The Old Blood Part 21

The firing had died down. All sense of fear had departed. After slipping into her kimono she moved about the room swiftly, gathering her most precious things. She had forgotten to draw the shade and Phil, returning from the terrace, saw her figure flitting about as he came down the path. Pausing to regard the trunk which was already giving signs of the limit of its capacity, she heard the sound of his step on the gravel. Leaning out of the window she called to him.

"Have you been out to see the battle again? I suppose you felt you might go as long as the General remains on the sofa to guard us poor, lone women!"

"He went on some errand and begged me to express his regrets if he does not see you again," Phil replied.

"My packing has gone on so fast that I am coming down and going to the terrace for a look for myself." She gave a glance in the mirror. The kimono was good enough; it was particularly becoming, besides. "Aren't we giving you more entertainment than we promised at Mervaux?" she asked merrily, as she joined him.

"But oughtn't you to sleep?" he suggested. "Seven is a pretty early hour. There's no telling how much rest you'll get to-morrow."

"Sleep?" She looked at him, with the light of the lamp from the hall dancing in her eyes. "One must be sleepy in order to sleep."

"I see that you are not."

"Was Helen very frightened when the guns began firing?" she asked.

"Not a bit," he replied.

"Why should she be? Why should any one be?"

As they pa.s.sed the dark spot under the tree where Helen had been sitting when he had stolen up behind her, mistaking her for another, it might have occurred to both that it would be an awkward stroll if the monstrous fact of the war's proximity had not dwarfed personal concerns. From the terrace they could hear the creaking of wheels on the road, though the battery behind the trees was silent. No movement of the gunners, who had dropped asleep in exhaustion. In the distance were still occasional flashes. Hundreds of thousands of men were moving over there under cover of darkness or sleeping on the dew-moist fields before the morrow's action.

"And one does not know when one will ever be here again," she said.

"The portrait unfinished, too," he suggested.

"Yes. What a happy time we have had doing it!" she exclaimed.

"You had, too?" he asked.

"Of course I had. And we are going to finish it, aren't we, cousin, at Truckleford? Won't you come there?"

She put her hand on his arm with a slight pressure--a cousinly privilege. The moonlight was strong enough to make her features visible; the dark hair and brows, the s.h.i.+ning eyes and the smiling lips. She was very beautiful, unreally so, there in the moonlight.

She knew and he knew that she knew what had happened three hours ago, before the war had come to Mervaux. Her hand was still on his arm. He took it in his and she did not protest.

"Yes! How could I resist?" he exclaimed. "I----"

"Agreed! You've promised!" she cried triumphantly, giving his hand a shake and drawing away. "Now to finish the infernal trunk and on to Truckleford!"

"Isn't there some packing I can do?" he asked when they reached the house. "I feel utterly helpless."

"Nothing, unless you can put more gowns into my trunk than I can," she replied.

"But all the bric-a-brac and your pictures! I can put them in closets and lock the door. And the china, too!"

But Jacqueline already had this in hand.

"I'll help you!" said Phil.

"Come on, then," said the businesslike Jacqueline. "We need a man who can fetch and carry."

"And who'll obey orders, I see. I await your commands."

"And I'll join you later!" called Henriette.

CHAPTER XV

HELEN ASKS A FAVOUR

The glow of satisfaction which Madame Ribot had enjoyed during the gallantries of the General and the Count soon pa.s.sed when she was behind the scenes. Between directions to the maid and continual changes of mind as to what she would and would not have packed, she scolded the war.

"Why couldn't the _prefect_ or the army authorities have told us in time, so we could have got away like Christians?" she grumbled.

"Wasn't it their business to know that the Germans were coming? It's shameful, indecent, barbarous! Well?"--this last irritably in answer to a rap at her door. "Come in!"

When she saw that it was Helen her frown deepened. It was a petulant frown which would have surprised the Count and the General; yet, perhaps it would not. They were wise old men, particularly the General.

"More bad news?" exclaimed Madame Ribot. She had been used to regarding Helen as a harbinger of bad news since her birth. "It must be! You look as if you regarded the whole thing as a lark. Of course you would. Everything goes by contraries with you!" she continued.

"Well?"

Helen was elate, despite the scene with Henriette; elate with decision.

"I came to ask a favour," she said. It was hardly a diplomatic beginning, considering her mother's state of mind.

"A favour! At this time! That is like you, too."

"Some one ought to look after the house while we are gone," Helen went on hurriedly.

"Jacqueline--and the mayor and the cure. What do we have officials and priests for?"

"I meant myself, too."

"You? I should not call that a favour. You mean to be here alone when the Germans come?"

"I don't think they will harm me," said Helen soberly.

Madame Ribot gave her daughter a sweeping look, which was cuttingly significant.

"No, not you!" she exclaimed; and noting the two red spots which appeared in Helen's cheeks she added: "You know how to look after yourself."

Her mother's thought so quickly comprehended had cut deep, but only for an instant. Then it gave urgency to her desire. Her words came panting, as if she were striving for a goal.

"Mother, it's my chance--the chance that comes only once! You see, I am what I am and this is the thing that I want to do. I'll see real war and the soldiers and the villagers in the midst of it--and the Germans, too! Oh, how I can draw! I'll not need to be clever, the subject is so great." The daughter's intensity communicated its directness to the mother. "It will not be necessary to say a word to Henriette or Cousin Phil, or anybody about the plan," she went on.

"You see, I shall start to walk to the station. You will all be aboard, the train will go and I shall be left behind."

But Helen's self-reliant precision was too valuable. Madame Ribot did not like to part with it in such a crisis.