cross over the barn; did you notice?"
Before she could answer, one of the soldiers on the balcony of
the Château fired. Another rose from behind a mattress and fired
also; then half a dozen shots rang out, and the smoke whirled up
over the roof of the house. The officer on the ladder was
motioning to the group of officers below; already the artillerymen
were running the three cannon forward to the port-holes that had
been pierced in the park wall.
"Come," said Jack.
"Not yet--I am not frightened."
A loud explosion enveloped the wall in sulphurous clouds, and a
cannon jumped back in recoil. The cannoneers swarmed around it,
there was a quick movement of a sponger, an order, a falling into
place of rigid artillerymen, then bang! and another up-rush of
smoke. And now the other cannon joined in--crash! bang!--and the
garden swam in the swirling fog. Infantry, too, were firing all
along the wall, and on the other side of the house the rippling
crash of the gatling-gun rolled with the rolling volleys. Jack
led Lorraine to the rear of the Château, but she refused to stay,
and he reluctantly followed her into the house.
From every mattress-stuffed window the red-legged soldiers were
firing out across the lawn towards the woods; the smoke drifted
back into the house in thin shreds that soon filled the rooms
with a blue haze.
Suddenly something struck the chandelier and shattered it to the
gilt candle-sockets. Lorraine looked at it, startled, but another
bullet whizzed into the room, starring the long mirror, and
another knocked the plaster from the fireplace. Jack had her out
of the room in a second, and presently they found themselves in
the cellar, the very cement beneath their feet shaking under the
tremendous shocks of the cannon.
"Wait for me. Do you promise, Lorraine?"
"Yes."
He hurried up to the terrace again, and out across the gravel
drive to the stable.
"Alixe!" he called.
She came quietly to him, her arms full of linen bandages. There
was nothing of fear or terror in her cheeks, nothing even of
grief now, but her eyes transfigured her face, and he scarcely
knew it.
"What can I do?" he asked.
"Nothing. The wounded are quiet. Is there water in the well?"
He brought her half a dozen buckets, one after another, and set
them side by side in the harness-room, where three or four
surgeons lounged around two kitchen-tables, on which sponges,
basins, and cases of instruments lay. There was a sickly odour of
ether in the air, mingled with the rank stench of carbolic acid.
"Lorraine is in the cellar. Do you need her? Surely not--when I
am ready," he said.
"No; go and stay with her. If I need you I will send."
He could scarcely hear her in the tumult and din, but he
understood and nodded, watching her busy with her lint and
bandages. As he turned to go, the first of the wounded, a mere
boy, was brought in on the shoulders of a comrade. Jack heard him
scream as they laid him on the table; then he went soberly away
to the cellar where Lorraine sat, her face in her hands.
"We are holding the Château," he said. "Will you stay quietly for
a little while longer, if I go out again?"
"If you wish," she said.
He longed to take her in his arms. He did not; he merely said,
"Wait for me," and went away again out into the smoke.
From the upper-story windows, where he had climbed, he could see
to the edge of the forest. Already three columns of men had
started out from the trees across the meadow towards the park
wall. They advanced slowly and steadily, firing as they came on.
Somewhere, in the smoke, a Prussian band was playing gayly, and
Jack thought of the Bavarians at the Geisberg, and their bands
playing as the men fell like leaves in the Château gardens.
He had his field-glasses with him, and he fixed them on the
advancing columns. They were Bavarians, after all--there was no
mistaking the light-blue uniforms and fur-crested helmets. And
now he made out their band, plodding stolidly along, trombones
and bass-drums wheezing and banging away in the rifle-smoke; he
could even see the band-master swinging his halberd forward.
Suddenly the nearest column broke into a heavy run, cheering
hoarsely. The other columns came on with a rush; the band halted,
playing them in at the death with a rollicking quickstep; then
all was blotted out in the pouring cannon-smoke. Flash on flash
the explosions followed each other, lighting the gloom with a
wavering yellow glare, and on the terrace the gatling whirred and
spluttered its slender streams of flame, while the treble crash
of the chassepots roared accompaniment.
Once or twice Jack thought he heard the rattle of their little
harsh, flat drums, but he could see them no longer; they were in
that smoke-pall somewhere, coming on towards the park wall.
Bugles began to sound--French bugles--clear and sonorous. Across
the lawn by the river a battalion of French infantry were
running, firing as they ran. He saw them settle at last like
quail among the stubble, curling up and crouching in groups and
bevies, alert heads raised. Then the firing rippled along the
front, and the lawn became gray with smoke.
As he went down the stairs and into the garden he heard the soldiers
saying that the charge had been checked. The wounded were being
borne towards the barn, long lines of them, heads and limbs hanging
limp. A horse in the garden was ending a death-struggle among the
cucumber-frames, and the battery-men were cutting the traces to give
him free play. Upon the roof a thin column of smoke and sparks rose,
where a Prussian shell--the first as yet--had fallen and exploded
in the garret. Some soldiers were knocking the sparks from the roof
with the butts of their rifles.
When he went into the cellar again Lorraine was pacing restlessly
along the wine-bins.
"I cannot stay here," she said. "Jack, get some bottles of brandy
and come to the barn. The wounded will need them."
"You cannot go out. I will take them."
"No, I shall go."
"I ask you not to."
"Let me, Jack," she said, coming up to him--"with you."
He could not make her listen; she went with him, her slender arms
loaded with bottles. The shells were falling in the garden now;
one burst and flung a shower of earth and glass over them.
"Hurry!" he said. "Are you crazy, Lorraine, to come out into
this?"
"Don't scold, Jack," she whispered.
When she entered the stable he breathed more freely. He watched
her face narrowly, but she did not blanch at the sickening
spectacle of the surgeons' tables.
They placed their bottles of brandy along the side of a
box-stall, and stood together watching the file of wounded
passing in at the door.
"They do not need us here, yet," he said. "I wonder where Alixe
is?"
"There is a Sister of Mercy out on the skirmish-line across the
lawn," said a soldier of the hospital corps, pointing with bloody
hands towards the smoke-veiled river.
Jack looked at Lorraine in utter despair.
"I must go; she can't stay there," he muttered.
"Yes, you must go," repeated Lorraine. "She will be shot."
"Will you wait here?" he asked.
"Yes."
So he went away, thinking bitterly that she did not care whether
he lived or died--that she let him leave her without a word of
fear, of kindness. Then, for the first time, he realized that she
had never, after all, been touched by his devotion; that she had
never understood, nor cared to understand, his love for her. He
walked out across the smoky lawn, the din of the rifles in his
ears, the bitterness of death in his heart. He knew he was going
into danger--that he was already in peril. Bullets whistled
through the smoke as he advanced towards the firing-line, where,
in the fog, dim figures were outlined here and there. He passed
an officer, standing with bared sword, watching his men digging
up the sod and piling it into low breastworks. He went on,
passing others, sometimes two soldiers bearing a wounded man, now
and then a maimed creature writhing on the grass or hobbling away
to the rear. The battle-line lay close to him now--long open
ranks of men, flat on their stomachs, firing into the smoke
across the river-bank. Their officers loomed up in the gloom,
some leaning quietly back on their sword-hilts, some pacing to
and fro, smoking, or watchfully steadying the wearied men.
Almost at once he saw Alixe. She was standing beside a tall
wounded officer, giving him something to drink from a tin cup.
"Alixe," said Jack, "this is not your place."
She looked at him tranquilly as the wounded man was led away by a
soldier of the hospital corps.
"It is my place."
"No," he said, violently, "you are trying to find death here!"
"I seek nothing," she said, in a gentle, tired voice; "let me
go."
"Come back. Alixe--your brother is alive."
She looked at him impassively.
"My brother?"
"Yes."
"I have no brother."
He understood and chafed inwardly.
"Come, Alixe," he urged; "for Heaven's sake, try to live and
forget--"
"I have nothing to forget--everything to remember. Let me pass."
She touched the blood-stained cross on her breast. "Do you not
see? That was white once. So was my soul."
"It is now," he said, gently. "Come back."
A wounded man somewhere in the smoke called, "Water! water! In
the name of God!--my sister--"
"I am coming!" called Alixe, clearly.
"To me first! Hasten, my sister!" groaned another.
"Patience, children--I come!" called Alixe.
With a gesture she passed Jack; a flurry of smoke hid her. The
pungent powder-fog made his eyes dim; his ears seemed to split
with the terrific volley firing.
He turned away and went back across the lawn, only to stop at the
well in the garden, fill two buckets, and plod back to the
firing-line again. He found plenty to do there; he helped Alixe,
following her with his buckets where she passed among the
wounded, the stained cross on her breast. Once a bullet struck a
pail full of water, and he held his finger in the hole until the
water was all used up. Twice he heard cheering and the splash of
cavalry in the shallow river, but they seemed to be beaten off
again, and he went about his business, listless, sombre, a dead
weight at his heart.
He had been kneeling beside a wounded man for some minutes when
he became conscious that the firing had almost ceased. Bugles
were sounding near the Château; long files of troops passed him
in the lifting smoke; officers shouted along the river-bank.
He rose to his feet and looked around for Alixe. She was not in
sight. He walked towards the river-bank, watching for her, but he
could not find her.
"Did you see a Sister of Mercy pass this way?" he asked an
officer who sat on the grass, smoking and bandaging his foot.
A soldier passing, using his rifle as a crutch, said: "I saw a
Sister of Mercy. She went towards the Château. I think she was
hurt."
"Hurt!"
"I heard somebody say so." Jack turned and hastened towards the
stables. He crossed the lawn, threaded his way among the low sod
breastworks, where the infantry lay grimy and exhausted, and
entered the garden. She was not there. He hurried to the stables;
Lorraine met him, holding a basin and a sponge.
"Where is Alixe?" he asked.
"She is not here," said Lorraine. "Has she been hurt?"
"I don't know."
He looked at her a moment, then turned away, coldly. On the
terrace the artillerymen were sponging the blood from the breech
of their gatling where some wretch's brains had been spattered by
a shell-fragment. They told him that a Sister of Mercy had passed
into the house ten minutes before; that she walked as though very
tired, but did not appear to have been hurt.
"She is up-stairs," he thought. "She must not stay there alone
with Sir Thorald." And he climbed the stairs and knocked softly
at the door of the death-chamber.
"Alixe," he said, gently, opening the door, "you must not stay
here."
She was kneeling at the bedside, her face buried on the breast of
the dead man.
"Alixe," he said, but his voice broke in spite of him, and he
went to her and touched her.
Very tenderly he raised her head, looked into her eyes, then
quietly turned away.
Outside the door he met Lorraine.
"Don't go in," he murmured.
She looked fearfully up into his face.
"Yes," he said, "she was shot through the body."
Then he closed the door and turned the key on the outside,
leaving the dead to the dead.
XXIII
LORRAINE SLEEPS
The next day the rain fell in torrents; long, yellow streams of
water gushed from pipe and culvert, turning the roads to lakes of
amber and the trodden lawns to sargasso seas.
Not a shot had been fired since twilight of the day before,
although on the distant hills Uhlans were seen racing about,
gathering in groups, or sitting on their horses in solitary
observation of the Château.
Out on the meadows, between the park wall and the fringe of
nearer forest, the Bavarian dead lay, dotting the green pelouse
with blots of pale blue; the wounded had been removed to the
cover of the woods.
Around the Château the sallow-faced fantassins slopped through
the mire, the artillery trains lay glistening under their
waterproof coverings, the long, slim cannon in the breeches
dripped with rain. Bright blotches of rust, like brilliant fungi,
grew and spread from muzzle to vent. These were rubbed away at
times by stiff-limbed soldiers, swathed to the eyes in blue
overcoats.
The line of battle stretched from the Château Morteyn, parallel
with the river and the park wall, to the Château de Nesville; and
along this line the officers were riding all day, muffled to the
chin in their great-coats, crimson caps soaked, rain-drops
gathering in brilliant beads under the polished visors. That they
expected a shelling was evident, for the engineers were at work
excavating pits and burrows, and the infantry were filling sacks
with earth, while in the Château itself preparations were in
progress for the fighting of fire.
The white flag with the red-cross centre hung limp and drenched
over the stables and barns. In the corn-field beyond, long
trenches were being dug for the dead. Already two such trenches
had been filled and covered over with dirt; and at the head of
each soldier's grave a bayonet or sabre was driven into the
ground for a head-stone.
Early that morning, while the rain drove into the ground in one
sheeted downpour, they buried Sir Thorald and little Alixe, side
by side, on the summit of a mound overlooking the river Lisse.
Jack drove the tumbril; four soldiers of the line followed. It
was soon over; the mellow bugle sounded a brief "lights out," the
linesmen presented arms. Then Jack mounted the cart and drove
back, his head on his breast, the rain driving coldly in his
face. Some officers came later with a rough wooden cross and a
few field flowers. They hammered the cross deep into the mud
between Sir Thorald and little Alixe. Later still Jack returned
with a spade and worked for an hour, shaping the twin mounds.
Before he finished he saw Lorraine climbing the hill. Two wreaths
of yellow gorse hung from one arm, interlaced like thorn crowns;
and when she came up, Jack, leaning silently on his spade, saw
that her fair hands were cut and bleeding from plaiting the
thorn-covered blossoms.
They spoke briefly, almost coldly. Lorraine hung the two wreaths
over the head-piece of the cross and, kneeling, signed herself.
When she rose Jack replaced his cap, but said nothing. They stood
side by side, looking out across the woods, where, behind a
curtain of mist and rain, the single turret of the Château de
Nesville was hidden.
She seemed restless and preoccupied, and he, answering aloud her
unasked question, said, "I am going to search the forest to-day.
I cannot bear to leave you, but it must be done, for your sake
and for the sake of France."
She answered: "Yes, it must be done. I shall go with you."
"You cannot," he said; "there is danger in the forest."
"You are going?"
"Yes."
They said nothing more for a moment or two. He was thinking of
Alixe and her love for Sir Thorald. Who would have thought it
could have turned out so? He looked down at the river Lisse,
where, under the trees of the bank, they had all sat that day--a
day that already seemed legendary, so far, so far in the
mist-hung landscape of the past. He seemed to hear Molly
Hesketh's voice, soft, ironical, upbraiding Sir Thorald; he
seemed to see them all there in the sunshine--Dorothy, Rickerl,
Cecil, Betty Castlemaine--he even saw himself strolling up to
them, gun under arm, while Sir Thorald waved his wine-cup and
bantered him.
He looked at the river. The green row-boat lay on the bank, keel
up, shattered by a shell; the trees were covered with yellow,
seared foliage that dropped continually into the water; the river
itself was a canal of mud. And, as he looked, a dead man, face
under water, sped past, caught on something, drifted, spun
giddily in an eddy, washed to and fro, then floated on under the
trees.
"You will catch cold here in the rain," he said, abruptly.
"You also, Jack."
They walked a few steps towards the house, then stopped and
looked at each other.
"You are drenched," he said; "you must go to your room and lie
down."
"I will--if you wish," she answered.
He drew her rain-cloak around her, buttoned the cape and high
collar, and settled the hood on her head. She looked up under her
pointed hood.
"Do you care so much for me?" she asked, listlessly.
"Will you give me the right--always--forever?"
"Do you mean that--that you love me?"
"I have always loved you."
Still she looked up at him from the shadow of her hood.
"I love you, Lorraine."
One arm was around her now, and with the other hand he held both
of hers.
She spoke, her eyes on his.
"I loved you once. I did not know it then. It was the first night
there on the terrace--when they were dancing. I loved you
again--after our quarrel, when you found me by the river. Again
I loved you, when we were alone in the Château and you came to
see me in the library."
He drew her to him, but she resisted.
"Now it is different," she said. "I do not love you--like that. I
do not know what I feel; I do not care for that--for that love. I
need something warmer, stronger, more kindly--something I never
have had. My childhood is gone, Jack, and yet I am tortured with
the craving for it; I want to be little again--I want to play
with children--with young girls; I want to be tired with pleasure
and go to bed with a mother bending over me. It is that--it is
that that I need, Jack--a mother to hold me as you do. Oh, if you
knew--if you knew! Beside my bed I feel about in the dark, half
asleep, reaching out for the mother I never knew--the mother I
need. I picture her; she is like my father, only she is always
with me. I lie back and close my eyes and try to think that she
is there in the dark--close--close. Her cheeks and hands are
warm; I can never see her eyes, but I know they are like mine. I
know, too, that she has always been with me--from the years that
I have forgotten--always with me, watching me that I come to no
harm--anxious for me, worrying because my head is hot or my hands
cold. In my half-sleep I tell her things--little intimate things
that she must know. We talk of everything--of papa, of the house,
of my pony, of the woods and the Lisse. With her I have spoken of
you often, Jack. And now all is said; I am glad you let me tell
you, Jack. I can never love you like--like that, but I need you,
and you will be near me, always, won't you? I need your love. Be
gentle, be firm in little things. Let me come to you and fret.
You are all I have."
The intense grief in her face, the wide, childish eyes, the cold
little hands tightening in his, all these touched the manhood in
him, and he answered manfully, putting away from himself all that
was weak or selfish, all that touched on love of man for woman:
"Let me be all you ask," he said. "My love is of that kind,
also."
"My darling Jack," she murmured, putting both arms around his
neck.
He kissed her peacefully.
"Come," he said. "Your shoes are soaking. I am going to take
charge of you now."
When they entered the house he took her straight to her room,
drew up an arm-chair, lighted the fire, filled a foot-bath with
hot water, and, calmly opening the wardrobe, pulled out a warm
bath-robe. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he knelt and
unbuttoned her shoes.
"Now," he said, "I'll be back in five minutes. Let me find you
sitting here, with your feet in that hot water."
Before she could answer, he went out. A thrill of comfort passed
through her; she drew the wet stockings over her feet, shivered,
slipped out of skirt and waist, put on the warm, soft bath-robe,
and, sinking back in the chair, placed both little white feet in
the foot-bath.
"I am ready, Jack," she called, softly.
He came in with a tray of tea and toast and a bit of cold
chicken. She followed his movement with tired, shy eyes,
wondering at his knowledge of little things. They ate their
luncheon together by the fire. Twice he gravely refilled the
foot-bath with hotter water, and she settled back in her soft,
warm chair, sighing contentment.
After a while he lighted a cigarette and read to her--fairy tales
from Perrault--legends that all children know--all children who
have known mothers. Lorraine did not know them. At first she
frowned a little, watching him dubiously, but little by little
the music of the words and the fragrance of the sweet, vague
tales crept into her heart, and she listened breathless to the
stories, older than Egypt--stories that will outlast the last
pyramid.
Once he laid down his book and told her of the Prince of Argolis
and Æthra; of the sandals and sword, of Medea, and of the
wreathed wine-cup. He told her, too, of the Isantee, and the
legends of the gray gull, of Harpan and Chaské, and the white
lodge of hope.
She listened like a tired child, her wrist curved under her chin,
the bath-robe close to her throat. While she listened she moved
her feet gently in the hot water, nestling back with the thrill
of the warmth that mounted to her cheeks.
Then they were silent, their eyes on each other.
Down-stairs some rain-soaked officer was playing on the piano old
songs of Lorraine and Alsace. He tried to sing, too, but his
voice broke, whether from emotion or hoarseness they could not
tell. A moment or two later a dripping infantry band marched out
to the conservatory and began to play. The dismal trombone
vibrated like a fog-horn, the wet drums buzzed and clattered, the
trumpets wailed with the rising wind in the chimneys. They
played for an hour, then stopped abruptly in the middle of
"Partons pour la Syrie," and Jack and Lorraine heard them
trampling away--slop, slop--across the gravel drive.
The fire in the room made the air heavy, and he raised one window
a little way, but the wet wind was rank with the odour of
disinfectants and ether from the stable hospital, and he closed
the window after a moment.
"I spent all the morning with the wounded," said Lorraine, from
the depths of her chair. The child-like light in her eyes had
gone; nothing but woman's sorrow remained in their gray-blue
depths.
Jack rose, picked up a big soft towel, and, deliberately lifting
one of her feet from the water, rubbed it until it turned rosy.
Then he rubbed the other, wrapped the bath-robe tightly about
her, lifted her in his arms, threw back the bed-covers, and laid
her there snug and warm.
"Sleep," he said.
She held up both arms with a divine smile.
"Stay with me until I sleep," she murmured drowsily. Her eyes
closed; one hand sought his.
After a while she fell asleep.
XXIV
LORRAINE AWAKES
When Lorraine had been asleep for an hour, Jack stole from the
room and sought the old general who was in command of the park.
He found him on the terrace, smoking and watching the woods
through his field-glasses.
"Monsieur," said Jack, "my ward, Mademoiselle de Nesville, is
asleep in her chamber. I must go to the forest yonder and try to
find her father's body. I dare not leave her alone unless I may
confide her to you."
"My son," said the old man, "I accept the charge. Can you give me
the next room?"
"The next room is where our little Sister of Mercy died."
"I have journeyed far with death--I am at home in death's
chamber," said the old general. He followed Jack to the
death-room, accompanied by his aide-de-camp.
"It will do," he said. Then, turning to an aid, "Place a sentry
at the next door. When the lady awakes, call me."