Part 22

That was all, yet it contained hints and innuendoes of things too terrible for the imagination. M. de Cyon undoubtedly knew more than he chose to reveal in his circumspect note. He was, to be sure, near to the Ministry of War.

There was a letter too from Jean, breathless and full of spirit, the letter of a young warrior eager for battle, forgetful of all else, of God, of his mother, of everything save the prospect of fighting.

“Dear Mama,” he wrote, “we are leaving to-night for the front. I shall return perhaps a captain. Think of it! Thy Jean a captain! Do not worry. Our troops are in excellent condition. I fancy the war will be over in a fortnight. I am in Césaire’s company. I think of you, of course.

“THY JEAN.”

With the three letters in her hand Lily left Madame Gigon and set out to walk the white tow-path at the edge of the river. On the far side the farm appeared deserted as if suddenly its occupants had been overcome by a sleep of enchantment. The oxen were nowhere to be seen. The fowls were gone. The house lay shuttered and empty as a house of the dead. Above the tow-path, the château likewise stood silent and empty. In all the landscape there was no sign of life, no dogs, no chickens, no crying children. And as she walked she turned her head presently and saw, leaving the far side of the farm, a lumbering two-wheeled cart piled high with furniture,--mattresses, a sewing machine, a few chairs, and swinging underneath, little cages of osier in which were crowded the barnyard fowls. Tied to the wheels, three goats followed the gentle motion of the cart. Fat Madame Borgue, the farmer’s wife, trudged by the side guiding the slow-gaited oxen with a long wand, and high up, perched on a truss of straw, sat her mother, an immensely old and wrinkled woman, with Madame Borgue’s baby in her arms. They were deserting, driven before the straggling columns of refugees which had appeared like magic during the early morning along the high-roads from La Ferté to Meaux. There could be no doubt. The farm and the château were empty. At Germigny only Lily and Madame Gigon remained behind.

LXXII

It appeared that the discovery made no impression upon Lily, for she continued on her way along the deserted river path without stopping, without even checking the mad speed at which she walked. Her manner was that of one fleeing before a terror from which there is no escape. When she had reached a spot opposite the little island that divided the waters of the river, she halted suddenly by a clump of hazel bushes and flung herself down upon the thick grass in the shadow of the plane trees. She began to weep, soundlessly with long, racking, silent sobs which shook her whole body as if she had been stricken by some frightful pain.

Far off a train whistled distantly. The bright red kepis of the soldiers showed in rows like poppies at the windows of the coaches. On the white solid bridge at Trilport there appeared a double procession; one column hot, dusty, bedraggled, full of crying, exhausted, women and children, moved toward Paris. The other was gay and bright. The men wore bright red trousers and bright red caps. It moved briskly forward. The guns were like a field of wheat come suddenly to life, moving gallantly to throw itself upon the reaper.

After a time, Lily sat up, her hair all blown and disheveled, her dark eyes bright from weeping. She read the letters over and over absorbing the same phrases.... May God be with us all!... It is all more grave than any of us suspect.... A thousand kisses from thy Césaire.... It is war, Madame, and no one can say what will happen.... A battle is no place for a beautiful woman.... Perhaps I shall return.... Perhaps I shall return a captain.... Think of it! Thy Jean a captain!... Thy Jean!... Thy Jean.... Thy Césaire!... Thy Jean! Thy precious Jean!

Slowly she refolded the letters and thrust them into the bosom of her dress and then, as if her emotion were too strong for silence, she said aloud.... “Me ... myself.... Why do they worry about me?... Do they think that I am afraid?” She laughed suddenly. “Afraid of what?”

Besides it was impossible to flee with a sick old woman and no means of conveyance. She laughed again and said bitterly, “What do they think ... that I am a magician?”

Lying there in the deep grass, it must have occurred to her all at once that her whole life had been pillaged and destroyed because an Austrian archduke was shot in a little hole called Serajevo. Madame Gigon dying. Césaire and Jean on their way to destruction. Who remained? What remained? De Cyon, perhaps. No one else. No one in all the world. The years of her life come to an end like this ... that everything she loved, everything she cherished, might be swept away over-night like so much rubbish into a dustbin. As if she were no more than a poor forsaken flower vender or charwoman! What was money now? What were beautiful things? What was all her life?

And she flung herself down once more, sobbing wildly as she had sobbed another time in the old house at Cypress Hill, when all at once, she had sensed the tragedy of a whole lifetime, as if she stood in a vast plain surrounded only by loneliness.

At dusk she arose slowly and, from long habit put her hair in order, smoothed her dress, and set out upon her homeward journey, walking slowly, with feet from which all youth had gone. When she arrived at the lodge, the traces of her weeping had disappeared and she entered proudly and in silence. For a moment there came into her pale lovely face a fleeting likeness to her mother, a certain determination that was inseparable from the rugged countenance of the stoic Julia Shane.

The house was still because old Madame Gigon had slipped out of her bed and was lying asleep on the floor. When Lily attempted to rouse the old woman, she discovered that she was not sleeping at all but unconscious, and suddenly Lily too slipped to the floor, buried her face in her hands and wept noisily and without restraint. The sound of her sobbing penetrated the breathless garden and the distant empty rooms of the château, but there was no one to answer it. The only sound was the triumphant, ironic whistle of a steel locomotive, its belly hot with red flames, its nostrils breathing fire and smoke.

At last she lifted Madame Gigon into the bed by the window and, lying by the side of the unconscious old woman, she fell into a profound sleep.

LXXIII

It was dark when she awoke and rose wearily to light a lamp. The first flame of the match illuminated the room. It revealed all the familiar furniture ... the chintz covered chairs, the bright curtains of _toile de Juouy_, the bowl of ghostly white phloxes by the window. Everything was the same save that Madame Gigon ... old Tante Louise ... lay unconscious upon the bed, and the house was so still that the silence was suffocating.

She went into the kitchen and prepared a mixture of egg, milk and brandy which she fed the old woman through a tube. She understood the care of Madame Gigon. The old woman had been like this before. Lily, herself, ate nothing, but took from the cupboard by the window a bottle of port and drank a brimming glass. And after a time she went outside to listen to the silence.

With her black cloak wrapped about her she sat there for a long time. The farm, the tiny inn, the houses of the village were black and silent. There hung in the atmosphere the ghostly feeling of a house suddenly deserted by its inhabitants, standing empty and alone. The mournfulness was overwhelming. After a time she lighted a cigarette and smoked it, holding the ember away from her and regarding it at a little distance as if the faint light in some way dissipated the loneliness.

For a time she regarded the distant horizon and the queer flashes of color like heat lightning which appeared at intervals. Sometimes the rising night wind bore toward her a faint sound like that of distant thunder. And then all at once, there appeared in the house by the village church a bright light. It was a lamp placed close to the open window so that the rays piercing the darkness traversed the river, penetrated the low branches of the plane trees and enveloped Lily herself in a faint glow.

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