… Before daybreak on the 5th of August. The house was silent. The invaders had gone. Louise, a livid spectre in the pale grey dawn, had staggered from her room—passing the dead Amour on Chérie's threshold—and had stumbled down the stairs. There at the foot of the wrought-iron banister lay Mireille, her mouth open, her breath coming in gasps, like a little dying bird.
Louise had raised her, had unwound the long scarf that bound her, had sprinkled water on her face and poured brandy down her throat … until Mireille had opened her eyes. Then Louise had seen that they were not Mireille's eyes. There was frenzy and vacancy in the pale orbs that wandered round the room, wandered and wandered—until they stopped and were fixed, suddenly wild, hallucinated and intent. On what were they fixed with such an expression of unearthly terror? The mother turned to see.
Mireille's wild gaze was fixed upon a door, the red-curtained door of a bedroom. It was a spare room, seldom used; sometimes a guest or one of Claude's patients had slept there.
It was on this door—now flung wide open and with the red drapery torn down—that Mireille's wild, meaningless gaze was fixed. Louise looked. Then she looked again, without moving. She could see that the electric lights were burning in the room; a chair was overturned in the doorway, and there, there on the bed, lay a figure—Chérie! Chérie still in her white muslin dress all torn and bloodstained, Chérie with her two hands stretched upwards and tied to the bedpost above her head. A wide pink ribbon had been torn from her hair and used to tie her hands to the brass bedstead. Her face was scratched and bleeding. She was quite unconscious. Louise thought she was dead.
Ah! how had she found the strength to lift her, to call her, to drag her back to life, weeping over her and Mireille, gazing with maddened despair from one unconscious figure to the other?… She had dressed them, she had dragged and carried them down the stairs at the back of the house. Should she call for help? Should she go crying their shame and despair down the village street? No! no! Let no one see them. Let no one know what had befallen them....
And—listen! Was that not the clatter of Uhlans galloping down the road?
Moaning, staggering, stumbling, she dragged and carried her two helpless burdens into the woods....
There, the next evening a party of Belgian Guides had found them.
CHAPTER XIV
The Vicar of Maylands, the Reverend Ambrose Yule, was in his study writing his monthly contribution to the Northern Ecclesiastical Review. He was interested in his subject—"Our Sinful Sundays"—and his thoughts flowed smoothly on the topic of drink, frivolous talk and open kinematograph theatres. He wrote quickly and fluently in his neat small handwriting. A knock at the door interrupted him.
"Yes? What is it?" he asked somewhat impatiently.
"A lady to see you, sir," said Parrot, the comely maid.
"A lady? Who is it? I thought every one knew that I do not receive today."
"It is one of the foreign ladies staying with Mrs. Whitaker, sir."
"Oh, well. Show her into the drawing-room, and tell your mistress."
"I beg your pardon, sir, but–" a smile flickered over Parrot's mild face—"she asked specially for you. She said she wished to speak to 'Mr. the Clergyman' himself. First she said, 'Mr. the Cury' and then she said, 'Mr. the Clergyman.'"
"Well," sighed the vicar, "show her in." He placed a paper-weight on his neatly written sheets, rose and awaited his visitor standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire.
Parrot ushered in a tall figure in black and then withdrew. The vicar stepped forward and found himself gazing into the depths of two resplendent dark eyes set in a very white face.
"Pray sit down," he said, "and tell me in what way I can be of service to you."
"May I speak French?" asked the lady in a low voice.
"Mais certainement, Madame," said the courtly clergyman, who twenty or thirty years ago had studied Sinful Sundays abroad with intelligence and attention.
The lady sat down and was silent. She wore black cotton gloves and held in her hands a small handkerchief, which she clutched and crumpled nervously into a little ball.
The kindly vicar with his head on one side waited a little while and then spoke. "You are staying in Maylands? In Mrs. Whitaker's house, I believe? Have I not seen you, with two young girls?"
"Yes. My daughter and my sister-in-law." Louise's voice was so low that he had to bend forward to catch her words.
"Indeed. Yes." The vicar joined his finger-tips together, then disjoined them, then clapped them lightly together, waiting for further enlightenment. As it was not forthcoming he inquired: "May I know your name, Madame?"
"Louise Brandès."
"And … er—monsieur your husband–?" the vicar's face was interrogative and prepared for sympathy.
"He is wounded, in hospital, at Dunkirk."
"Sad, sad," said the vicar, gently shaking his handsome grey head. "And … you wish me to help you to go and see him?"
"No!" Louise uttered the word like a cry. Sudden tears welled up into her eyes, rolled rapidly down her cheeks and dropped upon her folded hands in their black cotton gloves.
"Alors? …" interrogated the vicar, with his head still more on one side.
Louise raised her dark lashes and looked at the kind handsome face before her, looked at the narrow benevolent forehead, the firm straight lips, the beautiful hands (the vicar knew they were beautiful hands) with the finger-tips lightly pressed together. Instinctively she felt that here she would find no help. She knew that if she asked for pity, for protection, for money, it would be given her. But she also knew that what she was about to crave would meet with a stern repulse.
She had made up her mind that this was to be her last appeal for help, her last effort to obtain release. He was the priest, he was the representative of the All-Merciful....
She made the sign of the cross, she dropped on her knees and grasped his hand. "Mon pere," she said—thus she used to address the Curé of Bomal, butchered on that never-to-be-forgotten night. "I will tell you–"
The vicar withdrew his hand from her grasp. "I beg you, madam, not to address me in that way. Also pray rise from your knees and take a seat." Ah me! how melodramatic were the Latin races! Poor woman! as if all this were necessary in order, probably, to ask for a few pounds, or to say that she could not get on with the peppery Mrs. Whitaker.
Louise had blushed crimson and risen quickly to her feet. "I am sorry," she said.
And then the kind vicar blushed too and felt that he had behaved like a brute.
At that moment the door opened and Mrs. Yule entered the room. With her was Dr. Reynolds, carrying a black leather bag.
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Yule, catching sight of Louise. "I am sorry, Ambrose. I did not know you had a visitor."
"All right, dear," said the vicar; "this is Madame Brandès, who is staying with the Whitakers. She wants to consult me on some personal matter." Then he turned to Dr. Reynolds. "Well, doctor; how do you find our boy?"
"Quite all right. Quite all right," said the doctor. "We shall have him up and playing football again in no time. It is nothing but a strained tendon. Absolutely nothing at all."
Mrs. Yule had gone towards Louise with outstretched hand. "How do you do? I am glad to meet you," she said cordially. "You will stay for tea with us, I hope. My daughter, too, will be so pleased to see you. Not"—she added, with a little break in her voice—"that she really can see you. Perhaps you have heard that my dear daughter is blind."
"Blind!" Like a tidal wave the sorrow of the world seemed to overwhelm Louise. She felt that the sadness of life was too great to be borne. "Blind," she said. Then she covered her face and burst into tears.
Mrs. Yule's maternal heart melted; her maternal eyes noted the broken attitude, the tell-tale line of the figure! she stepped quickly forward, holding out both her hands.