It was more irritating than ever for Mrs. Galland to keep pace with her
daughter's inconsistencies. There was a Marta listening in partisan
sympathy to Hugo's story of why he had refused to fight and telling the
story of her school in return. There was a Marta seizing Hugo's hand in
a quick, impulsive grasp as she exclaimed: "Your act personified what I
taught my children!" There was a Marta planning how he should be
secreted in the coachman's quarters over the stable, where he would be
reasonably free from discovery until his strength was regained. Then
here was another Marta, after Hugo had been carried away on the litter,
saying coolly to her mother:
"'Unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's!' We have our property, our
home to protect. Perhaps the Grays have come to stay for good, so
graciousness is our only weapon. We cannot fight a whole army
single-handed."
"You have found that out, Marta?" said Mrs. Galland.
"We have four rooms in the baron's tower and a kitchen stove," Marta
proceeded. "With Minna we can make ourselves very comfortable and leave
the house to the staff."
"The Gallands in their gardener's quarters! The staff of the Grays in
ours! Your father will turn in his grave!" Mrs. Galland exclaimed.
"But, mother, it is not quite agreeable to think of three women living
in the same house with a score of strange men!" Marta persisted.
"I had not thought of that, Marta. Of course, it would be abominable!"
agreed Mrs. Galland, promptly capitulating where a point of propriety
was involved.
When Marta informed the officer--the same one who had rung the door-bell
on his second visit--of the family's decision he appeared shocked at the
idea of eviction that was implied. But, secretly pleased at the turn of
events, he hastened to apologize for war's brutal necessities, and
Marta's complaisance led him to consider himself something of a
diplomatist. Yes, more than ever he was convinced of the wisdom of an
invader ringing door-bells.
Meanwhile, the service-corps men had continued their work until now
there was no vestige of war in the grounds that labor could obliterate;
and masons had come to repair the walls of the house itself and
plasterers to renew the broken ceilings.
All this Marta regarded in a kind of charmed wonder that an invader
could be so considerate. Her manner with the officers in charge of
preparations had the simplicity and ease which a woman of twenty-seven,
who is not old-maidish because she is not afraid of a single future, may
employ as a serene hostess. She frequently asked if there were good
news.
"Yes," was the uniform reply. An unexpected setback here or resistance
there, but progress, nevertheless. But she learned, too, that the first
two days' fighting along the frontier had cost the Grays fifty thousand
casualties.
"In order to make an omelet you must break eggs!" she remarked.
"Spoken like a true soldier--like a member of the staff!" was the reply.
In her constraint and detachment they realized her conscious
appreciation of the fact that in earlier times her people had been for
the Browns; but in her flashes of interest in the progress of the war,
flashes from a woman's unmilitary mind, they judged that her heart was
with the Grays. And why not? Was it not natural that a woman with more
than her share of intellectual perception should be on the right side?
From her associations it was not to be expected that she would make an
outright declaration of apostasy. This would destroy the value and the
attractiveness of her conversion Reverence for the past, for a father
who had fought for the Browns, against her own convictions, made her
attitude appear singularly and delicately correct.
Though everything was ready for them, the staff delayed coming owing to
the stubbornness of some heavy guns of the Browns, which, while they had
directed no shells against the house, had shown that they had the range
by unexpectedly playing havoc with infantry in close order on the pass
road at the foot of the garden and with transportation on the castle
road. But at last the battery was silenced and the mind of the army
might establish itself in its offices on the ground floor and its
quarters on the second floor without being in danger.
The war was a week old--a week which had developed other tangents and
traps than La Tir--on the morning that the first instalment of junior
officers came to occupy the tables and desks. Where the family portraits
had hung in the dining-room were now big maps dotted with brown and gray
flags. Portable field cabinets with sectional maps on a large scale were
arranged around the walls of the drawing-room. In what had been the
lounging room of the old days of Galland prosperity, the refrain of half
a dozen telegraph instruments made medley with the clicking of
typewriters. Cooks and helpers were busy in the kitchen; for the staff
were to live like gentlemen; they were to have their morning baths,
their comfortable beds, and regular meals. No twinge of indigestion or
of rheumatism from exposure was to interfere with the working of their
precious intellectual processes. No detail of assistance would be
lacking to save any bureaucratic head time and labor The bedrooms were
apportioned according to rank--that of the master awaited the master;
the best servant's bedroom awaited François, his valet.
When Bouchard, the chief of intelligence, who fought the battle of wits
and spies against Lanstron, came, two hours before Westerling was due,
the last of the staff except Westerling and his personal aide had
arrived Bouchard, with his iron-gray hair, bushy eyebrows, strong,
aquiline nose, and hawk-like eyes, his mouth hidden by a bristly
mustache, was lean and saturnine, and he was loyal. No jealous thought
entered his mind at having to serve a man younger than himself. He did
not serve a personality; he served a chief of staff and a profession.
The score of words which escaped him as he looked over the arrangements
were all of directing criticism and bitten off sharply, as if he
regretted that he had to waste breath in communicating even a thought.
"I tell nothing, but you tell me everything!" said Bouchard's hawk eyes.
He was old-fashioned; he looked his part, which was one of the many
points of difference between him and Lanstron as a chief of
intelligence.
After he had gone through the house he went for a flyspecking tour of
the grounds, where he came upon a private of the Grays on crutches. With
rest and good food the tiny hole in Hugo's leg from the merciful
small-calibre bullet had healed rapidly. Confinement was irksome on a
sunny day. He had grown strong enough in spirit to face his fate,
whatever it might be, and in the absence of the watchful coachman he had
risked the delight of a convalescent's adventure in the open, clad in
his uniform, the only clothes he had. Bouchard saw instantly that this
private did not wear the insignia of staff service.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Getting well of a wound," answered Hugo, looking frankly into the hawk
eyes.
"Evidently!" said Bouchard, who was always irritated when told what he
could see for himself. "Why aren't you at a hospital?"
"I was not wanted there!" said Hugo.
"What! what!" But Bouchard had wasted two words. "Your name and
regiment?" he asked.
"Hugo Mallin, of the 128th," replied Hugo.
"Uh-h!" Bouchard's pigeonhole memory had retained the name.
"Charge--mutiny under fire; anarchism!" he went on, chopping out the
words as if they were chips from a piece of granite. "Well, you have not
escaped trial by hiding."
"I did not flatter myself that with one leg against a whole army I had
much chance, sir!" Hugo replied respectfully.
"Uh-h!" The hawk eyes flashed their disapproval of such controversial
freedom of language from a private. Had he had his way he would have
hanged Hugo to the nearest tree; for Bouchard had truly a mediæval soul.
But Hugo's case was so extraordinary that it had reached Westerling's
ears, and Bouchard knew that Westerling wished to see Hugo when he was
apprehended. It was not for Bouchard to consider this desire of a chief
of staff to deal with the case of a private in person as singular. No
request of the chief of staff was singular to him. It became a matter of
natural law. He called to one of the staff guards who was pacing back
and forth near by.
"Take this man in charge and watch him sharply until General Westerling
sends for him!"
"And you will get justice from General Westerling!" It was Marta's
voice. In approaching she had unavoidably overheard part of the
conversation. "Justice is his first characteristic!" she added as the
hawk eyes turned their scrutiny into hers, which were calm and smiling.
Hugo had not seen Marta since he had been carried to the coachman's
quarters. Minna had visited him frequently, bearing inquiries from her
mistress as well as custards. He had looked forward to a talk with Marta
as a kindred spirit, yet it was difficult for him to reconcile the
woman speaking now with the woman who had kissed him on the forehead.
But he said nothing as he was marched away.
"Miss Galland!" exclaimed Bouchard in a way that said he knew her story.
"Yes, that little monkey can depend on more justice than he deserves.
The unanswerable evidence is on the chief of staff's desk awaiting his
arrival."
Bouchard's hawk eyes probed hers for an instant longer and seemed to
find nothing to call further curiosity; then he lifted his cap and
proceeded with his tour of inspection.
Marta smiled thoughtfully as she watched his receding figure, while her
eyelashes narrowed and she inclined her head with a nod before she moved
away in the direction of the tower. There was almost complete silence
along the front. Since yesterday's action, which had checked the guns
commanding the range of the house, there had been little firing. She
guessed that the lull was only a recess of preparation for the grand
attack on the first line of permanent defence, and that probably this
would follow Westerling's arrival. He was due at four o'clock and he
would be characteristically prompt to the minute.
"It must not be! Hugo Mallin is too fine a spirit to be sacrificed. I'll
go on my knees, if need be, to Westerling," Marta was thinking as she
paced back and forth in her room. On her knees to him! She stopped
short, struck in revolt with a memory of the way he had looked at her
once as she sat across the tea-table from him in the hotel
reception-room. "No, I could not endure that except as a last resort. If
ever there were a time to use all my wits it is now--to save Hugo
Mallin, the one soldier who acted out the principles which I taught my
children!"