He paused. The house and the red-roofed sheds were just the same, and he was surprised. But why was he surprised? Had he expected to see the kiln belching smoke, and figures moving about, and carts coming and going? He laughed at himself, and went on. He told himself that he would go and look in at the window at which Marie had been accustomed to sit, wearing her black apron with the purple pansies on it, and her sewing in her lap. He remembered the way her hair used to shine, and how her grey eyes with their very large black pupils would look at him suddenly.
He went on. He passed “Old François’ ” cottage, and the door was shut. Old François had been a bit of a character, sitting at his bench repairing pots and pans and locks and cutlery. Often he had filled old François’ pipe, but for the moment old François did not concern him. His gaze was fixed upon the house of the Cordonniers.
He drew nearer and nearer. He saw Marie’s window, and the window of the room in which he had been billeted, and the small garden full of straggling stocks and wallflowers, and the wooden fence. Why, it might have been yesterday. He glanced at the sheds and the yard, and they looked as deserted and as moribund as of old. It seemed strange.
And then, for a moment, his courage failed him. He stood hesitant by the gate.
“Go in, you ass,” said a voice.
He passed through the gate. He wanted to go to the window where Marie had sat, but somehow he did not dare to. He went to the door and knocked, and stood there with his heart beating hard and fast.
No one came. He knocked again, and listened. Yes, someone was coming, and he got a smile ready, but when the door opened no smile arrived. He found himself looking up at a tall, frowsy man whose eyes had a strange, sullen stare; but Sanger was not looking at the man’s eyes.
For the face of the fellow was not a human face: it was a sort of mask with three holes in it, and no nose or chin.
Almost Sanger fell back. And then he found his voice, and became conscious of the man’s eyes. He raised his hat.
“Good day, monsieur. Does Monsieur Cordonnier still live here?”
There was silence, a kind of horror of silence, and then from that face emerged a sound that was not human. It was like the sound made by some animal. It was savage, menacing, unintelligible.
Sanger found a faint smile.
“I beg your pardon, monsieur—I——”
And then, with a crash he had the door shut in his face, and he was left there feeling helpless, and strangely shocked. For he had had a flair.
This thing without a face was Louis, Marie’s brother.
For the moment he did not know what to do, and then he remembered old François. No doubt the repairer of pots and pans could reveal to him all that had happened in the house of the Cordonniers. He had a feeling that tragic and unhappy things had happened there, and as he walked away he turned to look at the house. Yes; almost it had a sinister look, and its windows seemed to squint at him.
Sanger was within ten yards of the metal-worker’s cottage when he was granted his first glimpse of Marie. Someone was coming up the road under the beech trees, a figure in black that passed from sunlight to shadow and from shadow to sunlight, and Sanger stood still.
It was Marie, the same Marie with her quiet, gliding walk, and her pale hair shining, and her black shawl over her shoulders. She seemed to glide like a ghost under those solemn trees, and yet the live man in him knew that Marie was alive, and never so much alive for him as now.
He was conscious of a trembling. He went suddenly to meet her. He took off his hat and walked bare-headed. He watched her face, and as she drew near to him the expression of her face surprised and shocked him. For it had no expression: it was like a light that had gone dim; the eyes had an emptiness, but behind their emptiness dwelt fear. She moved as though not quite conscious of her surroundings, of the sunlight and the green trees and the Spring.
She came nearer. She did not look at him; her eyes seemed fixed on that narrow red house up yonder; almost she had the air of walking in her sleep. And Sanger felt a cry rising to his lips—the cry of the lover who should waken her.
“Marie!”
She stood still. Her grey eyes with their very large dark pupils came to rest upon his face. They were like two circles of shadow swimming in soft pallor. She stared. It was as though she had been confronted by some figure out of the past, poignant and strange and calamitous. Her lips trembled.
She was afraid, and her fear was like a cold hand laid over his heart.
“Marie! Have you forgotten me?”
Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. And suddenly her face seemed to quiver like broken light. She drew her shawl more tightly over her bosom; she seemed to flinch, to waver to one side. She made as though to hurry past him.
He was shocked. What did it mean? She knew him—oh, yes, she knew him, and too well. It was as though the live man had appeared to terrify her. He held out a hand.
“Marie—you remember. Won’t you speak to me?”
She gave him one strange, tragic, silent look, and went past him up the road. She hurried; she seemed to sway slightly from side to side, and Sanger watched her.
He did not attempt to follow her. He felt dumb, bewildered, helpless. He saw her reach the house, and pass in through the gate, and disappear through the doorway. She had not looked back.
Sanger put on his hat.
“Good God! Why was she——?”
He could not finish the sentence. He felt inarticulate, in the presence of some mystery. And then his glance fell on old François’ white cottage, and with a sense of inevitableness he walked towards it. There were things that he had to find out. He knocked at the door, and a man’s voice said “Entrez.”
He went in; he saw old François sitting on his stool and bending over the bench as of yore. His head looked whiter. His back was towards Sanger, and he turned and peered under bushy eyebrows at his visitor. He continued to peer for several seconds as though he was unable to realize and to recognize the return of that English soldier.
“Monsieur François, do you remember the Captain Tommy?”
Suddenly old François got off his stool. He was more stiff in his movements, more bunched up, but a smile spread over his face.
“Thunder!—it is—you, monsieur.”
“Yes, in the flesh.”
“After four years.”
“After four years.”
They looked at each other, and there was a silence; and then Sanger brought out his tobacco pouch. He held it out to François.
“New pouch, but same tobacco. Time to fill pipes. Voilà.”
They filled and lit their pipes, and old François, returning to his stool, pointed to a rush-bottomed chair.
“Seat yourself, monsieur.”
He sucked his pipe, and under his white eyebrows his eyes were watchful and curious. He had an air of shaking his old head. Yes; here was a situation, a strange resurrection from the dead. He sat on his stool and blew smoke. When would the Englishman begin his questions?
“Four years have not changed you, Monsieur François.”
The old man tapped his forehead.
“I have the bon chance.”
“And Monsieur Cordonnier?”
“Dead, monsieur.”
“Dead! And madame?”
“Dead, also, monsieur.”
His sharp replies sounded laconic, like the blows of his hammer on a metal pot, but his white eyebrows twitched. He had his feelings. And how much did this Englishman know?
“Yes; they died within six months of each other.”
“What was it?”
“Oh, the doctor called it this and that; but some people die, monsieur, because they do not wish to live.”
“How? What do you mean? Speak simply; my French is not so good as it was.”
François scratched his head, and then darted a shrewd look at his visitor.
“Has monsieur been up there to the house?”
“Yes.”
&
nbsp; “And monsieur——?”
“A man opened the door, a man with half a face.”
“Yes; that was Louis. He came back from the war like that. It would have been better——”
He sat brooding on his stool, and Sanger waited. Old François was not to be hurried.
“He was not pleased to see you, monsieur?”
“He slammed the door in my face.”
“That’s Louis. He went to the war bon garçon, he came back a devil. Oh, well, with only half a face like that. But it killed the old people, monsieur.”
“His disfigurement?”
“No, the change in him. He has the temper of a wild beast. Work—never. The business went to pot. And drink, monsieur, and affairs with the lowest drabs in the village whom he could buy for a few francs.”
Sanger sat rigid. The words rose to his lips, but for a moment he could not utter them.
“What a tragedy! And Marie?”
The old man gave him another piercing look.
“Ah—Marie. I can only tell you, monsieur, that he has made her a slave. She works at the factory; she works at home. He takes her money and her labour. Pah! But Marie always had too much gentleness, too much soul. She gave in and gave in. It was pity, of course. And now he beats her.”
Sanger started in his chair.
“Beats her! My God, but why doesn’t she run away?”
“Some women are strange, monsieur. And perhaps she is afraid. And perhaps she has nowhere to run to.”
Which was true, though how true it was Sanger did not realize until he had seen a little more of the life at the house of the Cordonniers. He saw it from outside, surreptitiously, like the forbidden lover, but he saw it with a growing anger.
The fellow, like a filthy black spider, seemed to have spun a web in which the wings of youth and the petals of the apple blossom were caught and held. He was one of the “better deads,” but most brutally alive, a kind of post-war ogre living on the flesh of all that was beautiful and tender. The shell that had ruined his face had also made a horror of the man in him.
Sanger passed up through the beech avenue after dusk. The green valley had grown grey, the lights flickered here and there beyond the trees. He passed old François’ cottage, and came to the end of the garden fence where a lilac tree was in bloom. He could smell it; it was the same lilac that had bloomed four years ago. He came to the gate.
There was a light burning in the lower room, the room that he had known as Marie’s, and opening the gate very carefully, he slipped in and approached the window. He saw Marie seated at the table with her work-basket before her. She was sewing. The light played on her hair.
Also, she was alone; and Sanger, going close to the window, tapped softly on the glass.
The startled lift of her head expressed fear. She sat motionless, her hands in her lap, and for a moment her big eyes looked at him. She made no sign. Her face turned itself away from him, and she went on sewing; she went on sewing as though he were not there.
But Sanger was becoming the man of four years ago. Again he tapped on the window, and more appealingly. His lips shaped themselves to her name.
“Marie!”
She raised her head; she was listening; she seemed rigid with fear, and suddenly she held up a warning hand.
Sanger ducked out of sight; he drew back down the path between the flower-beds until he was some three yards from the window. He pulled his hat down and turned up the collar of his coat to hide the whiteness of his collar. Then he straightened himself and looked in through the window. He saw Marie with her head bent over her work, and in the doorway stood that brother of hers silently watching her. His eyes were motionless. They made Sanger think of the eyes of an animal watching some other frightened creature that dared not attempt to escape.
Louis Cordonnier’s glance raised itself to the window. He stared. It was as though he suspected the presence of some other man. Sanger saw him draw back, and realizing what might happen, he cleared the low fence into the road, and smothered himself into the hedge on the further side of it. He was breathing hard through pinched nostrils; he was the fighting man of four years ago, watching for his enemy.
He heard the door open. Louis Cordonnier came out, and walking as far as the gate, stood listening. And Sanger’s hand went instinctively to his side and felt for the butt of the weapon that had hung there in the old days.
“I could shoot the beast——”
And then he remembered. He stood there holding his breath, realizing that his hand had felt for the revolver at his belt. Extraordinary reaction! Just as at night, in some sap, when something suspicious was in the air, he had stood bristling, listening, his hand on the cold metal. Was he dreaming? He saw the figure at the gate turn about and walk back to the house. The door closed with a crash.
Again his glance went to the window. Marie’s head showed bent over her work, and it seemed to Sanger that she was weeping.
After that he grew more cautious, for, from what old François told him, it was necessary to be cautious when dealing with Louis Cordonnier. The fellow was not quite human. Other people had tried to interfere, and their interference had brought more suffering upon Marie. Louis Cordonnier might have only half a face, but he could fight, and the village was afraid of him.
“Not by using your fists, monsieur, will you be doing any good. I am an old man, and I have learnt that violence helps no one. It will not help Marie.”
Sanger nodded. Yes; probably old François was right, and he became again the lover of Marie Cordonnier, but a secret lover. It did not take him long to discover her comings and goings, and old François having satisfied himself that this Englishman was in earnest, joined himself to the conspiracy. “You can use my cottage, monsieur. Supposing I call her in as she passes? If Louis suspects——”
It was done. They met in the village, those two; they stood together for some moments in the porch of the church. Their hands trembled and touched.
“Marie—I must talk to you. I understand everything. Old François is our friend. Come to his cottage.”
Her eyes were clouded.
“I dare not.”
But she came, and they sat on two chairs, while old François stood outside the door, enjoying the sunlight and smoking his pipe, and watching to see that the brother was not on the prowl. Old François could hear the voices of Marie and her Englishman, and he smiled. Yes, Marie might say: “I dare not”; it was the man’s business to dare.
Then came the evening when Sanger lit his pipe and looked at old François over the bowl of it.
“She will come to me to-morrow. She promises.”
“Where, monsieur?”
“For a drive in my car. So you see!”
Old François blinked one eyelid.
“I should take her for a long drive, my boy.”
“I shall take her as far as I can.”
So Marie, instead of going to the factory gate, wandered next morning past the “Place” of Nibas, and saw Sanger’s grey car waiting there. She walked on into the sunlight and along by the red wall of the château, where the apple trees were like foam on the crest of a wave.
Meanwhile “Young Lochinvar” had paid his bill at the “Toison d’Or” and stowed his suitcase away in the dickey. He drove off down the road past the château, and into the flickering shade of the poplars where the stream ran in a world of green growth.
A little figure in black waited for him. He pulled up, and opened the door for her.
“Marie, the day is as good as your eyes.”
She smiled, but it was the smile of a gentle fatalist.
“You will be sure to bring me back by five o’clock.”
“Five o’clock.”
“My brother will expect me.”
He had no rug with him, but he tucked his raincoat round her. And so the day began, a day of strange, sweet sadness, and to Marie her last day in a world of dreams. They drove up into the beech woods of Hauterive, and wandered and held
hands and talked of the old days. Sanger had brought a picnic lunch with him, and they sat among the bluebells under a big beech tree and drank wine together.
The sun went west, and Sanger was bidden to look at his watch.
“I must not be late. He will be angry.”
To himself Sanger was saying:
“Let him be angry for ever and ever.”
But he drove her back as far as the Crucifix on the hill above the village, and there he stopped the car. He put an arm round her, for the fear had come back into her eyes.
“Is it to be the end, Marie?”
She nodded, and suddenly they clung together, and their kisses were passionate.
“Beloved, do not go.”
“I must. It was a promise.”
“But if he is cruel to you——”
“I promised—I promised those who are dead.”
She wept, but presently she grew calm. She seemed to set her face and eyes towards sacrifice.
“Drive me a little way towards the village.”
He looked at her, and smiled, but she did not see his smile. Her eyes were on Nibas. She seemed to sit there holding her breath, her hands clasped in her lap.
Sanger started up the engine. The road forked a little way below the Crucifix, and he knew that the left-hand road would take him away from the village. It was the road by which he had come to Nibas, and up there on the hills it joined one of the great French highways that led both to Paris and the sea. He put on speed. The grey car was to play at destiny.
He took the left-hand road, and he felt her hand clutch his arm.
“To the right. Stop!”
But he did not stop. He put the grey car at the long hill, and the engine and the gears sang. Also, he put his left arm round Marie’s shoulders.
“Chérie—I cannot stop the car. It is running away with us. It will run away for ever and ever.”
She cried out:
“Oh, no, no, it is wrong! Take me to Nibas.”
His arm held her more firmly.
“No, never again to Nibas.”
She turned her head and looked up at him. She burst into tears, but presently something shone through the wetness of her lashes. She snuggled against him; she surrendered.
The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping Page 63