THE NIGHT OF TRUCE
Hélène of Strasburg was dead, the Mother of the City, the queenly woman
who had helped the city so often to courage and self-sacrifice. Though
Strasburg suffered then, though her people lived no longer in the light
of day but burrowed to the cellars and the vaults where no Prussian
shells could harm them, they came forth as a great army of the children
of night into the sunshine which hovered about the open grave. For
they had loved the mistress of the house of Görsdorf, and to many of
them she was as one of their own, ever to be held in the high place of
memory where all that has made for the sweetness and the truth of life
should be stored up.
Hélène was dead. The news went quickly as tidings of the ultimate
misfortune. The soldiers on the ramparts heard it, and told each other
that the day of the cataclysm was at hand. The brave men of the city
took a new resolution of endurance. “We shall avenge the shell that
struck down her house,” they said. In the churches the priests spoke of
Christian love and of the divine truth that in motherhood all love is
born. When the body was at length carried forth and the drums rolled
and the bells tolled, it was as though the whole city came out for that
_cortége_. Even the children cast flowers upon the path. The Governor
himself, the dauntless Uhrich whose name was honoured then almost above
any name in France, was first at the graveside and last to leave the
stricken house when the people had gone to the darkness again.
“You must not stay here an hour, my child,” he said to Beatrix; “my
house is open to you; you must be my guest. I am afraid that it is only
the beginning. Their guns are reaching this quarter every day, and it
is not safe even in your cellars. Besides, you are alone--”
She thanked him, but would not go.
“Hélène would have wished it,” she said. “I cannot leave her work to
others. If she had lived, we should have stayed here until the end. And
Edmond will expect to find me here when he returns. I could not play a
coward’s part, General.”
Her resolution pleased him. Day by day it was his duty to teach the men
of Strasburg the meaning of their debt to France. Here was a little
English girl who needed no lesson.
“Ah,” he said, “if the others would talk like that! I shall tell your
story at the Council to-day. Madame Lefort remains in the Place Kleber!
They will be ashamed, my child, and you--you will not do anything
foolish. I will send some men up to make your house safe. After all, we
are becoming night birds now. And there is no Madame Hélène to tell us
our duty. I am grateful to you for doing wrong, Madame, but if you wish
it--”
“Hélène would have wished it,” she repeated; “how could I meet my
husband when he comes back if I were faithless to her memory? And I
shall be less alone here, General, than in another house. If it is
possible for the dead to counsel us, Hélène will help me still. I seem
to hear her voice always in my sleep. I know that she hears me when I
speak to her!”
He shook his head. The philosophy of life was of less concern to him
than the facts of life.
“I will not gainsay Hélène’s wish,” he exclaimed, “but it will be a
life in the cellars, my child. Don’t forget that. If we are to save
Strasburg, all must suffer, even the women.”
“Do the women complain, then, General?”
“Complain--God send that the men show half their courage!”
“Then do not let me be the exception to your rule. If Edmond should
come back--”
He laughed doubtingly.
“He will never give his parole, Madame, even for the sake of the
bravest heart in Strasburg. And you would not wish it. It is a
dishonour. There have been too many victims of that shame already. I
would cut off my right hand before setting my name to such a promise
as that. When your husband comes back, the war will be over and the
Prussians across the Rhine. You help me to that day by remaining at the
Place Kleber.”
He left her with the promise, alone in the great house with the
shattered rooms and the bulging walls and the roof of tarpaulin which
builders had dared to carry for old Hélène’s sake. In the streets
about her the crash of bursting shell and falling building ceased not
by night or day. Even from the great deserted rooms through which
she passed as a figure of solitude, she could see the _débris_ of
ruined houses and forgotten homes. But the city’s distress was not her
distress. For her own life she had ceased to care. The lonely man in
the tavern of the troopers was always in her thoughts. Her secret had
become a burden intolerable. When, on that night of terror, she ran
from them into the burning house and knelt at the side of her whose
voice she nevermore would hear, the prayer on her lips was a prayer
of that confession she had wished so ardently to make. There was no
other in all the city to whom she could go and say--Help me to save my
friend. It was left to her to give Brandon life or death. Her own folly
and thoughtlessness had brought this as her recompense.
She was alone in the great house, alone with her secret. Few came
to her, for there was peril to life in the streets, and ever arose
that deafening music of the guns, that thunder of tumultuous sounds
which spoke of a city crumbling to the dust, of a people living below
the ground, of flames leaping to the crimson heavens, of passion and
death and a nation’s despair. There was scarce another voice that she
heard save the voice of Guillaumette, who trembled in the cellars and
shrieked aloud as the shells fell with a great flame of light and the
homes of the children for their victory. Her friends--they had all
found shelter of the darkness and the earth, or had fled Strasburg to
give the story to the valleys and the lakes of Switzerland. None whose
business was not of the city’s safety ventured then to look upon the
sun or even to tell the stars in the quivering sky. Troopers alone
passed her when she ventured from the lonely house. Yet venture she
must, for the dead seemed to walk the empty rooms; and often in the
silence she heard her friend’s voice reproaching her.
Seven days had passed now since she had seen Brandon, or heard the news
of him. The death of Hélène (of heart disease, the doctors said, and
charged it to the devastation of the house) had forbidden all thought
of her errand of mercy and of friendship. She had desired so greatly to
confess her friend’s peril, and to send a message of hope to the house;
but this new blow stunned her mentally and physically. She knew not
even whether Brandon were in the city or no. She thought sometimes that
his presence must have been discovered; and she would see him, in her
troubled sleep, as she had seen that other in the café by the Minster.
The suspense was an agony almost insupportable. She prayed every day
that Edmond would come back; and yet she judged instinctively that he
would never come until the end. When the General confirmed her view she
was glad to hear him. Edmond might judge her afterwards for that which
she had done of her own free will. She remembered that she had not
asked him to give his parole, and therein found content.
There was a great sortie from the city on the morning of the 1st of
September, and all day she heard the booming artillery, and the moan
of the shells as they hurtled above the now doomed northern quarter.
Towards noon the stragglers came in, and told of many dead at Kronburg
and Königshofen. She saw the waggons of the ambulance passing through
the square to the military hospital, and anon the Abbé Colot came to
tell her that there was to be a short truce while the burial parties
went out. Soon the news of the truce went abroad as tidings of day, and
men and women crept from the cellars and came gladly into the sunlight;
and even the cafés were filled, and the accustomed movement of a city
was to be observed again. She watched the people for a little while,
and then put on her hat and cloak and went some way towards the Rue
de l’Arc-en-Ciel. She must know the truth, she thought; must know if
Brandon were still in Strasburg.
Dusk had come down when she entered the street. Hordes of ragged
soldiers told the story of the unsuccessful sortie of the morning.
Every alley had its philosopher. Some cursed the General for the city’s
tribulations. Others said that France was justified of her army; that
further resistance was a crime against the army. All were too excited
by their own needs and creeds to observe her as she stood at the corner
and looked up at the window behind which she hoped to see her friend’s
face. But there was no light or sign there; the house had no message
for her.
An hour passed all too slowly. She returned to her watching place
to find the _auberge_ again in darkness. Anticipations of the worst
troubled her. She remembered how curtly she had left the man Gatelet,
when last he met her by the New Church. If he had told them! But, after
all, Brandon might have escaped. His German friends might have helped
him to cross the river and regain his own lines. She was just telling
herself that this was possible when the girl Jeannette came out of the
house, and, observing her, crossed the road with furtive steps.
“Ah, Madame, it is you, then. And he has waited so. Every day, every
hour, he has asked for you! You cannot be his friend, Madame, to leave
him there--”
“He is still in your house, then, Jeannette?”
“If he is in the house, Madame! Listen: there have been many to ask for
him, but I have told none. He has enemies in Strasburg. They watch us
often from the windows _là-haut_. He does not light his lamp, because
they can see him at the blind. It is darkness, always, always. And I
have spent the money. Every franc, and for myself not a sou, Madame. He
will tell you so when you go up. Ah, if he were my friend, the steps
would not be many. You are going up, Madame?”
For an instant she hesitated; but the thought of the lonely man up
there in the darkness prevailed above the last argument of prudence.
“I am going up, Jeannette,” she said.
The girl took her hand, as though to lead her to the house. She pressed
it in her own fingers, so thin and cold.
“Ah, Madame, you have a brave heart. Wait until I light the candle.
And we will not mind those others to-night. Oh, how glad he will be,
Madame!”
Together they climbed the tortuous dirty staircase and stood at the
broken door. Some instants passed before their knock was answered, and
when they entered, the prisoner started up as though from a fitful
sleep. There was the pallor of death upon his face, but he smiled as he
held out his hand to her.
“Well,” he said; “I thought that I told you not to come.”
“You knew that I must come,” she said quietly. “Hélène is dead, or I
should have been here before. A shell struck our house; she died of
fright and grief.”
He took her hand and pressed it.
“My poor child!” he said.
They sat in silence for a little while, until Jeannette had covered the
windows with a heavy cloth, which shut out the memory of those who
watched the house. Beatrix was the first to speak, and her words came
quickly, as the words of one who had no time to lose.
“You know that they are watching you here, Brandon?”
“I have known it from the first.”
“And you must find some other house.”
He answered with an assumed indifference. “My foot says no, and my
landlady agrees. Why do you think of me when you have troubles of your
own, Beatrix?”
“Because I must. You cannot stay here, Brandon. I had hoped that Edmond
would come back, but I know that he will not come. What he would have
done for you I must do. If there is any friend of yours in Strasburg,
he must help you. There can be no secrets now. Your life may depend
upon to-morrow.”
He listened to her eagerly.
“Antoine, my clerk,” he explained, “has become a _franc-tireur_. If I
sent to him for money, he would shoot me. Mardon, the banker, would go
straight to the citadel with my story if I told him. You know what the
others are, men in blue coats mostly, who prate about the honour of the
army, and have no honour to spare for their friends. If money were to
be had, that would make one difficulty the less. It’s no good mincing
matters, Beatrix. I haven’t a shilling to my name. The old woman here
will turn me out into the street, bag and baggage, to-morrow, if I
don’t pay. Of course, Gatelet knows that. He whines about friendship,
and will come and remind you of that friendship when his fellows below
have cut my throat. He knows that I have no money, and that is his
trump card. If only old Watts could be found, the game would go well
enough. But I don’t think you’ll find him now. If your friendship for
me prompts you to settle with that hag downstairs, that will be a real
service, and I can settle with Edmond when he comes in. Meanwhile,
there is no time to lose.”
He sank back on his couch exhausted. She saw that there was not even
water upon the table, and she sent Jeannette hurrying for wine and
brandy. His words had been an inspiration to her. If money could save
him, her task was indeed a light one.
“Why did you not ask me before?” she said. “You know that I have never
wanted money. Of course, we will pay the woman at once. It has been
such a dreadful week, Brandon; even death does not seem the sorrow it
should be when there are so many terrible things happening every day.
While you are here I shall know no rest. If you could find one friend--”
“There are many, Beatrix, but they don’t come to Strasburg to see me.
Their business is of another kind. I would not let you enter this room
if I were on that errand. You know why I ventured in, and you may tell
Edmond when he returns.”
“I pray God that he will understand,” she said gently.
He turned his face away. When she left him, ten minutes later, she
said that she would not rest night or day until she found someone to
befriend him. But he buried his face in the pillow of rags, and alone
and in the darkness he thought that none had come between them; and he
seemed to hold her in his strong arms and to tell her that his life was
nothing to him, because he might not speak of his surpassing love for
her.