Sandwith soon afterwards ran out to the excited
chattering group in the garden, and after a few minutes' happy talk
with him, Harry spoke to him of the visitors who were closeted with
his mother.

"I want you to make them feel it is their home, father. They will
be no burden pecuniarily, for there are money and jewels worth a
large sum over here."

"Of course I know that," Dr. Sandwith said, "seeing that, as you
know, they were consigned to me, and the marquis wrote to ask me
to act as his agent. The money is invested in stock, and the jewels
are in the hands of my bankers. I had begun to wonder what would
become of it all, for I was by no means sure that the whole family
had not perished, as well as yourself."

"There are only the three girls left," Harry said.

"In that case they will be well off, for the marquis inclosed me a
will, saying that if anything should happen to him, and the estates
should be altogether lost, the money and proceeds of the jewels
were to be divided equally among his children. You must have gone
through a great deal, old boy. You are scarcely nineteen, and you
look two or three and twenty."

"I shall soon look young again, father, now I have got my mind
clear of anxiety. But I have had a trying time of it, I can tell
you; but it's too long a story to go into now, I will tell you all
the whole yarn this evening. I want you to go in with me now to
the girls and make them at home. All this must be just as trying
for them at present as the dangers they have gone through."

The young ones were all forbidden to follow, and after an hour
spent with his parents and the girls in the dining-room, Harry
was pleased to see that the latter were beginning to feel at their
ease, and that the strangeness was wearing off.

That evening, before the whole circle of his family, Harry related
the adventures that they had gone through, subject, however, to a
great many interruptions from Jeanne.

"But I am telling the story, not you, Jeanne," he said at last.
"Some day when you begin to talk English quite well you shall give
your version of it."

"But he is not telling it right, madame," Jeanne protested, "he
keep all the best part back. He says about the dangers, but he says
noting about what he do himself" Then she broke into French, "No,
madame, it is not just, it is not right; I will not suffer the tale
to be told so. How can it be the true story when he says no word
of his courage, of his devotion, of the way he watched over us and
cheered us, no word of his grand heart, of the noble way he risked
his life for us, for our sister, for our parents, for all? Oh,
madame, I cannot tell you what we all owe to him;" and Jeanne, who
had risen to her feet in her earnestness, burst into passionate
tears. This put an end to the story for the evening, for Mrs.
Sandwith saw that Jeanne required rest and quiet, and took the two
girls up at once to the bed-room prepared for them.

From this Jeanne did not descend for some days. As long as the
strain was upon her she had borne herself bravely, but now that it
was over she collapsed completely.

After the young ones had all gone off to bed, Harry said to his
father and mother:

"I have another piece of news to tell you now. I am afraid you will
think it rather absurd at my age, without a profession or anything
else, but I am engaged to Jeanne. You see," he went on, as his
parents both uttered an exclamation of surprise, "we have gone
through a tremendous lot together, and when people have to look
death in the face every day it makes them older than they are; and
when, as in this case, they have to depend entirely on themselves,
it brings them very closely together. I think it might have been
so had these troubles never come on, for somehow we had taken very
much to each other, though it might have been years before anything
came of it. Her poor father and mother saw it before I knew
it myself, and upon the night before they were separated told her
elder sister and brother that, should I ever ask for Jeanne's hand,
they approved of her marrying me. But although afterwards I came
to love her with all my heart, I should never have spoken had it
not been that I did so when it seemed that in five minutes we should
neither of us be alive. If it hadn't been for that I should have
brought her home and waited till I was making my own way in life."

"I do not blame you, Harry, my boy," his father said heartily. "Of
course you are very young, and under ordinary circumstances would
not have been thinking about a wife for years to come yet; but I
can see that your Jeanne is a girl of no ordinary character, and it
is certainly for her happiness that, being here with her sister alone
among strangers, she should feel that she is at home. Personally she
is charming, and even in point of fortune you would be considered
a lucky fellow. What do you say, mother?"

"I say God bless them both!" Mrs. Sandwith said earnestly. "After
the way in which Providence has brought them together, there can
be no doubt that they were meant for each other."

"Do you know I half guessed there was something more than mere
gratitude in Jeanne's heart when she flamed out just now; did not
you, mother?"

Mrs. Sandwith nodded and smiled. "I was sure there was," she said.

"I did not say anything about it when we came in," Harry said,
"because I thought it better for Jeanne to have one quiet day, and
you know the young ones will laugh awfully at the idea of my being
engaged."

"Never you mind, Harry," his father said; "let those laugh that
win. But you are not thinking of getting married yet, I hope."

"No, no, father; you cannot think I would live on Jeanne's money."

"And you still intend to go into the army, Harry?"

"No, father; I have had enough of bloodshed for the rest of my life.
I have been thinking it over a good deal, and I have determined to
follow your example and become a doctor."

"That's right, my boy," Dr. Sandwith said heartily. "I have always
regretted you had a fancy for the army, for I used to look forward
to your becoming my right hand. Your brothers, too, do not take to
the profession, so I began to think I was going to be alone in my
old age. You have made me very happy, Harry, and your mother too,
I am sure. It will be delightful for us having you and your pretty
French wife settled by us; will it not, mother?"

"It will indeed," Mrs. Sandwith said in a tone of deep happiness.
"You are certainly overworked and need a partner terribly, and who
could be like Harry?"

"Yes, I have been thinking of taking a partner for some time, but
now I will hold on alone for another three years. By that time
Harry will have passed."

The next morning the young ones were told the news. The elder girls
were delighted at the thought of Jeanne becoming their sister, but
the boys went into fits of laughter and chaffed Harry so unmercifully
for the next day or two that it was just as well that Jeanne was
up in her room. By the time she came down they had recovered their
gravity. Mrs. Sandwith and the girls had already given her the
warmest welcome as Harry's future wife, and the boys received her
so warmly when she appeared that Jeanne soon felt that she was
indeed one of the family.

Three years later, on the day after Harry passed his final examination,
Jeanne and he were married, and set up a pretty establishment
close to Cheyne Walk, with Virginie to live with them; and Harry,
at first as his father's assistant, and very soon as his partner,
had the satisfaction of feeling that he was not wholly dependent
on Jeanne's fortune.

They had received occasional news from Marie. Victor had steadily
recovered his strength and memory, and as soon as the reign of terror
had come to an end, and the priests were able to show themselves
from their hiding-places in many an out-of-the-way village in the
country, Marie and Victor were quietly married. But France was at
war with all Europe now, and Victor, though he hated the revolution,
was a thorough Frenchman, and through some of his old friends who
had escaped the wave of destruction, he had obtained a commission,
and joined Bonaparte when he went to take the command of the army
of Italy. He had attracted his general's attention early in the
campaign by a deed of desperate valour, and was already in command
of a regiment, when, soon after Jeanne's marriage, Marie came over
to England by way of Holland to stay for a time with her sisters.
She was delighted at finding Jeanne so happy, and saw enough before she
returned to France to feel assured that before very long Virginie
would follow Jeanne's example, and would also become an Englishwoman,
for she and Harry's next brother Tom had evidently some sort of
understanding between them. It was not until many years later that
the three sisters met again, when, after the fall of Napoleon,
Jeanne and Virginie went over with their husbands and stayed for
some weeks with General De Gisons and his wife at the old chateau
near Dijon. This the general had purchased back from the persons
into whose hands it had fallen at the Revolution with the money
which he had received as his wife's dowry.

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