A WOMAN OF ACTION.
“Love ... gives to every power a double power
Above their functions and their offices.”
“Ah!” said Mademoiselle Brun, as she stepped on deck the next morning.
And the contrast between the gloomy departure from Corsica and the sunny
return to France was strong enough, without further comment from this
woman of few words.
The yacht was approaching the little harbour of St. Raphael at half speed
on a sea as blue and still as the Mediterranean of any poet's dream. The
freshness of morning was in the air--the freshness of Provence, where the
days are hot and the nights cool, and there are no mists between the one
and the other. Almost straight ahead, the little town of Fréjus (where
another Corsican landed to set men by the ears) stood up in sharp outline
against the dark pinewoods of Valescure, with the thin wood-smoke curling
up from a hundred chimneys. To the left, the flat lands of Les Arcs half
hid the distant heights of Toulon; and, to the right, headland after
headland led the eye almost to the frontier of Italy along the finest
coast-line in the world. Every shade of blue was on sky or sea or
mountain, while the deep morning shadows were transparent and almost
luminous. From the pinewoods a scent of resin swept seaward, mingled with
the subtle odour of the tropic foliage near the shore. The sky was
cloudless. This was indeed the smiling land of France.
Denise, who had followed mademoiselle on deck, stood still and drank it
all in; for such sights and scents have a deep eloquence for the young,
which older hearts can only touch from the outside, vaguely and
intangibly, like the memory of a perfume.
Denise had slept well, and Mademoiselle Brun said she had slept enough
for an old woman. A cheery little stewardess had brought them coffee soon
after daylight, and had answered a few curt questions put to her by
Mademoiselle Brun.
“Yes; the yacht was the yacht of the Baron de Mélide, and the
_bête-noire_, by the same token, of madame, who hated the sea.”
And madame was at the château near Fréjus, where Monsieur le Baron had
installed her on the outbreak of the war, and would assuredly be on the
pier at St. Raphael to meet them. And God only knew where Monsieur le
Baron was. He had gone, it was said, to the war in some civil capacity.
As they stood on deck, Denise soon perceived the little pier where there
were, even at this early hour, a few of those indefatigable Mediterranean
Waltons who fish and fish and catch nothing, all through the sunny day.
Presently Mademoiselle Brun caught sight of a small dot of colour which
seemed to move spasmodically up and down.
“I see the parasol,” she said, “of Jane de Mélide. What good friends we
have!”
And presently they were near enough to wave a handkerchief in answer to
the Baroness de Mélide's vigorous salutations. The yacht crept round the
pier-head, and was soon made fast to a small white buoy. While a boat was
being lowered, the baroness, in a gay Parisian dress, walked impatiently
backwards and forwards, waved her parasol, and called out incoherent
remarks, which Mademoiselle Brun answered by a curt gesture of the hand.
“My poor friend!” exclaimed the baroness, as she embraced Mademoiselle
Brun. “My dear Denise, you are a brave woman. I have heard all about
you.”
And her quick, dancing eyes took in at a glance that Denise had come
against her will, and Mademoiselle Brun had brought her. Of which Denise
was ignorant, for the sunshine and brightness of the scene affected her
and made her happy.
“Surely,” she said, as they walked the length of the pier together, “the
bad news has been exaggerated. The war will soon be over and we shall be
happy again.”
“Do not talk of it,” cried the baroness. “It is a horror. I saw Lory,
after Wörth, and that was enough war for me. And, figure to yourself!--I
am all alone in this great house. It is a charity to come and stay with
me. Lory has gone to the front. My husband, who said he loved me--where
is he? Bonjour, and he is gone. He leaves me without a regret. And I, who
cry my eyes out; or would cry them out if I were a fool--such as
mademoiselle thinks me. Ah! I do not know what has come to all the men.”
“But I do,” said mademoiselle, who had seen war before.
And the baroness, looking at that still face, laughed her gay little
inconsequent laugh.
A carriage was waiting for them in the shade of the trees on the
market-place, its smart horses and men forming a strong contrast to the
untidy town and slip-shod idlers. As usual, a game of bowls was in
progress, and absorbed all the attention of the local intelligence.
“We have half an hour through the pine trees,” said the baroness,
settling herself energetically on the cushions. “And, do you know, I am
thankful to see you. I thought you would be prevented coming.”
She glanced at Denise as she spoke, and with a suddenly grave face, leant
forward, and whispered--
“The news is bad--the news is bad. All this has been organized by Lory
and my husband, who told me, in so many words, that they must have us
where they can find us at a moment's notice. In case--ah, mon Dieu! I do
not know what is going to happen to us all.”
“Then are we to be moved about, like ornaments, from one safe place to
another?” asked Denise, with a laugh which was not wholly spontaneous.
“I have never been treated as an ornament yet,” put in Mademoiselle Brun,
“and it is perhaps rather late to begin now.”
Denise looked at her inquiringly.
“Yes,” said the little woman, quietly. “I am going to the war--if Jane
will take care of you while I am away.”
“And why should not I go too?” asked Denise.
“Because you are too young and too pretty, my dear--since you ask a plain
question,” replied the baroness, impulsively. Then she turned towards
mademoiselle. “You know,” she said, “that my precious stupid is
organizing a field hospital.”
“I thought he would find something to do,” answered mademoiselle, curtly.
“Yes,” said the baroness, slowly, “yes--because when he was a boy he had
for governess a certain little woman whose teaching was deeds, not words.
And he is paying for it himself. And we shall all be ruined.”
She spread out her rich dress, lay back in her luxurious carriage, and
smiled on Mademoiselle Brun with something that was not mirth at the back
of her brown eyes.
“I shall go to him,” said mademoiselle. And the baroness made no reply
for some moments.
“Do you know what he said?” she asked. “He said we shall want women--old
ones. I know one old woman who will come!”
Mademoiselle was buttoning her cotton gloves and did not seem to hear.
“It was, of course, Lory,” went on the baroness, “who encouraged him and
told him how to go about it. And then he went back to the front to fight.
Mon Dieu! he can fight--that Lory!”
“Where is he?” asked mademoiselle. And the baroness spread out her gloved
hands.
“At the front--I cannot tell you more.”
And mademoiselle did not speak again. She was essentially a woman of her
word. She had undertaken to find Lory and give him that odd, inexplicable
message from the abbé. She had not undertaken much in her narrow life;
but she had usually accomplished, in a quiet, mouse-like way, that to
which she set her hand. And now, as she drove through the smiling
country, with which it was almost impossible to associate the idea of
war, she was planning how she could get to the front and work there under
the Baron de Mélide, and find Lory de Vasselot.
“They are somewhere near a little place called Sedan,” said the baroness.
And Mademoiselle Brun set out that same day for the little place called
Sedan; then known vaguely as a fortress on the Belgian frontier, and now
for ever written in every Frenchman's heart as the scene of one of those
stupendous catastrophes to which France seems liable, and from which she
alone has the power of recovery. For, whatever the history of the French
may be, it has never been dull reading, and she has shown the whole world
that one may carry a brave and a light heart out of the deepest tragedy.
By day and night Mademoiselle Brun, sitting upright in a dark corner of a
second-class carriage, made her way northward across France. No one
questioned her, and she asked no one's help. A silent little old woman
assuredly attracts less attention to her comings and goings than any
other human being. And on the third day mademoiselle actually reached
Chalons, which many a more important traveller might at this time have
failed to do. She found the town in confusion, the civilians bewildered,
the soldiers sullen. No one knew what an hour might bring forth. It was
not even known who was in command. The emperor was somewhere near, but no
one knew where. General officers were seeking their army-corps. Private
soldiers were wandering in the streets seeking food and quarters. The
railway station was blocked with stores which had been hastily discharged
from trucks wanted elsewhere. And it was no one's business to distribute
the stores.
Mademoiselle Brun wandered from shop to shop, gathering a hundred rumours
but no information. “The emperor is dying--Macmahon is wounded,” a
butcher told her, as he mechanically sharpened his knife at her approach,
though he had not as much as a bone in his shop to sell her.
She stopped a cuirassier riding a lame horse, his own leg hastily
bandaged with a piece of coloured calico.
“What regiment?” she asked.
“I have no regiment. There is nothing left. You see in me the colonel,
and the majors, and the captains. I am the regiment,” he answered with a
laugh that made mademoiselle bite her steady lip.
“Where are you going?”
“I don't know. Can you give me a little money?”
“I can give you a franc. I have not too much myself. Where have you come
from?”
“I don't know. None of us knew where we were.”
He thanked her, observed that he was very hungry, and rode on. She found
a night's lodging at a seed-chandler's who had no seeds to sell.
“They will not need them this year,” he said. “The Prussians are riding
over the corn.”
The next morning the indomitable little woman went on her way towards
Sedan in a forage-cart which was going to the front. She told the
corporal in charge that she was attached to the Baron de Mélide's field
hospital and must get to her work.
“You will not like it when you get there, my brave lady,” said the man,
good-humouredly, making room for her.
“I shall like it better than doing nothing here,” she replied.
And so they set forth through the country heavy with harvest. It was the
second of September. The corn was ripe, the leaves were already turning;
for it had been a dry summer, and since April hardly any rain had fallen.
It was getting late in the afternoon when they met a man in a dog-cart
driving at a great pace. He pulled up when he saw them. His face was the
colour of lead, his eyes were startlingly bloodshot.
“This parishioner has been badly scared,” muttered the soldier who was
driving Mademoiselle Brun.
“Where are you going?” asked the stranger in a high, thin voice.
“To Sedan.”
“Then turn back,” he cried; “Sedan is no place for a woman. It is a hell
on earth. I saw it all, mon Dieu. I saw it all. I was at Bazeilles. I saw
the children thrown into the windows of the burning houses. I saw the
Bavarians shoot our women in the streets. I saw the troops rush into
Sedan like rabbits into their holes, and then the Prussians bombarded
the town. They had six hundred guns all round the town, and they fired
upon that little place which was packed full like a sheep-pen. It is not
war--it is butchery. What is the good God doing? What is He thinking of?”
And the man, who had the pasty face of a clerk or a commercial traveller,
raised his whip to heaven in a gesture of fierce anger. Mademoiselle Brun
looked at him with measuring eyes. He was almost a man at that moment.
But perhaps her standard of manhood was too high.
“And is Sedan taken?” she asked quietly.
“Sedan is taken. Macmahon is wounded. The emperor is prisoner, and the
whole French army has surrendered. Ninety thousand men. The Prussians had
two hundred and forty thousand men. Ah! That emperor--that scoundrel!”
Mademoiselle Brun looked at him coldly, but without surprise. She had
dealt with Frenchmen all her life, and probably expected that the fallen
should be reviled--an unfortunate characteristic in an otherwise great
national spirit.
“And the cavalry?” she asked.
“Ah!” cried the man, and again his dull eye flashed. “The cavalry were
splendid. They tried to cut their way out. They passed through the
Prussian cavalry and actually faced the infantry, but the fire was
terrible. No man ever saw or heard anything like it. The cuirassiers were
mown down like corn. The cavalry exists no longer, madame, but its name
is immortal.”
There was nothing poetic about Mademoiselle Brun, who listened rather
coldly.
“And you,” she asked, “what are you? you are assuredly a Frenchman?”
“Yes--I am a Frenchman.”
“And yet your back is turned,” said Mademoiselle Brun, “towards the
Prussians.”
“I am a writer,” explained the man--“a journalist. It is my duty to go to
some safe place and write of all that I have seen.”
“Ah!” said Mademoiselle Brun. “Let us, my friend,” she said, turning to
her companion on the forage-cart, “proceed towards Sedan. We are
fortunately not in the position of monsieur.”