"They will take care how they do that in my chamber, Antoinette," said Stuart with a peculiar smile, while the girl threw back her hood and prepared to read, displaying, as she did so, a neck and hands of perfect beauty and lady-like whiteness. She read, in a low, earnest, and very pleasing voice, the story of the good Samaritan, to which Ronald, who was quite enraptured with her appearance and manner, paid very little attention. She read on without ceasing for nearly half an hour, and imagined that the young officer was a very attentive listener. But, in truth, he was too much occupied in observing the admirable contour of her face, her downcast lashes and fine hair, the motion of her little cherry lips and swelling bosom, to attend to the various chapters which she was so good-natured as to select for his edification.
After administering certain drugs, which perhaps neither Widow Vandergroot nor Doctor Stuart, with all their eloquence, could have prevailed on Ronald to swallow, she withdrew, notwithstanding his entreaties that she would remain a little longer.
He felt rather jealous of the attentions she might bestow on others; but this selfish feeling lasted only for awhile. She had several Highlanders, three hussars, and two artillery officers on her list: some of the latter were minus legs and arms. Next day when she visited Stuart she was weeping, for three of her patients had died of their wounds.
The whole of Brussels had been converted into a vast hospital: every house, without distinction, was crowded with wounded and sick. The officers and soldiers, in some places, were lying side by side on the same floor; and the humanity, kindness, and solicitude displayed towards these unfortunates by the ladies, and other females of every class, are worthy of the highest praise. They were to be seen hourly in the hospitals, distributing cordials and other little comforts to the wounded soldiers of all nations,—friend and foe alike. They were blessed on every side as they moved along, for the poor fellows found sisters and mothers in them all.
Ronald took a deep and, perhaps for so young a man, a dangerous interest in the fair Antoinette de la Misericorde. He deplored that so charming a creature should be condemned to dwell in a dreary cloister,—her fine features shaded and lost beneath the hideous lawn veil and mis-shapen hood of the sisters; and that her existence was doomed to be one of everlasting prayer, penance, fast, humiliation, and slavery in hospitals, surrounded continually by the fetid breath of the sick, by distempers and epidemics, scenes of want, woe, and misery, and in the hearing sometimes of sorrow, blasphemy, and horrid imprecations,—for her duty led her into the dens and prisons of the police, and the inmost recesses of the infamous Rasp-haus. Whether her own wish, or her parents' tyranny and superstition, had consigned her to this miserable profession, he never discovered; but the life of a galley-slave or a London sempstress would have been preferable.
Antoinette was evidently a lady by manner, appearance, and birth. None but a lady could have owned so beautiful a hand. She had all the natural vivacity and buoyant spirits of a French girl, and, at times, her sallies and clear ringing laughter contrasted oddly with the sombre garb and her half real, half affected demureness.
Ronald formed a hundred plans for her emancipation, but always rejected them as impracticable. To persuade her to elope from Brussels, and go home with him to be a companion for Alice Lisle, would never do. Scandal would be busy, and even should he escape the wrath of the Belgian police, the mess would quiz him out of the service.
"What the deuce can be done to save this fair creature from such slavery?" thought he. "I would to Heaven somebody would run away with her! There's Macildhui of ours, and Dick Stuart, our senior Esculapius, handsome fellows both, and both quite well aware of it. Who knows what may come about? The medico is evidently smitten with her, and Macildhui is on her sick list. Since poor Grant was knocked on the head, we have not a married man, except Louis, among us, and Antoinette would be an honour to the regiment."
The combined attention of the interesting little fille de convent, of the widow, of Doctor Stuart, and of Allan his servant, soon placed Ronald on his feet again; and in the course of a week or two he was able to move about the room, and enjoy a cup of chocolate at the window overlooking the square, where a host of crippled soldiers, leaning on sticks and crutches, were seen hobbling about among fresh-coloured Flemish girls with plump figures and large white caps, bulbous-shaped citizens, and pipe-smoking Dutchmen in high-crowned hats and mighty inexpressibles.
Two days after he became convalescent, the sister informed him that now her visits must cease.