CHAPTER XV.
WAR.
“When half-gods go, The gods arrive.”
“Then,” said the Baroness de Mélide, “I shall go down to St. Germain enPré, and say my prayers.” And she rang the bell for her carriage.
On all great occasions in life, the Baroness de Mélide had taken heroverburdened heart in a carriage and pair to St. Germain en Pré. For shehad always had a carriage and pair for the mere ringing of a bell eversince her girlhood, when the Baron de Mélide had, with much assistancefrom her, laid his name and fortune at her feet. When she had helped himto ask her to be his wife, she had ordered the carriage thus, as she wasordering it now in the month of August, 1870, on being told by herhusband that the battle of Wörth had been fought and lost, and that Loryde Vasselot was safe.
“The Madeleine is nearer,” suggested the baron, a large man, with avacant face which concealed a very mine of common sense, “and you couldgive me a lift as far as the club.”
“The Madeleine is all very well for a wedding or a funeral or a greatpublic festivity of any sort,” said the baroness, with a harmless, lightmanner of talking of grave subjects which is a closed book to theordinary stolid British mind; “but when one has a prayer, there isnowhere like St. Germain en Pré, which is old and simple and dirty, sothat one feels like a poor woman. I shall put on an old dress.”
She looked at her husband with a capable nod, as if to convey thecomforting assurance that he could leave this matter entirely to her.
“Yes,” said the baron; “do as you will.”
Which permission the world was pleased to consider superfluous in thepresent marital case.
“It is,” he said, “the occasion for a prayer; and say a word for France.And Lory is safe--one of very, very few survivors. Remember that in yourprayers, ma mie, and remember me.”
“I will see about it,” answered the baroness. “If I have time, I willperhaps put in a word for one who is assuredly a great stupid--no namementioned, you understand.”
So the Baroness de Mélide went to the gloomy old church of her choice,and sent up an incoherent prayer, such as were arising from all overFrance at this time. On returning by the Boulevard St. Germain, she met afriend, a woman whose husband had fallen at Weissembourg, who gave hermore news from the front. The streets were crowded and yet idle. The menstood apart in groups, talking in a low voice: the women stood apart andwatched them--for it is only in times of peace that the women manageFrance.
The baroness went home, nervous, ill at ease. She hardly noticed thatthe door was held open by a maid-servant. The men had all gone out fornews--some to enroll themselves in the National Guard. She went up to thedrawing-room, and there, seated at her writing-table with his back turnedtowards her, was Lory de Vasselot. All the brightness had gone from hisuniform. He turned as she entered the room.
“Mon Dieu!” she said, “what is it?”
“What is what?” he answered gravely.
“Why, your face,” said the baroness. “Look--look at it!” She took him bythe arm, and turned him towards a mirror, half hidden in hot-houseflowers. “Look!” she cried again. “Mon Dieu! it is a tragedy, your face.What is it?”
Lory shrugged his shoulders.
“I was at Wörth,” he explained, “two days ago. I suppose Wörth will bewritten for life in the face of every Frenchman who was there. They werethree to one. They are three to one wherever we turn.”
He sat down again at the writing-table, and the baroness stood behindhim.
“And this is war,” she said, tapping slowly on the carpet with her foot.
She laid her hand on his shoulder, and, noting a quick movement ofwithdrawal, glanced down.
“Ach!” she exclaimed, in a whisper, as she drew back.
The shoulder and sleeve of his tunic were stained a deep brown. The goldlace was green in places and sticky. In an odd silence she unbuttoned herglove, and laid it quietly aside.
“It seems, mon ami, that we have only been playing at life up to now,” she said, after a pause.
And Lory did not answer her. He had several letters lying before him, andhad taken up his pen again.
“What brings you to Paris?” asked the baroness, suddenly.
“The emperor,” he answered. “It is a queer story, and I can tell you partof it. After Wörth, I was given a staff appointment--and why? Because myoccupation was gone; I had no men left.” With a quick gesture hedescribed the utter annihilation of his troop. “And I was sent into Metzwith despatches. While I was still there--judge of my surprise!--theemperor sent for me. You know him. He was sitting at a table, and lookeda big man. Afterwards, when he stood up, I saw he was small. He bowed asI entered the room--for he is polite even to the meanest private of aline regiment--and as he bowed he winced. Even that movement gave himpain. And then he smiled, with an effort. ‘Monsieur de Vasselot,’ hesaid; and I bowed. ‘A Corsican,’ he went on. ‘Yes, sire.’ Then he took upa pen, and examined it. He wanted something to look at, though he mightsafely have looked at me. He could look any man in the face at any time,for his eyes tell no tales. They are dull and veiled; you know them, foryou have spoken to him often.”
“Yes; and I have seen the great snake at the Jardin d’Acclimatation,” answered the Baroness de Mélide, quietly.
“Then,” continued Lory, “still looking at the pen, he spoke slowly as ifhe had thought it all out before I entered the room. ‘When my uncle fellupon evil times he naturally turned to his fellow-countrymen.’ ‘Yes,sire.’ ‘I do not know you, Monsieur de Vasselot, but I know your name. Iam going to trust you entirely. I want you to go to Paris for me.’”
“And that is all you are going to tell me?” said the baroness.
“That is all I can tell you. Whatever he may be, he is more than a braveman--he is a stoic. I arrived an hour ago, and went to the club for myletters, but I did not dare to go in, because it is evident that I amfrom the front. Look at my clothes. That is why I come here and presentmyself before you as I am. I must beg your hospitality for a few hoursand the run of your writing-table.”
The baroness nodded her head repeatedly as she looked at him. It was notonly from his gold-laced uniform that the brightness had gone, but fromhimself. His manner was abrupt. He was almost stern. This, again, waswar.
“You know that now, as always, our house is yours,” she said quietly; forit is not all light hearts that have nothing in them.
Then, being a practical Frenchwoman--and there is no more practical beingin the world--she rang for luncheon.
“One sees,” she said, “that you are hungry. One must eat though empiresfall.”
“Ah!” said Lory, turning sharply to look at her. “You talk like that inParis, do you?”
“In the streets, my cousin, they speak plainer language than that. ButHenri will tell you what they are saying on the pavement. I have sent forhim to the club to come home to luncheon. He forgives me much, that poorman, but he would never forgive me if I did not tell him that you were inParis.”
“Thank you,” answered Lory. “I shall be glad to see him. There are thingswhich he ought to know, which I cannot tell you.”
“You think I am not discreet,” said the baroness, slowly drawing the pinsfrom her smart hat.
Lory looked up at her with a laugh, which was perhaps what she wanted,for there is no cunning like the cunning of a woman who seeks to charm aman from one humour to another. And when the baroness had first seenLory, she thought that his heart was broken--by Wörth.
“You are beautiful, but not discreet,” he answered.
“That is the worst of men,” she said reflectively, as she laid her hataside--“they always want an impossible combination.”
She looked back at him over her shoulder and laughed, for she saw thatshe was gaining her point. The quiet of this luxurious house, her ownpersonality, the subtle domesticity of her action in taking off her hatin his presence--all these were soothing a mind rasped and torn by battleand defeat. But there was
something yet which she had not grasped, andshe knew it. She glanced at the letters on the table before him. As ifthe thought were transmitted across the room to him, Lory took up an opentelegram, and read it with a puzzled face. He half turned towards her asif about to speak, but closed his lips again.
“Yes,” said the baroness, lightly. “What is it?”
“It is,” he explained, after a pause, “that I have had so little to dowith women.”
“Except me, mon cousin,” said the baroness, coming nearer to thewriting-table.
“Except you, ma cousine,” he answered, turning in his chair and takingher hand.
He glanced up at her with eyes that would appear to the ordinary Britishmind to express a passionate devotion, eminently French and thrilling andterrible, but which really reflected only a very honest and brotherlyaffection. For a Frenchman never hates or loves as much as he thinks hedoes.
“Well,” said the baroness, practically, “what is it?”
“At the club,” explained Lory, “I found a letter and a telegram fromCorsica.”
“Both from Denise?” asked the baroness, rather bluntly.
“Both from Mademoiselle Lange. See how things hinge upon a triflingchance--how much, we cannot tell! I happened to open the telegram first,and it told me to return the letter unopened.”
As he spoke he handed her the grey sheet upon which were pasted thenarrow blue paper ribbons bearing the text. The baroness read the messageslowly and carefully. She glanced over the paper, down at his head, witha little wise smile full of contempt for his limited male understanding.
“And the letter?” she inquired.
He showed her a sealed envelope addressed by himself to Denise atPerucca. She took it up and turned it over slowly. It was stamped andready for the post. She then threw it down with a short laugh.
“I was thinking,” she explained, “of the difference between men andwomen. A woman would have filled a cup with boiling water and laid thatletter upon it. It is quite easy. Why, we were taught it at the conventschool! You could have opened the letter and read it, and then closed itagain and returned it. By that simple subterfuge you would have known thecontents, and would still have had the credit for doing as you were told.And I think three women out of five would have done it, and the wholefive would have wanted to do it. Ah! you may laugh. You do not know whatwretches we are compared to men--compared especially to some few of them;to a Baron Henri de Mélide or a Count de Vasselot--who are honourablemen, my cousin.”
She touched him lightly on the shoulder with one finger, and then turnedaway to look with thoughtful eyes out of the window.
“I wonder what is in that letter,” said Lory, returning to his pen.
The baroness turned on her heel and looked at him with her contemptuoussmile again.
“Oh,” she said carelessly, “she was probably in a difficulty, whichsolved itself after the letter was posted. Or she was afraid ofsomething, and found that her fears were unnecessary. That is all, nodoubt.”
There is, it appears, an _esprit de sexe_ which prevents women fromgiving each other away.
“So you merely placed the letter in an envelope and are returning it,thus, without comment?” inquired the baroness.
“Yes,” answered Lory, who was writing a letter now.
And his cousin stood looking at him with an amused and yet tender smilein her gay eyes. She remained silent until he had finished.
“There,” he said, taking an envelope and addressing it hurriedly, “thatis done. It is to the Abbé Susini at Olmeta; and it contains some ofthose things, my cousin, that I cannot tell you.”
“Do you think I care,” said the baroness, “for your stupid politics? Doyou think any woman cares for politics who has found some stupid man tocare for her? There is _my_ stupid in the street--on his new horse.”
In a moment Lory was at the window.
“A new horse,” he said earnestly. “I did not know that. Why did you nottell me?”
“We were talking of empires,” replied the baroness. “By the way,” sheadded, in after-thought, “is our good friend Colonel Gilbert in Corsica?”
“Yes--he is at Bastia.”
“Ah,” said the baroness, looking reflectively at Denise’s telegram, whichshe still held in her hand, “I thought he was.”
Then that placid man, the Baron Henri de Mélide, came into the room, andshook hands in the then novel English fashion, looking at his lifelongfriend with a dull and apathetic eye.
“From the frontier?” he inquired.
Lory laughed curtly. He had returned from that Last Frontier, where eachone of us shall inevitably be asked “Si monsieur a quelque chose àdéclarer?”
“I shall give you ten minutes for your secrets, and then luncheon will beready,” said the baroness, quitting the room.
And Lory told his friend those things which were not for a woman’shearing.
At luncheon both men were suspiciously cheerful; and, doubtless, theircompanion read them like open books. Immediately after coffee Lory tookhis leave.
“I leave Paris to-night,” he said, with his old cheerfulness. “This waris not over yet. We have not the shadow of a chance of winning, but weshall perhaps be able to show the world that France can still fight.”
Which prophecy assuredly came true.
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