Читать книгу: «The Outrage», страница 11

CHAPTER XXIV

Dusk was falling and a thin grey mist crept up from the two rivers as Louise, with a black scarf over her head, hurried out of the house to fetch Mireille. She was about to turn down the narrow rue de la Pompe which led straight to the house of Madame Doré without passing the Place de l'Église, where at this hour all the German soldiers were assembled, when she noticed the hunched-up figure of a Flemish peasant coming slowly along the small alley. He seemed to be mumbling to himself, and looked such a strange figure with his slouch hat and limping gait that in order to avoid him she turned back and went through the Square where the soldiers lounged and smoked. They paid no heed to her and she hurried on.

In her heart a wild new hope had sprung. She was going to bring Mireille home. For the first time since that terrible morning of their flight, Mireille would find herself once more in the surroundings that had witnessed her martyrdom.

What if the shock of entering that house again, of being face to face with all that must remind her of the struggle in which her agonized child-spirit had been wrecked, what if that shock—Louise scarcely dared to formulate the wild hope even in her own mind—were to heal her? Such things had happened. Louise had heard and read of them; of people who were mad and had suddenly been restored to reason, of people who were dumb and had recovered their speech through some sudden powerful emotion.

With beating heart Louise went faster through the silent streets.

The man she had seen in the rue de la Pompe had limped on; then turning to the right he had found himself in front of Dr. Brandès's house.

He stopped and looked up at the windows. They were open, wide open to the cool evening air, and at the sight, joy rushed into his heart. The house was certainly inhabited. By whom? By whom?… Had they reached Bomal after all? He had heard from Claude that they had left England to return to their home. Had they arrived safely? Were they here?

The hope of seeing them again had inspired him to attempt and achieve his daring flight from the Infirmary at Liège, and his temerarious almost incredible journey across miles of closely-guarded country. The vision of Chérie had been before him when at dead of night, with bleeding hands, he had worked for hours to loosen the meshes of wire nets and entanglements that surrounded the hospital grounds, where—half patient, half prisoner—he had been held under strict surveillance for nearly a month. It was Chérie's white hand that had beckoned to him and upheld him through the long hungry days and the dreary nights, when he was hiding in woods, crouching in ditches, plunging into rivers, scrambling over walls and rocks until he had reached the valley of the Aisne—passing indeed, quite near to Roche-à-Frêne where, he remembered, she had gone for an excursion on her last birthday.... It was the thought of Chérie that had inspired and guided him through untold risks and dangers. And now, perhaps, she was here, here in this house before him, within reach of his voice, within sight of his eyes, just beyond those joyous open windows....

He remembered how on her birthday-night less than a year ago he had clattered up on horseback through the quiet streets and had seen these windows wide open as they were now.—Ah, what destruction had swept over the world since then!

He remembered the sound of those laughing, girlish voices:

 
Sur le pont
D'Avignon
On y danse
On y danse....
 

He glanced quickly round, then he raised his head and softly whistled the well-known tune.

Chérie had remained alone. She had heard Louise leave the house, closing the outer door, and the sound of her quick footsteps had reached her for a while from the street. Then silence had fallen.

Louise was going to fetch Mireille. Soon they would come back together, and Chérie must decide what she would do. How should she face Mireille? No; she must hide, hide with her child, so that Mireille should not see him. For what would Mireille say when she saw the child? True, as Louise said, she would say nothing—nothing that ears could hear. But what would her soul say? How could any one know what Mireille saw and what she did not see? Who could tell but what she might not see and remember and hate, even as Louise hated? And that silent hatred would be still more terrible to bear. Yes; Mireille would surely know when she saw those very light eyes that opened so widely in the tiny face; she would remember the man who had tortured her, who had bound her to the iron banisters with her face turned to the bedroom door—this very door, close by, draped with the red curtains—Yes. The memory and the horror of it all would come back to her wandering spirit every time she saw those strange light eyes, now half-closed as the small head nestled sleepily at its mother's breast.

Chérie bent over her child and kissed the fair hair and the drowsy eyes and the sweet half-open mouth. What if every one hated him? She loved him. She loved him with the love of all mothers and with the greater love of her sorrow and despair and shame.

"Child of mine," she whispered, "why did they not let us both drift away into eternity on that May morning when you had not yet crossed the threshold of life, and I was so near to the open doors of death? We could have floated peacefully away together, you and I, out of all this trouble and sorrow. How simple and restful it would have been."

But her baby slept and it was dusk and bed-time; so she rose and carried him to his cradle in the adjoining room, pushing the red curtains aside with her elbow as she entered.

While she did so she found herself vaguely thinking of her birthday-night, of the dance with Jeannette, Cri-cri, Cécile. Like a bright disconnected thread that memory seemed to run through her dark thoughts. What had brought it into her mind? Why was she suddenly living over again that brief happy hour before the storm broke over her and wrecked her life?

The gay senseless words of the old dance kept ringing in her mind.

 
Sur le pont
D'Avignon
On y danse
Tout en rond....
 

A thrill passed through her as she realized that some passer-by was whistling it in the street. Tears gathered in her eyes at the memories which that puerile tune evoked.

 
Sur le pont
D'Avignon
On y danse
On y danse,
Sur le pont
D'Avignon
On y danse
Tout en rond.
 

Soft and clear the whistling still persisted. Chérie placed the baby in its cradle, stooped over him and kissed him. Then she went to the window and stood on tiptoe to look out—for the window was high and round, like a ship's porthole.

The whistling stopped. Somebody standing in the shadow of the wall stepped forward.

And Chérie's heart stood still.

CHAPTER XXV

She staggered back from the window and looked wildly round her. It was Florian. It was Florian! What should she do? The child—where could she hide the child?

The low whistle outside was repeated, there was a note of haste, of urgency in it. She must let him in. How had he got here? Surely he was in danger, there in the open street....

Chérie looked at herself, looked down at her loose white gown still unfastened at neck and breast—the child's warm white resting-place. Louise's black shawl lay across a chair. She took it and flung it hastily round her shoulders; holding it tightly about her as she ran down the stairs and opened the door.

Florian stepped quickly into the passage, closing the door behind him. He looked strange in his oil-skin coat and slouch hat. The glimpse Chérie caught of his face as he entered showed it hard and thin and dark. Now in the shadowy passage she could not distinguish his features.

He caught her hand and pressed it tightly in his own. "Chérie!… Chérie!" His voice was hoarse with emotion. "Who is here with you?" he whispered.

"Nobody," she replied.

"What? Are you alone in the house?"

"Yes," faltered Chérie, withdrawing her hand from his. "I mean...." and she stopped.

"Surely," he whispered anxiously, "you are not living here alone? Where are the others? Where is Louise?"

"She is here—she has gone out. She will soon come back."

Florian drew a sigh of relief. "Let us go upstairs," he said; and stretched out his hand to take hers again. "What a cold little hand! And how you tremble!" He bent down and looked closely into her face. "Did I frighten you?"

"Yes," said Chérie.

"You look like a ghost." Suddenly a different note came into his voice, a note of anxiety and alarm. "What is the matter, have you been ill?"

"Yes," breathed Chérie.

He asked nothing more but put his arm round her, helping and hurrying her up the two flights of stone stairs. He threw open the sitting-room door and looked round the familiar place. "The Saints be praised," he murmured, and drew her into the room.

He flung down his torn felt hat and threw off the long oil-skin coat. Under it he was dressed in a dark linen suit, such as she had seen some of the wounded Germans wear. He drew her to the window seat; the soft May twilight fell on her pale face and glittering hair.

"Tell me, Chérie, tell me all the news; quickly. I cannot stay long," he added, "it would be dangerous for you and for me. I have escaped from the Infirmary at Liège; they will be hunting all over the place for me—and for the ploughman's clothes," he added with a smile that for a moment made him look like the Florian of old.

"The Infirmary? Have you been wounded?"

"No. I have been blown up. The Germans found me; they think me a Boche, and meschugge—that is Berlinese for crazy. They have kept me with ice-bags on my head for three weeks," he laughed again. "Perhaps I was really off my head at first—but tell me, tell me about you. How are you? How is Louise?"

"She is well."

"Is the little girl here too?"

"Mireille?" There was a pause. "Yes, Mireille is here."

Something in her voice startled him. "What is wrong? Has anything happened?"

She was silent. His steel-blue eyes tried to pierce through the pallor of her face, through the black-fringed, drooping eyelids, to read in her soul. He suddenly felt that this shrinking figure in its white gown and black shawl was aloof from him and draped in mystery. "What is it?" he repeated. "What is wrong? Where has Louise gone to?" and he looked round the familiar room with a sense of misgiving.

"She has gone … to … to fetch Mireille...." Chérie stammered. Then she suddenly raised her wild blue eyes to his. "Mireille is not as she used to be."

"What do you mean?" Florian suddenly felt sick and dizzy.

"She does not know any one. And she does not speak."

"Not speak?" echoed Florian, and the sense of sickness and dread increased. "What has happened to her?"

"She was frightened...." Chérie's voice was toneless and he had to bend close to her to catch her words. "She was frightened … that night you left … my birthday night." … There was a silence. She could say no more. And suddenly Florian was silent too.

His silence seemed to fall on her heart like a heavy stone. At last she raised her eyes to his face.

"Speak," he said, "speak quickly."

"That night … they … they came here...."

"I know. I know they came through Bomal." The cold sweat stood on his brow. "Did they—come to this house?"

"Yes," said Chérie.

Again there was silence—heavy and portentous.

Then he rose to his feet and stood a little away from her.

"They were in this house," he repeated. His lips and throat were arid; he had the sensation that his voice came from afar off. "What—what happened to Mireille? Did they hurt her?"

"No. She was afraid … she screamed … and they tied her to that railing. There"—she pointed with her trembling hand to the wrought-iron banister.

And again Florian's silence fell upon her heart like a rock and lay there, heavily, crushing the life out of her.

After a long while he moved. He stepped back still further from her, and his lips stirred once or twice before the words came.

"And you? Did they—harm you?"

Silence.

He waited a long time, then he repeated the question; and again he felt as if his voice came from miles away.

Chérie suddenly dropped her face in her hands. He was answered. He sprang forward and seized her wrists, dragging them away from her face. "It is not true," he cried; "swear that it is not true!" And even as he spoke he felt and hated the soft limp wrists, the feminine weakness, all the delicate yielding frailty of her. He would have liked to feel her of steel and adamant, that he might break and shatter her, that he might crush and destroy.

Now she was at his feet, sobbing and crying; and he had clenched his fists so tightly in order not to strike her that his nails dug deep into his palms. He looked down at her shimmering hair, at the white nape of her neck, at her fragile, heaving shoulders. The enemy had had her. The enemy had had her and held her. She whom he had deemed too sacred for his touch, she whom he had never dared to kiss on cheek or hair or lips had quenched the brutish desire of the invader!… The foul, blood-drunken soldiers had had their will of her—and there she lay sullied, ruined, and defiled.

With a cry like the cry of a wounded animal he raised his clenched fists to heaven, and the blood from his lacerated palms ran down his wrists, and the tears, the hot searing tears that corrode a man's soul, rolled down his gaunt, agonized face.

There she lay, the broken, helpless creature, there she lay—the symbol of his country, his wrecked and ruined country!

Lost, lost both of them—broken, outraged and defiled.

Not all his blood, not all his prayers, could ever undo the wrong that had been done to them, could ever raise them in their pristine glory and purity—the sullied soul of the woman, the outraged heart of his land.

In the grey gloaming that fell around them, veiling with its shadows the shame of her face, she told him what was still left to tell.

He said never a word. He sat with bowed head, his eyes hidden in his hands. He felt as if he were dead in a dead world. All the flames of his anger and despair were spent. His soul was turned to ashes. Nothing was left. Nothing was left to live for, to fight for, to pray for.

For a long time he seemed to hear none of the stricken woman's words, as she knelt sobbing at his feet. Then one word, constantly recurring, beat on his brain like a hammer on red-hot iron.

"The child … the child"—every other word that fell from her lips seemed to be "the child."

"If only I could die," she was crying, "I should love to die were it not for the child. It is such a forlorn and desolate little child. Nobody ever looks at it, nobody ever smiles at it or wishes it well.... Not even Louise, who is so kind.... No, she is cruel, she is like a fury when she looks at the child. Oh, God! what will our life be in the midst of so much scorn and hatred? Not that I care about myself; but what will become of the little child? Perhaps I should have done as Louise did.... I should have torn it from me before it came to life."

A deep shudder ran through Florian.

"But I seemed to hear a voice in my soul—the very voice of God, calling aloud to me: 'Thou shall not kill.'"

Florian rose to his feet and looked down at the bowed figure. This was Chérie, the laughing, dimpling, blushing Chérie—his betrothed!… He bent over her and laid his hand on her shoulder, but she paid no heed.

"Ah, if only we could slip out of life together, the child and I! But how? How? When he looks up at me and touches my face with his tiny hands, how can I hurt him?" Her tear-flooded eyes looked up at Florian without seeing him. "Should I strangle the little tender throat with my hands? Or stifle the soft breath of his mouth?… Why should he not live like other children, and laugh and play and be happy like every other child? What has he done, poor innocent, that he should be accursed, among children, an outcast, hated and despised?"

"Chérie!" he said, but she did not hear or heed him. Nor did she heed the braggart peal of trumpet and clarionet passing under the windows with the din of the "Wacht am Rhein." She heard nothing, she cared for nothing but her own and the enemy's child.

The soldier's blood rose within him.

"And is this all you have to say to me when I come to you out of the very jaws of death? Is this all you can think of when our land is wrung and wracked by the enemy, torn to pieces by the foul fiends that have violated her and you? A thousand curses on them and on–"

"No—no—no!" she screamed, springing to her feet and covering his mouth with her hands. "No—no—not on him, not on him!"

"In the name of Belgium," roared the maddened Florian, "in the name of our outraged women, our perishing children, our murdered men, I curse the child you have borne! In the name of our broken hearts, in the name of our burned and ravaged homesteads—Louvain, Lierre, Berlaer, Mortsel, Waehlen, Weerde, Hofstade, Herselt, Diest–" The names fell from his lips, fanning his heart to fury; but the woman closed her ears with her hands so as not to hear the tragic enumeration of those sacred and familiar names—Belgium's rosary of martyrdom and fire.

She held her hands over her ears and wept: "May God not hear you!… May God not hear you!"

But he raised his voice and continued the appalling litany: "Malines, Fleron, Wavre, Notre Dame, Rosbeck, Muysen–" Suddenly he stopped. A sound had struck his ear—what was it?

It was a cry—the short, shrill cry of an infant.

The man stood still as if turned to stone; his blood-shot eyes, starting from their sockets, stared at the red-draped door from which the sound had come.

Chérie was at his feet, sobbing and wailing, her arms flung round his knees. "Have pity, have pity!" she sobbed, shaking with terror of him, blind with the fear of his violence. "Do no harm, do no harm! Kill me, trample upon me, but do no harm to the child."

And still Florian stood motionless, as if turned to stone. He heard none of the wild words that fell from the terrified woman's lips; he heard nothing but that querulous cry, the cry of the newly-born. The world seemed to ring with it. Above the wailing voice of the woman, above the din of soldiery, the clash of arms, the roar of warfare, rose that shrill cry of life, the cry of humanity. And that cry pierced his heart like a sword. In it was all the helplessness and misery of the world. It seemed to tell him of the uselessness and hopelessness and sadness of all things.

Anger, grief and despair, the passion of vengeance and the desire to kill, all dropped out of his soul and left it silent and empty. The terrified woman before him saw those fierce eyes soften, saw the stern lips tremble.

He bent forward and raised her to her feet. "Poor Chérie!" he said. "Poor little Chérie!" He took her pale, disfigured face between his two hands and looked into her eyes. "Say good-bye to me. Say good-bye. And may the Saints protect you."

"Where are you going? What will you do?" she sobbed as she saw him turning away from her, making ready to go out into the darkness—out of her life for ever.

"There is much for me to do," he said and his eyes wandered to the window whence the sound of the German bugles could still be heard.

And as she looked at him she saw that Florian, the comrade and lover of her youth, had vanished—only the soldier stood before her, the soldier aloof from her, detached from her, the soldier alone with his stern great task to do.

But in her the woman, the eternal, helpless woman, was born again, and she clung to him and wept, for passion and love returned to her soul and overwhelmed her.

"You will leave me! You will leave me! Florian, oh, my love! What will become of me? What shall I do? What shall I do?"

As if in answer, the feeble cry of the infant rose again.

The man said not a word. He raised his hand and pointed silently to the red-draped door. Then he turned from her and went out into the night.

Chérie stood still, gazing at the empty doorway through which he had passed.

Then as the child still wept, she went to him.

Humbly she went, and took her woman's place beside the cradle.

CHAPTER XXVI

The bugle bidding the inhabitants of Bomal to enter their homes and lock their doors blew shrilly as Louise hurried through the darkening, deserted streets, holding Mireille's chilly hand in hers. She spoke in soft, hurried tones, as if the child could hear her, as if she could understand. "You shall see, Mireille, you shall see when you enter your home—you will recognize it and remember. When I open the door and you step suddenly into the familiar place, I shall see the light break in your eyes like a sudden dawn. You will turn to me and you will smile—or weep! I do not know which will give me the greater joy—your tears or your smile. Then you will open your sweet lips—and speak...."

"What will your first words be, Mireille? Will you say, 'Mother'? Will you greet me as one who returns from a long journey, as one who wakens from a long dream?… Or, even though your voice be given back to you, will you be silent awhile, able yet not daring to speak?… Or will the first sound from your lips be a cry of terror when you remember what you saw that night?… Mireille, Mireille, whatever it be, I know that this evening I shall hear your voice. It is as if God had told me so."

They went more quickly through the sombre streets.

Far away over the hills of the Ardennes the great May moon arose. As soon as Louise caught sight of the house she saw that the gate to the courtyard was open. Could any one have entered during her absence? She glanced up at the windows. They were open, but dark. The sense of panic that was never far from her heart since their return to Belgium clutched at her like a cold hand. Could anything have happened? Why had Chérie not lit the lights? Who had left the gate unclosed?

Then the thought of Mireille, the hope, the wild prescience of her recovery which had suddenly grown into a delirious certainty flamed up in her heart again, and all else was forgotten. She and Mireille were alone in the world.

She and Mireille were alone.

She kept her eyes fixed on the small vacant face as she led her past the gate—that gate through which the child's dancing feet had twinkled throughout the care-free seasons of her infancy.

But not a quiver rippled over the childish countenance, not a gleam of light flickered in the dreamy eyes, and with a low sob Louise grasped the small passive hand more tightly and drew her across the courtyard to the hall-door.

That door also was ajar, as if some one had hurriedly left it so, regardless of the invader's orders that at sunset all doors should be locked. One moment Louise thought of calling to Chérie to make sure that she was in the house; but again the need to be alone, face to face with Mireille's awakening soul, restrained her. She drew Mireille into the hall and turned on the light.

"Mireille … Mireille...." she whispered breathlessly. "Look, darling … don't you remember? Don't you remember?"

The girl's pale eyes roved from the tapestried archway to the panelled doors, from the ornamental panoply to the Van de Welde winter landscapes hanging on the wall before her. No ray of recognition lit the unmoved face, which was fair and still as a closed flower. With beating heart Louise placed her arm around the girl's narrow shoulders and guided her light, uncertain footsteps up the stairs. The door to the sitting-room was open; Louise stretched out her hand, and the brilliancy of the electric light lit up the room.

With a gasp Louise felt Mireille falter on the threshold … she stood breathless and watched her. Surely, surely she must recognize this scene: there to the right, the large Flemish fireplace; there beyond it the old-fashioned oak settee; and there the shallow flight of stairs, with the wrought-iron banisters running right down into the room, facing the door with the red-tapestried curtains.... Surely, with this scene of her martyrdom brought suddenly before her, the veil of unconsciousness would be rent from her soul. Louise felt it. Louise knew it. Already she could almost hear the cry with which her child would turn to her and fall into her arms....

Nothing. Nothing happened.

For an instant a vague expression, a pale light as of dread, had flickered over the tranquil countenance. She had faltered, and stood still, with her eyes fixed on the red drapery of the closed door. Then the pale flicker of emotion had faded from her face as if blown out by a gust of wind.

Nothing more. With limp, pendant hands and vacant eyes she stood before Louise in her usual drooping posture—pale, ethereal and unreal, like a little weary seraph walking in its dreams.

The flaming torch of hope in the mother's heart was dashed to the ground.

And all was dark.