In the Reign of Terror: The Adventures of a Westminster Boy

"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 keeps 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.