Читать книгу: «The Outrage», страница 12

CHAPTER XXVII

Chérie, kneeling beside her child's cradle, had heard them enter the adjoining room. She rose slowly. She must go and meet them; she must greet Mireille and tell Louise that Florian had come; had come … and gone!

The profound silence in the adjoining room struck her. She wondered, as she hesitated at the door, why Louise did not speak. For did she not always talk to Mireille in that low, tender voice of hers, as if the child could understand? Now there was not a sound. It was if the room were empty.

Suddenly she understood. Louise was waiting, hoping that the miracle might be accomplished—that Mireille might speak. Then Chérie also stood motionless with clasped hands, and waited, waited for a sound, a word, a cry.

But the silence remained unbroken.

At last she heard the sound of Louise's weeping; and, soon after, their soft, retreating footsteps on the carpeted stairs. Then utter silence.

And Chérie still stood at the closed door, leaning her forehead against its panels.

They had gone. Louise was taking Mireille to bed. She had not called Chérie. She had not said good-night, nor asked her to come and see Mireille. No. Chérie was not needed. Louise, even in her great sorrow, did not think of coming to Chérie. She had gone with Mireille to her room, and she would stay there and weep all alone, and sleep at last, never knowing that Florian had been, never knowing that he had gone away for ever, never knowing that Chérie's heart was broken!… With a rush of passionate grief Chérie drew back from the door and fell on her knees beside the cradle.

And there the great May moon, rising like a golden disc over the hills of the Ardennes, found her and shone down through the round window, upon her and her sleeping babe.

Louise, lying awake in the dark, heard the church clock strike eleven. She lay quite still in the silent room, listening to Mireille's soft breathing. Then she thought of Claude, and prayed for his safety; but not for his return.

At last, exhausted, she slept.

But Mireille, though her soft breathing never varied, was not asleep. She lay motionless in the dark, with her eyes wide open. She was listening to something that had awakened within her—Memory!…

The church clock struck half-past eleven. Louise still slept, with the occasional catch in her breath of those who have cried themselves to sleep.

Mireille sat up. The room was quite dark, the shutters closed and the curtains drawn. But Mireille slipped from her bed, a slim, white-robed spectre, and her bare feet crossed the room without a sound. She found the door and opened it noiselessly; she crossed the landing, and her small feet trod the carpeted staircase as lightly and silently as the falling petals of a flower.

Where was she going to? What drew her through the dark and silent house?

Terror—and the memory of a red-draped door. Nothing else did her haunted eyes perceive, nothing else did her stricken soul realize, but that red curtain draped over a door. She remembered it with a vague, horrible sense of fear. She must see it again.... Had she not once stood before that draped door for hours and years and eternities?… Yes. She must see it again. And if that door were to open—she must die!…

She went on, drawn by her terror as by an unseen force, until she reached the last shallow flight of stairs—three steps skirted by a wrought-iron banister—and there she stopped suddenly, as if fettered to the spot. For though the room was plunged in darkness she knew that there, opposite her, was the door with the red curtain....

And thus she stood, in the self-same attitude of her past martyrdom, feeling that she was pinioned there, feeling that she must stand for ever with her eyes fixed in the darkness on that part of the room where she knew was the door—the door with the red curtain....

Chérie heard the clock strike eleven; then the quarter; then the half-hour. And still she lay on the floor with her face hidden in her arms.

For her all was at an end. Her resolve was taken. Her mind was clear. Now she had seen Florian there was nothing left to wait for. What good would she or the child ever do in the world? Nobody wanted them. Nobody ever wanted to see them or speak to them. They were outcasts. Not even Louise could look without loathing at the hapless little child. Not even Louise could invoke a benediction upon him. He was ill-omened, hated and accursed.

Chérie rose to her feet and went to the window—the old-fashioned circular window like a ship's porthole—and opened it wide.

The level rays of the moon poured in, flooding the room with light.

"Good-night, moon," said Chérie. "Good-night, sky. Good-night, world." Then she turned away and went to the cradle. She bent over it, and lifted her sleeping infant in her arms. How warm he was! How warm and soft and tender!… He must not catch cold.... Instinctively Chérie caught up her wide blue silk scarf and wrapped it round herself and the child. They were going out into the night air, out into the chilly moonlight; they were going to cross the bridge over the Ourthe, and then go up the lower bank of the river, up through the dank grasses, past the old mill.... There, where the bank shelved down so steeply she would run into the water.

She knew what it would feel like. Last year, had she not run into the rippling waves at Westende every morning? She remembered it well.

Yes; she would feel the cool chill embrace of the water rising from her feet to her knees … to her waist … to her breast … to her throat.... Then she would clasp her arms tightly round her child, putting her lips close to his so as not to hear him cry, and her last breath would be exhaled on the sweet warmth of that little mouth, the dear little open mouth that seemed always to be asking for the balm of milk and kisses.

She raised her eyes once more to the open window. "Good-bye," she said again to the sky, to the world, and to life. Then she resolutely turned away from the shining circle of light.

She drew the long blue scarf over her own head and shoulders, crossing it over her arms and wrapping the infant in its azure folds as she held him to her breast. Then she opened the door.

The red curtain fell in a straight line before her, and she pushed it softly aside; it slid smoothly back on its rings.

Clasping her infant in the shimmering folds of blue, she took a step forward—then stopped and stood transfixed in the doorway.

Some one was there! Some one was standing silent, there in the dark.

Who was it?

Mireille!

Mireille had stood motionless, almost cataleptic, with her fear-maddened eyes fixed upon the dark spot which was the door. Now—now it was opening! it was opening! A white light had streamed suddenly under the curtain.

Yes. The door was opening.... Now Mireille would die! She knew it! What she was going to see would kill her, as it had killed her soul before.

Gasping, with open mouth, with clenched hands, she saw the gap of light widen beneath the moving curtain.... Now … now.... The curtain had slid back. There was a dazzling square of light....

And in that light stood a Vision.

Bathed in the rays of the moon, swathed in shimmering azure stood a Mother with her Child. Behind her head glowed a luminous silver circle.

Ah! Well did Mireille know her! Well did Mireille remember her. All fear was gone, all darkness swept away in the rapture of that dazzling presence.

Mireille stretched out her clasped hands towards that effulgent vision. What were the words of greeting she must say? She knew them well … they were rising in her throat.... What were they? What were they?

She wrung her clasped hands, with a spasm in her throat, but the words would not come. She knew them. They seemed to burst open like flowers of light in her brain, to peal like the notes of an organ in her soul, yet her lips were locked and could not frame them.

The vision moved, seemed to waver and tremble.... Ah! Would she fade away and vanish and be lost? Would Mireille fall back again into eternal silence and darkness?

Something seemed to break in Mireille's throat. A cry—a cry, thrilling and articulate—escaped her. The sealed fountain of her voice was opened and the words of the immortal salutation gushed from her lips:

"Ave Maria!…"

Did not the shimmering figure smile and move towards her with extended hand?… Fainting with ecstasy, Mireille sank at her feet.

Louise had started from her sleep at the sound of a cry.... Whose voice had uttered it?

Though the room was dark, she felt that it was empty; she knew that Mireille was not there. Yes, the door was open, showing a pale glimmer of light.

Swift as an arrow Louise sped down the stairs, then—on the landing of the last flight—she stopped, dazzled and spell-bound by what she saw before her.

There in the moonlight stood the eternal vision of Maternity; and before it knelt Mireille.

And Mireille was speaking.

"Benedicta tu...."

Clear, frail and silvern the words fell from Mireille's lips.

"Benedicta tu!"

The blessing that Louise and all others had withheld, now fell like a solemn prophecy from the innocent's lips, rang like a divine decree in that pure voice that had been hushed so long.

Mireille was healed! Healed through Chérie and her child of sorrow and shame.

A wave of exalted emotion overwhelmed Louise, and she sank on her knees beside Mireille, repeating the hallowed benediction.

With flowing tears Chérie, clasping her baby in her arms, wavered and trembled like a holy picture seen in moonlit waters....

And so farewell—farewell to Mireille, Chérie, Louise.

They are still in their Belgian village awaiting the dawn of their deliverance.

Around them the fury of War still rages, and the end of their sorrow is not yet.

But upon them has descended the Peace of God which passeth all understanding.

THE END