was more open, and I had passed Ville Evrart. But I did not feel any
greater security. I was possessed with a sort of rage to get my business
done and live--yes, at all costs _live_. A mile beyond Chesnay I came to
cross-roads, and within the angle which the two roads made a little
cabin stood upon a plot of grass. I was in doubt which road to take. The
cabin was all dark, and riding up to the door I hammered upon it with
the butt of my pistol. It was not immediately opened. There must indeed
have been some delay, since the inmates were evidently in bed. But I was
not in any mood to show consideration. I wanted to get on--to get on and
live. A little window was within my reach. I dashed the butt of the
pistol violently through the glass.
[Illustration]
"Will that waken you, eh?" I cried, and almost before I had finished I
heard a shuffling footstep in the passage and the door was opened. A
poor old peasant-woman, crippled with rheumatism, stood in the doorway
shading a lighted candle with a gnarled, trembling hand. In her haste to
obey she had merely thrown a petticoat over the shoulders of her
nightdress, and there she stood with bare feet, shivering in the cold,
an old bent woman of eighty, and apologised.
"I am sorry, monsieur," she said meekly. "But I cannot move as quickly
as I could when I was young. How can I serve monsieur?"
Not a word of reproach about her broken window. You would think that the
hardest man must have felt some remorse. I merely broke in upon her
apologies with a rough demand for information.
"The road upon your right leads to Chelles, monsieur," she answered.
"That upon your left to Raincy."
I rode off without another word. It is not a pretty description which I
am giving to you, but it is a true one. That is my regret, it is a true
one. I forgot that old peasant-woman the moment I had passed the cabin.
I thought only of the long avenues of trees which stretched across that
flat country, and which could hide whole companies of _francs-tireurs_.
I strained my eyes forwards. I listened for the sound of voices. But the
first voice which I heard spoke in my own tongue.
It was the voice of a sentry on the outposts of Raincy, and I could have
climbed down from my saddle and hugged him to my heart. Instead, I sat
impassively in my saddle and gave him the countersign. I was conducted
to the quarters of the commandant of artillery and I delivered my
message.
"You have come quickly," he said. "What road did you take?"
"That of Chesnay and Gagny."
The commandant looked queerly at me.
"Did you?" said he. "You are lucky. You will return by Montfermeil and
Chelles, Lieutenant von Altrock, and I will send an escort with you.
Apparently we are better informed at Raincy than you at
Noisy-le-Grand."
"I knew there was danger, sir," I replied.
[Illustration]
A regiment of dragoons was quartered at Raincy, and from it two privates
and a corporal were given me for escort. In the company of these men I
started back by the longer road in the rear of our lines. And it was a
quarter to ten when I started. For I noticed the time of a clock in the
commandant's quarters. I should think that it must have taken
three-quarters of an hour to reach Montfermeil, for the snow was deep
here and the mist very thick. Beyond Montfermeil, however, we came to
higher ground; there were fewer drifts of snow, and the night began to
clear, so that we made better going. We were now, of course, behind our
lines, and the only risk we ran was that a few peasants armed with
rifles from a battlefield or a small band of _francs-tireurs_ might be
lurking on the chance of picking off a straggler. But that risk was not
very great now that there were four of us. I rode therefore with an
easier mind, and the first thing which entered my thoughts was--what do
you think? The old peasant-woman's cabin with the broken window? Not a
bit of it. No, it was M. Bonnet's black cat. Had M. Bonnet's cat five
kittens? Or was that intended to inform the people in Paris how many
companies of recruits had joined one of the French armies still in the
field--say, General Faidherbe's, at Bapaume, and so to keep up their
spirits and prolong the siege? I was still puzzling over this problem
when in a most solitary place I came suddenly upon a chateau with
lighted windows. This was the Chateau Villetaneuse. I reined in my horse
and stopped. My escort halted behind me. It was, after all, an
astonishing sight. There were many chateaux about Paris then, as there
are now, but not one that I had ever come across was inhabited by more
than a caretaker. The owners had long since fled. Breached walls,
trampled gardens, gaping roofs, and silence and desertion--that is what
we meant when we spoke of a chateau near Paris in those days. But here
was one with lighted windows on the first and second stories staring out
calmly on the snow as though never a Prussian soldier had crossed the
Rhine. A thick clump of trees sheltered it behind, and it faced the
eastern side of the long ridge of Mont Guichet, along the foot of which
I rode--the side farthest from Paris. From the spot where I and my
escort had halted an open park stretched level to the door. The house
had, no doubt, a very homelike look on that cold night. It should have
spoken to me, no doubt, of the well-ordered family life and the gentle
occupations of women. But I was thinking of M. Bonnet's black cat. Was
this solitary chateau the undiscovered last station on the underground
road through which the news passed into Paris? If not, why was it still
inhabited? Why did the lights blaze out upon the snow so late?
[Illustration: She stood and swung the lantern slowly from side to side.
_Painted for
Princess Mary's Gift Book
by W. B. Wollen, R.I._]
I commanded my escort to be silent. We rode across the park, and
half-way to the door we came upon a wire fence and a gate. There we
dismounted, and walked our horses. We tethered them to a tree about
twenty yards from the house. I ordered one of my dragoons to go round
the house, and watch any door which he might find at the back. I told
the other two to stay where they were, and I advanced alone to the
steps, but before I had reached them the front door was thrown open, and
a girl with a lantern in her hand came out.
She held the lantern high above her head and peered forward, so that the
light fell full upon her hair, her face, and dress. She was a tall girl
and slight of figure, with big, dark eyes, and a face pretty and made
for laughter. It was very pale now, however, and the brows were drawn
together in a frown. She wore a white evening frock, which glistened in
the lantern light, and over her bare shoulders she had flung a heavy
black military cloak. So she stood and swung the lantern slowly from
side to side as she stared into the darkness, while the lights and
shadows chased each other swiftly across her white frock, her anxious
face, and the waves of her fair hair.
"Whom do you expect at this hour, mademoiselle?" I asked.
I was quite close to her, but she had not seen me, for I stood at the
bottom of the steps, and she was looking out over my head. Yet she did
not start or utter any cry. Only the lantern rattled in her hand. Then
she stood quite still for a moment or two, and afterwards lowered her
arm until the light shone upon me.
[Illustration]
"You are Prussian?" she said.
"A lieutenant of foot," I answered. "You have nothing to fear."
"I am not afraid," she replied quietly.
"Whom do you expect?"
"No one," she replied. "I thought that I heard the rattle of iron as
though a horse moved and a stirrup rang. It is lonely here since our
neighbours have fled. I came out to see."
"The lantern then, was not a signal, mademoiselle?" I asked.
She looked at me in perplexity, and certainly the little piece of
acting, I thought, was very well done.
"A signal?" she repeated. "To whom?"
"To some man hiding in the woods of Mont Guichet, a signal to him that
he may come and fetch the news for Paris which has lately--very
lately--been brought to the house."
She bent forward and peered down at me, drawing the cloak closer about
her neck.
"You are under some strange mistake, monsieur," she said. "No news for
Paris has been brought to this house by any one."
"Indeed?" I answered. "And is that so?" Then I stretched out my hand and
said triumphantly: "You will tell me perhaps that the cloak upon your
shoulders is a woman's cloak?"
And she laughed! It was humiliating; it is always humiliating to a young
man not to be taken seriously, isn't it? There was I thinking that I had
fairly cross-examined her into a trap, and she laughed indulgently. And
she explained indulgently, too.
"The cloak I am wearing belongs to a wounded French officer who was
taken prisoner and released upon parole. He is now in our house."
"Then I think I will make his acquaintance," I said, and over my
shoulder I called to the corporal. As he advanced to my side, a look of
alarm came into the girl's face.
"You are not alone," she said, and suddenly her face became wistful and
her voice began to plead. "You have not come for him? He has done no
harm. He could not, even if he would. And he would not, for he has given
his parole. Oh, you are not going to take him away?"
"That we shall see, mademoiselle."
[Illustration]
I left one dragoon at the door. I ordered the corporal to wait in the
hall, and I followed the girl up the stairs to the first floor. All her
pride had gone; she led the way with a submission of manner which seemed
to me only a fresh effort to quiet my suspicions. But they were not
quieted. I distrusted her; I believed that I had under my fingers the
proof of that rumour which flew about our camp. She stopped at a door,
and as she turned the handle she said:
"This is my own room, monsieur. We all use it now, for it is warmer than
the others, and all our servants but one have fled."
It was a pretty room, and cheery enough to one who came into it from the
darkness and the snow. A piano stood open in a corner with a rug thrown
upon it to protect the strings from the cold; books lay upon the tables,
heavy curtains were drawn close over the windows, there were cushioned
sofas and deep arm-chairs, and a good fire of logs blazed upon the
hearth. These details I took in at once. Then I looked at the occupants.
A young man lay stretched upon a sofa close to the fire with a wrap
covering his legs. The wrap was raised by a cradle to keep off its
weight. His face must have been, I think, unusually handsome when he had
his health; at the moment it was so worn and pale, and the eyes were so
sunk, that all its beauty had gone. The pallor was accentuated by a
small black moustache he wore and his black hair. He lay with his head
supported upon a pillow, and was playing a game of chess with an old
lady who sat at a little table by his side. I advanced to the fire and
warmed my hands at it.
[Illustration]
"You, sir, are the wounded officer on parole?" I said in French. The
officer bowed.
"And you, madame?" I asked of the old lady. The sight of my uniform
seemed to have paralysed her with terror. "Come, come, madame," I
exclaimed impatiently; "it is a simple question."
"Monsieur, you frighten her," said the young lady. "It is my aunt, the
Baroness Granville."
"You tell me nothing of yourself," I said to her, and she looked at me
in surprise.
"Since you have come with an escort to this house I imagined you must
know to whom it belonged. I am Sophie de Villetaneuse."
"Exactly," I replied, as though I had known all along, and had merely
asked the question to see whether she would speak the truth. "Now,
mademoiselle, will you please explain to me how it is that while your
neighbours have fled you remain at your chateau?"
"It is quite simple," she answered. "My mother is bed-ridden. She could
not be moved. She could not be left alone."
"You will pardon me," said I, "if I test that statement."
The wounded officer raised himself upon his elbow as though to protest,
but Mademoiselle de Villetaneuse put out a hand and checked him. She
showed me a face flushed with anger, but she spoke quite quietly.
"I will myself take you to my mother's room."
I laughed. I said: "That is just what I expected. You will take me to
your mother's room and leave your friends here to make any little
preparations in the way of burning awkward papers which they may think
desirable. Thank you, no! I am not so easily caught."
Mademoiselle Sophie was becoming irritated.
"There are no awkward papers!" she exclaimed.
"That statement, too, I shall put to the test."
I went to the door, and standing so that I could still keep an eye upon
the room, I called the corporal.
"You will search the house thoroughly," I said, "and quickly. Bring me
word how many people you find in it. You, mademoiselle, will remain in
the room with us."
[Illustration]
She shrugged her shoulders as I closed the door and came back into the
room.
"You were wounded, monsieur," I said to the Frenchman. "Where?"
"In the sortie on Le Bourget."
"And you came here the moment you were released on your parole?"
The wounded officer turned with a smile to Mademoiselle Sophie.
"Yes, for here live my best friends."
He took her hand, and with a Frenchman's grace he raised it to his lips
and kissed it. And I was suddenly made acquainted with the relationship
in which these two, youth and maid, stood to one another. Mademoiselle
Sophie had cried out on the steps against the possibility that I might
have come to claim my prisoner. But though she spoke no word, she was
still more explicit now. With the officer that caress was plainly no
more than a pretty way of saying thanks; it had the look of a habit, it
was so neatly given, and he gave it without carelessness, it is true,
but without warmth. But she received it very differently. He did not
see, because his head was bent above her hand, but I did.
I saw the look of pain in her face, the slight contraction of her
shoulders and arms, as if to meet a blow. The kiss hurt her--no, not the
kiss, but the finished grace with which it was given, the proof, in a
word, that it was a way of saying "Thanks"--and nothing more. Here was a
woman who loved and a man who did not love, and the woman knew.
I resumed my questions:
"Your doctor, monsieur, is in the house?"
"At this hour? No."
"Ah. That is a pity."
The young man lifted his head from his pillow and looked me over from
head to foot with a stare of disdain.
"I do not quite understand. You doubt my word, monsieur!"
"Why not?" I asked sharply.
[Illustration: A Spell for a Fairy
_Painted for
Princess Mary's Gift Book
by Claude A. Shepperson, A.R.W.S._]
It was quite possible that the cradle, this rug across his legs, the
pillow, were all pretences. This young officer might very well have
brought in a cipher message to the Chateau Villetaneuse. Mademoiselle
Sophie might very well have waved her lantern at the door to summon a
fresh messenger.
"No; why should I not doubt your word?" I repeated.
He turned his face to the old lady. "It is your move, Baronne," he said,
and she placed the piece she held upon a square of the board.
Mademoiselle Sophie took her stand by the table between the players, and
the game went on just as though there were no intruder in the room. It
was uncomfortable for me. I shifted my feet. I tried to appear at my
ease; finally I sat down in a chair. They took no notice of me whatever.
I was very glad when at last the corporal opened the door. He had
searched the house--he had found no one but Madame de Villetaneuse and
an old servant who was watching by her bed.
"Very well," said I, and the corporal returned to the hall.
Mademoiselle Sophie moved away from the chess-table. She came and stood
opposite to me, and though her face was still, her eyes were hard with
anger.
"And now perhaps you will tell me to what I owe your visit?" she said.
"Certainly," I returned. I fixed my eyes on her, and I said slowly, "I
have come to ask for more news of M. Bonnet's black cat."
Mademoiselle Sophie stared as if she was not sure whether I was mad or
drunk, but was very sure I was one or the other. The young Frenchman
started upon his couch, with the veins swelling upon his forehead and a
flushed face.
"This is an insult," he cried savagely, and no less savagely I answered
him.
"Hold your tongue!" I cried. "You forget too often that though you are
on parole you are still a prisoner."
He fell back upon the sofa with a groan of pain, and the girl hurried to
his side.
[Illustration]
Meanwhile I had been looking about the room for a box or a case where
the cipher messages might be hid. I saw nothing of the kind. Of course
they might be hidden between the pages of a book. I went from table to
table, taking them by the boards and shaking the leaves. Not a scrap of
paper tumbled out. There was another door in the room besides that which
led on to the landing.
"Mademoiselle, what room is that?" I asked.
"My bedroom," she answered simply, and with a gesture full of dignity
she threw open the door.
I carried the mud and snow and the grime of a camp without a scruple of
remorse into that neat and pretty chamber. Mademoiselle Sophie followed
me as I searched wardrobe and drawer and box. At last I came to one
drawer in her dressing-table which was locked. I looked suddenly at the
young lady. She was watching me out of the corners of her eyes with a
peculiar intentness.
"Open that drawer, mademoiselle," I said.
"It contains only some private things."
"Open that drawer or I burst it open."
"No," she cried, as I jerked the handle. "I will open it."
[Illustration]
She fetched the key out of another drawer which was unlocked, and fitted
it into the lock of the dressing-table. And all the while I saw that she
was watching me. She meant to play me some trick, I was certain. So I
watched, too, and I did well to watch. She turned the key, opened the
drawer, and then snatched out something with extraordinary rapidity and
ran as hard as she could to the door--not the door through which we had
entered, but a second door which gave on to the passage. She ran very
fast and she ran very lightly, and she did not stumble over a chair as I
did in pursuit of her. But she had to unlatch the door and pull it open.
I caught her up and closed my arms about her. It was a little carved
ebony box which she held, the very thing for which I searched.
"I thought so," I cried, with a laugh. "Drop the box, mademoiselle. Drop
it on the floor!"
The noise of our struggle had been heard in the next room. The Baroness
rushed through the doorway.
"What has happened?" she cried. "Mon Dieu! you are killing her!"
"Drop that box, mademoiselle!"
And as I spoke she threw it away. She threw it through the doorway; she
tried to throw it over the banisters of the stairs, but my arms were
about hers, and it fell in the passage just beyond the door. I darted
from her and picked it up. When I returned with it she was taking a gold
chain from her neck. At the end of the chain hung a little gold key.
This she held out to me.
"Open it here," she said in a low, eager voice.
The sudden change only increased my suspicions, or rather my conviction,
that I had now the proof which I needed.
"Why, if you are so eager to show me the contents, did you try to throw
it away?" I asked.
"I tried to throw it down into the hall," she answered.
"My corporal would have picked it up."
"Oh, what would that matter?" she exclaimed impatiently. "You would have
opened it in the hall. That was what I wanted. Open it here! At all
events open it here!"
The very urgency of her pleading made me determined to refuse the plea.
"No, you have some other ruse, mademoiselle," said I. "Perhaps you wish
to gain time for your friend in the next room. No, we will return there
and open it comfortably by the fire."
I kept a tight hold upon the box. I shook it. To my delight I felt that
there were papers within it. I carried it back to the fireside and sat
down on a chair. Mademoiselle Sophie followed me close, and as I fixed
the little gold key into the lock she laid her hand very gently upon my
arm.
"I beg you not to unlock that box," she said; "if you do you will bring
upon me a great humiliation and upon yourself much remorse. There is
nothing there which concerns you. There are just my little secrets. A
girl may have secrets, monsieur, which are sacred to her."
She was standing quite close to me, and her back was towards the French
officer and her aunt. They could not see her face, and they could hardly
have heard more than a word here and there of what she said. I answered
her only by turning the key in the lock. She took her hand from my arm
and laid it on the lid to hinder me from opening it.
"I wore the key on a chain about my neck, monsieur," she whispered.
"Does that teach you nothing? Even though you are young, does it teach
you nothing? I said that if you unlocked that box you would cause me
great humiliation, thinking that would be enough to stop you. But I see
I must tell you more. Read the letters, monsieur, question me about
them, and you will make my life a very lonely one. I think so. I think
you will destroy my chance of happiness. You would not wish that,
monsieur. It is true that we are enemies, but some day this war will
end, and you would not wish to prolong its sufferings beyond the end.
Yet you will be doing that, monsieur, if you open that box."
[Illustration]
It seems now almost impossible to me that I could have doubted her
sincerity: she spoke with so much simplicity, and so desperate an appeal
looked out from her dark eyes. Ever since that Christmas night I can see
her quite clearly at will, standing as she then stood--all the sincerity
of her which I would not acknowledge, all the appeal which I would not
hear; and I see her many times when for my peace I would rather not.
She was pleading for her pride, and to do that the better she laid her
pride aside; yet she never lost her dignity. She was pleading for her
chance of happiness, foreseeing that it was likely to be destroyed,
without any reason or any profit to a living being, by a stranger who
would the next moment pass out of her life. Yet there was no outcry, and
there were no tears. Had it been a trick--I ask the ladies--would there
not have been tears?
But I thought it a trick and a cheap one. She was trying to make me
believe that there were love-letters in the box--compromising
love-letters. Now, I _knew_ that there were no love-letters in the box.
I had seen the Frenchman's pretty way of saying thanks. I had noticed
how the caress hurt her just through what it lacked. He was the friend,
you see, and nothing more; she was the lover and the only lover of the
pair.
[Illustration]
I opened the box accordingly. Mademoiselle Sophie turned away abruptly,
and sitting down in a chair shaded her eyes with her hand. I emptied the
letters out on to a table, turning the box upside down, and thus the
first which I took up and read was the one which lay at the very bottom.
As I read it it seemed that every suspicion I had formed was
established. She had hinted at love-letters, she had spoken of secrets
sacred to a girl; and the letter was not even addressed to her. It was
addressed to Madame de Villetaneuse; it was a letter which, if it meant
no more than what was implied upon the surface, would have long since
found destruction in the waste-paper basket. For it purported to be
merely the acceptance of an invitation to dinner at the town house of
Madame de Villetaneuse in the Faubourg St. Germain. It was signed only
by a Christian name, "Armand," and the few sentences which composed the
letter explained that M. Armand was a distant kinsman of Madame de
Villetaneuse who had just come to Paris to pursue his studies, and who,
up till now, had no acquaintance with the family.
I looked at Mademoiselle Sophie sternly. "So all this pother was about a
mere invitation to dinner! Once let it be known that M. Armand will dine
with Madame de Villetaneuse in the Faubourg St. Germain, and you are
humiliated, you lose your chance of happiness, and I, too, shall find
myself in good time suffering the pangs of remorse," and I read the
letter slowly aloud to her, word by word.
She returned no answer. She sat with her hand shading her face, and she
rocked her head backwards and forwards continually and rather quickly,
like a child with a racking headache. Of course, to my mind all that was
part of the game. The letter was dated two years back, but the month was
December, and, of course, to antedate would be the first precaution.
[Illustration]
"Come, mademoiselle," I said, changing my tone, "I invite you very
seriously to make a clean breast of it. I wish to take no harsh measures
with you if I can avoid them. Tell me frankly what news this letter,
plainly translated, gives to General Trochu in Paris."
"None," she answered.