I felt unsympathetic, and wouldn't have cared if Miss Dierdre O'Farrell
had flown off on a broomstick, or been kidnapped by a German aviator. My
heart, however, was sure that nothing had happened and I suspected that
her brother had trumped up an excuse to join us. It vexed me that Brian
should show concern. If only he knew how the girl had looked at him a
few hours ago!
"Couldn't they tell you in the hotel at what time she went out?" he
enquired.
But no! According to O'Farrell, his sister had not been seen. He had
found her door unlocked, the room empty, and her hat and coat missing.
"She told me she was going to bed," he added. "But the bed hasn't been
disturbed."
"Nor need you be, I think," said I. "Perhaps your sister wants to
frighten you. Children love that sort of thing. It draws attention to
themselves. And sometimes they don't outgrow the fancy."
"Especially Suffragettes and Sinn Feiners," O'Farrell played up to me,
unoffended. "Still, as a brother of one, I'm bound to search, if it
takes all night. A sister's a sister. And mine is quite a valuable
asset." He tossed me this hint with a Puck-like air of a private
understanding established between us. Yes, "Puck-like" describes him: a
Puck at the same time merry and malicious, never to be counted upon!
"I feel that Miss O'Farrell went out to take a walk because she was
restless, and perhaps not very happy," Brian reproached us both.
"Something may have happened--remember we're in the war zone."
"No one in Nancy's likely to forget that!" said I, dully resenting his
defence of the enemy. "Brushing bombs out of their back hair every ten
minutes or so! And listen--don't you hear big guns booming now, along
the front? The German lines are only sixteen kilometres from here."
Brian didn't answer. His brain was pursuing Dierdre O'Farrell, groping
after her through the night. "If she went out before that air raid,
while we were at the Préfet's," he suggested, "she may have had to take
refuge somewhere--she may have been hurt----"
"By Jove!" Puck broke in. "It scares me when you say that. You're a--a
sort--of _prophet_, you know! I must find out what hospitals there
are----"
"We'll go with you to the hotel," Brian promised. "They'll know there
about the hospitals. And if the Préfet's still up, he'll phone for us
officially, I'm sure."
"It's you who are the practical one, after all!" cried O'Farrell. And I
guessed from a sudden uprush of Irish accent that his anxiety had grown
sincere.
We hurried home; Brian seeming almost to guide us, for without his
instinct for the right way we would twice have taken a wrong turning. As
we came into the Place Stanislas, still a pale oasis of moonlight, I saw
standing in front of the hotel two figures, black as if cut out of
velvet. One, that of a man, was singularly tall and thin, as a
Mephistopheles of the stage. The other was that of a woman in a long
cloak, small and slight as a child of fourteen. Dierdre O'Farrell, of
course! It could be no one else. But who was the man? A dim impression
that the figure was vaguely familiar, or had been familiar long ago,
teased my brain. But surely I could never have seen it before.
"Hurrah! There she is!" cried O'Farrell, "alive and on her pins!"
At the sound of his voice, the velvet silhouettes stirred. They had
turned to look at us, and a glint of moonlight made the two faces white
and blank as masks. O'Farrell waved his hand, and I was obliged to
quicken my steps to keep pace with Brian: "I suppose she got lost--serve
her right!--and the beanpole has escorted her home," grumbled Puck; but
as he spoke, the beanpole in question hurriedly made a gesture of
salute, and stalked away with enormous strides. In an instant he was
engulfed by a shadow-wave and his companion was left to meet us alone. I
thought it would be like her to whisk into the hotel and vanish before
we could arrive, but she did not. She stood still, with a fierce little
air of defiance; and as we came near I saw that under the thrown-back
cloak her left arm was in a white sling.
Her brother saw it also. "Hullo, what have you been up to?" he wanted to
know. "You've given us the scare of our lives!"
"Thank you," the girl said. "Please speak for yourself!"
"He may speak for us, too," Brian assured her. "We thought of the air
raid. And even now, I don't feel as if we'd been wrong. Your voice
sounds as if you were in pain. You've been hurt!"
"It's nothing at all," she answered shortly, but her tone softened
slightly for Brian. Even _she_ had her human side, it seemed. "A window
splintered near where I was, and I got a few bits of glass in my arm.
They're out now--every one. A doctor came, and looked after me. You see,
Jule!" and she nodded her head at the sling. "Now I'm going in to bed.
Good-night!"
"Wait, and let my sister help you," Brian proposed. "She's a splendid
nurse. I know she'll be delighted."
"Sweet of her!" sneered the girl. "But _I'm_ a trained nurse, too, and I
can take care of myself. It's only my left arm that's hurt, and a
scratch at that. I don't need any help from any one."
"Was that man we saw the doctor who put you in your sling?" asked
"Jule," in the blunt way brothers have of catching up their sisters.
"Yes, he was," she grudged.
"Why did he run away? Didn't he want to be thanked?"
"He did not. Besides----"
"Besides--what?"
"He particularly didn't wish to meet--one of our party. Now, I shan't
say a word more about him. So you needn't ask questions. I'm tired. I
want to go to bed."
With this ultimatum, she bolted into the hotel, leaving the three of us
speechless for a few seconds. I suppose each was wondering, "Am _I_ the
one the doctor didn't want to meet?" Then I remembered my impression of
having known that tall, thin figure long ago, and I was seized with
certainty that the mysterious person had fled from me. At all events, I
was sure Miss O'Farrell wished me to think so by way of being as
aggravating as she possibly could.
"Well, I'm _blessed_!" Puck exploded.
"Are you?" I doubted. And I couldn't resist adding, "I thought your
sister always did what you wanted?"
"In the end she does," he upheld his point. "But--just lately--she's
bewitched! Some saint is needed to remove the ban."
I thought the saint was only too near her hand! Whether that hand would
scratch or strike I couldn't guess; but one gesture was as dangerous as
the other.
What with thinking of my own horridness and other people's, wondering
about the shadow-man, and being roused by the usual early morning air
raid, bed didn't mother me with its wonted calming influence. Excitement
was a tonic for the next day, however; and a bath and coffee braced me
for an expedition with the Préfet's wife and daughters, and the
Becketts. They took us over the two huge _casernes_, turned into homes
of refuge for two thousand people from the invaded towns and villages of
Lorraine: old couples, young women (of course the young men are
fighting), and children. We saw the skilled embroiderers embroidering,
and the unskilled making sandbags for the trenches; we saw the schools;
and the big girls at work upon trousseaux for their future, or happily
cooking in the kitchens. We saw the gardens where the refugees tended
their own growing fruit and vegetables. We saw the church--once a
gymnasium--and an immense cinema theatre, decorated by the ladies of
Nancy, with the Préfet's wife and daughters at their head. On the way
home we dropped into the biggest of Nancy's beautiful shops, to behold
the work of last night's bombs. The whole skylight-roof had been smashed
at dawn; but the glass had been swept away, and pretty girls were
selling pretty hats and frocks as if nothing had happened--except that
the wind of heaven was blowing their hair across their smiling eyes.
After luncheon at which Dierdre O'Farrell didn't appear, the Préfet took
us to the streets which had suffered most from the big gun
bombardment--fine old houses destroyed with a completeness of which the
wickedest aeroplane bombs are incapable. "Any minute they may begin
again," the Préfet said. "But sufficient for the day! We suffered so
much in a few hours three years ago, that nothing which has happened to
us since has counted. Nancy was saved for us, to have and hold. Wounded
she might be, and we also. But she was saved. We could bear the rest."
We made him tell us about those "few hours" of suffering: and this was
the story. It was on the 7th of September, 1914, when the fate of Nancy
hung in the balance. An immense horde of Germans came pouring along the
Seille, crossing the river by four bridges: Chambley, Moncel, Brin, and
Bioncourt. Everyone knew that the order was to take Nancy at any price,
and open the town for the Kaiser to march in, triumphant, as did Louis
XIII of France centuries ago. William was said to be waiting with 10,000
men of the Prussian Guard, in the wood of Morel, ready for his moment.
Furiously the Germans worked to place their huge cannon on the hills of
Doncourt, Bourthecourt, and Rozebois. Villages burned like card houses.
Church bells tolled as their towers rocked and fell. Forests blazed, and
a rain of bombs poured over the country from clouds of flame and smoke.
Amance was lost, and with it hope also; for beyond, the road lay open
for a rush on Nancy, seemingly past the power of man to defend. Still,
man _did_ defend! If the French could hold out against ten times their
number for a few hours, there was one chance in a thousand that
reinforcements might arrive. After Velaine fell next day, and the defile
between the two mountain-hills of Amance swarmed with yelling Uhlans,
the French still held. They did not hope, but they fought. How they
fought! And at the breaking point, as if by miracle, appeared the
reinforcing _tirailleurs_.
"This," said the Préfet, "was only one episode in the greatest battle
ever fought for Nancy, but it was the episode in which the town was
saved.
"You know," he went on, "that Lorrainers have been ardent Catholics for
centuries. In the Church of Bon-Secours there's a virgin which the
people credit with miraculous power. Many soldiers in the worst of the
fighting were sure of victory, because the virgin had promised that
never should Nancy be taken again by any enemy whatever."
It was late when we came back to the hotel, and while I was translating
the Becketts' gratitude into French for the Préfet, the O'Farrells
arrived from another direction. The brother looked pleased to see us;
the sister looked distressed. I fancied that she had been forced or
persuaded to point out the scene of last night's adventure, and was
returning chastened from the visit. To introduce her to the Préfet was
like introducing a dog as it strains at the leash, but Puck performed
the rite, and explained her sling.
"Hurt in the air raid?" the Préfet echoed. "I hope, Mademoiselle, that
you went to a good doctor. That he----"
"The doctor came to her on the spot," replied Puck, in his perfect
French. "It seems you have doctors at Nancy who walk the streets, when
there's a raid, wandering about to pick up jobs, and refusing payment."
The Préfet laughed. "Can it be," he exclaimed, "that Mademoiselle has
been treated by the Wandering Jew? Oh, not the original character, but
an extraordinary fellow who has earned that name in our neighbourhood
since the war."
"Was that what he called himself?" O'Farrell turned to Dierdre. I
guessed that Puck's public revelations were vengeance upon her for
unanswered questions.
"He called himself nothing at all," the girl replied.
"Ah," said the Préfet, "then he _was_ the Wandering Jew! Let me see--I
think you are planning to go to Gerbéviller and Lunéville and Vitrimont
to-morrow. Most likely you'll meet him at one of those places. And when
you hear his story, you'll understand why he haunts the neighbourhood
like a beneficent spirit."
"But must we wait to hear the story? Please tell us now," I pleaded.
"I'm so curious!"
This was true. I burned with curiosity. Also, fatty degeneration of the
heart prompted me to annoy Dierdre O'Farrell. To spite _me_, she had
refused to talk of the doctor. I was determined to hear all about him to
spite _her_. You see to what a low level I have fallen, dear Padre!
The Préfet said that if we would go home with him and have tea in the
garden (German aeroplanes permitting) he would tell us the tale of the
Wandering Jew. We all accepted, save Dierdre, who began to stammer an
excuse; but a look from her brother nipped it in the bud. He certainly
has an influence over the girl, against which she struggles only at her
strongest. To-day she looked pale and weak, and he could do what he
liked with her.
He liked to make her take tea at the Préfet's, doubtless because he'd
have felt bound to escort the invalid to her room, had she insisted on
going there!
The story of the Wandering Jew would be a strange one, anywhere and
anyhow. But it's more than strange to me, because it is linked with my
past life. Still, I won't tell it from my point of view. I'll begin with
the Préfet's version.
The "Wandering Jew" really _is_ a Jew, of the best and most intellectual
type. His name is Paul Herter. His father was a man of Metz, who had
brought to German Lorraine a wife from Lunéville. Paul is thirty-five
now, so you see he wasn't born when the Metz part of Lorraine became
German. His parents--French at heart--taught him secretly to love
France, and hate German domination. As he grew up, Paul's ambition was
to be a great surgeon. He wished to study, not in Germany, but in Paris
and London. These hopes, however, were of the "stuff that dreams are
made of," for when the father died, the boy had to work at anything he
could get for a bare livelihood. It wasn't till he was over twenty-five
that he'd scraped together money for the first step toward his career.
He went to Paris: studied and starved; then to London. It was there I
met him, but that bit of the story fits in later. He was thought well
of at "Bart's," and everybody who knew him was surprised when suddenly
he married one of the younger nurses, an English girl, and vanished with
her from London. Presently the pair appeared in Metz, at the mother's
house. Herter seemed sad and discouraged, uncertain of his future, and
just at this time, through German Lorraine ran rumours of war "to begin
when the harvests should be over." Paul and his mother took counsel.
Both were French at heart. They determined to leave all they had in the
world at Metz, rather than Paul should be called up to serve Prussia.
The three contrived to cross the frontier. Paul offered himself to the
Foreign Legion; his wife volunteered to nurse in a military hospital at
Nancy; and Madame Herter, mère took refuge in her girlhood's home at
Lunéville, where her old father still lived.
Then came the rush of the Huns across the frontier. Paul's wife was
killed by a Zeppelin bomb which wrecked her hospital. At Lunéville the
mother and grandfather perished in their own house, burned to the ground
by order of the Bavarian colonel, Von Fosbender.
Paul Herter had not been in love with his wife. There was a mystery
about the marriage, but her fate filled him with rage and horror. His
mother he had adored, and the news of her martyrdom came near to driving
him insane. In the madness of grief he vowed vengeance against all
Bavarians who might fall into his hands.
He was fighting then in the Legion; but shortly after he was gravely
wounded. His left foot had to be amputated; and from serving France as a
soldier, he began to serve as a surgeon. He developed astonishing skill
in throat and chest operations, succeeding in some which older and more
experienced men refused to attempt. Months passed, and into his busy
life had never come the wished-for chance of vengeance; but all who knew
him knew that Herter's hatred of Bavarians was an obsession. He was not
one who would forget; and when a lot of seriously wounded Bavarians came
into the field-hospital where he was at work, the two young doctors
under him looked one another in the eyes. Even the stretcher-bearers had
heard of Herter's vow, but there was nothing to do save to bring in the
stream of wounded, and trust the calm instinct of the surgeon to control
the hot blood of the man. Still, the air was electric with suspense, and
heavy with dread of some vague tragedy: disgrace for the hospital, ruin
for Herter.
But the Jewish surgeon (he wasn't called "the Wandering Jew" in those
days) caught the telepathic message of fear, and laughed grimly at what
men were thinking of him. "You need not be afraid," he said to his
assistants. "These _canaille_ are sacred for me. They do not count as
Bavarians."
Nevertheless, the young doctors would have tended the wounded prisoners
themselves, leaving Herter to care for his countrymen alone. But one of
the Bavarians was beyond their skill: a young lieutenant. His wound was
precisely "Herter's specialty"--a bullet lodged in the heart, if he was
to be saved, Herter alone could save him. Would Herter operate? He had
only to say the case was hopeless, and refuse to waste upon it time
needed for others.
Perhaps he knew what suspicion would dog him through life if he gave
this verdict. At all events, he chose to operate. "Bring me the brute,"
he growled: and reluctantly the brute was brought--a very youthful
brute, with a face of such angelic charm that even Herter was struck by
it. He had steeled himself to get through a hateful job; but for
him--like most men of his race--beauty held a strong appeal. Suddenly he
wished to save the boy with the fair curly hair and arched dark brows.
Here was a German--a Bavarian--who could have no vileness in him yet!
The surgeon got ready his instruments for the operation, which must be
done quickly, if at all. The boy was unconscious, but every moment or
two he broke out in convulsive delirium, giving answers to questions
like a man talking in sleep. "Hilda! Hilda!" he cried again and again.
"My Hilda, do not ask me that. Thou wouldst not love me if I told thee!
Thou wouldst hate me forever!"
"What have you done that Hilda should hate you?" Paul enquired, as he
waited for the anæsthetic. Ether was running short. The wounded had to
take their turn that day.
"Lunéville! Lunéville!" shrieked the Bavarian.
Everyone heard the cry. The two young doctors, knowing Herter's history,
turned sick. This was worse than their worst fears! But they could do
nothing. To speak, to try to act, would be to insult the surgeon. They
saw that he was ghastly pale. "What happened at Lunéville?" he went on.
"Here is the ether," a voice spoke in haste. But Paul heard only the
Bavarian.
"Oh, God, the old woman! Her face at the window. I can't forget.
Hilda--she wouldn't come out. It wasn't my fault. The Colonel's orders.
An old man, too. We saw them in the fire. We had to pass on. Hilda,
forgive!"
"Was it a corner house of the Rue Princesse Marie?" asked Herter.
"Yes--yes, a corner house," groaned the boy of the beautiful face.
Herter gave a sign to the man who had brought the ether. A moment more,
and the ravings of the Bavarian were silenced. The operation began.
The others had their hands full of their own work, yet with a kind of
agonized clairvoyance they were conscious of all that Herter did. The
same thought was in the minds of both young doctors. They exchanged
impressions afterward. "He'll cut the boy's heart out and tread it
underfoot!"
But never had the Jewish surgeon from Metz performed a major operation
with more coolness or more perfect skill. Had he chosen to let his wrist
tremble at the critical second, revenge would easily have been his. But
awaiting the instant between one beat of the heart and another, he
seized the shred of shrapnel lodged there, and closed up the throbbing
breast. The boy would live. He had not only spared, but saved, the life
of one who was perhaps his mother's murderer.
During the whole day he worked on untiringly and--it seemed--unmoved.
Then, at the end of the last operation, he dropped as if he had been
shot through the brain.
This was the beginning of a long, peculiar illness which no doctor who
attended him could satisfactorily diagnose. He was constantly delirious,
repeating the words of the Bavarian: "Hilda--Hilda!--the corner
house--Rue Princesse Marie--Lunéville!" and it was feared that, if he
recovered, he would be insane. After many weeks, however, he came slowly
back to himself--a changed self, but a sane self. Always odd in his
appearance--very tall and dark and thin--he had wasted to a walking
skeleton, and his black hair had turned snow-white. He had lost his
self-confidence, and dreaded to take up work again lest he should fail
in some delicate operation. Long leave was granted, and he was advised
by doctors who were his friends to go south, to sunshine and peace. But
Herter insisted that the one hope for ultimate cure was to stay in
Lorraine. He took up his quarters in what was left of a house near the
ruin of his mother's old home, in Lunéville, but he was never there for
long at a time. He was provided with a pass to go and come as he liked,
being greatly respected and pitied at headquarters; and wherever there
was an air raid, there speedily and mysteriously appeared Paul Herter
among the victims.
His artificial foot did not prevent his riding a motor-bicycle, and on
this he arrived, no matter at what hour of night or day, at any town
within fifty miles of Lunéville, when enemy airmen had been at work. He
gave his services unpaid to poor and rich alike; and owing to the dearth
of doctors not mobilized, the towns concerned welcomed him thankfully.
All the surgeon's serene confidence in himself returned in these
emergencies, and he was doing invaluable work. People were grateful, but
the man's ways and looks were so strange, his restlessness so tragic,
that they dubbed him "le Juif Errant."
Now, Padre, I have come to the right place to bring in my part of this
story.
While I was training at "Bart's," I met a doctor named Paul Herter. Some
of the girls used to call him the "German Jew" but we all knew that his
Germanness was only an accident of fate, through a war before he was
born, and that he was passionately French at heart. He was clever--a
genius--but moody and queer, and striking to look at. He would have been
ugly but for a pair of beautiful brown eyes, wistful sometimes as a
dog's. One of our nurses was in love with him, but he used to keep out
of her way when he could. He was said not to care for women, and I was a
little flattered that a man so well thought of "at the top" should take
notice of me. When I look back on myself, I seem to have been very young
then!
Dr. Herter used to meet me, as if by accident, when I was off duty, and
we went for long walks, talking French together; I enjoyed that!
Besides, there was nothing the man didn't know. He was a kind of
encyclopædia of all the great musicians and artists of the world since
the Middle Ages; and was so much older than I, that I didn't think about
his falling in love. I knew I was pretty, and that beauty of all sorts
was a cult with him. I supposed that he liked looking at me--and that
his fancy would end there. But it didn't. There came a dreadful day when
he accused me of encouraging him purposely, of leading him on to believe
that I cared. This was a real shock. I was sorry--sorry! But he said
such horrid things that I was hurt and angry, too. I said horrid things
in my turn. This scene happened in the street. I asked him to leave me,
and he did at once, without looking back. I can see him now, striding
off in the twilight! No wonder the tall black silhouette in the Place
Stanislas looked familiar. But the man is thinner now, and walks with a
slight limp.
The next thing I heard of him after our break was that he'd married
Nurse Norman (the one who was in love with him) and that they'd left
England. Whether he'd married the girl in a rage against me, or because
he was sorry for her (she'd just then fallen into deep disgrace, through
giving a patient the wrong medicine), I didn't know. I can't say I
didn't care, for I often thought of the man and wondered what had become
of him, though I don't remember ever writing about him to you. He was
but indirectly concerned with my life, and maybe it was in the back of
my mind that I might get a scolding from you if I told you the tale.
The moment the name of "Paul Herter" was mentioned in that pleasant
garden at Nancy, the whole episode of those old days at "Bart's" came
back, and I guessed why the tall figure had darted away from Dierdre
O'Farrell as we came in sight. He must have offered to see the girl
safely home, after dressing her wound (probably at some chemist's), and
she had told him about her fellow-travellers. Naturally my name sent him
flying like a shot from a seventy-five! But I can't help hoping we may
meet by accident. There's a halo round the man's head for me since I've
heard that tragic story. Before, he was only a queer genius. Now, he's a
hero. Will he turn away, I wonder, if I walk up to him and hold out my
hand?
I am longing, for a double reason, to see Vitrimont and Gerbéviller and
Lunéville, since I've learned that at one of those places Paul Herter
may appear.