"Chérie," she said gravely, placing both her hands on the girl's frail shoulders, "whatever is in store for you, you will have to face it. And now," she added, kissing her on both cheeks, "if you love me a little, if I have really been of any help or comfort to you during these sad days, the moment has come for you to repay me."
"Oh, how—how can I ever repay you?" cried Chérie.
"By putting on your hat, taking your baby in your arms and accompanying me to the station."
"To the station! I! with—Oh, I could not, I could not!" She shrank back and a burning flush rose to her brow.
At that moment Louise entered the room dressed to go out.
"You will accompany me to the station," repeated Nurse Elliot firmly to Chérie. "You, and your sister-in-law, and the baby will all come to see me off and wish me luck."
"Don't—don't ask that," murmured Chérie.
"I do ask it," said Caroline Elliot. "And you cannot refuse. I have given you many days and many nights out of my life, and much love and tender anxiety. And this is the only thanks I shall ever ask." She stepped close to Chérie and placed her arms around her. "Can you not see, my dear, that sooner or later you will be forced to meet the ordeal you dread? You cannot imprison yourself and the child for ever between these four walls. Then take your courage and face the world today; now, while I am still with you."
Chérie stood pale and hesitant; then she turned to Louise. "Would you—would you go with me?"
There was so much humility and misery in her voice that Louise was touched.
"Of course I will," she said; "go quickly and get ready."
Chérie ran to her room. She put on the modest black frock she had worn on the journey from England, but she dressed the baby in all his prettiest clothes—the white cape she had embroidered for him, and the lace cap with blue ribbons and the smartest of his blue silk socks. She lifted him in her arms and stepped before the mirror. After all it was a very sweet baby, was it not? People might hate him when they heard of him, but when they saw him....
Trembling, blushing and smiling she appeared at the gate where Miss Elliot and Louise stood waiting for her. She stepped timidly out of doors between them, and very young and very pathetic did she look with her flushed cheeks and shining, diffident eyes. Whom would they meet? Would they see any one they knew?
Yes. They met Mademoiselle Veraender, the school-mistress, who looked at them, started, looked again and then, blushing crimson, crossed to the other side of the road. They met Madame Linkaerts and her daughter Marie. The girl recognized them with a cry of delight, but her mother took her brusquely by the arm and turned her brusquely down a side-street. They met four German soldiers strolling along who stared first at the American nurse, then at Louise, then at Chérie with the baby in her arms.
One of them made a remark and the others laughed. They stood still to let the three women pass, and the one who had spoken waved his fingers at Chérie. "Ein Vaterlandskindlein?—nicht wahr?" And he threw a kiss to the child.
Three or four street-urchins who had been following the soldiers, imitating their strutting gait and sticking their tongues out at them, noticed the greeting and interpreted it with the sharpness which characterizes the gutter-snipe all the world over. They also began to throw kisses to Chérie and to the baby, shouting, "Petit boche? Quoi?" A lame elderly man passed and taking in the situation at a glance, ran after the boys with his stick. Others passed, and stopped. Many of them recognized the women, and some looked pityingly, others contemptuously at the flushed and miserable Chérie. But no one came to speak to her, no one greeted her, no one smiled at the child in its embroidered cape and its cap with the blue ribbons. A few idlers making rude remarks, followed them to the station.
Nurse Elliot left them. It was a sad leave-taking. Then they returned home in silence, going far out of their way to choose the least frequented streets.
As they came down the shady lane behind their house Louise glanced at Chérie, and her heart melted with pity. What a child she looked for her nineteen years! And how sad and frightened and ashamed? What could Louise do to help her? What consolation could she offer? What hope could she hold out?
None. None. Except that the child should die. And why should it die? Was it not the child of puissant youth, of brutal vitality? Did it not drink its sustenance from the purest source of life? Why should it die?
No; the child would live; live to do harm and hurt; to bring sorrow and shame on them all. Live to keep the flame of hatred alight in their hearts, to remind them for ever of the foul wrong they had suffered....
Chérie had felt Louise's eyes upon her and turned to her quickly. Had not her sensitive soul perceived a passing breath of pity and of tenderness? Surely Louise would turn to her now with a word of consolation and compassion? Perhaps the sight of her helpless infant had touched Louise's heart at last....
No, no. Again she caught that look of resentment, that terrible look of anger and shame in Louise's eyes; and bending her head lower over her child she hurried into the house.
CHAPTER XXIII
The house seemed very empty without Nurse Elliot. Chérie seldom spoke, for she had nothing to speak about but her baby, and she knew that to such talk Louise would neither wish to listen nor reply.
Other mothers, reflected Chérie bitterly, could speak all day about their children, and she, also, would have loved to tell of all the wonderful things she discovered in her baby day by day. For instance, he always laughed in his dreams, which meant that the angels still spoke to him; and the soles of his tiny feet were quite pink; and he had a dimple in his left cheek, and a quantity of silky golden hair on the nape of his neck—all things that Louise had never noticed, and Chérie did not dare to speak about them. There was silence, pitiless silence, round that woeful cradle.
In order that the child should not disturb Louise, Chérie had given up her own bedroom and chosen for the nursery the spare room on the floor below—the room with the red curtains—which, strangely enough, seemed for her to hold no memories. One afternoon as she sat there nursing her child, Louise, who hardly ever crossed that threshold, opened the door and came in.
Chérie looked up with a welcoming smile of surprise and joy. But Louise turned her eyes away from her and from the slumbering babe.
"I have come to tell you," she said, "that Mireille is coming home. I am going to fetch her this evening."
Chérie drew a quick breath of alarm. "Mireille!… Mireille is coming here?" she exclaimed.
"Surely you did not expect the poor child to stay away for ever?" said Louise, her eyes filling with tears. "I have missed her very much," she added bitterly.
"Of course … of course," stammered Chérie, "I am sorry!… But what is … what is to become of me? I mean, what shall we do, the baby and I?"
"What can you do?" said Louise bitterly.
Chérie bent over her child. "I wish we could hide" … she said in a low voice, "hide ourselves away where nobody would ever see us."
Louise made no reply. She sat down, turning away from Chérie, and tried not to feel pitiless. "Harden not your hearts … harden not your hearts …" she repeated to herself, striving to stifle the sense of implacable rancour, of bitter hatred which hurt her own heart, but which she could not overcome.