Clouds, yellow, mauve and blue, hung ominously over the road to Nancy. The valley was filled with shades, but the road itself gleamed like a bleached bone in a ditch. Seated upon the dashboard of her wounded car, Fanny had drummed her heels for warmth since morning, and seemed likely soon to drum them upon a carpet of snow. Beneath the car a dark stream of oil marked the road, and the oil still dripped from the differential case, where the back axle lay in two halves.
"I will telephone to your garage," her "client" had promised, as he climbed on to a passing lorry and continued his journey into Nancy. With that she had to be content, while she waited, first without her lunch, and then without her tea, for the breakdown lorry which his telephone message would eventually bring to her aid. Now it was nearly four o'clock. She had been hungry, but was hungry no longer. The bitter cold made her forehead ache, and though every moment the blue and mauve shades thickened upon the sky no flake of snow had fallen.
Only last night, only twenty-four hours ago, she had been preparing for the dance; and only last night she had said to Julien … What had she said to Julien? What had he said to her? Again she was deep in a reverie that had lasted all day, that had kept her warm, had fed her.
She was almost asleep when a man's voice woke her, and she found a car with three Americans drawn up beside her.
"I guess this is too bad," said the man who had woken her. "We passed you this morning on our way into Nancy, and here you are still looking as though you had never moved. 'Ain't you had any food since then?"
"I haven't been so very hungry."
"Not hungry? You're sure past being hungry! Lucky we've got food with us in the car. Pity we've got to hurry, but here's sandwiches and sandwiches, and cakes and candy, and bits of bunstuff, and an apple. And here's a cheese that's running out of its wrappin'. When's your show coming to fetch you? 'Ain't you coming home along with us?"
"They won't be long now. Oh, you are good…." Fanny's hunger revived as she took the food, and now she was waiting ungratefully for them to be gone that she might start on her heavensent meal.
"Good-bye, ma'am," they cried together.
"Good-bye," she waved, and as their car passed onwards she climbed up on to the mudguard and spread the rug over her knees.
The slow night grew out of nothing, expanded, and nearly enveloped the slopes of the hill below. The wind dropped in the cloudy, heavy twilight, and the papers of the sandwiches did no more than rustle upon her knees. Not prepared yet to light her car lamps, Fanny laid her torch upon her lap, and its patch of white light lit her hands and the piles of bread, cake, and fancy buns.
Across the road in the deeper gloom that dyed the valley and spilt over its banks, a head rustled in the ragged border of twig and reed, and eyes watched the brightly-lighted meal which seemed to hang suspended above the vague shape of the motor car.
With a sense of being perfectly alone, walled round by the gathering dusk, Fanny made a deep inroad upon her sandwiches and cake, finishing with the apple, and began to roll up what remained in case of further need, should no one come to fetch her.
She reflected that her torch would not last her long and that she ought to put it and light her head and tail lamps instead, but, drowsy with pleasure in her lonely dinner, she sat on, prolonging the last moments before she must uncurl her feet and climb down on to the ground. The torch slipped from her knee on to a lower fold of the rug, lighting only the corner of a packet in which she had rolled the cake.
Suddenly, while she watched it, the gleam of the corner disappeared. She stared at the spot intensely, and saw a hand, a shade lighter than the darkness, travel across the surface of the rug, cover with its fingers the second parcel and draw it backwards into what had now become dense night. Her skin stirred as though a million antennae were alive upon it; she could not breathe lest any movement should fling the unknown upon her; her eyes were glued to the third packet, and, in a moment, the hand advanced again. With horror she saw it creep along the rug, a small brown, fibrous hand, worn with work. The third packet was eclipsed by the fingers and receded as the others had done, but as it reached the edge of the rug, overflowing horror galvanised her into movement, and catching the corners of the rug she threw it violently after the package and over the hand, at the same moment jumping from her seat and on to the footboard, to grope wildly for the switch. Her heart was leaping like a fish just flung into a basket, and every inch of her body winced from an expected grasp upon it. She flung herself over the side and into the seat of the car, found the switch and pushed it.
A dozen Chinese at least were caught in the two long beams that flew out across the darkness. For a second their wrinkled faces stared, eyes blinked, and short, unhollowed lips stretched over yellow teeth, then, with a flutter of dark garments, the Chinese started away from the fixed beams and were gone into the shadow. Except for the sudden twitter of a voice, the spurt of a stone flung up against the metal of the car, they melted silently out of sight and hearing. Sick with panic, Fanny leant down upon her knees and covered her head with her two arms, expecting a blow from above. Seconds passed, and ice-cold, with one leg gone to sleep, she lifted her head, switched off the lights and stared into the night. She could see nothing, and gradually becoming accustomed to the darkness, she found that they had completely disappeared. The rug, too, had gone, and all three packets of sandwiches. Cautiously, with trembling legs, she stepped upon the footboard.
Something hit her softly upon the forehead, but before she had time to suffer from a new fear her eye caught the glitter of a flake of snow in its parachute descent across the path of her lamps. "They hate snow…." she whispered, not knowing whether it was true. She tried to picture them as a band of workmen, who, content with their little pillage, were now far from her on their way to some encampment.
Finding the torch still caught between the mudguard and the bonnet, she prowled round the car, flashing it into corners and pits of darkness. There was no sign of a lurking face or flutter of garment.
Snow began to fall, patting her noiselessly on her face and hands, and curling faster and faster across the lights. In twenty minutes the road around her was lightened, and cones of delicate softness grew between the spokes of the wheels.
Climbing down again from her perch, Fanny went to the back of the car, and, taking from beneath the seat her box of tools, she groped in the hollow under the wood and pulled out an iron bar, stout and slightly bent, with a knob at one end—the handle of the wheel jack.
* * * * *
Far away, in what seemed another world, equally blind, snowy and obscure, but divided from this one by fathoms of frozen water, a car was coming out from Pont-à-Moussons on to the main Nancy road. Its two head-lamps glowed confusedly under the snow that clung to them, and the driver, his thick, blue coat buttoned about his chin, leant forward peering through the open windscreen, stung, blinded, and blinking as the flakes drove in.
The head-lamps swept the road, the range of the beams reaching out and climbing the tree trunks in sheltered spots, or flung back and huddled about the front wheels when a blast of fresh snow was swept in from the open valley on the left.
"We must be getting to Marbashe?"
"Hardly yet,mon capitaine. It was unlucky thebrigadiershould be at Thionville. I could have mended the spring on the lorry myself, but it wants two men to tow in the car."
"This is Marbache!"
In the shelter of the hamlet the lights leapt forward and struck a handful of houses, thickened and rounded with snow. Almost immediately darkness swallowed them up, and a drift of snow flung up by the wind burst in powder over the bonnet and on to the glass.
"The plain outside. Now we go down a long hill. We turn sharp to the right here."
The car entered a tunnel of skeleton trees through which the flakes drained and flickered, or broke in uneven gusts through the trunks. The left lamp touched a little wooden hut which stood blinkered and deserted. Just beyond it was a sharp turn in the road.
"What's that?"
A pale light hung in the dark ahead of them.
"Is it a car? No."
"Yes, lamps. With the beam broken by the snow."
"Go slow."
For fear of blinding the driver of a lighted vehicle which might, after all, be moving, one of the men put out his hand and switched off the headlights, and the car glided forward on its own momentum.
Thus they came upon Fanny, in the hollow torn by the lamps out of an obscurity which whirled like a dense pillar above her, seated on her mudguard, blanched and still as an image, the iron bar for a weapon in her right hand, the torch ready as a signal in her left.
"Julien!"
"Well, yes, my poor child!" And she saw the man behind him, and laughed.
"Help me down. Within and without I am set in plaster."
"You look like a poor, weather-chipped goddess, or an old stone pillar with a face."
"Be careful, that leg will not stand…. Oh, look, look how the snow clings. It's frozen on my lap."
"We must be quick. Everything must be quickly done, or we shall all stay here."
"Oh, I don't care about that now!"
"What have you got in your hand? Give it to me."
"That's a weapon. I almost needed it. Where is the lorry?"
"The garage was empty. Thebrigadierwas at Thionville. The lorry had a spring broken."
"And they told you?"
"I did not call at the 'C.R.A.' office till late in the day, or you would have been fetched long ago. Come along! Have you got your things together? We must take them back in the other car. And the magneto too."
"We're to leave the car after all my guarding care?"
"No; here's Pichot volunteered to take your place."
"Has he got food with him and rugs. My rug has gone…."
"He has everything. Come along! Let's put everything of value into the other car."
When they had finished the night air was clear of snowflakes; hill, road and valley were lit by the pallor of the fallen snow.
Fanny followed Julien to the other car. He swung the handle and jumped into the driving seat. "Come…." he said, and held out a hand.
"Good-night, Pichot. We'll send for you early in the morning."
"Good-night,mon capitaine.Good-night, mademoiselle."
They moved forward, and the moon like a wandering lamp lit their faces.
"Blow out, old moon!" said Julien, turning his silvered face and hair up to the sky. The moon flew behind a cloud.
"Quick!" he said.
"What?"
… and kissed her. The jacks and tyres and wheels and bolts fluttered out of Fanny's head like black ravens and disappeared. They flew on, over the bridge at Pont-à-Moussons, up the shining ruinous street.
"Crouch lower!" said Julien. "If any one wanted to, they could count your eyelashes from the windows."
"Ah, yes, if there was any one to count…." She glanced up at the fragmentary pronged chimneys, the dark, unstirring caves of brick.
Soon the church clocks of Metz rang out, quarrelling, out of time with one another.
"Do you know this isn't going to last?" said Julien suddenly, as if the clocks had reminded him.
She turned swiftly towards him.
"The Grand Quartier is moving?"
"Ah, you knew? You had heard?"
"No, no," she shook her head. "But do you think I haven't thought of it? I keep thinking, 'We can't stay here for ever. Some end will come.' And then—'It will come this way. The Grand Quartier will go.'"
"But you are going with it."
"Julien! Is that true?"
"Certain. It was settled to-day. We are actually leaving in three days for Chantilly; and you, with all the garage, all the drivers, and the offices of the 'C.R.A.' are to be at Précy-sur-Oise, five miles away."
"But you are at Précy too?"
"No, I have to be at Chantilly. And worse than that … The bridge over the Oise at Précy is blown up and all cars have to come sixteen miles round to Chantilly by another bridge. I am in despair about it. I have tried every means to get Dormans to fix upon another village, but he is obstinate, and Précy it must be for you, and Chantilly for me. But don't let's think of it now. Wait till you've eaten and are warm, and we can plan. Here are the gates!"
He handed out the paper pass as a red light waved to and from upon the snow. First the Customs-men, Germans still, in their ancient civic uniform. "Nothing to declare?" Then the little soldier with the lantern in his hand: "Your pass,ma belle!" As he caught sight of Julien, "Pardon, mademoiselle!" Lastly, up the long road into the open square by the station, down the narrow street, splashing the melted snow-water against the shop windows, and under the shadow of the cathedral.
"Put the car away and come and dine with me at Moitriers."
She looked at him astonished. "The car? Whose car is it? Does it belong to our garage?"
"It will in future. It arrived last night, fresh from Versailles. I am arranging with Dennis for you to take it over to-morrow."
Her eyes sparkled. "A beautiful Renault! A brand new Renault!…"
He laughed. "Hurry, or you will faint with hunger. Put it away and come, just as you are, to Moitriers, up into the balcony. I am going there first to order a wonderful dinner."
In a quarter of an hour they were sitting behind the wooden balustrade of the balcony at Moitriers—the only diners on the little landing that overhung the one fashionable restaurant in Metz. It was a quarter to nine; down below, the room, which was lined with mirrors set in gilt frames, was filled with light; knives and forks still tapped upon the plates, but the hour being late many diners leant across the strewn tablecloths and talked, or sat a little askew in their chairs and listened. A hum filled the warm air, and what was garish below, here, behind the balustrade, became filtered and strained to delicate streaks and bars of light which crossed and recrossed their cloth, their hands, their faces—what was noisy below was here no more than a soft insect bustle, a murmurous background to their talk.
The door of the balcony opened behind them, and Madame Berthe, the proprietress herself, moved at their side; her old-fashioned body, shaped like an hour-glass, was clothed in rucked black silk, which flowed over her like a pigment; flowed from her chin to the floor, upon which it lay stiffly in hills and valleys of braided hem. Her gay gold tooth gleamed, and the gold in her ears wagged, as she fed them gently on omelette, chicken and tinned peas, and asouffléice.
They talked a little, sleepy after the wind, smiling at each other.
"Don't you want more light than that?" said Madame Berthe, coming in again softly with the coffee.
Fanny shook her head. "Not any more than this."
Then they were left alone, stirring the coffee, gazing down between the wooden columns at the diners below.
"Of what are you thinking?" she asked, as a sigh escaped her companion.
"The move to Chantilly. I am so loth to break up all this."
"Break up?"
"Ah, well, it changes, doesn't it? Even if it is no longer the same landscape it changes!"
After a silence he added: "How fragile it is!"
"What?"
"You!" He covered her hand with both his. "You! What I think you are, and what you think I am. Love and illusion. Too fragile to be given to us with our blunders and our nonsense."
She watched him, silent, and he went on:
"I don't understand this life. That's why I keep quiet and smile, as you say I do. There are often things I don't say when I smile."
"What things?"
"Oh, I wonder how much you believe me. And I listen to that immense interior life, which talks such a different language. Ihateto move on to Chantilly."
Suddenly she recognised that they were at a corner which he had wanted her to turn for days. There had been something he had hinted at, something he wanted to tell her. He chafed at some knowledge he had which she did not share, which he wanted her to share.
Once he had said: "I had letters this morning which worried me…."
"Yes?"
"One in particular. It hurt me. It gave me pain."
But she had not wanted to ask what was in the letter. Then he had grown restless, sighed and turned away, but soon they had talked again and it had passed.
And now to-night he said:
"Look how detached we are in this town, which is like an island in the middle of the sea. We behave as though we had no past lives, and never expected any future. Especially you."
"Especially I?"
"You behave as though I was born the day before you met me, and would die the day after you leave me. You never ask anything about me; you tell me nothing about yourself. We might be a couple of stars hanging in mid air shining at each other. And then I have the feeling that one might drop and the other wouldn't know where to look for it."
But after a little silence the truth burst out, and he said with despair: "Don't you want to knowanythingabout me?"
(Yes, that was all very well. She did, she did. But not just this that was coming!)
And then he told her….
* * * * *
"What is she like … Violette?"
"Fair."
After several low questions she seemed to stand between them like a child, thin and fair, delicate and silent, innocently expecting to be spared all pain.
"No, she doesn't go out very much. She stays indoors and does her hair, and her nails, and reads a little book."
"And have you known her for a long time?"
"A long time…."
After this they pretended that she did not exist, and the little wraith floated back to Paris from which she had come, suddenly, on days when she had written him certain letters which had brought tears into his eyes.
Fanny turned again to seek the lights of the town and the dagger points of the churches that climbed against the sky upon the hill behind her, but all that met her eyes was the blanket of wet darkness, and the shimmer of the snowflakes under the lamps.
She slipped through the garage gates, touching the iron bars … "almost for the last time."
"But what does it matter? All towns are the same and we sing the same song in each and wear the same coloured feathers." She stirred the snow in the yard with her foot. "An inch already and the Renault has so little grip upon the snow. Shall we be able to start to-morrow?"
Then she set out to look for a heap of snow chains which she had noticed before in a corner of the yard. Not far from her another little torch moved in the darkness, and under its downward ray she caught sight of a khaki skirt and a foot. "Someone else has thought of chains, too! And there are so few!" She clicked off her light and moved stealthily along the forest of cars, her fingers sweeping blankets of snow from the mudguards. Passing the first line of corpse-cars she saw the light again. "She's in the wrong place!" she thought, and hurried on. "Those bags of chains are just behind the Berliet they brought in backwards." Behind the Berliet little mounds showed in the snow. She stooped over them, shading her light with her knees, and dug in the light powder with her hand, pulling out a small canvas bag which she dusted and beat with her fingers.
"Are you looking for chains?" she called to the other light, her bag safely in her arms.
"Yes."
"They are here. Here! In this corner!"
"Who are you?" cried the voice.
But she slipped away in silence to the garage door; for on this last black and white night in Metz she longed to creep about unspoken to, unquestioned. A little soldier sat on guard by a brazier of glowing charcoal near the door. She nodded to him as she moved down the long line of cars to her own.
There it stood, the light of the brazier falling faintly upon it, the two points of the windscreen standing up like the ready ears of an interested dog, the beautiful lines of its body, long bonnet and mudguards stretched like a greyhound at a gallop, at rest until the dawn. She flung the bag of chains inside, and, patting the bonnet, slipped away and out into the street without attempting to try the fit of the chains upon the wheels.
She slept a last night in the dark red German room three streets away—first making a little tour of the walls in her nightgown, the candle flame waving from her hand, the hot wax running in a cascade over her fingers—and looked at the stag's horn fastened to the bracket and the cluster of Christmas postcards pinned to the wall.
The postcards arrested her attention, and a light darted in her mind. They were dark postcards, encrusted with shiny frosting, like the snow outside. Little birds and goblins, a wreath of holly, and a house with red mica windows were designed on them. She put out a finger and gently touched the rough, bright, common stuff; standing opposite them, almost breathless with a wave of memory. She could see herself no taller than the nursery fireguard, with round eyes to which every bright thing was a desire. She could feel herself very small amid the bustle and clatter of Christmas, blowing dark breath marks against the bright silver on the table, pulling the fringe round the iced cake, wetting her finger and picking up "hundreds and thousands" with it from a bag.
These postcards now in front of her were made by some one with the mind of a child. It struck and shook her violently with memory to see them. "That's why the Germans write good fairy stories!" she thought, and her eyes passed to the framed photographs that hung near the postcards, pictures of soldiers in uniform, sitting at a table with the two daughters of the house. But these wooden faces, these bodies pressing through unwieldy clothes seemed unrelated to the childish postcards.
She went contentedly to her bed, the room, bare of all her belongings, except the one bag that stood, filled and open, upon the table; sleeping for the last time in the strange bed in the strange town which she might never see again. It was time indeed to go.
For days past civilians had crept through the gates of Metz, leading old horses, drawing ramshackle carts filled with mattresses, faded silk chairs, gilt ormolu stands, clocks and cloaks and parrot cages; all the strange things that men and women use for their lives. The furniture that had fled in other carts from villages now dust upon a dead plain was returning through all the roads of France, repacked and dusted, to set up the spirit of civilian life again.
It was time to go, following all the other birds of passage that war had dragged through the town of Metz—time to make way for the toiling civilian with his impedimenta of civilisation.
In the morning when she opened her eyes the room was darker than usual, and the opening of the window but the merest square of light. Snow was built up round the frame in thick rolls four inches high.
She dressed hurriedly and rolled up the sleeping-sack with her few last things inside it. Out in the street the snow was dry and thick and beautifully untrodden. The garage gates looked strange, with a thick white banner blown down each side of the pillars. She looked inside the garage shed. Yes, all the cars had gone—hers stood alone, the suitcases inside, tyres pumped stiff and solid, the hood well buckled back.
"Mademoiselle hasn't gone with the convoy?" said themaréchal des logis, aghast.
"Oh, I'm separate," she laughed.
"But the convoy is gone."
"I know it. But I'm not with them. It's an order. I'm going alone."
"Bien. But do you know the route?"
"I'm not going by it."
He laughed, suddenly giving up all attempt at responsibility, and bent to catch her starting handle.
"Oh, don't worry."
"Yes, it's your last day, I may as well help you to go away."
The engine started easily and she drove out of the garage into the yard, the wheels flying helplessly in the snow, and flinging up dry puffs like flour. "Haven't you chains?" said themaréchal des logis. But she smiled and nodded and could not wait. "Good-bye—good-bye to all the garage," she nodded and waved. The sun broke out from behind a cloud, her brass and glass caught fire and twinkled gaily, the snow sparkled, the gate-posts shone at her. She left the garage without a regret in her heart, with not a thought in her head, save that in a minute she would be safe, no accident could stop her, she would be abroad upon the magic, the unbelievable journey.
* * * * *
They were in a small circular room, shaped like an English oasthouse, its roof running upwards in a funnel to meet the sky. At the apex was a round porthole of thick glass to let in the light, but as this was supporting several feet of snow the lighting of the room was effected only by a large oil-lamp which stood on the blackened table in the centre. An old woman came forward into the light of the lamp. Her eyes were fine and black—her mouth was toothless and folded away for ever, lost in a crevice under her nose. When she smiled the oak-apples of her cheeks rose up and cut the black eyes into hoops.
"We are on a long journey, madame, to Chantilly. We are cold; can we have coffee?"
She drew out chairs and bade them sit, then placed two tall glasses of coffee in the ring of light from the lamp, sugar melting in a sandy heap at the bottom of each.
"What an odd shape your house is!" said Julien, looking round him.
"It's very old, like me. And the light is poor. You have to know it to get used to it," she replied.
"You've only that one window?" He stared up the funnel to where he could see the grey underside of the cone of snow.
"But I can make that one better than it is; and then the lady can see herself in this little glass!" The old woman moved to the side of the wall where a rope hung down. "Elle a raison; since she has a gentleman with her! I was the same—and even not so long ago!"
She put up her thin arm and gave the rope a long pull. She must have been strong, for the skylight and all its burden opened on a hinge, and the snow could be seen sliding from it, could be heard in a heavy body rumbling on the roof. She closed the skylight, and now a wan light filtered down the funnel and turned their faces green. It was like life at the bottom of a well, and they felt as though the level of the earth was far above their heads, and its weighty walls pressing against their sides.
"But why is it built this way?"
"Many houses are," said the old woman with a shrug. "It's old, older than my mother." She sat down beside them. "Soldiers have been drunk in here many times in the war," she said. "And in the old war, too. But I never saw one like you." She pinched Fanny's sleeve. "Fine stuff," she said. "The Americans are rich!"
"I'm not American."
"Rich they are. But I don't care for them. They have no real feeling for a woman. You are not stupid,ma belle, to get a Frenchman for a lover."
"Don't make him vain."
"It is the truth. He knows it very well. Why should he be vain? An American loves a pretty face; but a Frenchman loves what is a woman." She rose and lifted the lamp, and let its ray search out a corner of the room wherein the great bed stood, wooden and square, its posts black with age, its bedding puffed about it and crowned with a scarlet eiderdown as solid and deep as the bed itself.
"A fine bed; an old bed; it is possible that you will not believe me, but I shared that bed with a bishop not two years ago."
Fanny's eyes were riveted on the bed.
Julien laughed. "In the worst sense, mother?"
"In the best, my son," bragged the old woman, sliding a skinny finger to the tip of her nose. "You don't believe me?"
Coming nearer, she stood with the lamp held in her two hands resting on the table, so that she towered over them in fluttering shawl and shadow.
"He arrived in the village one night in a great storm. It was past the New Year and soldiers had been coming through the street all day to go up to the lines beyond Pont-à-Moussons. I've had them sleeping in here on the floor in rows, clearing away the table and lying from wall to wall so thick that I had to step on them when I crossed the room with my lamp. But that night there were none; they were all passing through up to the front lines, and though the other end of the village was full, no one knocked here. There was snow as there is to-day, but not lying still on the ground. It was rushing through the air and choking people and lying heavy on everything that moved outside. That glass of mine up there was too heavy for me to move so I let it be. A knock came at the door in the middle of the night, and when I got up to unbar the door there was a soldier on the doorstep. I said: 'Are you going to wake me up every night to fill the room with men?' And he said: 'Not to-night, mother, only one. Pass in, monsieur.'
"It was a bishop, as I told you.Un éveque. A great big man with a red face shining with the snow. If he had not been white with snow he would have been as black as a rook. He stamped on the cobbles by the door and the snow went down off him in heaps, and there he was in his beautiful long clothes, and I said to myself: 'Whatever shall I do with him? Not the floor for such a man!' So there we were, I in my red shawl that hangs on the hook there, and he in his long clothes like a black baby in arms, and his big man's face staring at me over the top.
"'I can't put you anywhere but in my bed,' I told him. I told him like that, quickly, that he might know. And he answered like a gentleman, the Lord save his soul: 'Madame, what lady could do more!'
"'But there's only one bed' I told him (I told him to make it clear), 'and I'm not young enough to sleep on the floor.' Not that I'm an old woman. And he answered like a gentleman, the Lord save him…."
"I will tellyouthe end," said the old woman, drawing near to Julien as he took some money from his pocket to pay for the coffee.
Two hours later they drew up at acaféin the main square at Ligny.
Within was a gentle murmur of voices, a smell of soup and baking bread; warm steam, the glow of oil lamps and reddened faces.
Sitting at a small table, with a white cloth, among the half-dozen American soldiers who, having long finished their lunch, were playing cards and dominoes, they ordered bread-soup, an omelette, white wine, brille cheese and their own ration of bully beef which they had brought in tins to be fried with onions.
A woman appeared from the door of the kitchen, carrying their bowl of bread-soup. Across the plains of her great chest shone a white satin waistcoat fastened with blue glass studs, and above her handsome face rose a crown of well-brushed hair dyed in two shades of scarlet. A little maid followed, and they covered the table with dishes, knives and forks, bread and wine. The woman beamed upon Fanny and Julien, and laying her hand upon Fanny's shoulder begged them not to eat till she had fetched them a glass of her own wine.
"You bet it's good, ma'am," advised a big American sergeant at a table near them. "You take it."
She brought them a wine which shone like dark amber in a couple of glasses, and stood over them listening with pleasure to their appreciation while each slight movement of her shoulders sent ripples and rivers of heaving light over the waistcoat of satin.
The butter round the omelette was bubbling in the dish, the brille had had its red rind removed and replaced by fried breadcrumbs, the white wine was light and sweet, and with the coffee afterwards they were given as much sugar as they wished.
"I have seen her before somewhere," said Julien, as the scarlet head receded among the shadows of the back room. "I wonder where?"
"One wouldn't forget her."
"No. It might have been in Paris; it might have been anywhere."
The little maid was at his elbow. "Madame would be glad if you would come to her store and make your choice of a cigar, monsieur."
"Well, I shall know where I met her. Do you mind if I go?"
He followed the girl into the back room. Fanny, searching in her pocket for her handkerchief, scattered a couple of German iron pennies on the floor; an American from the table behind picked them up and returned them to her. "These things are just a weight and a trouble," he said. "I think I shall throw mine away?"
"You've come down from Germany, then?"
"Been up at Trêves. They do you well up there."
"Not better than here!"
"No, this is an exception. It's a good place."
"Madame is a great manager."
"Hev' you got more German pennies than you know what to do with?" said the American sergeant who had advised her to drink the wine. "Because, if you hev' so hev' I and I'll play you at dominoes for them."
As Julien did not return at once, Fanny moved to his table and piled her German pennies beside her, and they picked out their dominoes from the pile.
"I want to go home," said the American, and lifted up his big face and looked at her.
"You all do."
"That's right. We all do," assented another and another. They would make this statement to her at every village where she met them, in everyestaminet, at any puncture on the road over which they helped her —simply, and because it was the only thing in their minds.
"Do you hev' to come out here?" he enquired.
"Oh, no. We come because we like to."
Thinking this a trumpery remark he made no answer, but put out another domino—then as though something about her still intrigued his heavy curiosity: "You with the French, ain't you?"
"Yes."
"Like that too?"
He sat a little back into his chair as though he felt he had put her in a corner now, and when she said she even liked that too, twitched his cheek a little in contempt for such a lie and went on playing.
But the remark worked something in him, for five minutes later he pursued:
"I don't see anything in the French. They ain't clean. They ain't generous. They ain't up-to-date nor comfortable."
Fanny played out her domino.
"They don't know how tolive," he said more violently than he had spoken yet.
"What's living?" she said quickly. "What is it to live, ifyouknow?"
"You want to put yourself at something, an' build up. Build up your fortune and spread it out and about, and have your house so's people know you've got it. I want to get home and be doing it."
"Mademoiselle actually knows it!" said Julien in the doorway to the red-haired woman in the back room, and Fanny jumped up.
The American passed four iron coins across the table. "'Tisn't going to hinder that fortune I'm going to make," he said, smiling at last.
"What do I know?" she asked, approaching the doorway, and moving with him into the back room.
"Madame owns a house in Verdun," said Julien, "and I tell her you know it."
"Iknow it?"
"Come and drink this little glass of my wine, mademoiselle," said the red-haired woman good-humouredly, "and tell me about my poor little house. I had a house on the crown of the hill … with a good view … and a good situation (she laughed) by the Cathedral."
"Had you? Well, there are a great many by the Cathedral," Fanny answered cautiously, for she thought she knew the house that was meant.
"But my house looked out on thecitadelle, and stood very high on a rock. Below it there was a drop and steep steps went down to a street below."
"Had you pink curtains in the upper windows?"
"Is it not then so damaged?" demanded the woman eagerly, dropping her smile. "The curtains are left? You can see the curtains?"
"No, no, it is terribly damaged. If it is the house you mean I found a piece of pink satin and a curtain ring under a brick, and there is a sad piece which still waves on a high window. But wait a minute, excuse me, I'll be back." She passed through the café and ran out to the car, returning in a moment with something in her hand.
"I fear I looted your house, madame," she said, offering her a small cylindrical pot made of coarse clouded glass, and half filled with a yellowish paste. "I found that inside on the ground floor; I don't know why I took it."
The woman held it in her hand. "Oh!" she wailed, and sliding down upon the sofa, found her handkerchief.
"Mais non!" said Julien, "you who have so much courage!"
"But it was my ownface!" she cried incoherently, holding out the little pot. "My poor little cream pot!"
"What!"
"It was my face cream!"
"How strange!"
"I had not used it for a week because they had recommended me a new one.Ah! miraculous! that so small a thing should follow me!"
She touched her eyes carefully with her handkerchief, but a live tear had fallen on the waistcoat.
"Tell me, mademoiselle … sit down beside me, my dear … the poor little house is no more good to me? I couldn't live there? Is there a roof?"
"You couldn't live in it."
"But the roof?"
"It was on the point of sliding off; it was worn like a hat over one ear. The front of the house is gone. Only on the frame of one window which sticks to the wall could I see your piece of pink curtain which waves."
"My poor, pretty house!" she mused. "My first, you know," she said in an undertone to Julien. "Ah, well, courage, as you say!"
"But you are very well here."
"True, but this isn't my vocation. I shall start again elsewhere. AndVerdun itself, Mademoiselle, can one live in it?"
"No, not yet. Perhaps never."
"Well, well…."
"Madame, we must move on again," interrupted Julien. "We have a long way to go before night."
The woman rose, and turning to a drawer, pulled out a heap of soiled papers, bills and letters. "Wait," she said, "wait an instant!"
Turning them over she sought and found a couple of old sheets pinned together, and unpinning them she handed one to Fanny.
"It is the receipt for the cream," she said, "that I want to give you.It is a good cream though I left the pot behind."
* * * * *
The sun sank and the forests around Chantilly grew vague and deep. White statues stood by the roadside, and among the trees chateaux with closed eyes slept through the winter. Every tree hung down beneath its load of snow; the telephone wires drooped like worsted threads across the road.
Fanny, who had left Julien at his new billets in Chantilly, drove on alone to the little village on the Oise which was to be her home. It was not long before she could make out the posts and signals of the railway on her left, and the river appeared in a broad band below her. The moon rose, and in the river the reeds hung head downwards, staring up at the living reeds upon the bank.
It gleamed upon a signpost, and turning down a lane on the left she came on a handful of unlighted cottages, and beyond them a single village street, soundless and asleep. A chemist's shop full of coloured glasses was lit from within by a single candle; upon the step the chemist stood, a skull cap above his large, pitted face.
Somewhere in the shuttered village a roof already sheltered her companions, but before looking for them she drew up and gazed out beyond the river and the railway line to where the moon was slowly lighting hill after hill. But the spectral summer town which she sought was veiled in the night.
The light of dawn touched Paris, the wastes of snow surrounding her, forests, villages scattered in the forest and plains around Senlis, Chantilly, Boran, Précy. The dark receded in the west; in the east a green light spread upwards from the horizon, touched the banks of the black Oise, the roofs of the houses of Précy, the dark window panes, and the flanks of the granite piers that stood beheaded in the water—all that was left of the great bridge that had crossed from bank to bank.
Above the river stood the station hut and the wooden gates of the level crossing, upon which the night lantern still hung; above again a strip of snow divided the railway line from the road, at the other side of whose stone wall the village itself began, and stretched backwards up a hill.
Upon a patch of snow above the river and below the road stood a flourishing little house covered with gables and turrets; and odd shapes like the newel-posts of staircases climbed unexpectedly about the roof. In summer, fresh with paint, the outside of the house must wave its vulgar little hands into the sky, but now, everything that bristled upon it served only as a fresh support for the snow which hung in deep drifts on its roof, and around its balconied windows. It stood in its own symmetrical walled garden, like a cup in a deep saucer, and within the wall a variety of humps and hillocks showed where the bushes crouched beneath their unusual blanket. One window, facing towards the railway and the river, had no balcony clinging to its stonework, and in the dark room behind it the light of the dawn pressed faintly between the undrawn curtains. A figure stirred upon the bed within, and Fanny, not clearly aware whether she had slept or not, longed to search the room for some heavier covering which, warming her, would let her sink into unconsciousness. Her slowly gathering wits, together with the nagging cold, forced her at last from the high bed on to the floor, and she crossed the room towards the light. In the walled garden below strange lights of dawn played, red, green and amber, like a crop of flowers. The railway lines beyond the garden wall disappeared in fiery bands north and south, lights flashed down from the sky above and winked in the black and polished river; at the limit of the white plain beyond, a window caught the sun and turned its burning-glass upon the snow.
"Chantilly…." A word like the dawn, filled with light and the promise of light! Turning back into the dim room, she flung her coat upon the bed, climbed in and fell asleep. Three hours later something pressed against her bed and she opened her eyes again. The room was fresh with daylight, and Stewart standing beside her carried a rug on her arm and wore a coat over her nightgown. "I'm coming down to have chocolate in your room…."
Fanny watched her. Stewart climbed up beside her wrapped in the rug. A knock at the door heralded the entry of a woman carrying a tray. Fanny watched her too, and saw that she was fresh, smiling, clean and big, and that steam flew up in puffs from the tray she carried. The woman pulled a little table towards the bed and set the tray on it.
"This is Madame Boujan!" said Stewart's voice.
Fanny tried to smile and say "Good morning," and succeeded. She was not awake but knew she was in clover. The cups holding the steaming chocolate were as large as bowls, and painted cherries and leaves glistened beneath their lustre surface. Beside the cups was a plate with rolls, four rolls; and there were knives and two big pots which must be butter and jam.
"Wake up!"
Fanny rolled nearer to the chocolate, sniffed it and pulled herself up in bed. The woman, still smiling beside them, turned and hunted among the clothes upon the chair; then held a jersey towards her shoulders and guided her arms into its sleeves. Ecstasy stole over Fanny; other similar wakings strung themselves like beads upon her memory; nursery wakings when her spirit had been guided into daylight by the crackle of a fire new-lit, by the movements of just such an aproned figure as this, by a smile on just such a pink face; or wakings after illness when her freshening life had leapt in her at the sound of a blind drawn up, at the sight of the white-cuffed hand that pulled the cord.
Oh, heavenly woman, who stood beside the tray, who fed her and warmed her while she was yet weak and babyish from sleep! Beyond her the white plains of beauty shone outside the window…. She sat up and smiled: "I'm awake," she said.
And Madame Boujan, having seen that her feet were set upon the threshold of day, went out of the door and closed it softly.
They held the lustre bowls cupped in their hands and sipped.
* * * * *
During lunch in the little villa, while they were all recounting their experiences, Madame Boujan came softly to Fanny's side and whispered:
"A soldier has brought you a note from Chantilly."
"Keep it for me in the kitchen," Fanny answered, under her breath, helping herself to potatoes.
"Will you come and cut wood for the bedroom fire?" said Stewart, when lunch was over. "I bought a hatchet in the village this morning."
"Come down by the river first," insisted Fanny, who had her note in her hand.
"Why? And it gets dark so soon!"
"I want to find a boat."
"What for?"
"To cross the river."
"To cross the river! Do you want to see what's on the other side?"
"Julien will be on the other side…. I have had a letter from him. I am to dine in Chantilly. He will send a car at seven to wait for me in the fields at the other side of the broken bridge, and trusts to me to find a boat. Come over the level crossing to the river."
They passed the station hut and came to a little landing stage near which a boat was tied.
"There's a boat," said Stewart. "Shall we ask at that hut?"
The wooden hut stood above their heads on a pedestal of stone; from its side the haunch of the stone bridge sprang away into the air, but stopped abruptly where it had been broken off. The hut, once perhaps a toll-house, was on a level with what had been the height of the bridge, and now it could be reached by stone steps which wound up to a small platform in front of the door. From within came men's voices singing.
"Look in here!"
A flickering light issued from a small window, and having climbed the steps they could see inside. Two boys, about sixteen, a soldier and an old man, sat round a table beneath a hanging lamp, and sang from scraps of paper which they held in their hands. Behind the old man a girl stood cleaning a cup with a cloth.
"They are practising something. Knock!"
But there was no need, for a dog chained in a barrel close to them set up a wild barking.
"Is he chained? Keep this side. The old man is coming."
The door opened. The voices ceased; the girl stood by the old man's side.
"Yes, it could be arranged. People still crossed that way; their boat was a sort of ferry and there was a charge.
"There might be a little fog to-night, but it didn't matter. Margot knows the way across blindfold—Margot would row the lady. She would be waiting with a lantern at five minutes to seven; and again at half-past nine. Not too late at all! But Margot would not wait on the other side, it was too cold. They would lend the lady a whistle, and she must blow on it from the far bank."
"There's romance!" said Fanny, as they came away.
"Not if you are caught."
"There's my magic luck!"
"How dare you ask like that? Even if you are not superstitious, even if you don't believe a word of it, why be so defiant—why not set the signs right!"
"Oh, my dear Stewart, I hardly care! And to the creature who doesn't care no suspicion clings. Haven't I an honest face? Would you think it was me, me, of all the Section, to cross the river to-night, in a little boat with a lantern, to creep out of the house, out of the village, to dine forbidden in Chantilly, with some one who enchants me! You wouldn't. Why, do you know, if I lived up in their house, under their eyes, I would go out just the same, to cross the river. I wouldn't climb by windows or invent a wild tale to soothe them, but open the door and shut the door, and be gone. And would anybody say: 'Where's Fanny?'"
"They might."
"They might. But they would answer their own question: 'Innocently sleeping. Innocently working. Innocently darning, reading, writing.' I don't suspect myself so why should any one else suspect me!"
Fanny broke off and laughed.
"Come along and cut wood!"
They moved off into the woods as people with not a care in the world, and coming upon a snow-covered stack of great logs which had been piled by some one else, began to steal one or two and drag them away into a deep woodland drive where they could cut them up without fear of being noticed.
They worked on for an hour, and then Stewart drew a packet of cake from her coat pocket, and sitting upon the logs they had their tea.
Soon Fanny, wringing her hands, cried:
"I'm blue again, stiff again, letting the cold in, letting the snow gnaw. Where's the hatchet?"
For a time she chopped and hacked, and Stewart, shepherding the splinters which flew into the snow, piled them—splinters, most precious of all—petit boisto set a fire alight; and the afternoon grew bluer, deeper. Stewart worked in a reverie—Fanny in a heat of expectation. One mused reposedly on life—the other warmly of the immediate hours before her.
"Now I'm going to fetch the car," said Stewart at last. "Will you stay here and go on cutting till I come? There are two more logs."
She walked away up the drive, and Fanny picked the hatchet out of the snow and started on the leathery, damp end of a fresh log. It would not split, the tapping marred the white silence, and yet again she let the hatchet fall and sat down on the log instead. It was nearly six—they had spent the whole afternoon splitting up the logs, and making a fine pile of short pieces for firewood; the forest was darkening rapidly, blue deepened above the trees to indigo, and black settled among the trunks. Only the snow sent up its everlasting shine. Her thoughts fell and rose. Now they were upon the ground busy with a multitude of small gleams and sparkles—now they were up and away through the forest tunnels to Chantilly. What would he say first? How look when he met her?
"Ah, I am a silly woman in a fever! Yet happy—for I see beauty in everything, in the world, upon strange faces, in nights and days. Upon what passes behind the glassy eyes" (she pressed her own) "depends sight, or no sight. There is a life within life, and only I" (she thought arrogantly, her peopled world bounded by her companions) "am living in it. We are afraid, we are ashamed, but when one dares talk of this strange ecstasy, other people nod their heads and say: 'Ah, yes, we know about that! They are in love.' And they smile. But what a convention—tradition—that smile!"
There was no sound in the forest at all—not the cry of a bird, not the rustle of snow falling from a branch—but there was something deeper and remoter than sound, the approach of night. There was a change on the face of the forest—an effective silence which was not blankness—a voiceless expression of attention as the Newcomer settled into his place. Fanny looked up and saw the labyrinth of trees in the very act of receiving a guest.
"Oh, what wretched earnest I am in," she thought, suddenly chilled. "And it can only have one end—parting." But she had a power to evade these moods. She could slip round them and say to herself: "I am old enough—I have learnt again and again—that there is only one joy—the Present; only one Perfection—the Present. If I look into the future it is lost."
She heard the returning car far up the forest drive, and in a moment saw the gleam of its two lamps as they rocked and swayed. It drew up, and Stewart put out the lamps, ever remembering that their logs were stolen. There was still light enough by which they could pack the car with wood. As they finished Stewart caught her arm: "Look, a fire!" she said, pointing into the forest. Through a gap in the trees they could see a red glow which burst up over the horizon.
"And look behind the trees—the whole sky is illumined—What a fire!" As they watched, the glare grew stronger and brighter, and seemed about to lift the very tongue of its flame over the horizon.
"It's the moon!" they cried together.
The cold moon it was who had come up red and angry from some Olympic quarrel and hung like a copper fire behind the forest branches. Up and up she sailed, but paling as she rose from red to orange, from orange to the yellow of hay; and at yellow she remained, when the last branch had dropped past her face of light, and she was drifting in the height of the sky.
They drove back to the village and down to their isolated villa, and here on the road they passed ones and twos of the Section walking into supper.
"How little we have thought out your evasion!" whispered Stewart at the wheel, as they drew up at the door: "Get out, and go and dress. I will take the car up to the garage and come back."
Fanny slipped in through the garden. What they called "dressing" was a clean skirt and silk stockings—but silk stockings she dared not put on before her brief appearance at supper. Stuffing the little roll into her pocket she determined to change her stockings on the boat.
Soon, before supper was ended, she had risen from the table, unquestioned by the others, had paused a moment to meet Stewart's eye full of mystery and blessing, had closed the door and was gone.
She slipped down the road and across the field to the railway. There was a train standing, glowing and breathing upon the lines, and the driver called to her as she ran round the buffers of the engine. Soon she was down by the riverside and looking for Margot. Though there was moonlight far above her the river banks were wrapped in fog that smelt of water, and Margot's face at the hut window was white, and her wool dress white, too. She came down and they rowed out into the fog, in an upward circle because of the stream. Fanny could just see her companion's little blunt boots, the stretched laces across her instep, and above, her pretty face and slant eyes. Hurriedly, in the boat she pulled off the thick stockings, rolled them up, and drew on the silk. A chill struck her feet. She wrapped the ends of her coat lightly round her knees and as she did so the roll of thick stockings sprang out of her lap and fell overboard into the fog and the river.
"Mademoiselle goes to a party?" said Margot, who had not noticed. The soft sympathetic voice was as full of blessing as Stewart's eyes had been.
"Yes, to a party. And you will fetch me back to-night when I whistle?"
"Yes. Blow three times, for sometimes in the singing at home I lose the sound."
The opposite bank seemed to drift in under the motionless boat, and she sprang out.
"A tout à l'heure, mademoiselle."
At the top of the bank the road ran out into the fog, which was thicker on this side. She walked along it and was lost to Margot's incurious eyes. Here it was utterly deserted: since the bridge had been blown up the road had become disused and only the few who passed over by Margot's boat ever found their way across these fields. She strayed along by the road's edge and could distinguish the blanched form of a tree.
Strange that the fog should reach so much further inland on this side of the river. Perhaps the ground was lower. Standing still her ear caught a rich, high, throaty sound, a choking complaint which travelled in the air.
"It is the car," she thought. Far away a patch of light floated in the sky, like an uprooted searchlight.
"That is the fog, bending the headlights upward."
She stood in the centre of the road and listened to the sound as it drew nearer and nearer, till suddenly the headlights came down out of the sky and pierced her—she stood washed in light, and the car stopped.
Beside the driver of the car was, not Julien, but a man with a red, wooden face like a Hindoo god made out of mahogany. Saluting, he said: "We are sent to fetch you, mademoiselle." He held the door of the closed car open for her, she smiled, nodded, climbed in and sank upon the seat.
"When you get to the lights of the houses, mademoiselle, will you stoop a little and cover yourself with this rug? It is not foggy in Chantilly and the street is very full."
"I will," she said, "I'll kneel down."
Something about his face distressed her. How came it that Julien trusted this new man? Perhaps he was some old and private friend of his who felt antagonistic to her, who disbelieved in her, who would hurt them both with his cynical impassivity.
"I'm fanciful!" she thought. "This is only some friend of his fromParis." Paris sending forth obstacles already!
In Chantilly she crouched beneath the rug—her expectations closing, unwandering, against her breast. Beams might pierce the glass of the car and light nothing unusual; what burnt beneath was not a fire that man could see. Generals in the street walked indifferently to the Hotel of the Grand Condé. It was their dinner hour, and who cared that an empty car should move towards a little inn beyond? Now, she held armfuls of the rug about her, buried from the light, now held her breath, too, as the car stopped.
"Now mademoiselle!"
And there stood Julien, at the end of the passage, he whom she had left, sombre and distracted, a long twenty-four hours ago in Chantilly. She saw the change even while she flew to him. He was gay, he was excited, he was exciting. He was beautiful, admirable, he admired her.
"Fanny, is it true? You have come?" and "Que vous êtes en beauté!"
Within, a table was laid for three—three chairs, three plates, three covers. He saw her looking at this.
"We dine three to-night. You must condescend to dine with a sergeant.My old friend—Where is Alfred?"
"I am here."
"My old friend—four years before the war. The oldest friend I have.He has heard—"
("——Of Violette. He has heard of Violette! He is Violette's friend; he is against me!")
"I am so glad," she said aloud, in a small voice, and put out her hand. She did not like him, she had an instant dread of him, and thought he beheld it too.
"I did not even know he was here," said Julien, more gay than ever. "But he is the sergeant of the garage, and I find him again.
"What a help you'll be, to say the least of it! You will drive her to the river, you will fetch her from the river! I myself cannot drive, I am not allowed."
The impassive man thus addressed looked neither gay nor sad. His little eyes wandered to Fanny with a faint critical indifference. ("Julien has made a mistake, a mistake! He is an enemy!") She could not clearly decide how much she should allow her evening to be shadowed by this man, how deeply she distrusted him. But Julien was far from distrusting him. Through the dinner he seemed silently to brag to Alfred. His look said, and his smile said: "Is she not this and that, Alfred? Is she not perfect?" His blue eyes were bright, and once he said, "Go on, talk, Fanny, talk, Fanny, you have an audience. To-night you have two to dazzle!" Impossible to dazzle Alfred. Could he not see that? One might as easily dazzle a mahogany god, a little god alive beneath its casing with a cold and angry life. Yet though at first she was silent, inclined to listen to Alfred, to hope that something in his tones would soothe her enemy fears, soon she could not help following Julien's mood. Should she want to be praised, she had it from his eye—or be assured of love, it was there, too, in the eye, the smile, the soft tone. Because of Alfred, he could put nothing into words—because he must be dumb she could read a more satisfying conversation in his face.
She began to think the occasional presence of a third person was an addition, an exciting disturbance, a medium through which she could talk with ease two languages at once, French to Alfred, and love to Julien.
When they had finished dining Alfred left them, promising to come back with the car in half an hour, to take Fanny to the river.
"You must like him!" said Julien confidently, when the door had closed.Fanny said she would. "Anddoyou like him?" Fanny said she did.
"I met him so many years ago. He was suffering very much at the time through a woman. Now he will tell you he has become a cynic."
"Did she treat him badly?"
"She ran away from him, taking his carriage and his two horses—"
"A beautiful woman?" interrupted Fanny, who liked details.
"She might equally well have been magnificent or monstrous. She was over life-size, and Alfred, who is small, adored her. Everything about her was emphatic. Her hair was heavy-black, her skin too red. And never still, never in one place. Alfred had a house outside Paris, and carriage and horses to take him to the station. One night she took the horses, put them into the carriage and was seen by a villager seated upon the coachman's box driving along the road. When she had passed him this man saw her stop and take up a dark figure who climbed to the seat beside her. They—the woman and her probable lover, who never once had been suspected, and never since been heard of—drove as far as Persan- Beaumont, near here, where they had an accident, and turned the carriage into the ditch, killing one of the horses. The other they took out and coolly tied to the station railings. They took the train and disappeared, and though she had lived with Alfred two years, she never left a note for him to tell him that she had gone, she never wired to him about the roses, she never has written one since."
"Enough to turn him into a cynic!"