A returning flush upon the plain. Streaks of color across a mangled
landscape: the gentle concealment of shell hole and trench. This is what
one saw, even in the summer of 1919. For the sap was running, and a new
invasion was occurring. Legions of tender blades pushed over the haggard
No Man's Land, while reckless poppies scattered through the ranks of
green, to be followed by the shyer starry sisters in blue and white.
Irrepressibly these floral throngs advanced over the shell torn spaces,
crowding, mingling and bending together in a rainbow riot beneath the
winds that blew them. They were the vanguard.
* * * * *
In the midst of the reviving fields lay Noyon: Noyon, that gem of the
Oise, whose delicate outline of spires and soft tinted roofs had graced
the wide valley for centuries. Today the little city lay blanched and
shapeless between the hills, as all towns were left that stood in the
path of the armies. The cathedral alone reared its battered bulk in the
midst; a resisting pile, its two grim and blunted towers frowning into
the sky. Nobly Gothic through all the shattering, the great church rose
out of the wreckage, with flying buttresses still outspread like
brooding wings to the dead houses that had sunk about her.
But Noyon was not dead. We of the Red Cross knew that. We knew that in
cellars and nooks of this labyrinth of ruin already hundreds of hearts
were beating. On this calm September morning the newly cleared streets
resounded with the healthful music of hammer and saw, and cartwheels
rattled over the cobblestones, while workmen called to each other in
resonant voices. Pregnant sounds, these, the significance of which we
could estimate. For we had seen Noyon in the early months of the
armistice: tangled and monstrous in her attitude of falling, and silent
with the bleeding silence of desertion. Then, one memorable day, the
stillness had been broken by the first clatter of sabots--that wooden
noise, measured, unmistakable, approaching. Two pairs of sabots and a
long road. Two broad backs bent under bulging loads; an infant's wail; a
knock at the Red Cross Door--but that was nearly eight months before.
The _Poste de Secours_ was closed for the first time since Madame de
Vigny and her three young _infirmières_ had come to Noyon. Two women
stood without, one plump and bareheaded, the other aged and bent, with a
calico handkerchief tied over her hair. They stared at the printed card
tacked upon the entrance of the large patched-up house that served as
Headquarters for the French Red Cross.
"_Tiens! c'est fermé_," exclaimed Madame Talon, shaking the rough board
door with all her meagre weight, "and I have walked eight kilometers to
get a _jupon_, and with rheumatism, too."
"Haven't you heard the news?" asked her companion with city-bred scorn.
"Ah? What news?" The crisp old face crinkled with anticipation.
"Why, Mademoiselle Gaston is to be married today."
"_Tiens, tiens! est-ce possible?_ What happiness for that good girl!"
and Madame Talon, forgetful of the loss of her _jupon_, smiled a
wrinkled smile till her nose nearly touched her chin, and her eyes
receding into well worn little puckers, became two snapping black
points.
"Is it really so? And the bridegroom--who is he?"
There followed that vivacious exchange of questions and answers and
speculations which accompanies the announcement of a marriage the world
over.
Mademoiselle Gaston was the daughter of an ancient family of Noyon. But
now, her ancestral home was a heap of debris, a tomb for men of many
nations, which she did not like to visit. She took me there once, and we
walked through the old tennis court where a little summer house remained
untouched, its jaunty frailty seeming to mock at the desolation of all
that is solid.
"Ah, I have had good times here," she said in the expressionless voice
of one who has endured too much.
For now she was alone. Tennis tournaments for her were separated from
the present by a curtain of deaths, by the incomparable space of those
four years.
Mademoiselle Gaston had played her part in it all. When the Germans were
advancing upon Noyon, she had stuck to her post and remained in the
hospital where she nursed her compatriots under enemy rule during the
first occupation of the city. Something about her had made them treat
her with respect, although I have been told that the Prussian officers
were always vaguely uncomfortable in her presence. There was, perhaps,
not enough humility in her clear eyes, and they worked her to the
breaking point. Yet so impeccable and businesslike was her conduct that
they could never convict her of any infringement of rules. Little did
these pompous invaders suspect how this slender capable girl with the
hazel eyes was spicing the hours behind their backs, and drawing with
nimble and irreverent pencil portraits of her captors, daring
caricatures which she exhibited in secret to the terrified delight of
her patients. Luckily for her this harmless vengeance had not been
discovered, for doubtless she would have paid dearly for her Gallic
audacity.
She was small of stature and very thin. Not even the nurse's flowing
garb could conceal the angularity of her figure. One wondered how so
fragile a frame could have survived the crashings and shakings of war.
What secret of yielding and resisting was hers? The tension,
nevertheless, had left its mark upon her young face; had drawn the skin
over the aquiline profile, and compressed the sensitive mouth in a line
too rigid for her years. This severity of feature she aggravated by
pinning her _coiffe_ low over a forehead as uncompromising as a nun's.
Not a relenting suggestion of hair would she permit. Yet whatever of
tenderness or hope she strove thus to hood, nothing could suppress the
beauty of her luminous eyes; caressing eyes that belied her austere
manner. No sight of blood nor weariness, no insult had hardened them.
Even when their greenish depths went dark and wide with reminiscence, a
light lurked at the bottom--the reflection of something dancing. Yes,
everybody loved Mademoiselle Gaston.
For weeks we had seen it coming. She had told us of her engagement at
breakfast one Monday morning after a week-end visit to her married
sister in Paris. It had seemed a good business proposition. She
announced it as such, calmly, with a frankness that astonished my
American soul. We were pleased. She would have a château and money, and
a _de_ before her name. Best of all she would have peace and
companionship after her lonely struggles. On the whole we were very much
pleased. Madame de Vigny and her gentle niece were entirely delighted.
Noyon was vociferous in its approval and congratulations. I could have
wished--but at least I did not thrust any transatlantic notions into the
general contentment.
And I soon saw--no one could fail to see--the change that day by day
came over our reserved companion. The stern line of her lips relaxed. In
amazement one day we heard her laugh. Then her laughter began to break
forth on all occasions; and we listened to her singing above in her
room, and we smiled at each other. That tightness of her brow dissolved
in a carefree radiance. At work, she mixed up her faultless card
catalogues and laughed at her mistakes. Once, during our busy hours of
distribution, we caught her blithely granting the request of fat Mère
Copillet for a cook stove and thereupon absently presenting that jovial
dame with a pair of sabots, much too small for her portly foot, to the
amusement of all the good wives gathered in the Red Cross office. They
laughed loudly in a sympathetic crowd, and Mademoiselle Gaston laughed
also, and they loved her more than ever. When they learned that she had
chosen to be married in the ruined cathedral of her native town, their
affection turned to adoration. Not a peasant in the region but took this
to be an honor to his city and to himself. Gratitude and a nameless hope
filled the hearts of the people of Noyon.
The day was at hand. The _poste_ was closed, for within there was a
feast to prepare and a bride to adorn. In the early morning the
sun-browned peasant women brought flowers, masses of goldenrod and
asters. These we arranged in brass shells, empty husks of death, till
the bleak spaciousness of our shattered house was gay. The rooms, still
elegant in proportion, lent themselves naturally to adornment; and I
found myself wondering what former festivities they had sheltered, what
other brides had passed down this stately corridor before the bombs let
in the wind and the rain and the thieves; and what remote luxuries had
been reflected in the great mirror of which only the carved gilt frame
was left? Today, goldenrod and asters bloomed against the mouldy walls
and one little tri-colored bouquet. Flowers of France, in truth, sprung
on the battle field and offered by earth-stained fingers to her who had
served.
From the kitchen came noises of snapping wood, and a sizzling which
tempted me to the door. It was a fine old kitchen, though now the tiles
were mostly gone from the floor, and the cracked walls were smeared with
uncouth paintings, the work of some childish soul--some German mess
sergeant, perhaps, who had been installed there, but today Jeanne
reigned again, bending her philosophic face over the smoking stove, and
evoking with infallible arts aromatic and genial vapors from her
casseroles. At her side, Thérèse, pink and cream in the abundance of her
eighteen years, fanned the fire, her eyes wide open with the novel
excitement of the occasion.
"_La guerre est finie, Mademoiselle Miss!_" cried Jeanne with spoon
dripping in mid air. "Today I have butter to cook with. Now you shall
taste a French dinner _comme il faut_!"
In the garage, Michel, all seriousness, polished the Ford that was to
carry away the bridal pair. Recently demobilized, he wore the bizarre
combination of military and civilian clothes that all over France
symbolized the transition from war to peace--black coat encroaching upon
stained blue trousers, khaki puttees, evidence of international intimacy
and--most brilliant emblem of freedom--a black and white checked cap,
put on backwards. His the ultimate responsibility at our wedding
ceremony and he looked to his tires and sparkplugs with passion.
The married sister, beautiful and charming in her Paris gown, was
superintending the _toilette_; and when all was ready, we were called
up to examine and admire. The bride was sweet and calm, smiling dreamily
at us in the foggy fragment of mirror. Below, somewhat portly and
constrained in his black coat and high collar, the bridegroom marched
with agitation back and forth in the corridor, clasping and unclasping
his hands in their gray suède gloves. The Paris train was due. Relatives
and friends began to arrive; and little nieces and nephews, all in their
best clothes. Noyon had not seen anything so gay in years. There was
bustle and business and running up and down stairs. The _poste_, usually
clamorous with the hoarse dialect of northern France, hummed and rippled
with polite conversation and courtly greetings. The bride appeared. The
bridegroom's face lost its perturbed expression in his unaffected
happiness at seeing her. Photographs were taken; she, gracious and
bending in a cloud of tulle; he, stiffly upright but smiling resolutely.
They were off in a string of carriages--sagging old carriages
resurrected from the dust--while a few of us hastened to the cathedral
by a short cut to take more pictures as they entered.
The vast nave engulfed us in its desolation. The mutilated apse seemed
to be far, far away, and one looked at it fearfully. High above through
the broken vaulting shone the indestructible blue, and through the
hollow windows the breath of Heaven wandered free. The little bride
stepped bravely between the piles of refuse, daintily gathering her
dress about her. A dirty sheet on the wall flapped without warning, and
we had a glimpse of a gaunt and pallid crucifix, instantly shrouded
again in a spasm of wind. Passing under an arch we entered a less
demolished chapel. Here all Noyon was waiting.
Thin and quavering through the expectant hush came the chords of a
harmonium. Rustlings and whisperings among the closely packed people as
the misty white figure advanced slowly into sight. At the altar the
silver-haired bishop turned his scholarly face upon her, full of
tenderness; and when he spoke, his voice seemed an assurance of peace
and purity. The service was long. In France one listens to a sermon
when one is married, and the pretty bridesmaids came round for three
collections. The bishop talked of her father, his friend, who had died
under cruel circumstances. Shoulders heaved in the congregation, and in
a dark corner a sob was stifled.
"You have suffered, my children. There has been a mighty mowing and a
winter of death, and our mother the earth has lain barren. But today
stand up, O children, and listen and feel. We are united in these ruins
by more than sorrow. What are these pulsations that beat this day upon
our soul?"
The words flowed on following the ancient grooves of sermons, but the
loving voice thrilled us. It floated through the dim atmosphere into our
consciousness, holding us as in a dream, dovelike and soothing.
My eyes trailed to the delicate bride kneeling beside a great cracked
column, and I thought of the tiny blossom again by the road, and of
those stretches without the town, no longer gray, but brushed with new
color. I saw the daisies and the grasses waving out on No Man's Land:
like heralding banners of the triumph march they waved, leading out of
sight beyond the horizon. And as the priest talked, my heart throbbed
its own silent canticle:
"Joy in the new dawned day, and in peace-awakened fields. Hope of the
flower that blooms again. Faith in the unfolding of petals, gently,
forever, and in season."
"_Soyez loué, Seigneur!_" the voice deepened and concluded.
Decisively, now, burst forth the reedlike chords of music. A wave of
movement throughout the crowd. And the bowed form trembled a moment
within its sheathing veil, against the cold stone pillar.