One day a letter came. It was from Claude. He had almost completely recovered from his wound and was leaving the hospital in Dunkirk to go to the front again. He sent all his love and all God's blessings to Louise and to his little Mireille and to Chérie. They would meet again in the happier days soon to come. Had they news of Florian? The last he had heard of him was a card from the trenches at Loos....
And that same day—a snowy day in December—Louise at length returned from her ordeal and stood, a pale and ghostly figure, at the Vicarage door. To her also it opened wide, and her faltering footsteps were led with love and tenderness to the firelight of the hospitable hearth.
There in the vicar's leather armchair, with the vicar's favourite collie curled at her feet, sat Mireille; her soft hair parted in the middle and tied with a blue ribbon by Mrs. Yule; a gold bangle, given her by Lilian, on her slim wrist. With a cry of joy and gratitude Louise knelt before her, kissing the soft chill hands, the silent mouth, the eyes that did not recognize her.
"Mireille, Mireille! Can you not say a word to me? Not a word? Say, 'Welcome, mother!' Say it, darling! Say, 'Maman, bonjour.'"
But the child's lips remained closed; the singing fountain of her voice was sealed.
The door opened, and Chérie entered the room—a Chérie altered and strange in her new and tragic dignity.
Louise involuntarily drew back, gazing in amazement at the significant change of form and feature; then with a sob of passionate pity she went to her and folded her in her arms.
Chérie, with a smile and a sigh, bowed her head upon Louise's breast.
CHAPTER XIX
To see Christmas in an English vicarage is to see Christmas indeed; and the love and charity and beauty of it sank deeply into the exiles' wounded hearts.
But one day came the summons to return to Belgium. It was a peremptory order from the German Governor of Brussels to all owners of house or property to return to their country with the least possible delay. The penalty of disregarding this summons would be the confiscation of all and any property owned by them in Belgium.
Louise stood in Chérie's room with the open letter in her hand, aghast and trembling.
"To return to Belgium? They ask us to return to Belgium?" Louise could scarcely pronounce the words. "Do you realize what it means, Chérie?"
"It means—going home," whispered the girl, with downcast eyes and a delicate flush mounting to her pale cheeks.
"Home! Do you remember what that home was when we left it?" cried Louise, her eyes blazing at the recollection.
"No," said Chérie, "I do not remember."
"Home! Home without Claude—without Florian! with half our friends killed or lost …" cried Louise, and the easy tears of weakness flowed down her thin cheeks. "Home—with Mireille a silent ghost, and you—and you—" Her dark passionate eyes lit for an instant on the figure of her sister-in-law, and horror and shame seemed to grip at her throat. "Let us never speak of it again."
And she flung the paper into the fire.
But the memory of it she could not fling away. The possibility of returning to Belgium, which before had seemed so remote, the idea of seeing their home again which they had deemed lost to them for ever, now filled her mind and Chérie's to the exclusion of every other thought. That harsh call to return rang in their hearts by day and by night, awakening home-sickness and desire.
At night Louise would dream a thousand times of that return, a thousand times putting the idea from her with indignation and with fear. Every night she would imagine herself arriving at Bomal, hurrying through the village streets to the gate of her house, entering it, going up the stairs, opening the door to Claude's study....
Little by little home-sickness wound itself like a serpent about her heart, crushing her in its strong spirals, poisoning with its virulent fang every hour of her day. Little by little the nostalgic yearning, the unutterable longing to hear her own language, to be among her own people—though tortured, though oppressed, though crushed by the invader's heel—grew in her heart until she felt that she could bear it no longer. The sense of exile became intolerable; the sound of English voices, the sight of English faces, hurt and oppressed her; the thought of the wild English waters separating her from her woeful land seemed to freeze and drown her heart.
A week after she had told Chérie never to speak about it any more she thought of nothing else, she dreamed of nothing else, but to return to her home, her wrecked and devastated home, there to await Claude in hope, in patience, and in prayer.
She would feel nearer to him when once the icy, tumbling waves of the Channel separated them no more. She would be ready for him when the day of deliverance came, the day of Belgium's freedom and redemption—surely, surely now it could not be far off! Claude would find her there, in her place, waiting for him. She would see him from afar off, she would be at the door to meet him as she always was when he had gone away even for a few days or hours. His little Mireille, alas! was stricken, but might she not before then recover? His sister—ah! His sister!… Louise wrung her hands and wept.
Late one night she went to Chérie's room. She opened the door very gently so as not to wake her if she were asleep. But Chérie was sitting near the fire bending over some needlework and singing softly to herself. She jumped up, blushing deeply, as Louise entered, and she attempted to hide her work in her lap. It was an infant's white cape she was embroidering, and as Louise saw it her own pale cheeks flushed too.
"Chérie," she faltered, "I have been thinking … what if we went home?"
"Yes," said Chérie quietly, with the chastened calmness of those whose mission it is to wait.
"Let us go, let us go," said Louise. "We will make our house ready and beautiful for those who will return."
"Yes," said Chérie, again.
"They will return and find us there … waiting for them … even though the storm has passed over us...." Her voice broke in a sob. "Mireille will recover, I know it, I feel it! And you—oh, Chérie!"—she dropped on her knees before the trembling girl—"you, you will be brave," she cried passionately, "before it is too late … Chérie, Chérie, I implore you...."
Chérie was silent. It was as if she did not hear. It was as if she did not understand.
In vain Louise spoke of the shame of the past, of the woe and misery of the future. To all her wild words, to her caresses and entreaties, Chérie gave no reply. Her lips seemed mute, her eyes seemed distant and unseeing as those of the mindless, wandering Mireille.
At last she rose, and stood facing Louise, her face grave, inexorable, unflinching.
"Louise, say no more. No human reasoning, no human law, no human sanction or prohibition can influence me. No one may judge between a woman and the depths of her own body and soul; in so grave a matter each must decide according to her own conscience. What to the one is shame, hatred, and horror, to the other is joy, wonder, and love. To me, Louise, this suffering—tragic and terrible though it be—is joy, wonder, and love. I do not explain it, I do not justify it; I do not think I even understand it. But this I feel, that I would sooner tear out my living heart than voluntarily destroy the life which is within me, and which I feel is part of my very soul."
Louise was silent. She felt herself face to face with the great primeval instinct of maternity; and words failed her. Then the thought of their return to Belgium clutched at her heart again.
"But if we go home! Think, think of the shame of it! What will they say, those who have known us? Think—what will they say?"
Chérie sighed. "I cannot help what they say."
"And when Claude returns, Chérie! When Claude returns...."