Part 24

She watched it for a time with a breathless curiosity. The cigarette, untouched, burned low and dropped from her fingers, and then behind the light appeared the figure of the curé in his rusty black clothes. He had stayed behind to guard his church. He was there, moving about his little house, as if nothing had happened. Presently he took down from a shelf above the table a heavy book, laid it before him, took out his steel rimmed spectacles, and began to read.

After an hour of silence during which she lay motionless in her chair, Lily rose and went inside to look at Madame Gigon. The old woman lay on her back, snoring peacefully. She felt her pulse. It was weak and irregular. Then she brought more brandy and milk, fed it to Madame Gigon, and wrapping the black cloak about herself, set off down the terrace to the iron bridge that led across the Marne to the house of the curé.

Away to the north the flashes in the sky became more frequent and the distant thunder less broken and more distinct. On the way to the bridge the alder branches stirring softly in the breeze, whispered together in a vague, ghostly fashion. She walked slowly in the same tired fashion until she reached the little white house by the church.

LXXIV

Inside, the old priest at the sound of her knock looked up from his reading and took off his spectacles.

“Come in,” he said, and Lily stepped uncertainly through the door, her eyes blinded by the bright flame of the petrol light. M. Dupont, regarding her with an expression of amazement, rose from his chair.

“It is I, Madame Shane,” said Lily. “The friend of Madame Gigon.”

“Ah, yes, I remember you well.”

Before this night there had passed between them occasional greetings when he came to the lodge to play piquet with Madame Gigon, when he passed Lily riding through the wood in the early morning.

“Won’t you sit down?” and then, “Why are you here? You know the Germans may come any time now. Surely before morning.”

“As soon as that?” asked Lily indifferently. She had not thought of the Germans. Perhaps they would come. It did not matter greatly.

The old man bent his head over the table and began to turn the pages of the book. “Our soldiers are brave, Madame,” he said. “But there is too much against them. They were not ready. In the end we will win.... For the present....” He finished with a gesture implying that the matter lay in the hands of the good God. He was a simple man, a peasant trained for the priesthood by devout and adoring parents.

“It would be better if you would go away,” he said after a sudden pause. “I imagine it will not be pleasant.”

Lily laughed softly. For a moment something of her old gay indifference appeared to return, even a shade of the spirit with which she had met another adventure years before in the park at Cypress Hill.

“There is Madame Gigon,” she said. M. Dupont again bent over the table silently. It was a gesture of assent, of resignation, of agreement.

“Besides,” continued Lily, “I am not afraid. I think I may even enjoy the experience.... I should like to know what war is like.” And then, as if she feared that he did not understand her, she added, “Not, of course, because I like war. Oh! not at all! But you understand what it means for the men.... I have men in it.” She shivered a little and drew the black cape more closely about her. “I think it might be easier for the women if they could go into battle as well. It would be easier than waiting ... at home ... alone.”

The man closed his book. “Madame is a beautiful woman,” he said, softly.

Again Lily smiled faintly. “Oh, I understand what you mean ... perfectly.” A thoughtful expression entered her dark eyes. She seemed suddenly to be listening to the faint and distant thunder. “Yes,” she said with a sigh, “I understand. Fortunately I have no temptation to run away. I could not go if I chose. Madame Gigon, you understand, has given up her life to me.... It would be impossible to desert her now.”

She sat now with her back to the whitewashed wall of the little room; her black cape and her red hair carried the quality of a beautiful painting. All the color was gone from her face and beneath her eyes hung dark circles which somehow increased the brilliance of her eyes and the whiteness of her skin. She looked old but it was the oldness of beauty, possessing a clear refinement and delicacy.

“She is a good woman ... Madame Gigon,” said the priest.

M. Dupont spoke in a low voice, respectful, scarcely audible, but the words exerted upon his visitor an extraordinary effect. All at once she leaned forward resting her elbows on the table. The cloak slipped to the floor. She began to talk passionately with a kind of fierce melancholy in her voice.

“Ah, she _is_ a good woman,” she said. “She has given her life to me. She has lived with me for twenty years. She has been everything to me. You understand ... a friend ... a companion ... even a mother.”

And then, without warning, she poured out the whole story of her life, incident by incident, chapter by chapter, reserving nothing, disguising nothing. Before the eyes of the astonished old priest she recreated the house at Cypress Hill, the Mills, the Town, the figures of her bizarre father, her cynical mother, the hysterical Irene, all the kaleidoscopic picture of a wandering, aimless life. She told him of Jean. She even related bit by bit the long tale of her love for the Baron. She told him that in her heart she had even sinned for the sake of a common laborer ... Krylenko.

“And yet,” she said, “he was not exactly that. He was a great deal more. He was, you understand, something of a martyr. He gave up everything for his people. He would have given his life had it been necessary.... It hurts me, even now, to think of him. He was a powerful man ... a good man ... a noble man.”

It was of him that she talked for a long time, wildly, passionately invoking him in her enthusiasm before the stricken eyes of the old priest. He stood there for a long time in the bare, whitewashed room, powerful, austere, suffering, as he had been on the night of the slaughter in the park at Cypress Hill.

“He was a good man.... He still is,” she said. She talked breathlessly with a bright exalted light in her eyes. “I have never told this to any one.... There was no sin between us ... nothing unless to love deeply is a sin.”

As if turned to stone, M. Dupont sat listening quietly. Only once did he speak and that was when she mentioned the Baron. Then he stirred uneasily and peered at her closely as if he suspected her of lying.

“Incredible!” he murmured to himself. “Incredible!” And after a little pause. “Only God can know what lies in the darkness of men’s hearts. Only God.... It is impossible to know.... It is impossible to know!”

But Lily swept past the interruption. The torrent of her revelations flowed on. She talked eagerly, with a kind of wild delight; yet what she said lacked the quality of a confession. She seemed to have no profound consciousness of sin. She was even unrepentant. She told the story breathlessly with a kind of wonder at herself, at the tragedy of her own soul, that she loved so easily. Instead of confessing, she appeared to be pouring out to the trembling old man secrets, too long confined, which she found herself driven to reveal.

At last she drew to a conclusion. “You understand now,” she said, “why to me the war is inexpressibly tragic. You understand what Madame Gigon has been to me.”

She picked up the fallen cloak and, shivering, wrapped it about her and sank back in the stiff little chair with a weary air of finality and resignation. “You see, it is not only the war.... Madame Gigon is dying. The war has taken everything. You understand I shall be alone ... completely alone.”

M. Dupont made no reply. He kept his head bowed. He was repeating a prayer as Irene had done in the old days. They prayed for Lily, who had not been inside a church in more than seven years.

“I came to fetch you to her,” continued Lily, “She is dying now.... I am certain she cannot live much longer.”

When the priest at last raised his head, it was to say, “Come. If she is dying we must waste no time,” in so gentle a voice that the tears welled in Lily’s eyes. She took out her handkerchief, already wet.

“I thought,” she said, “that I was through with weeping. I must have a great many tears.” (Lily who never wept.)

LXXV

M. Dupont, after collecting those things which are necessary in the administration of the last rites, put on his shovel hat and took up a lantern.

“Come,” he said, “we must hurry.” And together they set out along the white road, between the whispering alders and over the iron bridge. The lantern swung feebly in his grasp. They walked in complete silence until they reached the terrace when Lily, looking up suddenly, saw that the sky behind the lodge was filled with a cloudy whiteness as if gray smoke were drifting across the sky.

“There is a fire somewhere,” she said placing a hand on the arm of her companion.

M. Dupont halted and regarded the sky for a moment, holding his lantern high so that the rays might penetrate the darkness beyond the vine covered lodge.

“It is not smoke,” he said suddenly. “It is dust. The cavalry is passing along the road.”

And then for the first time the small revealing noises reached Lily’s ear ... the clanking of spurs, the creaking of girths, the muffled sound of hoofs striking the white road, and then the solitary whicker of a horse.

LXXVI

Inside the lodge, Lily left Madame Gigon to the curé. He assured her that she was right. It was impossible for the old woman to live much longer. It would have been useless to have secured a physician even if one had been available.

“She has been dying a long while,” said the old man. “I fancy she would prefer not to be hindered in her going.”

As Lily closed the door upon the two old friends, she saw M. Dupont kneel down in the lamplight and begin to pray.

Wearily she climbed the narrow winding stairway which led to the upper floor and, finding herself unable to sleep, she went to the window above the gateway and sat down to watch the column of cavalry on its way into battle. The men had been riding for hours and now they rode silently, white with dust, the black plumes of horsehair swaying as the horses moved. It was impossible to distinguish one from another. They were simply black figures, units of a body, mysterious and without personality. There was not even the sound of a voice, nothing but the faint rattle of sabers and the ghostly breathing of the horses. Jean might have been among them ... even Césaire himself. It was impossible to say. They were each like the other, no longer individuals, now only units, cogs in a vast machine. No one of them counted any longer for anything.

Presently the column came to an end and a battery of artillery, caissons rattling, men upright upon the cartridge boxes, followed in its place. And at last it too passed, swallowed up by the questioning darkness. The silence became unreal, terrifying. From below stairs arose the droning sound of M. Dupont’s voice conducting the service that would lead Madame Gigon safely into the world beyond ... the world beyond. To-night in all the lonely breathless quiet, the world beyond was very near. One might almost enter it simply by closing one’s eyes, by stepping through a doorway into the night.

Lily sat motionless and upright, watching. A second column passed and then a third; and at last, a man riding a black horse whose chest was white with froth turned in at the gateway. He was a man like the others ... a unit, a being without individuality save that he rode alone a little in the rear of the other horsemen. Under the archway he dismounted from his horse, and in the next moment he performed an act which at once restored to him his identity. He walked directly to the iron ring which hung concealed among the ivy leaves and there fastened the black horse. Thus he betrayed himself. Only one person could have known the exact place where the ring lay hidden among the leaves. There could be no longer any doubt.

When he had fastened the black horse, he stepped out a little way from the house and called softly, “Lily ... Lily.”

LXXVII

There was no answer, but before he called again a tall figure in a black cloak ran from the doorway and hurried toward him.

“Césaire!... Césaire!” were the only words she spoke. She clung against him, the metal of his bright cuirass pressing her lovely, soft body. For a time Césaire kissed her passionately and at length, without a word, she led him away from the house to the pleached walk that led from the château garden down to the river. They walked sadly with arms encircling each other’s waists.

“I have but a moment,” said the Baron. “At most, ten minutes. I have no right even to that.”

She told him that Madame Gigon was dying. She explained that old Pierre had not appeared to help them to escape and that he would have been of no use since it was impossible to move her companion. And when she had wasted three precious minutes in these explanations, she said, “You need not worry for me.... I shall be quite safe.... If only I could be as certain of you.”

At this he laughed softly, reassuring her and pulling his fierce mustachios in warlike fashion.

“You need not fear for me,” he said. “I have had such great luck ... always.” And he looked at her closely with shining eyes.

Then they sat for a time in silence, clinging closely to each other. Presently he took off his helmet and rested it in her lap allowing her to twist her fingers in and out among the long black hair of the plume.

“And Jean,” she said, after a time. “He is with you?”

“He is with me. He passed with the others beneath your window. He sent you his love. He would have come too, but he knew it was unsoldierly to break the ranks.... He is a good soldier,” he added softly. “A valiant fellow. With me it is different. I am an old fellow. I have learned that there are times when one must break the ranks. There are times when even breaking ranks does not matter.”

In the darkness Lily’s eyes closed as if she felt a sharp, sudden pain. “Ellen advised me,” she said, “never to be too fond of my child.”

Her lover kissed her and answered, “Come, you must not think of it like that. You must understand he is a boy ... an ardent boy.”

And then he fell again to talking of her danger. He urged her not to remain.

“I have the curé here ... M. Dupont,” she said.

“Leave him with Madame Gigon.”

“No. That I will not do.... Besides the Germans may never arrive here after all.”

“No,” he said, gravely. “Perhaps not. We shall try to prevent them.”

Then they walked back again to the gateway. The house was silent now and the voice of M. Dupont no longer to be heard. The Baron replaced his helmet, untied his horse and swung himself on the back of the animal. Leaning down, he kissed her again and then turned through the gateway into the road. She listened to the sound of the black horse’s hoofs as he galloped past the moving columns, and at last when the echo was no longer audible she reentered the house and flung herself down upon the bed. Throughout the brief visit, she had restrained herself. Now she wept quietly, almost in peace, as if she were enveloped already by a great resignation.

LXXVIII

Madame Gigon lived through the night, sleeping peacefully in her high bed near the door that opened upon the terrace. But Lily did not sleep at all. She kept watch, sometimes sitting at the bedside, sometimes lying wrapped in her cloak in the long chair beneath the plane trees. She watched the flashes on the horizon beyond the wood, until the dawn rising slowly absorbed them and rendered them invisible in a faint glow which grew and grew until it enveloped all the dome of the sky and transformed, suddenly and without warning, the dark wood from a low black wall extending across the sky into a grove of slender trunks silhouetted against the rising light.

At dawn the troops no longer passed the house. The dusty white road lay deserted between the rows of chestnut trees. But in the dust were the prints of a thousand hoofs and the tracks of the wide wheeled caissons. The little procession on the distant bridge at Trilport had vanished. There were no soldiers going forward; and coming back, there was now only an occasional, straggling cart or the figure of a shopkeeper pushing before him in a wooden wheelbarrow all that he had salvaged of his little shop.

At noon there appeared out of the wood a rolling kitchen drawn by tired horses and driven by weary soldiers all white with dust. It came nearer and nearer until it arrived at the farm where, in the shadow of the big gray barns, it halted and the men ate. A little while later soldiers began to appear among the trees, tiny figures in red trousers and red caps, no longer bright like the poppies, but all stained and dust covered. The red marked them against the wall of greenery as if it had been planned that they should serve as targets.

Singly and in little groups of two or three the soldiers straggled across the fields toward the kitchen set up against the gray wall of the barn. The sun shone brilliantly, and in the clear white light the red tiles, the white walls, and the green of the trees appeared gay and bright. Some of the men carried arms suspended in slings. One or two wore about their close-cropped heads bandages that were stained with spots of red as if the color had come loose from their tragic little caps and stained their skins. There was one dandified young officer, with fine waxed mustaches, who dragged a shattered leg and still wore the bedraggled remnants of the spotless white gloves he had carried into the battle.

When they had eaten and drunk, the soldiers made their way across the iron bridge and turning along the tow path at the foot of the garden kept on their way, moving in a thin, trickling stream in the direction of Paris.

At length Lily, rousing herself, went to the foot of the garden, opened the gate and stood on the path. She carried wine which she gave them to drink as they passed.

“And how does it go?” she asked now and then.

The respectful answer was always the same. “Badly, Madame.... Badly. It would be better if you did not remain.”

Or a shrug and “What can we do, Madame? They have better guns ... better shells. One cannot see them. They are dressed so that they look like the trees themselves. And we ... we.” A gesture indicating the fatal red trousers and kepi.

Early in the afternoon the sound of the guns became audible again, not distant this time and indistinct like thunder, but sharp and clear ... the barking “ping” of the seventy-fives.

When the wine was all gone, Lily returned again to the terrace to wait. She had not been sitting there long when there arose all at once the sound of a terrific explosion. Turning her head she saw above the river at Trilport a great cloud of white dust and black smoke. They had destroyed the solid white bridge. It was the French themselves who had destroyed it. The Germans must be very near.

Madame Gigon slept peacefully just inside the doorway, all undisturbed by the explosion.

As for Lily, lying in the low chair, the explosion appeared to have worked a miracle. The color had begun to return to her white face. It showed itself in bright spots as if she had been seized by a fever. And presently she arose and began to walk about, up and down the garden, going at last into the château itself from which she returned in a little while carrying a pair of the Baron’s binoculars. With these she climbed to the little turret which rose above the vine covered dove-cote. There she settled herself to watching.

In a little while the men about the kitchen gathered themselves into a group, put the horses once more into the harness and drove away, carrying with them a boy of the last class whose strength had given out. M. Dupont followed them until he reached the edge of the iron bridge where he halted and stood looking after them, his hands shading his old eyes against the long rays of the setting sun, until they disappeared around a turn of the river. Then he went quietly indoors.

A little while later a battery of guns appeared among the trees, halted on the edge of the wood, and began firing in the direction of La Ferté where a cloud of smoke from the burning houses hung low upon the horizon. It was a pretty picture. The men worked the guns rapidly. The cannon spat forth little curls of white smoke followed by sudden angry barks, not in the least deafening. In the clear evening light it was all like one of Meissonier’s battle pictures, rather clear and pretty and bright-colored.

But in a little while the battery stopped firing, the horses leaned forward once more into the harness and the guns drew away down the lane, past the white farm and across the iron bridge. The planks reverberated with a thunderous sound under the hoofs of the galloping horses. The little cavalcade turned along the tow-path and vanished. Out of the wood there appeared suddenly three gray-green figures on horseback who halted and surveyed the landscape. They were the first of the Uhlans.

LXXIX

With the falling of night, the Germans were in possession of the château and the gardens. In bands of twenty or thirty they pushed beyond across the field and through the copses in the direction of Meaux. A few remained behind, and these occupied the château, using the best linen of the Baroness, taking down from the wall of the kitchen the cook’s great battery of spotless copper kettles in which to cook their beans and soup.