"Then follow the mipes,"
"Then follow the mipes,"
she warbled,
"The perry mipes——"
"The perry mipes——"
There seemed to be something wrong with the words, but she could not get them right
"Yet, the perry perry mipes of Pan!"
"Yet, the perry perry mipes of Pan!"
"Gracious goodness," murmured the husky Miss Snelgrove to Mrs. Whitaker, who sat near her, "what a strident voice!"
"Yes," assented Mrs. Whitaker. "And whatarethe 'perrimipes,' I wonder?"
There was no denying it. The concert was a fiasco. Owing to the execrable behaviour of the refugees and the contagion of their senseless laughter, a kind of hysteria gained the hall and half the audience was soon in a condition of brainless and uncontrollable hilarity.
Every new number was greeted with suffocated giggles, sometimes even with screams of laughter from the younger portion of the audience.
The curate—who had himself been found holding both his sides in one of the empty schoolrooms—made a caustic speech at the close of the performance about "our well-meant efforts, our perchance too modest talents," having appealed mainly to the risible faculties of their foreign guests, and he had pleasure in stating that the sum collected was eighteen pounds seven shillings and sixpence.
The refugees slunk home and were treated like pariahs for many weeks afterwards; while the word "Concert" was not pronounced for months in the homes of Mrs. Mellon, of Miss Johnson, or of Miss Price.
Loulou is ill, and I am very anxious about her. It must be the English climate perhaps, for I also do not feel as I used to feel in Bomal. I often am deathly sick, and faint and giddy; I cannot bear the sight of things and of people that before I did not mind, or even liked. Certain puddings, for instance, and all kinds of dishes which I thought so extraordinarily nice to eat when we first came here, now I cannot bear to see them when they are brought on the table. Something makes me grind my teeth and I feel as if I must get up and run out of the room. And I have the same inexplicable aversion to people; for instance the nice kind Monsieur George Whitaker—I cannot say what I feel when he comes near to me; a sort of shuddering terror that makes me turn away so as not to see him. I cannot bear to look at his strong brown hands with the little short fair hairs on his wrist. I cannot look at his clear grey eyes, or at his mouth which always laughs, or at his broad shoulders, or anything.... There is something in me that shrinks and shudders away from the sight of him. Have the sorrows and troubles we have passed through unhinged my reason?...
But to return to Louise. I thought that what made her look so pale and wild was the anxiety of not hearing from Claude; but since his first dear letter ten days ago telling us that he is safe, she seems even worse than before. It is true he has been wounded; but that is almost a blessing, for the wound is not serious and yet it will keep him safely in the hospital at Dunkirk for months to come. He may remain slightly lame as he has been shot in the knee, but that does not matter, and he says his health is perfect.
Of course I thought Loulou would start at once to go and visit him, as she can get permission to see him and he has sent her plenty of money for the journey; but she will not hear of it. She only weeps and raves when I speak of it; and I do not think she ever sleeps at night. I can hear her in her room, which is next to mine, moaning and whispering and praying whenever I wake up. I have asked her why, why she will not go to see Claude—ah, if only I knew where to find Florian, how I should fly to his side!—but she shakes her head and weeps and her eyes are full of terror and madness. I ask her, "Is it because of Mireille? Are you afraid of telling him about her?" "Yes, yes, yes," she cries. "I am afraid, afraid of telling him what has made her as she is."
"But, Loulou, dearest, what do you mean? Was it not her fear that the Germans would kill us that took away her speech? Why should you not tell Claude? He would comfort you. He knows the Germans were in Bomal! He knows that they ransacked our house, that they killed Monsieur le Curé and poor André...."
"Yes, he knows that," answers Louise slowly with her eyes fixed on mine. "But he does not know——"
Then she is silent.
"What does he not know?"
She grasps my shoulders. "Chérie, Chérie. Are you demented? Have you forgotten—have you forgotten?"
Forgotten!... In truth, I have forgotten many things. There are gaps in my memory, wide blank spaces that, no matter how I try to remember, I cannot fill. Now and then something flashes into those blank spaces, a fleeting recollection, a transient vision, then the blankness closes down again and when I try to remember what I have remembered, it is gone.
I ask Louise to tell me what she means, to tell me what I have forgotten; but she only stares at me with those horror-haunted eyes and whispers, "Hush! hush, my poor Chérie!" Then she places her cold hand on my lips as if to close them.
I will try to remember. I will write down in this book all that remains in my memory of those terrible days and nights when we fled from home; when we hid starving and trembling in the woods, and saw through the trees our church-tower burn like a torch, saw it list over and crash down in a cloud of smoke and flame; when, crouching in a ditch, we heard the Uhlans gallop past us and saw them drag two little boys, César and Émile Duroc, out of their hiding-places in the bushes only a few yards from us.
We saw them—we saw them!—crush the children's feet with the butts of their rifles, and then taunt them, telling them to "run away!" I can see them now—two of the men standing behind the children, holding them upright by their small shoulders, while a third beat and crunched and ground their feet into the earth....
But stay ... the wide blank spaces in my brain go back much further than that.
What is it that Louise says I have forgotten? Let me try to remember. Let me try to remember.
I will go back to the evening of my birthday. August the fourth. Our friends come. We dance.
Sur le pontD'AvignonOn y danse, on y danse....
Sur le pontD'AvignonOn y danse, on y danse....
Then Florian arrives—and goes. The last thing I see clearly—distinct and clear-cut as a haut-relief carved upon my brain—is Florian, turning at the end of the road to wave his hand to me. Then he is gone. I remain standing on the verandah, alone; I can see the row of pink and white carnations in their pots at my feet; Louise's favourite malmaisons fill the air with perfume, and the large white daisies among them gleam like stars in the grey-green twilight; I am wearing my white dress and the sea-blue scarf Louise has given me that morning. Then little Mireille's laughing voice calls me; they all come running out to fetch me, Lucile and Cri-cri, Verveine, Cécile and Jeannette....
Then, suddenly—the gun! the thud and roll of that first distant gun!...
The children have fled, pale, trembling, whispering to their homes, and we are left alone in the house; alone, Louise, Mireille and I, because Frieda and Fritz—wait! what do I remember about Fritz? That he is throwing our gate open to the enemy—no; it is something else ... something that frightens me more than that—but I cannot remember. I see Fritz laughing. Whenever I remember Fritz I see him laughing. He is leaning against a door ... there is a curtain.... I seem to see a red curtain swaying beside him and he is laughing with his head thrown back. What is he laughing at?... At me? What is happening that he should laugh at me? The blank closes round Fritz. He has vanished. I cannot hold him. It is as if he were made of mist.
But—before that; what do I remember before that?...
The guns are thundering, the windows shake ... a huge sheaf of flame rises up into the sky. There is a roar, an explosion; it is as if the world were crashing to pieces.
Then soldiers fill the house; officers take possession of our rooms—their coats and belts are on our chairs, their helmets are flung on the piano. There is a tall man with very light eyes....
A tall man with very light eyes....
Let me try to remember.
They order us about; they make Louise cry. One of them is wounded in the arm—I see it bleeding on the wet cotton-wool that Louise is binding round it—Now the blank comes.... I feel it coming down like a white cloud on my brain. Lift it, oh, holy Mother, lift it and let me remember!
There are two of the men near me; they blow their cigarette-smoke in my face; they want me to drink out of their glasses.... I weep ... I will not. They laugh and force me to drink.Eins, zwei, drei!—they threaten me with I know not what—the light eyes of one of them are close to mine ... impelling me, forcing me.... I am frightened, and I drink. Then they sing and clink their glasses together. I stand between them, and they make me drink again—cool frothing champagne and hot burning brandy—until I am so giddy that the floor heaves under my feet.
I cry and cry. I call Louise ... she is gone from the room. I see Mireille crouching in a corner staring at me, white and terrified. I call her—"Mireille! Mireille!" She springs up and rushes to me, she screams like a maddened animal, and the light-eyed man catches her by the wrists and laughs. The other man—one of the other men, I don't know how many there are—one who has red hair and has been reciting something in German, lies down on the sofa and goes to sleep. But another one—I remember his round face, I remember that the others were angry with him and called him names—he comes near to me and says something quickly in my ear. I am not afraid of him ... I know he is trying to help me ... but I am so sick and giddy that I do not understand what he says. He pushes me towards the door. He says in German: "Geh! Geh! Mach' dass du fort kommst!" and again he pushes me toward the door. But I turn to see what is being done to Mireille. She has a broken glass in her hand and she is trying to strike the tall officer in the face with it, as if she were trying to strike at his light eyes and put them out. There is a streak of blood on his chin but he is still laughing. He snatches up my blue scarf which is lying on the floor and he ties Mireille's hands behind her back with it. Then he winds it round and round her until she cannot move. Wait—wait—let me remember!... Then he takes one of the leather belts that are on the chair and he straps her to the railing—the wrought-iron railing that ends the short flight of steps that lead to the drawing-room. I see him lifting her up those three shallow steps, I see him kick over the china flower-pot on the top step in order to get nearer to the iron banister, I see him fasten her to it with the leather strap.... Her little wild face is turned towards me, her hands are tied behind her back. I hear what he says in German—he is laughing and laughing—"Da bleibst du ... und schaust zu!" Is he going to kill her? "Schau nur zu! Schau nur zu," he repeats. What does he mean? Is he going to kill me—to kill me before her eyes?
He comes toward me ... (the white cloud is coming over my brain again). I see the other officer—the one with the round face, the one who had tried to push me to the door—Glotz! yes, Glotz, that was his name—I see him dart forward and catch hold of the other man's arms—stopping him—keeping him away from me. I rush to Mireille and try to drag her away from the railing, to free her ... I cannot. My fingers have no strength. She is crying and moaning. I hear Glotz shouting again to me in German—"Get away—get away!" He is struggling with the tall man to give me time to escape. I stumble up the stairs screaming, "Louise! Louise!" I fall, again and again, at almost every step, but I stumble on and reach her door—it is locked. Locked from the inside. But I hear sounds in the room—a man's hoarse agitated voice....
I stagger blindly on. I will go to my room, I will lock myself in there, and open the window and call for help....
I turn the handle and open my door. On the threshold I stop.... There is something lying there—a black heap, with blood trickling from it. Amour! It is Amour, with his skull crushed in.
As I stand looking down at it I hear a man's footsteps running up the stairs—I know it is the tall man—he is coming to find me! I stagger blindly forward, my feet slipping in Amour's blood. I draw the door after me. I rush forward and hide behind the curtained alcove where my dresses hang. The man stops at the door and looks in. He sees the dead dog on the threshold; he says "Pfui" and tries to push it aside with his foot. He glances round the apparently empty room, then he turns away and I hear him going down the passage, opening other doors, thumping at Louise's door, where the voice of a man answers him.... Then I hear him running upstairs to the top floor in search of me.
I slip from my hiding-place, I stumble again over the horrible thing that was Amour, and I rush down the stairs and into the drawing-room. Mireille is still there, tied to the banister, her face thrown back, the tears streaming from her eyes. She is alone, but for the red-haired officer asleep and snoring on the sofa. A thought has come to me. I cross the room, which swims round me, and I go to the sideboard—I take the bottle of corrosive sublimate from the shelf where Louise had put it—I open it and shake some of the little pink tablets into my hand—then I run to the table where the wine-glasses stand. One of them is still half-filled with champagne. I drop the tablets into it. Even as I do so I hear the man coming downstairs. He appears on the top of the short flight, near Mireille, and laughs as he sees me. "Ha, ha! the dovelet who tried to escape!"
I smile up at him. I smile, moving back towards that side of the table where his wine-glass stands. He passes his hand over his forehead and hair; his face is hot; I know he is going to drink again. Then he lurches towards me; he puts one hand round my waist and with the other grasps the glass on the table.... Now this again I see, clear-cut in my memory as if carved into it with a knife; the tall man standing beside me raising the wine-glass to his lips....
He stops—he looks down into the glass. His face is motionless, expressionless. He merely stares at the little bright pink heap at the bottom of the glass from which spiral streaks of colour slowly curl up and tint the pale-gold wine.
For what seems to me hours or eternities he stares at the glass; then his light eyes turn slowly upon me. And this is the last thing I see.
I carry the gaze of those light eyes with me as I slip suddenly into unconsciousness. I hear a crash—is it the glass that has fallen?... I feel the grasp of two strong hot hands on my arms—is he holding me, or crushing me down? I hear Mireille shriek as I try madly to beat back the enveloping darkness. Mireille's piercing voice follows me into oblivion.
Then nothing more....
Nothing more.
The cloud that blots out consciousness lifts for an instant—is it a moment later? or hours later? Or years later?... I have no idea.
I feel that I am being lifted ... carried along ... then flung down. I feel my head thrown far back, my hair dragged from my forehead.... The world is full of rushing horrors, of tearing, racking pain.... Then again nothing more.
Fritz?... Is it then that I see him laughing as he looks at me? He is standing near a red curtain—he is speaking to some one, but his eyes are upon me and he laughs....
Once more unconsciousness like a black velvet tunnel engulfs me.
Out of the darkness comes Louise's voice calling me softly ... then louder ... then screaming my name. I open my eyes. She is bending over me. She lifts me up ... she wraps a shawl round my head, she drags me along ... drags me down the steps and out of the house and down a stony road that leads to the woods.
It is not day and it is not night; it is dawn perhaps.
Thirst and a deathly sickness are upon me.... I can go no farther. I lean my head against a tree, the rough bark of it wounds my forehead as I slip to the ground and fall on the damp leaves and moss.
I moan and cry.
"Hush! for the love of heaven! Hush!" ... It is Louise's voice. "Hide, hide, lie down!"
And she drags me into a deep ditch overgrown with brambles. We hear horses gallop past and men's voices, full guttural voices that we know and dread. They ride on. They are gone. No—they stop.
They have found widow Duroc's two little boys hiding in the bushes.... Little César is shouldering a wooden gun and points it at them. In a moment three of the men are off their horses.... The children must be punished.
The children are punished.
... Then the men ride on. But the torture of those children has reminded me of Mireille. "Mireille—" I cry. "We must go back and fetch Mireille!"
"Hush! Mireille is here."
Mireille is here! She is not dead? Then who is dead?
"No one, no one is dead," says Louise, "we are all three here."
No—no—no! Somebody is dead. Somebody has been killed, I know it. I know it. Who is it? Is it I—is it Chérie who is dead? Louise's arms are about me, her tears fall on my face.
Then once again the velvet mist falls, and the world is blotted out.
We are on board a ship, dipping and rising on green-grey waters....
Many people are around us; derelicts like ourselves....
Soon the white cliffs of England shine and welcome us.
November 2nd (All Souls).—It is strange, but even yet the feeling comes over me now and again that somebody was murdered on that night. And, strangest of all, I cannot free myself of the thought that it was I—I, who was killed, I, who am no more. I cannot describe the feeling. Doubtless it is folly. It is weakness and shock. It is what the good English doctor who has been called in to see us all—especially to try and cure Mireille—calls "psychic trauma." He says Mireille is suffering from psychic trauma; that means that her soul has been wounded. Sometimes I feel as if my soul had not only been wounded but that it had been killed—murdered while I was unconscious. I feel as if it were only a ghost, a spectre that resembles me and bears my name, but not the real Chérie, that wanders in this English garden, that speaks and smiles, kisses and comforts Louise, prays for Claude and for Florian.
Florian! Florian! Where are you? Are you dead, too? Is this sense of annihilation, of unreality in me but an omen, a warning of your real death? My brave young lover, blue-eyed and gay, have you gone from life? If I wander through all the world, if I journey to the ends of the earth, shall I never meet you again?
Oh God! I wish we were all safely dead, Louise and I and poor little Mireille; all lying silent and at peace, with closed eyes and quiet folded hands. I often think how good it would be if we could all three escape from life, as we escaped from the foe-haunted wood that night; if we could silently slip away, out of the long days and the dark nights; out of the hot summers and the dreary winters; out of feverish youth and desolate old age; out of hunger and thirst, out of exile and home-sickness, out of the past and out of the future, out of love and out of hate. Oh! to lie in peace under the waving trees of the little cemetery in Bomal, all with quiet heart and closed eyes. And by our side like a marble hero, Florian, Florian as I have known and loved him, Florian faithful and brave and true.
... But what of Claude? What would he do alone in the world, poor lame Claude, whose country is ravaged, whose home is devastated, whose wife fears him, whose child cannot speak to him ... and whose sister, though she lives, has been murdered in her sleep?
November 15th.—Doctor Reynolds called today. Louise said she wanted him. Then when he came she would not see him. She locked herself in her room, and nobody could persuade her to come down.
So it was I who took Mireille into the drawing-room where Mrs. Whitaker and the doctor were waiting for us. They were talking rather excitedly when I knocked at the door—at least Mrs. Whitaker was—but when we entered she did not say a word.
She looked me up and down and I felt sorry that I had Louise's old black frock on instead of the new navy suit they had made for me a month ago. But I cannot fasten it, it is so tight round my throat and waist. That reminds me that when Mrs. Whitaker said the other day that she wished Doctor Reynolds to see me, I laughed and told her about my dresses being so tight, assuring her therefore that there could not be much wrong with me. She did not laugh, however; on the contrary, she stared at me very strangely and fixedly, and did not answer.
I don't know what is wrong in the house, but everybody seems silent and constrained and not so kind as they used to be. Eva has been sent away to stay with friends in Hastings, and George, who is at Aldershot, comes home for a day or so every now and then, but hardly ever speaks to us. He wanders about the roads near the house, or goes into the garden, the sad rainy garden, flicking the wet grasses and flowerless plants with his riding-stick. He often glances up at the window where I sit as if he would like to speak to us; but if I nod and smile at him he looks at me for an instant and then turns away. I have an idea that his mother objects to his talking with us much. He wanted Louise or me to read French with him, but after the first day his mother had a long talk with him and he did not come to our sitting-room again.
Perhaps they are tired of having us in the house. I am not surprised. We are doleful creatures, and we all have something the matter with us. I myself sometimes imagine I am going into consumption; I feel so strange and faint, I feel so sick when I eat, and I have the most terrible pains in my chest. Also I am anæmic, I know. But still I don't cough. So perhaps I am all right.
When we went into the drawing-room today the kindly old doctor felt Mireille's pulse and spoke to her, but all the time he was looking at me, and so was Mrs. Whitaker. He asked me several questions and when I told him what I felt, he coughed and said, "Hm.... Yes. Quite so." At last he glanced at Mrs. Whitaker, who at once got up and left the room with Mireille.
The doctor then beckoned to me and took my hand.
"My poor girl," he said, "have you anything to tell me?"
I was frightened. "What do you mean? Am I going to die? Am I very ill?"
He shook his head. "No. Why should you die? People don't die—" he commenced, and stopped.
"What about Mireille?" I asked, feeling terrified, I knew not why.
"Now we are speaking of you," he said, quite sternly.
Again he stopped as if expecting me to say something. I was bewildered. Perhaps the old man was a little strange in his head.
He coughed once more and his face flushed. Then he said: "I am an old man, my dear. I am a father—" He stopped again. "And I know all the sadness and wickednesses of the world. You may confide in me."
I said: "Thank you very much. I am sure I can."
There was another long silence. He seemed to be waiting. Then he got up and his face was a little hard. "Well," he said, "perhaps you prefer speaking to Mrs. Whitaker."
"Oh no!" I exclaimed. "Why—not at all."
Again he waited. Then he took his hat and gloves. "Well—as you like," he said abruptly. "I cannot compel you to speak. You must go your own way. I suppose you have your reasons." And he left the room.
I stood petrified with wonder. What did he mean about my going my own way? Why did he seem displeased with me? As I opened the door to go back to my room, I heard him in the hall speaking to Mrs. Whitaker.
"No," he was saying. "I feel sure I am not mistaken. But she would not approach the subject at all."
What a queer nightmare world we are living in!
Later.—I am expected to say something, I know not what. Everybody looks at me with an air of expectation—that is to say, Mrs. Whitaker does. But strangest thing of all, I sometimes think that Loulou does too. There are long silences between us, and when I raise my eyes I find her looking at me with a sort of breathless eagerness, an expression of anxiety and suspense of which I cannot grasp the meaning.
Late at night.—Mrs. Whitaker was very strange this evening. She came into my bedroom without warning, and found me on my knees. I was weeping and saying my prayers. She suddenly came towards me with an impulsive gesture of kindness and took me in her arms.
"Poor little girl!" she said, and she kissed me. She added, as if she were echoing the sentiments of the kind old doctor, "Chérie, I am a mother—" Then she stopped. "And I am not such a sour, hard person as I look." The tears stood in her eyes so I took her hand and kissed it. She sat down on a low chair and drew me to a footstool beside her. "Tell me," she said. "Tell me everything. I shall understand."
So I told her. I told her how unhappy I was about Louise and Mireille, I told her about Claude in the hospital. She said, "I know all that. Go on." Then I told her about Florian, how brave and handsome he was, and that we were betrothed. Then I wept bitterly and told her I thought that he was dead.
She raised my face with her hand and looked into my eyes. "Is it he?" she said.
I did not understand. She repeated her question. "Is it he? Did he—" she hesitated as if looking for a word—"did he wrong you?"
"Why? How wrong me?" I asked.
She gazed deeply into my eyes and I gazed back as steadfastly at her, wondering what she meant.
"Did he betray you?"
"Betray me? Never!" I cried. "He could never betray. He is true and faithful as a saint."
I was hurt that she should have asked such a question. Florian, who has never looked at or thought of any woman but me! Betray me!
"Well," she said rising to her feet suddenly—her expression of rather cold dignity again reminded me of the doctor. "If it had been the outrage of an enemy I know you would have told me. However, let it be as you wish. I will say only this: where I could have pitied disgrace, I cannot condone deceit."
And she left me.
Am I dreaming, or are people in this country incomprehensible and demented?
Louise looked her doom in the face with steady eyes. No more hope, no more doubt was possible. This was November. The third month had passed.
What she had dreaded more than death had come to pass. From the first hour the fear of it had haunted her. Now she knew. She knew that the outrage to which she had been subjected would endure; she knew that her shame would live.
In the middle of the night after tossing sleeplessly for hours, the full realization of this struck her heart like a blow. She sat up with clenched teeth in the darkness, her hands pressed to her temples.
After a while she slid from her bed and stood motionless in the middle of the room. Around her the world was asleep. She was alone with her despair and her horror.
How should she elude her fate? How should she flee from herself and the horror within her?
She turned on the light and went with quick steps to the mirror. There she stood with bare feet in her long white nightdress, staring at herself. Yes. She nodded and nodded like a demented creature at the reflection she saw before her. She recognized the aspect of it; the dragged features, the restless eyes, the face that seemed already too small for her body, the hunted anxious look. That was maternity. To violence nature had conceded what had been withheld from love. What she and Claude had longed for, had prayed for—another child—behold, now it was vouchsafed to her.
With teeth clenched she gazed at her white-draped reflection, she gazed at the hated fragile frame in which the eternal mystery of life was being accomplished. With the groan of a tortured animal she hid her face in her hands. What should she do? Oh God! what should she do?
Then began for Louise the heartbreaking pursuit of liberation, the nightmare, the obsession of deliverance.
All was vain. Nature pursued its inexorable course.
Then she determined that she must die. There was no help for it—she must die. She dreaded death; she was tied to life by a two-fold instinct—her own and that of the unborn being within her. How tenacious was its hold on life! It would not die and free her. It clung with all its tendrils to its own abhorred existence. Every night as she lay awake she pictured what it would be if it were born—this creature conceived in savagery and debauch, this child that she loathed and dreaded. She could imagine it living—a demon, a monster, a thing to shriek at, to make one's blood run cold. Waking and in her dreams she saw it; she saw it crawling like a reptile, she saw it stained with the colour of blood, she saw it babbling and mouthing at her, frenzied and insane.... That is what she would give life to, that is what she would have to nurse and to nourish; carrying that in her arms she would go to meet her husband when he came limping back from the war on his crutches.
She pictured that meeting with Claude in a hundred different ways, all horrible, all dreadful beyond words. Claude staring at her, not believing, not understanding.... Claude going mad.... Claude lifting his crutch and crushing the child's skull with it, as Amour's skull had been crushed—ah! the dead horrible Amour that she had seen when she staggered out of the room at dawn that day!... That was the first thing she had seen—that gruesome animal with its brains beaten out and its gleaming teeth uncovered. She could see it now, she could always see it when she closed her eyes! What if this sight had impressed itself so deeply upon her.... Hush! this was insanity; she knew that she was going mad.
So she must die.
How should she die? And when she was dead, what would happen to Mireille? And to Chérie?
Chérie!At the thought of Chérie a new rush of ideas overwhelmed Louise's wandering brain. Chérie! What was the matter with Chérie?
Had not she also that tense look, those pinched features, all those unmistakable signs that Louise well knew how to interpret? Was it possible that the same doom had overtaken her?
Then Louise forced herself to remember what she would have given her life to forget. With eyes closed, with shuddering soul, she compelled herself to live over again the darkest hours of her life.
... Before daybreak on the 5th of August. The house was silent. The invaders had gone. Louise, a livid spectre in the pale grey dawn, had staggered from her room—passing the dead Amour on Chérie's threshold—and had stumbled down the stairs. There at the foot of the wrought-iron banister lay Mireille, her mouth open, her breath coming in gasps, like a little dying bird.
Louise had raised her, had unwound the long scarf that bound her, had sprinkled water on her face and poured brandy down her throat ... until Mireille had opened her eyes. Then Louise had seen that they were not Mireille's eyes. There was frenzy and vacancy in the pale orbs that wandered round the room, wandered and wandered—until they stopped and were fixed, suddenly wild, hallucinated and intent. On what were they fixed with such an expression of unearthly terror? The mother turned to see.
Mireille's wild gaze was fixed upon a door, the red-curtained door of a bedroom. It was a spare room, seldom used; sometimes a guest or one of Claude's patients had slept there.
It was on this door—now flung wide open and with the red drapery torn down—that Mireille's wild, meaningless gaze was fixed. Louise looked. Then she looked again, without moving. She could see that the electric lights were burning in the room; a chair was overturned in the doorway, and there, there on the bed, lay a figure—Chérie! Chérie still in her white muslin dress all torn and bloodstained, Chérie with her two hands stretched upwards and tied to the bedpost above her head. A wide pink ribbon had been torn from her hair and used to tie her hands to the brass bedstead. Her face was scratched and bleeding. She was quite unconscious. Louise thought she was dead.
Ah! how had she found the strength to lift her, to call her, to drag her back to life, weeping over her and Mireille, gazing with maddened despair from one unconscious figure to the other?... She had dressed them, she had dragged and carried them down the stairs at the back of the house. Should she call for help? Should she go crying their shame and despair down the village street? No! no! Let no one see them. Let no one know what had befallen them....
And—listen! Was that not the clatter of Uhlans galloping down the road?
Moaning, staggering, stumbling, she dragged and carried her two helpless burdens into the woods....
There, the next evening a party of Belgian Guides had found them.
The Vicar of Maylands, the Reverend Ambrose Yule, was in his study writing his monthly contribution to theNorthern Ecclesiastical Review. He was interested in his subject—"Our Sinful Sundays"—and his thoughts flowed smoothly on the topic of drink, frivolous talk and open kinematograph theatres. He wrote quickly and fluently in his neat small handwriting. A knock at the door interrupted him.
"Yes? What is it?" he asked somewhat impatiently.
"A lady to see you, sir," said Parrot, the comely maid.
"A lady? Who is it? I thought every one knew that I do not receive today."
"It is one of the foreign ladies staying with Mrs. Whitaker, sir."
"Oh, well. Show her into the drawing-room, and tell your mistress."
"I beg your pardon, sir, but——" a smile flickered over Parrot's mild face—"she asked specially for you. She said she wished to speak to 'Mr. the Clergyman' himself. First she said, 'Mr. the Cury' and then she said, 'Mr. the Clergyman.'"
"Well," sighed the vicar, "show her in." He placed a paper-weight on his neatly written sheets, rose and awaited his visitor standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire.
Parrot ushered in a tall figure in black and then withdrew. The vicar stepped forward and found himself gazing into the depths of two resplendent dark eyes set in a very white face.
"Pray sit down," he said, "and tell me in what way I can be of service to you."
"May I speak French?" asked the lady in a low voice.
"Mais certainement, Madame," said the courtly clergyman, who twenty or thirty years ago had studied Sinful Sundays abroad with intelligence and attention.
The lady sat down and was silent. She wore black cotton gloves and held in her hands a small handkerchief, which she clutched and crumpled nervously into a little ball.
The kindly vicar with his head on one side waited a little while and then spoke. "You are staying in Maylands? In Mrs. Whitaker's house, I believe? Have I not seen you, with two young girls?"
"Yes. My daughter and my sister-in-law." Louise's voice was so low that he had to bend forward to catch her words.
"Indeed. Yes." The vicar joined his finger-tips together, then disjoined them, then clapped them lightly together, waiting for further enlightenment. As it was not forthcoming he inquired: "May I know your name, Madame?"
"Louise Brandès."
"And ... er—monsieur your husband——?" the vicar's face was interrogative and prepared for sympathy.
"He is wounded, in hospital, at Dunkirk."
"Sad, sad," said the vicar, gently shaking his handsome grey head. "And ... you wish me to help you to go and see him?"
"No!" Louise uttered the word like a cry. Sudden tears welled up into her eyes, rolled rapidly down her cheeks and dropped upon her folded hands in their black cotton gloves.
"Alors?..." interrogated the vicar, with his head still more on one side.
Louise raised her dark lashes and looked at the kind handsome face before her, looked at the narrow benevolent forehead, the firm straight lips, the beautiful hands (the vicar knew they were beautiful hands) with the finger-tips lightly pressed together. Instinctively she felt that here she would find no help. She knew that if she asked for pity, for protection, for money, it would be given her. But she also knew that what she was about to crave would meet with a stern repulse.
She had made up her mind that this was to be her last appeal for help, her last effort to obtain release. He was the priest, he was the representative of the All-Merciful....
She made the sign of the cross, she dropped on her knees and grasped his hand. "Mon pere," she said—thus she used to address the Curé of Bomal, butchered on that never-to-be-forgotten night. "I will tell you——"
The vicar withdrew his hand from her grasp. "I beg you, madam, not to address me in that way. Also pray rise from your knees and take a seat." Ah me! how melodramatic were the Latin races! Poor woman! as if all this were necessary in order, probably, to ask for a few pounds, or to say that she could not get on with the peppery Mrs. Whitaker.
Louise had blushed crimson and risen quickly to her feet. "I am sorry," she said.
And then the kind vicar blushed too and felt that he had behaved like a brute.
At that moment the door opened and Mrs. Yule entered the room. With her was Dr. Reynolds, carrying a black leather bag.
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Yule, catching sight of Louise. "I am sorry, Ambrose. I did not know you had a visitor."
"All right, dear," said the vicar; "this is Madame Brandès, who is staying with the Whitakers. She wants to consult me on some personal matter." Then he turned to Dr. Reynolds. "Well, doctor; how do you find our boy?"
"Quite all right. Quite all right," said the doctor. "We shall have him up and playing football again in no time. It is nothing but a strained tendon. Absolutely nothing at all."
Mrs. Yule had gone towards Louise with outstretched hand. "How do you do? I am glad to meet you," she said cordially. "You will stay for tea with us, I hope. My daughter, too, will be so pleased to see you. Not"—she added, with a little break in her voice—"that she really can see you. Perhaps you have heard that my dear daughter is blind."
"Blind!" Like a tidal wave the sorrow of the world seemed to overwhelm Louise. She felt that the sadness of life was too great to be borne. "Blind," she said. Then she covered her face and burst into tears.
Mrs. Yule's maternal heart melted; her maternal eyes noted the broken attitude, the tell-tale line of the figure! she stepped quickly forward, holding out both her hands.
"Come, my dear; sit down. Will you let me take your hat off? This English weather is so trying if one is not used to it," murmured Mrs. Yule with Anglo-Saxon shyness before the stranger's unexpected display of feeling, while the two men turned away and talked together near the window. Mrs. Yule pressed Louise's black-gloved hand in hers. What though this outburst were due, as it probably was, to the woman's condition, to her overwrought nerves, or to who knows what grief and misery of her own? The fact remained—and Mrs. Yule never forgot it—that this storm of tears was evoked by the news of her dear child's affliction. Mrs. Yule's heart was touched.
"You are Belgian, I know," she said in French, sitting down beside Louise and taking one of the black-gloved hands in her own. "I myself was at school in Brussels." And indeed her French was perfect, with just a little touch of Walloon closing the vowels in some of her words. "I would have called on you long ago—I would have asked you to make friends with my daughter whose affliction has so distressed your kind heart; but as you may have heard, my boy met with an accident, and I have not left the house for many days.... Do wait a moment, Dr. Reynolds," she added as the doctor approached to bid her good-bye. And turning to Louise she introduced him to her as "the kindest of friends and the best of doctors."
"We have met," said Dr. Reynolds, shaking hands with Louise and looking keenly into her face with his piercing, short-sighted eyes. "Madame Brandès's little daughter," he added, turning to Mrs. Yule, "is a patient of mine." There was a moment's silence; then the doctor, turning to the vicar, added in a lower voice: "It seems that their home was invaded, and the child terribly frightened. It is a very sad case. She has lost her reason and her power of speech."
Mrs. Yule in her turn was deeply moved and quick tears of sympathy gathered in her eyes. With an impulse of tenderest pity she bent suddenly forward and kissed the exile's pale cheek.
Like a flash of lightning in the night, it was revealed to Louise that now or never she must make her confession, now or never attempt a supreme, ultimate effort. This must be her last struggle for life. As she looked from Mrs. Yule's kind, tear-filled eyes to the calm, keen face of the physician hope bounded within her like a living thing. The blood rushed to her cheeks and she rose to her feet.
"Doctor!..." she gasped. Then she turned to Mrs. Yule again, it seemed almost easier to say what must be said, to a woman. "I want to say something.... I must speak...." And again turning to the doctor—"Do you understand me if I speak French?"
Doctor Reynolds looked rather like a timid schoolboy, notwithstanding his spectacles and his red beard, as he replied: "Oh ...oui, Madame. Je comprong."
The vicar stepped forward. Looking from Louise to his wife and to the doctor he said: "Perhaps I had better leave you...."
But Louise quickly extended a trembling hand. "No! Please stay," she pleaded. "You are a priest. You are the doctor of the soul. And my soul is sick unto death."
The vicar took her extended hand. "I shall be honoured by your confidence," he said in courtly fashion, and seating himself beside her waited for her to speak.
Nor did he wait in vain. In eloquent passionate words, in the burning accents of her own language, the story of her martyrdom was revealed, her torn and outraged soul laid bare.
In that quiet room in the old-fashioned English vicarage the ghastly scenes of butchery and debauch were enacted again; the foul violence of the enemy, the treason, the drunkenness, the ribaldry of the men who with "mud and blood" on their feet, had trampled on these women's souls—all lived before the horrified listeners, and the martyrdom of the three helpless victims wrung their honest British hearts.
Louise had risen to her feet—a long black figure with a spectral face. She was Tragedy itself; she was the Spirit of Womanhood crushed and ruined by the war; she was the Grief of the World.
And now she flung herself at the doctor's feet, her arms outstretched, her eyes starting from their orbits, imploring him, in a paroxysm of agony and despair, to release and save her.
She fell face-downwards at his feet, shaken with spasmodic sobs, writhing and quaking as if in the throes of an epileptic fit. Mrs. Yule and the doctor raised her and placed her tenderly on the couch. Water and vinegar were brought, and wet cloths laid on her forehead.
There followed a prolonged silence.
"Unhappy woman!" murmured the vicar, aghast. "Her mind is quite unhinged."
"Yes," said the doctor; but he said it in a different tone, his experienced eye taking in every detail of the tense figure still thrilled and shaken at intervals by a convulsive tremor. "Yes, undoubtedly. She is on the verge of insanity." He paused. Then he looked the vicar full in the face. "And unless she is promptly assisted she will probably become hopelessly and incurably insane."
A low cry escaped Mrs. Yule's lips. "Oh, hush!" she said, bending over the pallid woman on the couch, fearful lest the appalling verdict might have reached her. But Louise's weary spirit had slipped away into unconsciousness.
"A sad case—a terribly sad case," said the vicar, thoughtfully pushing up his clipped grey moustache with his finger-tips and avoiding the doctor's resolute gaze. "She shall have our earnest prayers."
"And our very best assistance," said the doctor.
As if the words of comfort had reached her, Louise sighed and opened her eyes.
Mrs. Yule's protecting arm went round her.
"Of course, of course," said Mr. Yule to the doctor. Then he crossed the room and stood by the couch, looking down at Louise. "You will be brave, will you not? You must not give way to despair. We are all here to help and comfort you."
Louise raised herself on her elbow and looked up at him. A dazzling light of hope illuminated her face. Mr. Yule continued gravely and kindly.
"You can rely upon our friendship—nay, more—upon our tenderest affection. Our home is open to you if, as is most probable, Mrs. Whitaker desires you to leave her house. My wife and daughter will nurse and comfort you, will honour and respect you——" Louise broke into low sobs of gratitude as she grasped Mrs. Yule's hand and raised it to her lips. "And in the hour——" the vicar drew himself up to his full height and spoke in louder, more impressive tones—"and in the hour of your supreme ordeal, you shall not be forsaken."
Louise rose, vacillating, to her feet. "What ... what do you mean?" she gasped. Her countenance was distorted; her eyes burned like black torches in her ashen face.
"I mean," declared the clergyman, his stern eyes fixed relentlessly, almost threateningly, upon the trembling woman, "I mean that whatever you may have suffered at the hands of the iniquitous, you have no right"—he raised his hand and his resonant voice shook with the vehemence of his feeling—"no right yourself to contemplate a crime."
A deep silence held the room. The sacerdotal authority wielded its powerful sway.
"A crime! a crime!" gasped Louise, and the convulsive tremor seized her anew. "Surely it is a greater crime to drive me to my death."
"The laws of nature are sacred," said the vicar, his brow flushing, a diagonal vein starting out upon it; "they may not be set aside. All you can do is humbly to submit to the Divine law."
Louise raised her wild white face and gazed at him helplessly, but Dr. Reynolds stepped forward and stood beside her. "My dear Yule," he said gravely, "do not let us talk about Divine law in connection with this unhappy woman's plight. We all know that every law, both human and Divine, has been violated and trampled upon by the foul fiends that this war has let loose."
The vicar turned upon him a face flushed with indignation. "Do you mean to say that this would justify an act which is nothing less than murder?"
The doctor made no reply and the vicar looked at him, aghast.
"Reynolds, my good friend! You do not mean to tell me that you would dare to intervene?"
Still the doctor was silent. Louise, her ashen lips parted, her wild eyes fixed upon the two men, awaited her sentence.
"I can come to no hasty decision," said the man of science at last. "But if on further thought I decide that it is my duty—as a man and a physician—to interrupt the course of events, I shall do so." He paused an instant while his eye studied the haggard face and trembling figure of Louise. "A priori," he added, "this woman's mental and physical condition would seem to justify me in fulfilling her wish."
"Ah!" It was a cry of delirious joy from Louise. She was tearing her dress from her throat, gasping, catching her breath, shaken with frenzied sobs in a renewed spasm of hysteria.
They had to lift her to the couch again. The doctor hurriedly dissolved two or three tablets of some sedative drug and forced the beverage through Louise's clenched teeth. Then he sat down beside her, holding her thin wrist in his fingers. Soon he felt the disordered intermittent pulse beat more rhythmically; he felt the tense muscles slacken, the quivering nerves relax.
Then he turned to the vicar, who stood with his back to the room looking out of the window at the dreary rain-swept garden.
"Yule," he said, "I shall be sorry if in following the dictates of my conscience I lose a life-long friendship—a friendship which has been very precious to me." The vicar neither answered nor moved; but Mrs. Yule came softly across the room and stood beside the doctor—the man who had healed and watched over her and those she loved, who fifteen years before had so tenderly laid her little blind daughter in her arms. She remained at his side with flushed cheeks, and her lips moved silently as if in prayer. Her husband stood motionless, looking out at the misty November twilight.
"Still more does it grieve me," continued the doctor, "to think that any act of mine should wound your feelings on a point of conscience which evidently touches you so deeply. But be that as it may, I must obey the dictates of common humanity which, in this case, coincide exactly with the teachings of science. Given the condition in which I find this woman, I feel that I must try my best to save her reason and her life. The chances are a hundred to one that if the child lived it would be abnormal; a degenerate, an epileptic." The doctor stepped near the couch and looked down at the unconscious Louise. "And as for the mother," he added, pointing to the pitiful death-like face, "look at her. Can you not see that she is well on her way to the graveyard or the madhouse?"
There was no reply. In the silence that followed Mrs. Yule drew near to her husband; but he kept his face resolutely turned away and stared out of the window.
She touched his arm tremulously. "Think, dear," she murmured, "think that she has a husband—whom she loves, who is fighting in the trenches for her and for his home. When he returns, will it not be terrible enough for her to tell him that his own daughter has lost her reason? Must she also go to meet him carrying the child of an enemy in her arms?"
The vicar did not answer. He turned his pale set face away without a word, and left the room.
Dusk, the dreary November dusk, had fallen as Louise hurried homeward across the damp fields and deserted country roads. She had refused Mrs. Yule's urgent offer to accompany her or to send some one with her. She wanted to be alone—alone to look her happiness in the face, alone with her new heaven-sent ecstasy of gratitude. After the nightmare-days of hopelessness and despair, behold! life was to be renewed, retrieved, redeemed. Like a grey cloak of misery her anguish fell away from her; she stepped forth blissful and entranced into the pathway of her reflowering youth.
And with the certainty of this deliverance came the faith and hope in all other joys. Claude would return to her; Belgium would be liberated and redeemed. Mireille would find her speech again! Yes, Mireille would find her sweet, soft smile and her sweet shrill laughter. Might it not be Louise's own gloom that had plunged the sensitive soul of her child into darkness? Surely now that the storm-cloud was to be lifted from her, also the over-shadowed child-spirit would flutter back again into the golden springlight of its day. Surely all joys were possible in this most beautiful and joyous world. And Louise went with quick, light steps through the gloaming, half-expecting to see Mireille, already healed, come dancing towards her, gay and garrulous, calling her as she used to do by her pet name, "Loulou!"
Or it might be Chérie who would run to meet her, waving her hand to tell her that the miracle had come to pass!
Chérie! The name, the thought of Chérie struck at Louise's heart like a sudden blow. Her quick footsteps halted. As if a gust of the November wind had blown out the light of her happiness, she stood suddenly still in the middle of the road and felt that around her there was darkness again.
Chérie!... What was it that the doctor had said to her as he came with her to the gate of the Vicarage, as he held her hand in his firm, strong grasp, promising to save her from the deep waters of despair? What were the words she had then neither understood nor answered, borne away as she was on the wave of her own tumultuous joy? They suddenly came back to her now; they suddenly reached her hearing and comprehension. He had said, looking her full in the face with a meaning gaze, "What about your sister?"
"What about your sister?" Your sister. Of course he had meant Chérie. What about her? What about her? Again Louise felt that dull thud in her heart as if some one had struck it, for she knew, she knew what he meant—she knew what there was about Chérie.
There was the same abomination, the same impending horror and disgrace. Had not Chérie herself come and told her, in bewilderment and simplicity, of the strange questionings, the obscure warnings Mrs. Whitaker and the doctor had subjected her to? Ah, Louise knew but too well what it all meant; Louise knew but too well what there was about Chérie that even to strangers was manifest and unmistakable. Yes, Louise had dreaded it, had felt it, had known it—though Chérie herself had not. But until now her own torment of body and soul had hidden all else from her gaze, had made all that was not her own misery as unreal and unimportant as a dream. Vaguely, in the background of her thoughts, she had known that there was still another disaster to face, another fiery ordeal to encounter, but swept along in the vortex of her own doom she had flung those thoughts aside; in her own life-and-death struggle she had not stopped to ask, What of that other soul driving to shipwreck beside her, broken and submerged by the self-same storm?
But now it must be faced. She must tell the unwitting Chérie what the future held for her. She must stun her with the revelation of her shame.
For Louise understood—however incredible it might seem to others—that Chérie was wholly unaware of what had befallen her on that night when terror, inebriety, and violence had plunged her into unconsciousness. Not a glimmer of the truth had dawned on her simplicity, not a breath of knowledge had touched her inexperience. Sullied and yet immaculate, violated and yet undefiled—of her could it indeed be said that she had conceived without sin.
Louise went on in the falling darkness with lagging footsteps. Deep down in her heart her happiness hid its face for the sorrow and shame she must bring to another.
Then she remembered—with what deep thankfulness!—that though she must inflict this hideous hurt on Chérie, yet she could also speak to her of help, she could promise her release and the hope of ultimate peace and oblivion.
She hurried forward through the darkening lanes, and soon joy awoke again and sang within her. Yes! There they stood at the open gate, the two beloved waiting figures—the taller, Chérie, with her arm round the slender form of Mireille. Louise ran towards them with buoyant step.
"Louise!" cried Chérie. "Where have you been? How quickly you walk! How bright and happy you look! Why, I could see your smile shining from far off in the darkness!"
Louise kissed the soft, cold cheeks of both; she took Chérie's warm hand and the chilly little hand of Mireille and went with them towards the house. How cheerful were the lighted windows seen through the trees! How sheltered and peaceful was this refuge! How gracious and generous were the strangers who had housed and nourished them!
How kind and good and beautiful was life!
"Tell me the truth, Louise," said Chérie that evening, when, having seen little Mireille safely asleep, Louise returned to the cheerful sitting-room, where the dancing firelight gleamed on the pink walls and cosy drawn curtains. "Tell me the truth. You have heard something—something from Claude ... something——" Chérie flushed to the lovely low line of the growth of her auburn curls—"from Florian! You have, you have! I can read it in your face. You have had news of some kind."
Yes—Louise had had news.
"Good news——"
Yes. Good news. She sat down on a low armchair near the fire and beckoned with her finger. "Chérie!"
The girl came quickly to her side and sat down on the rug at her feet. The fire danced and flickered on her red-gold hair and milkwhite oval face.
"Chérie." ... Louise's voice was low, her eyes cast down. She felt like a torturer, she felt as if she were murdering a flower, tearing asunder the closed petals of this girlish soul and filling its cup with poison.
Chérie was looking up into her face with a radiant, expectant smile.
How should she tell her? How should she tell her?...
Louise bent forward and covered the shining, questioning eyes with her hand. "Tomorrow, Chérie! Tomorrow."
On the morrow Chérie awoke early. She could not say what had startled her out of a deep restful slumber, but suddenly she was wide awake, every nerve tense in a kind of strained expectancy, waiting she knew not for what. Something had occurred, something had awakened her; and she was waiting for it to repeat itself; waiting to hear or feel it again. But whatever it was, sound or sensation, it was not repeated.
Chérie rose quickly, slid her feet into her slippers, and went across the room to the window. She leaned out with her bare elbows on the window-sill and looked at the garden—at the glistening lawn, at the stripped trees, dark and clear-cut against the early sky. It was a rose-grey dawn, as softly luminous as if it were the month of February instead of November. There seemed to be a promise of spring in the pale radiance of the morning.
She knew she could not sleep any more; so she dressed quietly and quickly, wrapped a scarf round her slim shoulders, and went down into the garden.
George Whitaker also had awakened early. These were his last few days at home before leaving for the front, and his spirit was full of feverish restlessness. His sister Eva was expected back from Hastings that morning and they would spend two or three happy days together before he left for the wonderful, and awful adventure of war. He had obeyed his mother's desire, and had not seen or spoken to their Belgian guests for many days. Indeed, it was easy—too easy, thought George with a sigh—to avoid them, for they seemed day by day to grow more shy of strangers and of friends. George only caught fleeting glimpses of them as they passed their windows; sometimes he saw a gleam of auburn hair where Chérie sat with bent head near the schoolroom balcony, reading or at work.
This morning, as he stood vigorously plying his brushes on his bright hair and gazing absent-mindedly at the garden, he caught sight of Chérie, with a scarf round her shoulders and a book in her hand, walking down the gravel pathway towards the summer-house. He flung down his brushes, finished dressing very quickly, and ran downstairs. After all, he was leaving in forty-eight hours or so—leaving to go who knows where, to return who knows when. He might never have such another chance of seeing her and saying good-bye. True, it was rather soon to say good-bye. He would probably be meeting her every moment during the next two days. Eva was coming back, and would be sure to want her little foreign friend always beside her. Eva had a way of slipping her arm through Chérie's and drawing her along, saying: "Allons, Chérie!" which was very pleasant in George's recollection. He also would have liked to slip his arm through the slim white arm of the girl and say, "Allons, Chérie!" He could imagine the flush, or the frown, or the fleeting marvel of her smile....
In a few moments he was downstairs, out of the house, and running towards the summer-house. But she was not there.
He found her walking slowly beside the little artificial lake in the shrubbery, reading her book.
"Good-morning," he said in tones exaggerately casual, as she looked up in surprise.
"Good-morning, Monsieur George," she said, and the softness of the "g's" in her French accent was sweet to his ear.
"What are you doing, up so early?"
"Et vous?" she retorted, with her brief vivid smile.
"I ... I ... have come to say good-bye," he said.
"Good-bye? Why, I thought you were not going away until the day after tomorrow."
"Right-o," said George. "No more I am. But you know what a time I take over things; the mater always calls me a slow-coach. I—I like beginning to pack up and say good-bye days and weeks before it is time to go." Again he watched the little half-moon smile that turned up the corners of her mouth and dimpled her rounded cheek.
"Well then—good-bye," she said, looking up at him for an instant and realizing that she would be sorry when he had left.
"Good-bye." He took her book from her and held out his hand. She placed her own soft small hand in his, and he found not another word to say. So he said "Good-bye" again, and she repeated it softly.
"But now you must go away," she said. "You cannot keep on saying good-bye and staying here."
"Of course not," said George. "I'll go in a minute." Then he cleared his throat. "I wonder if you will be here when I come back. I suppose you would hate to live in England altogether, wouldn't you?"
"I don't know. I have never thought of it," said Chérie.
"Well—but do you like England? Or don't you?"
"S'il vous plaît Londres?" quoted Chérie, glancing up at him and laughing. Surely, thought George, no other eyelashes in the world gave such a starry look to two such sea-blue eyes.
"In some ways I do not like England," she remarked, thoughtfully. "I do not like—I mean I do not understand the English women. They seem so—how shall I say?—so hard ... so arid...." She plucked a little branch from a bush of winter-berries and toyed with it absently as she walked beside him. "They all seem afraid of appearing too friendly or too kind."
"Perhaps so," said George.
"When we first came here your sister warned me about it. She said, 'You must never show an English woman that you like her; it is not customary, and would be misunderstood.'"
"That's so. We don't approve of gush," said George.
"If you call nice things by horrid names they become horrid things," said Chérie sternly and sententiously. "Natural impulses of friendliness are not 'gush.' When I first meet strangers I always feel that I like them; and I go on liking them until I find out that they are not nice."
"You go the wrong way round," said George. "In England we always dislike people until we know they are all right. Besides, if you were to start by being sweet and amiable to strangers, they would probably think you wanted to borrow money from them, or ask them favours."
"How mean-minded!" exclaimed Chérie.
George laughed. "You should see the mater," he said, "how villainously rude she is to people she meets for the first time. That is what makes her such a social success."
Chérie looked bewildered. George was silent a moment; then he spoke again.
"And what do you think about the English men? Do you dislike them too?"
"I don't really know them," said Chérie; "but they—theylookvery nice," and she turned her blue eyes full upon him, taking a quick survey of his handsome figure and fair, frank face.
George felt himself blush, and hated himself for it.
"You—you would never think of marrying an Englishman, would you?"
Chérie shook her head, and the long lashes drooped over the sea-blue stars. "I am affianced to be married," she said with her pretty foreign accent, "to a soldier of Belgium."
"Oh, I see," said George rather huskily and hurriedly. "Of course. Quite so."
They walked along in silence for a little while. Then he opened her book, which he still held in his hand. "What were you reading? Poetry?"
He glanced at the fly-leaf, on which were written the words "Florian Audet, à Chérie," and he quickly turned the page. "Poetry" ... he said again, "by Victor Hugo." Then he added, "Why, this sounds as if it were written for you: 'Elle était pâle et pourtant rose....' That is just what you are."
Chérie did not answer. What was this strange flutter at her heart again? It frightened her. Could it be angina pectoris, or some other strange and terrible disease? Not that it hurt her; but it thrilled her from head to foot.
"You are quitepâle et pourtant roseat this very moment," repeated George, looking at her. Then he added rather bitterly as he handed her back the book, "I suppose you are thinking of the day when you will marry your soldier-lover."
"Perhaps I shall not live to marry anybody," said Chérie in a low voice.
"What an idea!" exclaimed George.
"And as for him," she continued, "he will probably be killed long before that."
"Oh no," said George, "I'm sure he won't. And I'm sure you will.... And I'm sure you're both going to be awfully happy. As for me," he added quickly, "I am going to have no end of a good time. I believe I am to be sent to the Dardanelles. Doesn't the word sound jolly! 'The Dardanelles!' It has a ring and a lilt to it...." He laughed and pushed his hair back from his clear young forehead.
"Good luck to you," said Chérie, looking up at him with a sudden feeling of kindness and regret.
They had turned back, and were now passing the summer-house in full view of the windows of the house. On the schoolroom balcony they saw Louise. She beckoned, and Chérie hurried forward and stood under the balcony, looking up at her.
"Oh, Chérie! I wondered where you were," said Louise, bending over the ledge. "I was anxious. Come up, dear! I want to speak to you."
"Oh yes!" exclaimed Chérie eagerly, remembering Louise's promise of the night before. Then she turned to George. "I must go. So now we must really say good-bye." She laughed. "Or shall we sayau revoir?"
"Let us sayau revoir," said George, looking her full in the face.
"Au revoir, Monsieur George!Au revoir!"
Then she went indoors.
Two days later George Whitaker went away.
They sent him to the Dardanelles.
And in this world there was never anau revoirfor Monsieur George.