A Girl of the Commune Part 10

Possibly I should have done so in any case. You see when a man is told by a young lady he is a useless idler, who does but c.u.mber the earth, it wakes him up a little."

"I am sure I didn't say that," Mary said, indignantly, but with a hot flush on her cheeks.

"Not in those precise words, but you spoke to that effect, and my conscience told me you were not far wrong in your opinion. I had begun to meditate whether I ought not to turn over a new leaf when I came in suddenly for Fairclose; that of course seemed to knock it all on the head. Then came what we may call the smash. This was so manifestly an interposition of Providence in the direction of my bestirring myself that I took the heroic resolution to work."

Mary felt that it was desirable to avoid continuing the subject. She had long since come to regard that interview in the garden as a sort of temporary aberration on his part, and that although, perhaps, sincere at the moment, he had very speedily come to laugh at his own folly, and had recognized that the idea was altogether ridiculous. Upon her it had made so little impression that it had scarcely occurred to her when they met, that any pa.s.sage of the sort had taken place, and had welcomed him as the lad she had known as a child, rather than as the man who had, under a pa.s.sing impulse, asked her to marry him.

"I think," she said suddenly, "I will fetch Madame Michaud in. It will be nice for you to come here in the evening sometimes, and it would be better for her to ask you to do so than for me. These French people have such funny ideas."

"It would certainly be more pleasant," he agreed, "and evening will be the time that I have most leisure--that is to say, when we do not happen to be on duty, as to which I am very vague at present. They say the sailors will garrison the forts and the army take the outpost duty; but I fancy, when the Germans really surround us, it will be necessary to keep so strong a force outside the walls, that they will have to call out some of us in addition. The arrangement at present is, we are to drill in the morning and we shall paint in the afternoon; so the evening will be the only time when we shall be free."

"What do you do in the evening generally? You must find it very lonely."

"Not at all. I have an American who is in our school, and who lodges in the same house as I do. Then there are the students, a light-hearted, merry set of young fellows. We have little supper-parties and go to each other's rooms to chatter and smoke. Then, occasionally, I drop into the theatre. It is very much like the life I had in London, only a good deal more lively and amusing, and with a great deal less luxury and a very much smaller expenditure; and--this is very serious I can a.s.sure you--very much worse tobacco."

The girl laughed merrily.

"What will you do about smoking when you are reduced to the extremity you prophesy?"

"That point is, I confess, troubling me seriously. I look forward with very much greater dread to the prospect of having to smoke dried leaves and the sweepings of tobacco warehouses, than I do to the eating of rats. I have been making inquiries of all sorts as to the state of the stock of tobacco, and I intend this evening to invest five pounds in laying in a store; and mean to take up a plank and hide it under the floor, and to maintain the most profound secrecy as to its existence.

There is no saying whether, as time goes on, it may not be declared an offence of the gravest character for any one to have a private store of any necessary. If you have any special weaknesses, such as chocolate or tea, or anything of that sort, I should advise you not to lose a moment in laying in a good stock. You will see in another week, when people begin to recognize generally what a siege means, that everything eatable will double in price, and in a month only millionaires will be able to purchase them."

"I really will buy some tea and chocolate," she said.

"Get in a good stock," he said. "Especially of chocolate. I am quite serious, I can a.s.sure you. Unfortunately, you have no place for keeping a sheep or two, or a bullock; and bread, at the end of a couple of months, could scarcely be eaten; but, really, I should advise you to invest in a dozen of those big square boxes of biscuits, and a ham or two may come in as a welcome addition some day."

Mary laughed incredulously, but she was much more inclined than before to look at matters seriously, when, on fetching Madame Michaud in, that lady, in the course of conversation, mentioned that her husband had that morning bought three sacks of flour and a hundred tins of preserved meats.

"He is going to get some boxes," she said, "and to have the flour emptied into them, then the baker will bring them round in a cart, so that no one will guess it is flour. He says it is likely that there will be an order issued that everything of that sort is to be given into a public store for general distribution, so it must be brought here quietly. He tells me that every one he knows is doing the same thing. My servant has been out this morning eight times and has been buying eggs.

She has brought a hundred each time, and we are putting them in a cask in salt."

"Do you really think all that is necessary, madame?" Mary asked, doubtfully.

"Most certainly I do. They say everything will go up to such prices as never were heard of before. Of course, in a month or two the country will come to our rescue and destroy the Prussians, but till then we have got to live. Already eggs are fetching four times as much as they did last week. It is frightful to think of it, is it not, monsieur?"

"If I were in your place, madame, I would not reckon too surely on relief in a month. I think that there is no doubt that, as you say, there will be a prohibition of anyone keeping provisions of any sort, and everything will be thrown into the public magazines. Likely enough every house will be searched, and you cannot hide your things too carefully."

"But why should they insist on everything being put in public magazines?" Mary asked. "It will not go further that way than if people keep their own stocks and eat them."

"It will be necessary, if for nothing else, to prevent rioting when the pinch comes, and people are starving in the poorer quarters. You may be sure if they have a suspicion that the middle and upper cla.s.ses have food concealed in their houses, they will break in and sack them. That would only be human nature, and therefore in the interest of order alone a decree forbidding anyone to have private stores would have to be pa.s.sed; besides it would make the food go much further, for you may be sure that everything will be doled out in the smallest quant.i.ties sufficient to keep life together, and before the end of the siege comes each person may only get two or three ounces of bread a day."

Madame Michaud nodded as if prepared to be reduced even to that extremity.

"You are right, monsieur, I am going to get stuff and to make a great number of small bags to hold the flour; then we shall hide it away under the boards in many places, so that if they find some they may not find it all."

"The idea is a good one, madame, but it has its disadvantages. If they find one parcel they will search so closely everywhere that they will find the rest. For that reason one good hiding-place, if you could invent one, would be better than many."

"One does not know what is best to do," Madame Michaud said, with a gesture of tragic despair. "Who could have thought that such a thing could happen to Paris!"

"It is unexpected, certainly," Cuthbert agreed, "but it has been foreseen, otherwise they would never have taken the trouble to build this circle of forts round Paris. They are useful now not only in protecting the city but in covering a wide area, where the cattle and sheep may feed under the protection of the guns. I don't think we are as likely to be as badly off for meat as for bread, for after the flocks and herds are all eaten up there are the horses, and of these there must be tens of thousands in Paris."

"That is a comfort, certainly," the Frenchwoman said, calmly, while Mary Brander made a little gesture of disgust.

"I have never tried horseflesh myself, at least that I know of, but they say it is not so bad; but I cannot think that they will have to kill the horses for food. The country will not wait until we are reduced to that extremity."

"Mr. Hartington has joined one of the regiments of volunteers, Madame Michaud."

"That is good of you, monsieur; my husband is in the National Guard, and they say every one will have to take up a musket; but as you are a foreigner, of course this would not apply to you."

"Well, for the time being I consider myself a Parisian, and as a German sh.e.l.l is just as likely to fall on the roof of the house where I live as on any other, I consider myself to be perfectly justified in doing my best in self-defence."

"I trust that you will call whenever you are disposed in the evening, monsieur," Madame Michaud said, cordially; "it will give my husband pleasure to meet an English gentleman who is voluntarily going to fight in the cause of France."

"Thank you, madame. I shall be very glad to do so. Mademoiselle's father is a very old friend of our family, and I have known her ever since she was a little child. It will be pleasant to me to make the acquaintance of monsieur. And now, Miss Brander, I must be going."

CHAPTER VII.

As he sauntered back into the city, Cuthbert met an English resident with whom he had some slight acquaintance.

"So you are not among the great army of deserters, Mr. Phipson?"

"No, I thought it better to stay here and see it out. If the Germans come in I shall hang out the English flag and I have no doubt that it will be all right. If I go away the chances are that I should find the place sacked when I return."

"Then, of course, you will keep your place open."

"It will be closed to the public to-morrow--to the public, mind you. My English customers and friends, if they come to the little door in the Arcade, and give two knocks, and then three little ones with their knuckles on the door, will find it open, and can be served as long as there is any liquor left; but for the last three days I have been clearing out nearly all my stock. The demand has been tremendous, and I was glad enough to get rid of it, for even if the place isn't looted by the mob all the liquors might be seized by the authorities and confiscated for public use. I shall be glad when the doors are closed, I can tell you, for these people are enough to make one sick. The way they talk and brag sets my fingers itching, and I want to ask them to step into the back room, take off their coats, those uniforms they are so proud of, and stand up for a friendly round or two just to try what they are made of.

"I reckon if a chap can't take one on the nose and come up smiling, he would not be worth much when he has to stand up against the Prussians. I thought I understood them pretty well after having been coachman here for over twenty years, but I see now that I was wrong altogether. Of course I knew they were beggars to talk, but I always thought that there was something in it, and that if it came to fighting they would show up pretty well; but to hear them going on now as to what France will do and doing nothing themselves, gives one a sickener. Then the way as they blackguard the Emperor, who wasn't by any means a bad chap, puts my monkey up I can tell you. Why there is not one in fifty of them as is fit to black his boots. He had a good taste in horses too, he had; and when I hear them going on, it is as much as I can do not to slip in to them.

"That is one reason why I am stopping. A week ago I had pretty well made up my mind that I would go, but they made me so mad that I says to myself, I will stop and see it out, if it is only for the pleasure of seeing these fellows get the licking they deserve. I was out yesterday evening. There was every cafe crowded; there was the singing-places fuller than I ever saw them; there were drunken soldiers, who ought to have been with their regiments outside the walls, reeling about the streets. Any one as seed the place would have put it down that it was a great fete-day. As to the Prussians outside no one seemed to give them a thought. If you went from table to table you heard everyone saying that the Germans would be destroyed, and that every one who talked of peace now was a traitor."

"I quite agree with you," Cuthbert said, "they are most extraordinary people. Still I do think they will fight."

"Well, sir, I don't know whether you have heard the news that they have been licked this morning somewhere out near Clamart. I heard just now that a lot of the linesmen bolted and never stopped running till they got into Paris, but they say the Breton mobiles fought well, though they had to fall back at last."

"The troops are disorganized at present," Cuthbert said; "but when you see what a tremendous thras.h.i.+ng they have had it is hardly to be expected that they should fight with any confidence, but when discipline is restored and they have had a few skirmishes they will be different men altogether. As to the mobiles, they are mere peasants at present, but a month of hard work will turn them into soldiers, and I should say better soldiers than the linesmen; but I am afraid they will never make anything out of the National Guard. The only way to do so will be to establish big camps outside the walls and send them all out there and put strict army men in command, with a regiment of regulars in each camp to carry out their orders. It would be necessary, no doubt, to shoot a few hundred of them before anything like discipline could be established; and once a week the whole should be sent out to attack the Germans so as to teach them to be steady under fire. In that way they might be turned into decent soldiers."

"Lord bless you, sir, Government would never try that. There would be barricades in the streets in no time, and as the soldiers are all outside the walls the mob would upset the Government in a week."

"I am not at all saying it would do, but it is the only thing to make soldiers of them."

"Well, sir, you will know where to come when things get bad. I don't expect there will be any beer to be had, but I have been down with my son Bob into the cellar for the last four nights. I could not trust the French waiters, and we dug holes and have buried a couple of dozen kegs of my best spirits, so if they make a clear sweep of the rest I reckon we shall be able to keep that door open a goodish while."

"I shan't forget, and I hope that your spirits may escape the searchers, but you know just at present we are not popular in Paris. They have got an idea in their heads that we ought to have declared war against the Germans on their behalf; why, Heaven knows, but you may be sure that all the English places will be very strictly searched."