"In silks and satins the ladies wentWhere the breezes sighed and the poplars bent,Taking the air of a Sunday mornMidst the red of poppies and gold of corn—Flowery ladies in gold brocades,With negro pages and serving maids,In scarlet coach or in gilt sedan,With brooch and buckle and flounce and fan,Patch and powder and trailing scent,Under the trees the ladies went,Lovely ladies that gleamed and glowed,As they took the air of the Ladies' Road."That verse came fromPunch, not from Captain Devot. I happen to remember it because it struck my fancy when I read it, and added to the romance of the road made for Louis XV's daughters—daughters of France, where now so many sons of France have died for France! But the ladies of Captain Devot's dream were like that, travelling with a gorgeous cavalcade, and as they rode, they were listening to a song about the old Abbey of Vauclair on the plateau of the Craonne. When they came to a place where the poppies clustered thickest, the three princesses insisted on stopping—Princess Adelaide, Princess Sophia,Princess Victoire. They wished to gather the flowers to take with them to the Château de Bove, where they were going to visit theirdame d'honneur, Madame de Narbonne, but their guards argued that already it was growing late: they had better hurry on. At this the girls laughed silvery laughter. What did time matter to them? This wastheirroad, made and paved for their pleasure! They would not be hurried along it. No indeed; to show that time as well as the road was theirs, to do with as they liked, they would get down and make a chain of poppies long enough to stretch across the whole plateau before it dipped to the valley of the Aillette!So, in Captain Devot's dream, the princesses descended, and they and all their pretty ladies began weaving a chain of poppies. As they wove, the flower-chain fell from their little white fingers and trailed along the ground in a crimson line. The sun dropped toward the west, and thunder began to roll: still they worked on! Their gentlemen-in-charge begged them to start again, and at last they rose up petulantly to go; but they had stayed too late. The storm burst. Lightning flashed; thunder roared; rain fell in torrents; and—strange to see—the poppy petals melted, so that the long chain of flowers turned to a liquid stream, red as a river of blood. The princesses were frightened and began to cry. Their tears fell into the crimson flood. Captain Devot, who seemed in his dream to be one of the ladies' attendants, jumped from his horse to pick up the princesses' tears, which turned into little, rattling stones as they fell. With that, he waked. The princesses were gone—"all butVictoire," he said, smiling, "she shall stay with us! The thunder was the thunderof German guns. The poppies were there—and the blood was there. So also were the stones that had been the princesses' tears. They lie all along the Chemin des Dames to this day. I gathered some for my wife, and if you like she will give a few to you, ladies—souvenirs of the Ladies' Way!"Of course we did like; so Dierdre and I each have a small, glistening gray stone, with a faint splash of red upon it. I would not sell mine for a pearl!Father Beckett proposed to take his wife back to Paris; but while she rested after the fever, industriously she built up another plan. You remember, Padre, my telling you that the Becketts were negotiating for a château, before they arrived in France to visit their son? When they heard that Jim had fallen, they no longer cared to live in this château (which was to let, furnished), nevertheless, they felt bound in honour to stick to their bargain. Well, at Soissons, Mother Beckett had it "borne in upon her" that Jim would wish his father and mother to stay at the old house he had loved and coveted for himself."I can't go back across the sea and settle down at home while this war goes on!" she said. "Home just wouldn't behome. It's too far away from Jim. I don't mean from hisbody," she went on. "His body isn'tJim, I know! I've thought that out, and made myself realize the truth of it. But it's Jim's spirit I'm talking about, Father. I guess his soul—Jim himself—won't care to be flitting back and forth, crossing the ocean to visit us, while his friends are fighting in France and Belgium, to save the world. I know my boy well enough to be sure he's toostrong to change much just because he is what some folks call 'dead'; and he'd like us to be near. Paris won't do for me. No city would. I'd be too restless there. Do,dolet's go and live till the end of the war in Jim's château! That's what he's wanting. I feel it every minute."I was in the room when she made this appeal to her husband, and I longed to put into their hearts the thought Jack Curtis had put into mine. But, of course, I dared not. It would have been cruel. Jack Curtis had nothing to go upon except his impression—the same impression I myself have at times, of Jim's vital presence in the midst of life. I have it often, though never quite so strongly as that night in Paris, when he would not let me kill myself.It wasn't difficult to make Father Beckett consent to the new plan. He told me afterward that his own great wish was to find Jim's grave, when the end of the war would make search possible. Beckett interests were being safeguarded in America. They would not suffer much from his absence. Besides, business no longer seemed vitally important to him as of old. Money mattered little now that Jim was gone.He would have abandoned his visit to the British front, since Mother Beckett could not have the glimpse half promised by the authorities. But she would not let him give it up. "Molly" would take good care of her. When she could move, we would all go to Amiens. There she and I could be safely left for a few days, while Brian and Father Beckett were at the front. As for Julian O'Farrell and Dierdre, at first it appeared as if the littlelady had left them out of her calculations. But I might have known—knowing her—that she wouldn't do that for long.She believed implicitly in their Red Cross mission, which, ever since the little car joined the big one, has been constantly aided with Beckett money and Beckett influence. Julian would, she supposed, wish to "carry on his good work," when our trip came to an end. But as he had no permission for the British front (he hadn't cared to make himself conspicuous to the British authorities by asking for it!) he and Dierdre might like to keep us two women company at Amiens. By the time we wanted to leave, Mother Beckett confidently expected "Jim's château" to be ready for occupation, and Dierdre must visit "us" there indefinitely, while her brother dutifully continued distributing supplies to hospitals and refugees. ("Us," according to Mother Beckett, meant Brian and me, Father Beckett and herself, for we now constituted the "family"!) Telegrams had given the Paris house-letting agencycarte blanchefor hasty preparations at the Château d'Andelle, where several old servants had been kept on as caretakers: and being a spoiled American millionairess, the little lady was confident that a week would see the house aired, warmed, staffed, and altogether habitable."You wouldn't object to having that poor little girl stay with us, would you, dear?" Mother Beckett asked me, patting my hand when she had revealed her ideas concerning the O'Farrells."Oh, no," I answered, looking straight into her inquiring eyes, and trying not to change colour. "But you shouldn't speak as if I had any right——""You have every right!" she cut me short. "Aren't you our daughter?""I love you and Father Beckett enough to be your daughter," I said. "But that gives me no right——""It does. Your love for us, and ours for you. I don't believe we could have lived through our sorrow if it hadn't been for you and Brian. He saved our reason by showing us what Jim would want us to do for the good of others. And he taught us what we couldn't seem to realize fully, through religion, that death doesn't count. Now, since I've been ill, I guess you've saved my life. And much as I want to see Jim, I want even more to live for Father. He needs me—and we both need you and Brian. You two belong to us, just as if you'd been given to us by Jim. We want to do what's best for you both. I thought, for Brian, it would be good perhaps to have Dierdre——""Perhaps," I murmured, when she paused."You're not sure? I wasn't at first. I mean, I wasn't sure she was good enough. But since the night when she threw herself in front of him to keep off the dog, I saw she cared. Maybe she didn't know it herself till then. But she's known ever since. You've only to see the way she looks at him. And she's growing more and more of a woman—Brian's influence, and the influence of her love—such a great influence, dear! It might be for his happiness, if——""I don't think Brian would marry Dierdre or any girl, unless his sight came back," I said. "He's often told me he wouldn't marry.""Was that before he went to Paris with the O'Farrells? Things have been rather different since then—and a gooddealdifferent since the night we met Jack Curtis with Sirius.""I know," I admitted. "But if Brian wanted to change his mind about marrying, he couldn't. Neither he nor Dierdre O'Farrell have a penny——""Brian's got as much as we have," the dear woman assured me."Do you think he'd take your money to marry on? No, dearest! Brian's very unworldly. So far, he hasn't worried about finances for the present. The future is different. If he doesn't get back his sight——""But he will—he must!" she urged. "That great specialist you saw in Paris gave him hope. And then there's the other one that your doctor friend recommended——.""He's somewhere at the front. We can't get at him now.""We'll get at him later," Mother Beckett persisted. "In the meantime—let's give those two hearts the chance to draw together, if it's best for them."I could not go on objecting. One can't, for long, when that little angel of a woman wants a thing—she who never wants anything for herself, only for others! But I thought Fate might step between Brian and Dierdre—Fate, in the shape of Puck. I wasn't at all sure that Julian O'Farrell could be contented to leave his sister and continue his own wanderings. The Red Cross taxi had in truth been only a means to an end. I didn't fancy that his devotion to duty would carry him far from the Château d'Andelle while Dierdre was comfortably installed in it. Unless he were invited toembusquerhimself there, in oursociety, I expected a crash. Which shows how little I knew my Julian!When the plan was officially suggested to him, he agreed as if with enthusiasm. It was only when he'd consented to Dierdre's visit at the château on the other side of the Somme, and promised to drop in now and then himself on his way somewhere else, that he allowed himself a second thought. To attract attention to it, he started, ran his hand through his hair, and stopped in the middle of a sentence. "I am heaven's own fool!" he exclaimed.Of course Father Beckett wanted to know why. (This was two days before we started for Amiens.) Julian "registered reluctance." Father Beckett persisted, and drew forth the information that Julianmighthave to cut short his career as a ministering Red Cross angel. "If it hadn't been for you," he said, "my funds and my supplies would have run short before this. You've helped me carry on. But I'm getting pretty close to the bone again now, I'm afraid. A bit closer and I shall have to settle down and give music lessons. That's all I'm fit for in future! And Dierdre wouldn't want me to set up housekeeping alone. While I'm on this Red Cross job it's all right, but——"Of course Father Beckett broke in to say that there was no question of not carrying on. Money should be forthcoming for supplies as long as Julian felt inclined to drive the Red Cross taxi from one scene of desolation and distress to another. Holidays must be frequent, and all spent at the Château d'Andelle. Let the future decide itself!So matters were settled—on the surface. Julian wasready to pose before an admiring audience as the self-sacrificing hero, giving all his time and energy to a noble cause. Only his sister and I knew that he was the villain of the piece, and for different reasons neither of us could explain the mistake about his rôle. He was sure of us both; impudently, aggravatingly, yet (I can'thelpit, Padre!) amusingly sure of me. He tried to "isolate" me, as if I'd been a microbe while we were still at Soissons, and again just after Father Beckett and Brian went away from Amiens in the big gray car. There was something, something very special that he wished to say to me, I could tell by his eyes. But I contrived to thwart him. I never left Mother Beckett for a moment!The first day at Amiens it was easy to keep out of his way altogether, for I was nurse as well as friend, and my dear little invalid was worn out after the journey from Soissons. She asked nothing better than to stop in her room. The next day, however, exciting news acted upon her like a tonic. The Amiens address had been wired to Paris, and in addition to a mass of letters (mostly for Father Beckett) there was a telegram from the Château d'Andelle, despatched by an agency messenger, who had been sent to Normandy. All was going well. The house would be ready on the date named. Two large boxes from the Ritz had safely arrived bygrande vitesse."Darling Jimmy's own things!" Mother Beckett explained to me. "Do you remember my telling you we'd brought over to France the treasures out of his den at home?"I did remember. (Do I ever forget anything she says about Jim?)"They were to be a surprise for him when he came to see us," his mother went on, tears misting the blueness of her eyes. "Not furniture, you know, but just the little things he loved best in his rooms: some he had when he was a child, and others when he was growing up—and the picture your brother painted. When we heard—the news—and knew we shouldn't see our boy again in this world, I couldn't bear to open the boxes—though I was longing to cry over his dear treasures. They've been stored at the Ritz ever since. But the first thing I asked Father to do when we decided the other day to live in Jim's château, after all—was to wire for the boxes to be sent there. I didn't suppose they'd arrive so soon—in war time. Dear me, I can hardly wait to start, now! I feel as strong as a girl."To prove this—or because she was restless—she begged to be taken out in a cab to see the town, especially the cathedral, which Brian had told her was the largest in Europe except St. Peter's in Rome, St. Sophia in Constantinople, and something in Cologne which she didn'twantto remember! Julian O'Farrell and his sister must go with us, of course. It wouldn't be kind to leave them to do their sightseeing alone. Besides, Julian was so good-natured, and said such funny things it would be pleasant to have his society.This arrangement made it difficult for me to glue myself to Mother Beckett's side. Now and then she insisted upon getting out of the cab to try her strength, and Dierdre would obediently have taken her in tow, in order to hand me over to "Jule," if I hadn't been mulishly obstinate. I quite enjoyed manœuvring to use my dearlittle invalid as a sort of standing barrage against enemy attacks, and even though Brian and I were parted for the first time since his blindness, I felt almost absurdly cheerful. It was so good to know that Mother Beckett was out of danger, and that it was I who had helped to drag her out! Besides, after all the stricken towns that have saddened our eyes, it was enlivening to be in one (as Mother Beckett said at Compiègne) with "whole houses." In contrast, good St. Firmin's ancient city looks almost as gay as Paris. Our hotel with its pleasant garden and the fine shops—(where it seems you can still buy every fascinating thing from newest jewellery and oldest curiosities, to Amiens' special "roc" chocolates)—the long, arboured boulevards, the cobbled streets, the quaint blue and pink houses of the suburbs, and the poplar-lined walk by the Somme, all, all have the friendliest air! Despite the crowds of soldiers in khaki and horizon blue who fill the streets and cafés, the place seems outside war. Even the stacked sandbags walling the west front and the side portals of the grandest cathedral in France suggest comfortable security rather than fear. The jackdaws and pigeons that used to be at home in the carvings, camp contentedly among the bags, or walk in the neglected grass where sleep the dead of long ago. I didn't want to remember just then, or let any one else remember, that twenty miles away were the trenches and thousands of the dead of to-day!Never can Amiens have been such a kaleidoscope of colourful animation since Henri II of France and Edward VI of England signed the treaty of peace here, with trains of diplomatists and soldiers of church and state and dignified rejoicings!It wasn't until we were inside the cathedral that I forgot my manœuverings. The soft, rich light gave such a bizarre effect to the sandbags protecting the famous choir carvings, that I was all eyes for a moment: and during that moment Julian must have signed to his sister to decoy Mother Beckett away from me. When I hauled my soul down from the soaring arches as one strikes a flag, there was Puck at my side and there were Mother Beckett and Dierdre disappearing behind sandbag-hillocks, in the direction of the celebrated Cherub."I suppose you want me jolly well to understand," said Puck, smiling, "that even if your brother Brian and my sister Dare are fools over each other, you won't be fooled into forgiving a poor, broken-voiced Pierrot?""I've nothing to forgive you for, personally," I said. "Only——""Only, you don't want to be friends?""No, I don't want to be friends," I echoed. "Why can't you be content with being treated decently before people, instead of following me about, trying always to bring upon yourself——""A lamp might ask that question of a moth."I laughed. "You're less like a moth than any creature I ever met!""You don't believe I'm sincere.""Do moths specialize in sincerity in the insect world?""Yes," Puck said, more gravely than usual. "Come to think of it, that's just what theydo. They risk their lives for the light they love. I 'follow you about,' as you put it, because I love you and want to persuade you that we're birds of a feather, made for each other by natureand fate and our mutual behaviour. We belong together in life.""Do you really believe you can blackmail me into a partnership?" I turned at bay. "You must have seen that I wanted to keep out of your way——""Oh, I saw all right.Youthought that I thought Amiens would be my great chance, and you made up your mind it shouldn't be if you could help it. Well, you won't be able to help it much longer, because I've got something you want, and you can't get it except through me.""I doubt very much that I could want anything you have," I said."Give your imagination wings.""You are always teasing me to guess things I don't care to guess!""Here comes Dierdre back with Mrs. Beckett so I won't worry you to guess. I've got a message from the Wandering Jew. Do you want it, or don't you?"CHAPTER XXVIIIIf Julian had suddenly popped down an apple on the top of my head,à laGessler and the son of William Tell, and thereupon proceeded to shoot it off, I could have been no more amazed. For once he outflanked me, caught me completely off my guard! I saw by the impish gleam in his eye how delighted he was with himself."Yes or no, please; quick!" he fired the next volley as I stood speechless."Yes!" I gasped. "I do want the message—if it's for me. But why should he send word through you?""He didn't. I caught it as I might catch a homing carrier-pigeon. You know, my motto is 'All's fair in love and war.' In my case, both exist—your fault! Besides, what I did was for your good.""What did you do—what did youdareto do?""Dare!" Puck mimicked my foolish fury. "'Dare' is such a melodramatic word from you to me. I can't tell you now what I did, or the message—no time. But I'm in as much of a hurry as you are. When can I see you alone?"I hesitated, because it would be like him to cheat me with some trick, and chuckle at my rage. I couldn't see how a message from Paul Herter for me had reached Julian O'Farrell, unless he'd intercepted a letter. It seemed far more likely that Puck was romancing, yet I felt in mybones and heart and solar plexus that he wasn't! I simplyhadto know—and in a flurry, before Mother Beckett and Dierdre were upon us, I said, "This afternoon, at three, when Mrs. Beckett is having her nap. I'll meet you in the garden of the hotel."Though I dash along with this story of mine, Padre, as if I went straight on describing the scene between Julian and me from beginning to end, without a break, it isn't really so. I've been interrupted more than once, and may be again; but I shall tell you everything that's happened since we came to Amiens, as if I wrote consecutively. You can understand better in that way, and help me with your strength and love, through your understanding, as I feel you do help, whenever I make you my confessions. Since I've begun to write you, as in old days when you were in the flesh, I've felt your advice come to me in electric flashes. I'm sure I don't just imagine this. It's real, dear Padre, and makes all the difference to me that a rope flung out over dark waters would make to a drowning man.At three o'clock I was in the garden. It was cold, but I didn't care. Besides, I was too excited to feel the chill. I wanted to be out of doors because there would be people about, and no chance for Julian to try and kiss my hand—no vulgar temptation for me to box his ears!He was already waiting, strolling up and down, smoking a cigarette which he threw away at sight of me. Evidently he'd decided on this occasion not to be frivolous!I selected a seat safely commanded by many windows. "Now!" I said, sitting down close to one end of the bench.Julian took the other end, but sat gazing straight at me without a word. There was an odd expression on hisface. I didn't know how to read it, or to guess what was to come. But there was nothing Puckish about the enemy at that moment. He looked nervous—almost as if he were afraid. I thought of something you told me when I was quite small, Padre: how the Romans of old used to send packets of good news bound with laurel, or of bad news, tied with the plumes of ravens. I stared into Julian O'Farrell's stare, and wished that he'd stuck a green leaf or a black feather in his buttonhole to prepare my mind."Yes—now!" he echoed at last, as if he'd suddenly waked up to my challenge. "Well, a man blew into this hotel last night—a lame Frenchman with a face like a boiled ghost. I was writing an important telegram (I'll tell you about that later), when I heard this person ask the concierge if a Miss Mary O'Malley was staying in the house. That made me open my eyes—because he was of the lowerbourgeoisclass, and hadn't the air of being—so to speak—in your set. It seemed as if 'twas up to me to tackle him; so I did. I introduced myself as a friend of Miss O'Malley's, travelling with her party. I explained that Miss O'Malley was taking care of an old lady who'd been ill and was tired after a long journey. I asked if he'd like to give a message. He said he would. But first he began to explain who he was: an Alsatian by birth, named Muller, corporal in an infantry regiment; been a prisoner in Germany, I forget how long—taken wounded; leg amputated; and fitted with artificial limb in a Boche hospital; just exchanged for agrand blesséBoche, and repatriated; been in Paris on important business, apparently with the War Office—sounded more exciting than he looked! After I'd prodded the chap tactfully, he cameback to the subject of the message: asked me if I knew Doctor Paul Herter. I said I did know him. Herter mended up my sister after an air raid. I inquired politely where Herter was, but Muller evaded that question. He led me to suppose he'd seen Herter in Paris; but putting two and two together, I got a different idea—altogetherdifferent."Julian paused on those words, and tried piercingly to read my thoughts. But I made my face expressionless as the front of a shut-up house, with "to let unfurnished" over the door."I expect you've guessed what my idea was, and I bet you know for a fact whether I was on the right track," he ventured."The only thing so far which I know for a fact," I said, "is that you had no right to talk to the man at all. You should have sent for me at once.""You couldn't have come if I had. Dierdre had told me about five minutes before that you were putting Mrs. Beckett to bed, and giving her a massage treatment with a rub-down of alcohol.""Why didn't you ask the man to wait?""I did ask him if hecouldwait, and he said he couldn't. He'd stopped at Amiens on purpose to deliver his message, and he had to catch a train on to Allonville, to where it seems his people have migrated.""You asked him that because you hoped he couldn't wait—and if he could, you'd have found some reason for not letting me meet him. You thought you saw a way of getting a new hold over me!""Some such dramatic idea may have flitted through myhead. I've often warned you, Iamdramatic! I enjoy dramatizing life for myself and others! But honestly, he couldn't wait for you to finish with Mrs. Beckett. I know too well how devoted you are to think you'd have left the old lady before you'd soothed her off to sleep.""Where is the message?" I snatched Julian back to the point."In my brain at present.""You destroyed the letter?""There wasn't a letter. Oh, make grappling hooks of your lovely eyes if you like! You can't drag anything out of me that doesn't exist. Herter's message to you was verbal for safety. That was one thing set me thinking the men hadn't met in Paris. Muller admitted going to a bank to get your address. The people there didn't want to give it, but when he explained that it was important, and mentioned where he was going, they saw that he might have time to meet you at Amiens on his way home. So they told him where you were. Now, there's no good your being cross withme. What's done is done, and can't be undone. I acted for the best—mybest; and in my opinion for your best. Listen! Here's the message, word for word. You'll see that a few hours' delay for me to think it over could make no difference to any one concerned. Paul Herter, from somewhere—but maybe not 'somewhere in France'—sends you a verbal greeting, because it was more sure of reaching you—not coming to griefen route. He reminds you that he asked for an address in case he had something of interest to communicate. He hoped to find the grave of a man you loved. Instead, he thinks he has found that there is no grave—that the manis above ground and well. He isn't sure yet whether he may be deceived by a likeness of names. But he's sure enough to say: 'Hope.' If he's right about the man, you may get further news almost any minute by way of Switzerland or somewhere neutral. That's all. Yet it's enough to show you what danger you're in. If Herter hadn't been practically certain, he wouldn't have sent any message. He'd have waited. Evidently you made him believe that you loved Jim Beckett, so he wanted to prepare your mind by degrees. I suppose he imagined a shock of joy might be dangerous. Well, you ought to thank Herter just the same for sparing you a worse sort of shock. And I thank him, too, for it gives me a great chance—the chance to save you. Mary, the time's come for you and me to fade off the Beckett scene—together."I listened without interrupting him once: at first, because I was stunned, and a thousand thoughts beat dully against my brain without finding their way in, as gulls beat their wings against the lamp of a lighthouse; at last, because I wished to hear Julian O'Farrell to the very end before I answered. I fancied that in answering I could better marshal my own thoughts.He misunderstood my silence—I expected him to do that, but I cared not at all—so, when he had paused and still I said nothing, he went on: "Of course I—for the best of reasons—know you didn't love Jim Beckett, and couldn't love him."Hearing those words of his, suddenly I knew just what I wanted to say. I'd been like an amateur actress wild with stage fright, who'd forgotten her part till the rightcue came. "There you're mistaken," I contradicted him. "I did love Jim Beckett."Julian gave an excited, brutal laugh. "Tell that to the Marines, my child, not to yours truly! You never set eyes on Jim Beckett. He never went near your hospital. You never came near the training-camp. You seem to have forgotten that I was on the spot.""I met him before the war," I said."What's that?" Julian didn't know whether to believe me or not, but his forehead flushed to the black line of his low-growing hair."I never told you, because there was no need to tell," I went on. "But it's true. I fell in love with Jim Beckett then, and—he cared for me."For the first time I realized that Julian O'Farrell's "love" wasn't all pretence. His flush died, and left him pale with that sick, greenish-olive pallor which men of Latin blood have when they're near fainting. He opened his lips, but did not speak, because, I think, he could not. If I'd wanted revenge for what he made me suffer when he first thrust himself into my life, I had it then; but to my own surprise I felt no pleasure in striking him. Instead I felt vaguely sorry, though very distant from his plans and interests."You—you weren't engaged to Beckett, anyhow. I'm sure you weren't, or you'd have had nothing to worry about when Dierdre and I turned up," he faced me down."No, we weren't engaged," I admitted. "I—was just as much of a fraud as you meant Dierdre to be with Father and Mother Beckett. I've no excuse—except that it wasfor Brian's sake. But that's no excuse really, and Brian would despise me if he knew.""There you are!" Julian burst out, with a relieved sigh, a more natural colour creeping back to his face. "If Jim Beckett let you go before the war without asking you to marry him, I'm afraid his love couldn't have been very deep—not deep enough to make him forgive you after all this time for deceiving his old father and mother the way you have. My God, no! In spite of your beauty, he'd have no mercy on you!""That's what I think," I said. "My having met him, and his loving me a little, makes what I've done more shameful than if I'd never met him at all.""Then you see why you must get away as quick as you can!" urged Julian, his eyes lighting as he drew nearer to me on the garden bench. "Oh, wait, don't speak yet! Let me explain my plan. There's time still. You're thinking of Brian before yourself, maybe. But he's safe. The Becketts adore him. They say he 'saved their reason.' He makes the mysticism they're always groping for seem real as their daily bread. He puts local colour into the fourth dimension for them! They can never do without Brian again. All that's needed is for him to propose to Dierdre. I know—you think he won't, no matter how he feels. But he'll have missed her while he's away. She's a missable little thing to any one who likes her, and she can tempt him to speak out in spite of himself when he gets back. I'll see to it that she does. The Becketts will be enchanted. The old lady's a born match-maker. We can announce our engagement at the same time. While they think Jim's dead, they won't grudge your being happywith another man, especially with me. They're fond of me! And you're young. Your life's before you. They're too generous to stand in your way. They look on you as a daughter, and Brian as a son. They'll give each of you a handsome wedding present, and I don't doubt they'll ask Brian to live with them, or near them, if he's to be blind all his life. He'll have everything you wanted to win for him. Even when they get into communication with Jim, and find out the truth about you, why I bet anything they'll hide it from Brian to keep him happy! Meanwhile you and I will be in Paris, safely married. An offer came to me yesterday from Jean De Letzski—forwarded on. He's getting old. He wants me to take on some of his pupils, under his direction. I telegraphed back my acceptance. That's the wire I was sending when Herter's man turned up last night. There was a question last summer of my getting this chance with De Letzski, but I hardly dared hope. It's a great stroke of luck! In the end I shall stand in De Letzski's shoes, and be a rich man—almost as rich as if I'd kept my place as star tenor in opera. Even at the beginning you and I won't be poor. I count on a wedding gift from the Becketts to you of ten thousand dollars at least. The one way to save our reputations is to marry or die brilliantly. We choose the former. We can take a fine apartment. We'll entertain the most interesting set in Paris. With your looks and charm, and what's left of my voice, we——""Oh,stop!" I plunged into the torrent of his talk. "You are making me—sick. Do you really believe I'd accept money from Jim Beckett's parents, and—marry you?"He stared, round-eyed and hurt, like a misunderstood child. "But," he blundered on, "don't you see it's the only thing you can do—anyhow, to marry me? If you won't accept money, why it's a pity and a waste, but I want you enough to snap you up without a franc. You must marry me, dear. Think what I gave up for you!"I burst out laughing. "What you gave up for me!""Yes. Have you forgotten already? If I hadn't fallen in love with you at first sight, and sacrificed myself and Dierdre for your good, wouldn't my sister have been in your place now, and you and your brother Lord knows where—in prison as impostors, perhaps?""According to you, my place isn't a very enviable one at present," I said. "But I'd rather be in prison for life than married to you. What a vision—what a couple!""Oh, I know having you for my wife would be a good deal like going to heaven in a strong mustard plaster; but I'd stand the smart for the sake of the bliss. If you won't marry me and if you won't take money from the Becketts, what will become of you? That's what I want to know! You can't stay on with them. You daren't risk going to their Château d'Andelle, as things are turning out. Herter's certainly in Germany—ideal man for a spy! If he runs across Jim Beckett, as he's trying to do, he'll move heaven and earth to help him escape. He must have influence, and secret ways of working things. He may have got at Jim before this for all we can tell. Muller let it leak out that he left Herter—somewhere—a week ago. A lot can happen in a week—to a Wandering Jew. The ground's trembling under your feet. You'll have to skip without Brian, without money, without——""I shall not stir," I said. "I can't leave Mrs. Beckett, I won't leave her! The only way I can atone even a little bit, is to stop and take care of her while she needs me, no matter what happens. When she finds out, she won't want me any longer. Then I'll go. But not before."We glared at each other like two fencers through the veil of falling dusk. Suddenly I sprang up from the bench, remembering that, at least, I could escape from Julian, if not from the sword of Damocles. But he caught my dress, and held me fast."What if I tell the old birds the whole story up to date?" he blustered. "I can, you know.""You can. Please give me fair warning if you're going to—that's all I ask. I'll try to prepare Mrs. Beckett's mind to bear the shock. She's not very strong, but——""If I don't tell, it won't be because of her. It will be for you—always, everything, for you! But I haven't decided yet. I don't know what I shall do yet. I must think. You'll have to make the best of that compromise unless you change your mind.""I shall not change my mind," I said.CHAPTER XXIXLater, Padre, when I'd broken away from Julian, I wondered if he had made up the whole story. The cruel trick would be impishly characteristic! But I went straight to the concierge to ask about Muller. He said that a man of that name had called the night before, inquiring for me, and had talked with "the Monsieur who looked like an Italian." This practically convinced me that Julian hadn't lied.If only I could get direct advice from you! Do try to send me an inspiration of what to do for the best.My first impulse was to give Mother Beckett a faint hint of hope. But I dared not run the risk. If Paul Herter proved to be mistaken, it would be for her like losing her son a second time, and the dear one's strength might not be equal to the strain. After thinking and unthinking all night, I decided to keep silent until our two men returned from the British front. Then, perhaps, I might tell Brian of the message from Doctor Paul, and ask his opinion about speaking to Father Beckett. As for myself, I resolved not to make any confession, unless it were certain that Jim lived. And I'm not sure, Padre, whether that decision was based on sheer, selfish cowardice, or whether I founded it partly on the arguments I presented to myself. I said in my mind: "If it's true that everything you did in the beginning was for Brian'sgood, why undo it all at the most critical hour of his life, when perhaps there may never be any reason to speak?" Also I said: "Why make it impossible for yourself to give Mother Beckett the care she needs, and can hardly do without yet? Every day counts with her now. Why not wait unless you hear again more definitely?"The annoying part of a specious argument is that there's always some truth in it, and it seems like kind advice from wise friends!Anyhow, Ididwait. Julian made no further appeal to me, and I felt sure that he said nothing to Dierdre. If he had taken her into his confidence, I should have known by her manner; because, from the shut-up, night-flower of a girl that she was, she has rather pathetically opened out for me into a daylight flower. All this since she came of her own free will and told me of the scene in the chill boarding housesalonat Soissons. I used to think her as secret as the grave—and deeper. She used to make me "creep" as if a mouse ran overmine, by the way her eyes watched me: still as a cat's looking into the fire. If we had to shake hands, she used to present me with a limp little bunch of cold fingers, which made me long to ask what the deuce she wanted me to do with them? Now, because I'm Brian's sister, and because I'm human enough to love her love of him, the flower-part of her nature sheds perfume and distils honey for me: the cat-part purrs; the girl-part warms. The creature actually deigns to like me! It could not now conceal its anxiety for Brian and Brian's kith and kin, if it knew what Julian knows.I waited until our last day at Amiens, and Father Beckett, Brian, and Sirius are back from the British front.Perhaps I forgot to tell you that Sirius went. He wasn't on the programme, but he knew somehow that his master was planning a separation, and refused to fall in with the scheme. He was discovered in the motor-car when it was ready to start, looking his best, his dear face parted in the middle with an irresistible, ingratiating smile. When Brian tried to put him out he flattened himself, and clung like a limpet. By Father Beckett's intercession, he was eventually taken, trusting to luck for toleration by the British Army. Of course he continued to smile upon all possible arbiters of his fate; and the drama of his history, combined with the pathos of his blind master who fought on these battlefields of Flanders, which now he cannot see, made Brian's Sirius and Sirius's Brianpersonæ gratæeverywhere."I should have been nobody and nothing without them!" modestly insisted the millionaire philanthropist for whom all the privileges of the trip had been granted.To me, with the one thought, the one word "Jim—Jim—Jim!" repeating in my head it was strange, even irrelevant to hear Jim's unsuspecting father and my blind brother discoursing of their adventures.We all assembled in Mother Beckett's sitting room to listen to the recital, she on a sofa, a rug over her feet, and on her transparent face an utterly absorbed, tense expression rather like a French spaniel trying to learn an English trick.Father Beckett appointed Brian as spokesman, and then in his excitement broke in every instant with: "Don't forget this! Be sure to remember that! But so-and-so was the best!" Or he jumped up from his chair by thesofa, and dropped his wife's hand to point out something on the map, spread like a cloth over the whole top of a bridge-table.It was his finger that sketched for our eyes the sharp triangle which the road-journey had formed: Amiens to Albert: Albert to Péronne: Péronne to Bapaume: Bapaume to Arras: Arras to Bethune, and so on to Ypres: his finger that reminded Brian of the first forest on the road—a forest full of working German prisoners.At Pont-Noyelles, between Amiens and Albert, they were met by an officer who was to be their guide for that part of the British front which they were to visit. He was sent from headquarters, but hadn't been able to afford time for Amiens. However, Pont-Noyelles was the most interesting place between there and Albert. A tremendous battle was fought on that spot in '70, between the French under famous General Faidherbe and the Germans under Manteuffel—aperfectname for a German general of these days, if not of those! There were two monuments to commemorate the battle—one high on a hill above the village; and the officer guide (with the face of a boy and the grim experience of an Old Contemptible) was well up in their history. He turned out to be a friend of friends of Brian and knew the history of Sirius as well as that of all the war-wasted land. He and Brian, though they'd never met, had fought near each other it seemed, and he could describe for the blind eyes all the changes that had come upon the Somme country since Brian's "day." The roads which had been remade by the British over the shell-scarred and honeycombed surface of the land; the aerodromes; the training-camps; the tanks; the wonderfulnew railways for troops and ammunition: the bands of German prisoners docilely at work.When the great gray car stopped, throbbing, at specialview-points here and there, it was Brian who could listen for a lark's message of hope among the billowing downs, or draw in the tea-rose scent of earth from some brown field tilled by a woman. It was Father Beckett who saw the horrors of desolation—desolation more hideous even than on the French front; because, since the beginning, here had burned the hottest furnace of war: here had fallen a black, never-ceasing rain of bombardment, night and day, day and night, year after year.It was the cherubic Old Contemptible who could telleach detail of war-history, when the car reached Albert. It was Brian who knew the ancient legend of the place, and the modern story of the spy, which, together, double the dramatic interest of the Bending Virgin. In the eleventh century a shepherd boy discovered, in a miraculous way, a statue of the Virgin. There was a far-off sound of music at night, when he was out in search of strayed sheep, and being young he forgot his errand in curiosity to learn whence came the mysterious chanting, accompanied by the silver notes of a flute. The boy wandered in the direction of the delicate sounds, and to his amazement found all the lost flock grazing round a statue which appeared to have risen from the earth. On that spot was built the basilica of Notre-Dame de Brébières, which became a place of pilgrimage. The Virgin of the Shepherds was supposed to send her blessings far, far over the countryside, and her gilded image, with the baby Christ in her arms, was a flaming beacon at sunrise and sunset. Thuson her high tower the golden Lady stood when the war began. Albert was pitilessly bombarded, and with a startling accuracy which none could understand: yet the church itself, with its temptingly high tower, remained intact. Through October, 1914, the shining figure blazed against the sky, while houses fell in all quarters of the town: but on November 1st, three bombs struck the church. They were the first heavy drops of rain in a thunderstorm. The roof crashed in: and presently the pedestal of the Virgin received a shattering blow. This was on the very day when Albert discovered why for so long the church had been immune. A spy had been safely signalling from the tower, telling German gunners how and where to strike with the most damage to the town. When all the factories which gave wealth to Albert, and the best houses, had been methodically destroyed, the spy silently stole away: and the Virgin of the Shepherds then bent over, face down, to search for this black sheep of the fold. Ever since she with the sacred Child in her arms has hung thus suspended in pity and blessing over mountainous piles of wreckage which once composed the market-place. She will not crash to earth, Albert believes, till the war is over. But so loved is she in her posture of protection that the citizens propose to keep her in it for ever to commemorate the war-history of Albert, when Albert is rebuilt for future generations.From there the gray car ran on almost due east to Péronne, out of the country of Surrey-like, Chiltern-like downs, into a strange marshy waste, where the river Somme expands into vast meres, swarming with many fish. It looked, Father Beckett said, "Like a bit ofthe world when God had just begun to create life out of chaos."Poor Péronne! In its glorious days of feudal youth its fortress-castle was invincible. The walls were so thick that in days before gunpowder no assaults could hope to break through them. Down in its underground depths was a dungeon, where trapped enemy princes lay rotting and starving through weary years, never released save by death, unless tortured into signing shameful treaties. The very sound of the name, "Péronne," is an echo of history, as Brian says. Hardly a year-date in the Middle Ages could be pricked by a pin without touching some sensational event going on at that time at Péronne. I remember this from my schooldays; and more clearly still from "Quentin Durward," which I have promised to read aloud to Mother Beckett. I remember the Scottish monks who were established at Péronne in the reign of Clovis. I remember how Charles the Bold of Burgundy (who died outside Nancy's gates) imprisoned wicked Louis XI in a strong tower of the château, one of the four towers with conical roofs, like extinguishers of giant candles and kingly reputations! I remember best of all the heroine of Péronne, Catherine de Poix, "la belle Péronnaise," who broke with her own hand the standard of Charles's royal flag, in the siege of 1536, threw the bearer into the fosse, and saved the city.When Wellington took the fortress in 1814, he did not desecrate or despoil the place: it was left for the Germans to do that, just a century later in the progress of civilization! My blood grew hot as I heard from our two men the story of what the new Vandals had done. Justfor a moment I almost forgot the secret burning in my heart. The proud pile of historic stone brought to earth at last, like a soldier-king, felled by an axe in his old age: the statue of Catherine thrown from its pedestal, and replaced in mockery by a foolish manikin—this as a mean revenge for what she did to the standard-bearer, most of Charles's men in the siege being Germans, under Henry of Nassau.
"In silks and satins the ladies wentWhere the breezes sighed and the poplars bent,Taking the air of a Sunday mornMidst the red of poppies and gold of corn—Flowery ladies in gold brocades,With negro pages and serving maids,In scarlet coach or in gilt sedan,With brooch and buckle and flounce and fan,Patch and powder and trailing scent,Under the trees the ladies went,Lovely ladies that gleamed and glowed,As they took the air of the Ladies' Road."
"In silks and satins the ladies wentWhere the breezes sighed and the poplars bent,Taking the air of a Sunday mornMidst the red of poppies and gold of corn—Flowery ladies in gold brocades,With negro pages and serving maids,In scarlet coach or in gilt sedan,With brooch and buckle and flounce and fan,Patch and powder and trailing scent,Under the trees the ladies went,Lovely ladies that gleamed and glowed,As they took the air of the Ladies' Road."
That verse came fromPunch, not from Captain Devot. I happen to remember it because it struck my fancy when I read it, and added to the romance of the road made for Louis XV's daughters—daughters of France, where now so many sons of France have died for France! But the ladies of Captain Devot's dream were like that, travelling with a gorgeous cavalcade, and as they rode, they were listening to a song about the old Abbey of Vauclair on the plateau of the Craonne. When they came to a place where the poppies clustered thickest, the three princesses insisted on stopping—Princess Adelaide, Princess Sophia,Princess Victoire. They wished to gather the flowers to take with them to the Château de Bove, where they were going to visit theirdame d'honneur, Madame de Narbonne, but their guards argued that already it was growing late: they had better hurry on. At this the girls laughed silvery laughter. What did time matter to them? This wastheirroad, made and paved for their pleasure! They would not be hurried along it. No indeed; to show that time as well as the road was theirs, to do with as they liked, they would get down and make a chain of poppies long enough to stretch across the whole plateau before it dipped to the valley of the Aillette!
So, in Captain Devot's dream, the princesses descended, and they and all their pretty ladies began weaving a chain of poppies. As they wove, the flower-chain fell from their little white fingers and trailed along the ground in a crimson line. The sun dropped toward the west, and thunder began to roll: still they worked on! Their gentlemen-in-charge begged them to start again, and at last they rose up petulantly to go; but they had stayed too late. The storm burst. Lightning flashed; thunder roared; rain fell in torrents; and—strange to see—the poppy petals melted, so that the long chain of flowers turned to a liquid stream, red as a river of blood. The princesses were frightened and began to cry. Their tears fell into the crimson flood. Captain Devot, who seemed in his dream to be one of the ladies' attendants, jumped from his horse to pick up the princesses' tears, which turned into little, rattling stones as they fell. With that, he waked. The princesses were gone—"all butVictoire," he said, smiling, "she shall stay with us! The thunder was the thunderof German guns. The poppies were there—and the blood was there. So also were the stones that had been the princesses' tears. They lie all along the Chemin des Dames to this day. I gathered some for my wife, and if you like she will give a few to you, ladies—souvenirs of the Ladies' Way!"
Of course we did like; so Dierdre and I each have a small, glistening gray stone, with a faint splash of red upon it. I would not sell mine for a pearl!
Father Beckett proposed to take his wife back to Paris; but while she rested after the fever, industriously she built up another plan. You remember, Padre, my telling you that the Becketts were negotiating for a château, before they arrived in France to visit their son? When they heard that Jim had fallen, they no longer cared to live in this château (which was to let, furnished), nevertheless, they felt bound in honour to stick to their bargain. Well, at Soissons, Mother Beckett had it "borne in upon her" that Jim would wish his father and mother to stay at the old house he had loved and coveted for himself.
"I can't go back across the sea and settle down at home while this war goes on!" she said. "Home just wouldn't behome. It's too far away from Jim. I don't mean from hisbody," she went on. "His body isn'tJim, I know! I've thought that out, and made myself realize the truth of it. But it's Jim's spirit I'm talking about, Father. I guess his soul—Jim himself—won't care to be flitting back and forth, crossing the ocean to visit us, while his friends are fighting in France and Belgium, to save the world. I know my boy well enough to be sure he's toostrong to change much just because he is what some folks call 'dead'; and he'd like us to be near. Paris won't do for me. No city would. I'd be too restless there. Do,dolet's go and live till the end of the war in Jim's château! That's what he's wanting. I feel it every minute."
I was in the room when she made this appeal to her husband, and I longed to put into their hearts the thought Jack Curtis had put into mine. But, of course, I dared not. It would have been cruel. Jack Curtis had nothing to go upon except his impression—the same impression I myself have at times, of Jim's vital presence in the midst of life. I have it often, though never quite so strongly as that night in Paris, when he would not let me kill myself.
It wasn't difficult to make Father Beckett consent to the new plan. He told me afterward that his own great wish was to find Jim's grave, when the end of the war would make search possible. Beckett interests were being safeguarded in America. They would not suffer much from his absence. Besides, business no longer seemed vitally important to him as of old. Money mattered little now that Jim was gone.
He would have abandoned his visit to the British front, since Mother Beckett could not have the glimpse half promised by the authorities. But she would not let him give it up. "Molly" would take good care of her. When she could move, we would all go to Amiens. There she and I could be safely left for a few days, while Brian and Father Beckett were at the front. As for Julian O'Farrell and Dierdre, at first it appeared as if the littlelady had left them out of her calculations. But I might have known—knowing her—that she wouldn't do that for long.
She believed implicitly in their Red Cross mission, which, ever since the little car joined the big one, has been constantly aided with Beckett money and Beckett influence. Julian would, she supposed, wish to "carry on his good work," when our trip came to an end. But as he had no permission for the British front (he hadn't cared to make himself conspicuous to the British authorities by asking for it!) he and Dierdre might like to keep us two women company at Amiens. By the time we wanted to leave, Mother Beckett confidently expected "Jim's château" to be ready for occupation, and Dierdre must visit "us" there indefinitely, while her brother dutifully continued distributing supplies to hospitals and refugees. ("Us," according to Mother Beckett, meant Brian and me, Father Beckett and herself, for we now constituted the "family"!) Telegrams had given the Paris house-letting agencycarte blanchefor hasty preparations at the Château d'Andelle, where several old servants had been kept on as caretakers: and being a spoiled American millionairess, the little lady was confident that a week would see the house aired, warmed, staffed, and altogether habitable.
"You wouldn't object to having that poor little girl stay with us, would you, dear?" Mother Beckett asked me, patting my hand when she had revealed her ideas concerning the O'Farrells.
"Oh, no," I answered, looking straight into her inquiring eyes, and trying not to change colour. "But you shouldn't speak as if I had any right——"
"You have every right!" she cut me short. "Aren't you our daughter?"
"I love you and Father Beckett enough to be your daughter," I said. "But that gives me no right——"
"It does. Your love for us, and ours for you. I don't believe we could have lived through our sorrow if it hadn't been for you and Brian. He saved our reason by showing us what Jim would want us to do for the good of others. And he taught us what we couldn't seem to realize fully, through religion, that death doesn't count. Now, since I've been ill, I guess you've saved my life. And much as I want to see Jim, I want even more to live for Father. He needs me—and we both need you and Brian. You two belong to us, just as if you'd been given to us by Jim. We want to do what's best for you both. I thought, for Brian, it would be good perhaps to have Dierdre——"
"Perhaps," I murmured, when she paused.
"You're not sure? I wasn't at first. I mean, I wasn't sure she was good enough. But since the night when she threw herself in front of him to keep off the dog, I saw she cared. Maybe she didn't know it herself till then. But she's known ever since. You've only to see the way she looks at him. And she's growing more and more of a woman—Brian's influence, and the influence of her love—such a great influence, dear! It might be for his happiness, if——"
"I don't think Brian would marry Dierdre or any girl, unless his sight came back," I said. "He's often told me he wouldn't marry."
"Was that before he went to Paris with the O'Farrells? Things have been rather different since then—and a gooddealdifferent since the night we met Jack Curtis with Sirius."
"I know," I admitted. "But if Brian wanted to change his mind about marrying, he couldn't. Neither he nor Dierdre O'Farrell have a penny——"
"Brian's got as much as we have," the dear woman assured me.
"Do you think he'd take your money to marry on? No, dearest! Brian's very unworldly. So far, he hasn't worried about finances for the present. The future is different. If he doesn't get back his sight——"
"But he will—he must!" she urged. "That great specialist you saw in Paris gave him hope. And then there's the other one that your doctor friend recommended——."
"He's somewhere at the front. We can't get at him now."
"We'll get at him later," Mother Beckett persisted. "In the meantime—let's give those two hearts the chance to draw together, if it's best for them."
I could not go on objecting. One can't, for long, when that little angel of a woman wants a thing—she who never wants anything for herself, only for others! But I thought Fate might step between Brian and Dierdre—Fate, in the shape of Puck. I wasn't at all sure that Julian O'Farrell could be contented to leave his sister and continue his own wanderings. The Red Cross taxi had in truth been only a means to an end. I didn't fancy that his devotion to duty would carry him far from the Château d'Andelle while Dierdre was comfortably installed in it. Unless he were invited toembusquerhimself there, in oursociety, I expected a crash. Which shows how little I knew my Julian!
When the plan was officially suggested to him, he agreed as if with enthusiasm. It was only when he'd consented to Dierdre's visit at the château on the other side of the Somme, and promised to drop in now and then himself on his way somewhere else, that he allowed himself a second thought. To attract attention to it, he started, ran his hand through his hair, and stopped in the middle of a sentence. "I am heaven's own fool!" he exclaimed.
Of course Father Beckett wanted to know why. (This was two days before we started for Amiens.) Julian "registered reluctance." Father Beckett persisted, and drew forth the information that Julianmighthave to cut short his career as a ministering Red Cross angel. "If it hadn't been for you," he said, "my funds and my supplies would have run short before this. You've helped me carry on. But I'm getting pretty close to the bone again now, I'm afraid. A bit closer and I shall have to settle down and give music lessons. That's all I'm fit for in future! And Dierdre wouldn't want me to set up housekeeping alone. While I'm on this Red Cross job it's all right, but——"
Of course Father Beckett broke in to say that there was no question of not carrying on. Money should be forthcoming for supplies as long as Julian felt inclined to drive the Red Cross taxi from one scene of desolation and distress to another. Holidays must be frequent, and all spent at the Château d'Andelle. Let the future decide itself!
So matters were settled—on the surface. Julian wasready to pose before an admiring audience as the self-sacrificing hero, giving all his time and energy to a noble cause. Only his sister and I knew that he was the villain of the piece, and for different reasons neither of us could explain the mistake about his rôle. He was sure of us both; impudently, aggravatingly, yet (I can'thelpit, Padre!) amusingly sure of me. He tried to "isolate" me, as if I'd been a microbe while we were still at Soissons, and again just after Father Beckett and Brian went away from Amiens in the big gray car. There was something, something very special that he wished to say to me, I could tell by his eyes. But I contrived to thwart him. I never left Mother Beckett for a moment!
The first day at Amiens it was easy to keep out of his way altogether, for I was nurse as well as friend, and my dear little invalid was worn out after the journey from Soissons. She asked nothing better than to stop in her room. The next day, however, exciting news acted upon her like a tonic. The Amiens address had been wired to Paris, and in addition to a mass of letters (mostly for Father Beckett) there was a telegram from the Château d'Andelle, despatched by an agency messenger, who had been sent to Normandy. All was going well. The house would be ready on the date named. Two large boxes from the Ritz had safely arrived bygrande vitesse.
"Darling Jimmy's own things!" Mother Beckett explained to me. "Do you remember my telling you we'd brought over to France the treasures out of his den at home?"
I did remember. (Do I ever forget anything she says about Jim?)
"They were to be a surprise for him when he came to see us," his mother went on, tears misting the blueness of her eyes. "Not furniture, you know, but just the little things he loved best in his rooms: some he had when he was a child, and others when he was growing up—and the picture your brother painted. When we heard—the news—and knew we shouldn't see our boy again in this world, I couldn't bear to open the boxes—though I was longing to cry over his dear treasures. They've been stored at the Ritz ever since. But the first thing I asked Father to do when we decided the other day to live in Jim's château, after all—was to wire for the boxes to be sent there. I didn't suppose they'd arrive so soon—in war time. Dear me, I can hardly wait to start, now! I feel as strong as a girl."
To prove this—or because she was restless—she begged to be taken out in a cab to see the town, especially the cathedral, which Brian had told her was the largest in Europe except St. Peter's in Rome, St. Sophia in Constantinople, and something in Cologne which she didn'twantto remember! Julian O'Farrell and his sister must go with us, of course. It wouldn't be kind to leave them to do their sightseeing alone. Besides, Julian was so good-natured, and said such funny things it would be pleasant to have his society.
This arrangement made it difficult for me to glue myself to Mother Beckett's side. Now and then she insisted upon getting out of the cab to try her strength, and Dierdre would obediently have taken her in tow, in order to hand me over to "Jule," if I hadn't been mulishly obstinate. I quite enjoyed manœuvring to use my dearlittle invalid as a sort of standing barrage against enemy attacks, and even though Brian and I were parted for the first time since his blindness, I felt almost absurdly cheerful. It was so good to know that Mother Beckett was out of danger, and that it was I who had helped to drag her out! Besides, after all the stricken towns that have saddened our eyes, it was enlivening to be in one (as Mother Beckett said at Compiègne) with "whole houses." In contrast, good St. Firmin's ancient city looks almost as gay as Paris. Our hotel with its pleasant garden and the fine shops—(where it seems you can still buy every fascinating thing from newest jewellery and oldest curiosities, to Amiens' special "roc" chocolates)—the long, arboured boulevards, the cobbled streets, the quaint blue and pink houses of the suburbs, and the poplar-lined walk by the Somme, all, all have the friendliest air! Despite the crowds of soldiers in khaki and horizon blue who fill the streets and cafés, the place seems outside war. Even the stacked sandbags walling the west front and the side portals of the grandest cathedral in France suggest comfortable security rather than fear. The jackdaws and pigeons that used to be at home in the carvings, camp contentedly among the bags, or walk in the neglected grass where sleep the dead of long ago. I didn't want to remember just then, or let any one else remember, that twenty miles away were the trenches and thousands of the dead of to-day!
Never can Amiens have been such a kaleidoscope of colourful animation since Henri II of France and Edward VI of England signed the treaty of peace here, with trains of diplomatists and soldiers of church and state and dignified rejoicings!
It wasn't until we were inside the cathedral that I forgot my manœuverings. The soft, rich light gave such a bizarre effect to the sandbags protecting the famous choir carvings, that I was all eyes for a moment: and during that moment Julian must have signed to his sister to decoy Mother Beckett away from me. When I hauled my soul down from the soaring arches as one strikes a flag, there was Puck at my side and there were Mother Beckett and Dierdre disappearing behind sandbag-hillocks, in the direction of the celebrated Cherub.
"I suppose you want me jolly well to understand," said Puck, smiling, "that even if your brother Brian and my sister Dare are fools over each other, you won't be fooled into forgiving a poor, broken-voiced Pierrot?"
"I've nothing to forgive you for, personally," I said. "Only——"
"Only, you don't want to be friends?"
"No, I don't want to be friends," I echoed. "Why can't you be content with being treated decently before people, instead of following me about, trying always to bring upon yourself——"
"A lamp might ask that question of a moth."
I laughed. "You're less like a moth than any creature I ever met!"
"You don't believe I'm sincere."
"Do moths specialize in sincerity in the insect world?"
"Yes," Puck said, more gravely than usual. "Come to think of it, that's just what theydo. They risk their lives for the light they love. I 'follow you about,' as you put it, because I love you and want to persuade you that we're birds of a feather, made for each other by natureand fate and our mutual behaviour. We belong together in life."
"Do you really believe you can blackmail me into a partnership?" I turned at bay. "You must have seen that I wanted to keep out of your way——"
"Oh, I saw all right.Youthought that I thought Amiens would be my great chance, and you made up your mind it shouldn't be if you could help it. Well, you won't be able to help it much longer, because I've got something you want, and you can't get it except through me."
"I doubt very much that I could want anything you have," I said.
"Give your imagination wings."
"You are always teasing me to guess things I don't care to guess!"
"Here comes Dierdre back with Mrs. Beckett so I won't worry you to guess. I've got a message from the Wandering Jew. Do you want it, or don't you?"
If Julian had suddenly popped down an apple on the top of my head,à laGessler and the son of William Tell, and thereupon proceeded to shoot it off, I could have been no more amazed. For once he outflanked me, caught me completely off my guard! I saw by the impish gleam in his eye how delighted he was with himself.
"Yes or no, please; quick!" he fired the next volley as I stood speechless.
"Yes!" I gasped. "I do want the message—if it's for me. But why should he send word through you?"
"He didn't. I caught it as I might catch a homing carrier-pigeon. You know, my motto is 'All's fair in love and war.' In my case, both exist—your fault! Besides, what I did was for your good."
"What did you do—what did youdareto do?"
"Dare!" Puck mimicked my foolish fury. "'Dare' is such a melodramatic word from you to me. I can't tell you now what I did, or the message—no time. But I'm in as much of a hurry as you are. When can I see you alone?"
I hesitated, because it would be like him to cheat me with some trick, and chuckle at my rage. I couldn't see how a message from Paul Herter for me had reached Julian O'Farrell, unless he'd intercepted a letter. It seemed far more likely that Puck was romancing, yet I felt in mybones and heart and solar plexus that he wasn't! I simplyhadto know—and in a flurry, before Mother Beckett and Dierdre were upon us, I said, "This afternoon, at three, when Mrs. Beckett is having her nap. I'll meet you in the garden of the hotel."
Though I dash along with this story of mine, Padre, as if I went straight on describing the scene between Julian and me from beginning to end, without a break, it isn't really so. I've been interrupted more than once, and may be again; but I shall tell you everything that's happened since we came to Amiens, as if I wrote consecutively. You can understand better in that way, and help me with your strength and love, through your understanding, as I feel you do help, whenever I make you my confessions. Since I've begun to write you, as in old days when you were in the flesh, I've felt your advice come to me in electric flashes. I'm sure I don't just imagine this. It's real, dear Padre, and makes all the difference to me that a rope flung out over dark waters would make to a drowning man.
At three o'clock I was in the garden. It was cold, but I didn't care. Besides, I was too excited to feel the chill. I wanted to be out of doors because there would be people about, and no chance for Julian to try and kiss my hand—no vulgar temptation for me to box his ears!
He was already waiting, strolling up and down, smoking a cigarette which he threw away at sight of me. Evidently he'd decided on this occasion not to be frivolous!
I selected a seat safely commanded by many windows. "Now!" I said, sitting down close to one end of the bench.
Julian took the other end, but sat gazing straight at me without a word. There was an odd expression on hisface. I didn't know how to read it, or to guess what was to come. But there was nothing Puckish about the enemy at that moment. He looked nervous—almost as if he were afraid. I thought of something you told me when I was quite small, Padre: how the Romans of old used to send packets of good news bound with laurel, or of bad news, tied with the plumes of ravens. I stared into Julian O'Farrell's stare, and wished that he'd stuck a green leaf or a black feather in his buttonhole to prepare my mind.
"Yes—now!" he echoed at last, as if he'd suddenly waked up to my challenge. "Well, a man blew into this hotel last night—a lame Frenchman with a face like a boiled ghost. I was writing an important telegram (I'll tell you about that later), when I heard this person ask the concierge if a Miss Mary O'Malley was staying in the house. That made me open my eyes—because he was of the lowerbourgeoisclass, and hadn't the air of being—so to speak—in your set. It seemed as if 'twas up to me to tackle him; so I did. I introduced myself as a friend of Miss O'Malley's, travelling with her party. I explained that Miss O'Malley was taking care of an old lady who'd been ill and was tired after a long journey. I asked if he'd like to give a message. He said he would. But first he began to explain who he was: an Alsatian by birth, named Muller, corporal in an infantry regiment; been a prisoner in Germany, I forget how long—taken wounded; leg amputated; and fitted with artificial limb in a Boche hospital; just exchanged for agrand blesséBoche, and repatriated; been in Paris on important business, apparently with the War Office—sounded more exciting than he looked! After I'd prodded the chap tactfully, he cameback to the subject of the message: asked me if I knew Doctor Paul Herter. I said I did know him. Herter mended up my sister after an air raid. I inquired politely where Herter was, but Muller evaded that question. He led me to suppose he'd seen Herter in Paris; but putting two and two together, I got a different idea—altogetherdifferent."
Julian paused on those words, and tried piercingly to read my thoughts. But I made my face expressionless as the front of a shut-up house, with "to let unfurnished" over the door.
"I expect you've guessed what my idea was, and I bet you know for a fact whether I was on the right track," he ventured.
"The only thing so far which I know for a fact," I said, "is that you had no right to talk to the man at all. You should have sent for me at once."
"You couldn't have come if I had. Dierdre had told me about five minutes before that you were putting Mrs. Beckett to bed, and giving her a massage treatment with a rub-down of alcohol."
"Why didn't you ask the man to wait?"
"I did ask him if hecouldwait, and he said he couldn't. He'd stopped at Amiens on purpose to deliver his message, and he had to catch a train on to Allonville, to where it seems his people have migrated."
"You asked him that because you hoped he couldn't wait—and if he could, you'd have found some reason for not letting me meet him. You thought you saw a way of getting a new hold over me!"
"Some such dramatic idea may have flitted through myhead. I've often warned you, Iamdramatic! I enjoy dramatizing life for myself and others! But honestly, he couldn't wait for you to finish with Mrs. Beckett. I know too well how devoted you are to think you'd have left the old lady before you'd soothed her off to sleep."
"Where is the message?" I snatched Julian back to the point.
"In my brain at present."
"You destroyed the letter?"
"There wasn't a letter. Oh, make grappling hooks of your lovely eyes if you like! You can't drag anything out of me that doesn't exist. Herter's message to you was verbal for safety. That was one thing set me thinking the men hadn't met in Paris. Muller admitted going to a bank to get your address. The people there didn't want to give it, but when he explained that it was important, and mentioned where he was going, they saw that he might have time to meet you at Amiens on his way home. So they told him where you were. Now, there's no good your being cross withme. What's done is done, and can't be undone. I acted for the best—mybest; and in my opinion for your best. Listen! Here's the message, word for word. You'll see that a few hours' delay for me to think it over could make no difference to any one concerned. Paul Herter, from somewhere—but maybe not 'somewhere in France'—sends you a verbal greeting, because it was more sure of reaching you—not coming to griefen route. He reminds you that he asked for an address in case he had something of interest to communicate. He hoped to find the grave of a man you loved. Instead, he thinks he has found that there is no grave—that the manis above ground and well. He isn't sure yet whether he may be deceived by a likeness of names. But he's sure enough to say: 'Hope.' If he's right about the man, you may get further news almost any minute by way of Switzerland or somewhere neutral. That's all. Yet it's enough to show you what danger you're in. If Herter hadn't been practically certain, he wouldn't have sent any message. He'd have waited. Evidently you made him believe that you loved Jim Beckett, so he wanted to prepare your mind by degrees. I suppose he imagined a shock of joy might be dangerous. Well, you ought to thank Herter just the same for sparing you a worse sort of shock. And I thank him, too, for it gives me a great chance—the chance to save you. Mary, the time's come for you and me to fade off the Beckett scene—together."
I listened without interrupting him once: at first, because I was stunned, and a thousand thoughts beat dully against my brain without finding their way in, as gulls beat their wings against the lamp of a lighthouse; at last, because I wished to hear Julian O'Farrell to the very end before I answered. I fancied that in answering I could better marshal my own thoughts.
He misunderstood my silence—I expected him to do that, but I cared not at all—so, when he had paused and still I said nothing, he went on: "Of course I—for the best of reasons—know you didn't love Jim Beckett, and couldn't love him."
Hearing those words of his, suddenly I knew just what I wanted to say. I'd been like an amateur actress wild with stage fright, who'd forgotten her part till the rightcue came. "There you're mistaken," I contradicted him. "I did love Jim Beckett."
Julian gave an excited, brutal laugh. "Tell that to the Marines, my child, not to yours truly! You never set eyes on Jim Beckett. He never went near your hospital. You never came near the training-camp. You seem to have forgotten that I was on the spot."
"I met him before the war," I said.
"What's that?" Julian didn't know whether to believe me or not, but his forehead flushed to the black line of his low-growing hair.
"I never told you, because there was no need to tell," I went on. "But it's true. I fell in love with Jim Beckett then, and—he cared for me."
For the first time I realized that Julian O'Farrell's "love" wasn't all pretence. His flush died, and left him pale with that sick, greenish-olive pallor which men of Latin blood have when they're near fainting. He opened his lips, but did not speak, because, I think, he could not. If I'd wanted revenge for what he made me suffer when he first thrust himself into my life, I had it then; but to my own surprise I felt no pleasure in striking him. Instead I felt vaguely sorry, though very distant from his plans and interests.
"You—you weren't engaged to Beckett, anyhow. I'm sure you weren't, or you'd have had nothing to worry about when Dierdre and I turned up," he faced me down.
"No, we weren't engaged," I admitted. "I—was just as much of a fraud as you meant Dierdre to be with Father and Mother Beckett. I've no excuse—except that it wasfor Brian's sake. But that's no excuse really, and Brian would despise me if he knew."
"There you are!" Julian burst out, with a relieved sigh, a more natural colour creeping back to his face. "If Jim Beckett let you go before the war without asking you to marry him, I'm afraid his love couldn't have been very deep—not deep enough to make him forgive you after all this time for deceiving his old father and mother the way you have. My God, no! In spite of your beauty, he'd have no mercy on you!"
"That's what I think," I said. "My having met him, and his loving me a little, makes what I've done more shameful than if I'd never met him at all."
"Then you see why you must get away as quick as you can!" urged Julian, his eyes lighting as he drew nearer to me on the garden bench. "Oh, wait, don't speak yet! Let me explain my plan. There's time still. You're thinking of Brian before yourself, maybe. But he's safe. The Becketts adore him. They say he 'saved their reason.' He makes the mysticism they're always groping for seem real as their daily bread. He puts local colour into the fourth dimension for them! They can never do without Brian again. All that's needed is for him to propose to Dierdre. I know—you think he won't, no matter how he feels. But he'll have missed her while he's away. She's a missable little thing to any one who likes her, and she can tempt him to speak out in spite of himself when he gets back. I'll see to it that she does. The Becketts will be enchanted. The old lady's a born match-maker. We can announce our engagement at the same time. While they think Jim's dead, they won't grudge your being happywith another man, especially with me. They're fond of me! And you're young. Your life's before you. They're too generous to stand in your way. They look on you as a daughter, and Brian as a son. They'll give each of you a handsome wedding present, and I don't doubt they'll ask Brian to live with them, or near them, if he's to be blind all his life. He'll have everything you wanted to win for him. Even when they get into communication with Jim, and find out the truth about you, why I bet anything they'll hide it from Brian to keep him happy! Meanwhile you and I will be in Paris, safely married. An offer came to me yesterday from Jean De Letzski—forwarded on. He's getting old. He wants me to take on some of his pupils, under his direction. I telegraphed back my acceptance. That's the wire I was sending when Herter's man turned up last night. There was a question last summer of my getting this chance with De Letzski, but I hardly dared hope. It's a great stroke of luck! In the end I shall stand in De Letzski's shoes, and be a rich man—almost as rich as if I'd kept my place as star tenor in opera. Even at the beginning you and I won't be poor. I count on a wedding gift from the Becketts to you of ten thousand dollars at least. The one way to save our reputations is to marry or die brilliantly. We choose the former. We can take a fine apartment. We'll entertain the most interesting set in Paris. With your looks and charm, and what's left of my voice, we——"
"Oh,stop!" I plunged into the torrent of his talk. "You are making me—sick. Do you really believe I'd accept money from Jim Beckett's parents, and—marry you?"
He stared, round-eyed and hurt, like a misunderstood child. "But," he blundered on, "don't you see it's the only thing you can do—anyhow, to marry me? If you won't accept money, why it's a pity and a waste, but I want you enough to snap you up without a franc. You must marry me, dear. Think what I gave up for you!"
I burst out laughing. "What you gave up for me!"
"Yes. Have you forgotten already? If I hadn't fallen in love with you at first sight, and sacrificed myself and Dierdre for your good, wouldn't my sister have been in your place now, and you and your brother Lord knows where—in prison as impostors, perhaps?"
"According to you, my place isn't a very enviable one at present," I said. "But I'd rather be in prison for life than married to you. What a vision—what a couple!"
"Oh, I know having you for my wife would be a good deal like going to heaven in a strong mustard plaster; but I'd stand the smart for the sake of the bliss. If you won't marry me and if you won't take money from the Becketts, what will become of you? That's what I want to know! You can't stay on with them. You daren't risk going to their Château d'Andelle, as things are turning out. Herter's certainly in Germany—ideal man for a spy! If he runs across Jim Beckett, as he's trying to do, he'll move heaven and earth to help him escape. He must have influence, and secret ways of working things. He may have got at Jim before this for all we can tell. Muller let it leak out that he left Herter—somewhere—a week ago. A lot can happen in a week—to a Wandering Jew. The ground's trembling under your feet. You'll have to skip without Brian, without money, without——"
"I shall not stir," I said. "I can't leave Mrs. Beckett, I won't leave her! The only way I can atone even a little bit, is to stop and take care of her while she needs me, no matter what happens. When she finds out, she won't want me any longer. Then I'll go. But not before."
We glared at each other like two fencers through the veil of falling dusk. Suddenly I sprang up from the bench, remembering that, at least, I could escape from Julian, if not from the sword of Damocles. But he caught my dress, and held me fast.
"What if I tell the old birds the whole story up to date?" he blustered. "I can, you know."
"You can. Please give me fair warning if you're going to—that's all I ask. I'll try to prepare Mrs. Beckett's mind to bear the shock. She's not very strong, but——"
"If I don't tell, it won't be because of her. It will be for you—always, everything, for you! But I haven't decided yet. I don't know what I shall do yet. I must think. You'll have to make the best of that compromise unless you change your mind."
"I shall not change my mind," I said.
Later, Padre, when I'd broken away from Julian, I wondered if he had made up the whole story. The cruel trick would be impishly characteristic! But I went straight to the concierge to ask about Muller. He said that a man of that name had called the night before, inquiring for me, and had talked with "the Monsieur who looked like an Italian." This practically convinced me that Julian hadn't lied.
If only I could get direct advice from you! Do try to send me an inspiration of what to do for the best.
My first impulse was to give Mother Beckett a faint hint of hope. But I dared not run the risk. If Paul Herter proved to be mistaken, it would be for her like losing her son a second time, and the dear one's strength might not be equal to the strain. After thinking and unthinking all night, I decided to keep silent until our two men returned from the British front. Then, perhaps, I might tell Brian of the message from Doctor Paul, and ask his opinion about speaking to Father Beckett. As for myself, I resolved not to make any confession, unless it were certain that Jim lived. And I'm not sure, Padre, whether that decision was based on sheer, selfish cowardice, or whether I founded it partly on the arguments I presented to myself. I said in my mind: "If it's true that everything you did in the beginning was for Brian'sgood, why undo it all at the most critical hour of his life, when perhaps there may never be any reason to speak?" Also I said: "Why make it impossible for yourself to give Mother Beckett the care she needs, and can hardly do without yet? Every day counts with her now. Why not wait unless you hear again more definitely?"
The annoying part of a specious argument is that there's always some truth in it, and it seems like kind advice from wise friends!
Anyhow, Ididwait. Julian made no further appeal to me, and I felt sure that he said nothing to Dierdre. If he had taken her into his confidence, I should have known by her manner; because, from the shut-up, night-flower of a girl that she was, she has rather pathetically opened out for me into a daylight flower. All this since she came of her own free will and told me of the scene in the chill boarding housesalonat Soissons. I used to think her as secret as the grave—and deeper. She used to make me "creep" as if a mouse ran overmine, by the way her eyes watched me: still as a cat's looking into the fire. If we had to shake hands, she used to present me with a limp little bunch of cold fingers, which made me long to ask what the deuce she wanted me to do with them? Now, because I'm Brian's sister, and because I'm human enough to love her love of him, the flower-part of her nature sheds perfume and distils honey for me: the cat-part purrs; the girl-part warms. The creature actually deigns to like me! It could not now conceal its anxiety for Brian and Brian's kith and kin, if it knew what Julian knows.
I waited until our last day at Amiens, and Father Beckett, Brian, and Sirius are back from the British front.Perhaps I forgot to tell you that Sirius went. He wasn't on the programme, but he knew somehow that his master was planning a separation, and refused to fall in with the scheme. He was discovered in the motor-car when it was ready to start, looking his best, his dear face parted in the middle with an irresistible, ingratiating smile. When Brian tried to put him out he flattened himself, and clung like a limpet. By Father Beckett's intercession, he was eventually taken, trusting to luck for toleration by the British Army. Of course he continued to smile upon all possible arbiters of his fate; and the drama of his history, combined with the pathos of his blind master who fought on these battlefields of Flanders, which now he cannot see, made Brian's Sirius and Sirius's Brianpersonæ gratæeverywhere.
"I should have been nobody and nothing without them!" modestly insisted the millionaire philanthropist for whom all the privileges of the trip had been granted.
To me, with the one thought, the one word "Jim—Jim—Jim!" repeating in my head it was strange, even irrelevant to hear Jim's unsuspecting father and my blind brother discoursing of their adventures.
We all assembled in Mother Beckett's sitting room to listen to the recital, she on a sofa, a rug over her feet, and on her transparent face an utterly absorbed, tense expression rather like a French spaniel trying to learn an English trick.
Father Beckett appointed Brian as spokesman, and then in his excitement broke in every instant with: "Don't forget this! Be sure to remember that! But so-and-so was the best!" Or he jumped up from his chair by thesofa, and dropped his wife's hand to point out something on the map, spread like a cloth over the whole top of a bridge-table.
It was his finger that sketched for our eyes the sharp triangle which the road-journey had formed: Amiens to Albert: Albert to Péronne: Péronne to Bapaume: Bapaume to Arras: Arras to Bethune, and so on to Ypres: his finger that reminded Brian of the first forest on the road—a forest full of working German prisoners.
At Pont-Noyelles, between Amiens and Albert, they were met by an officer who was to be their guide for that part of the British front which they were to visit. He was sent from headquarters, but hadn't been able to afford time for Amiens. However, Pont-Noyelles was the most interesting place between there and Albert. A tremendous battle was fought on that spot in '70, between the French under famous General Faidherbe and the Germans under Manteuffel—aperfectname for a German general of these days, if not of those! There were two monuments to commemorate the battle—one high on a hill above the village; and the officer guide (with the face of a boy and the grim experience of an Old Contemptible) was well up in their history. He turned out to be a friend of friends of Brian and knew the history of Sirius as well as that of all the war-wasted land. He and Brian, though they'd never met, had fought near each other it seemed, and he could describe for the blind eyes all the changes that had come upon the Somme country since Brian's "day." The roads which had been remade by the British over the shell-scarred and honeycombed surface of the land; the aerodromes; the training-camps; the tanks; the wonderfulnew railways for troops and ammunition: the bands of German prisoners docilely at work.
When the great gray car stopped, throbbing, at specialview-points here and there, it was Brian who could listen for a lark's message of hope among the billowing downs, or draw in the tea-rose scent of earth from some brown field tilled by a woman. It was Father Beckett who saw the horrors of desolation—desolation more hideous even than on the French front; because, since the beginning, here had burned the hottest furnace of war: here had fallen a black, never-ceasing rain of bombardment, night and day, day and night, year after year.
on her high tower the golden Lady stood when the war began. Albert was pitilessly bombarded, and with a startling accuracy which none could understand: yet the church itself, with its temptingly high tower, remained intact. Through October, 1914, the shining figure blazed against the sky, while houses fell in all quarters of the town: but on November 1st, three bombs struck the church. They were the first heavy drops of rain in a thunderstorm. The roof crashed in: and presently the pedestal of the Virgin received a shattering blow. This was on the very day when Albert discovered why for so long the church had been immune. A spy had been safely signalling from the tower, telling German gunners how and where to strike with the most damage to the town. When all the factories which gave wealth to Albert, and the best houses, had been methodically destroyed, the spy silently stole away: and the Virgin of the Shepherds then bent over, face down, to search for this black sheep of the fold. Ever since she with the sacred Child in her arms has hung thus suspended in pity and blessing over mountainous piles of wreckage which once composed the market-place. She will not crash to earth, Albert believes, till the war is over. But so loved is she in her posture of protection that the citizens propose to keep her in it for ever to commemorate the war-history of Albert, when Albert is rebuilt for future generations.
From there the gray car ran on almost due east to Péronne, out of the country of Surrey-like, Chiltern-like downs, into a strange marshy waste, where the river Somme expands into vast meres, swarming with many fish. It looked, Father Beckett said, "Like a bit ofthe world when God had just begun to create life out of chaos."
Poor Péronne! In its glorious days of feudal youth its fortress-castle was invincible. The walls were so thick that in days before gunpowder no assaults could hope to break through them. Down in its underground depths was a dungeon, where trapped enemy princes lay rotting and starving through weary years, never released save by death, unless tortured into signing shameful treaties. The very sound of the name, "Péronne," is an echo of history, as Brian says. Hardly a year-date in the Middle Ages could be pricked by a pin without touching some sensational event going on at that time at Péronne. I remember this from my schooldays; and more clearly still from "Quentin Durward," which I have promised to read aloud to Mother Beckett. I remember the Scottish monks who were established at Péronne in the reign of Clovis. I remember how Charles the Bold of Burgundy (who died outside Nancy's gates) imprisoned wicked Louis XI in a strong tower of the château, one of the four towers with conical roofs, like extinguishers of giant candles and kingly reputations! I remember best of all the heroine of Péronne, Catherine de Poix, "la belle Péronnaise," who broke with her own hand the standard of Charles's royal flag, in the siege of 1536, threw the bearer into the fosse, and saved the city.
When Wellington took the fortress in 1814, he did not desecrate or despoil the place: it was left for the Germans to do that, just a century later in the progress of civilization! My blood grew hot as I heard from our two men the story of what the new Vandals had done. Justfor a moment I almost forgot the secret burning in my heart. The proud pile of historic stone brought to earth at last, like a soldier-king, felled by an axe in his old age: the statue of Catherine thrown from its pedestal, and replaced in mockery by a foolish manikin—this as a mean revenge for what she did to the standard-bearer, most of Charles's men in the siege being Germans, under Henry of Nassau.