“Yes,” said Philip, trying to smile.
“And it’s your move,” began Alain, when a ring at the lodge gate interrupted him. He rose quietly and smiled at Philip.
“It’s your move,” he repeated— “on this game before us and in the game of life. Move boldly and fear nothing, mon ami, Philip. I think that is my wife, — here she is now.”
Philip hastened down the path and bent low over the slender gloved hand which Marguerite, Countess de Carette, graciously extended.
“Alain,” she said, laughing, “isn’t it delightful, this studio garden? Did I not tell you? Thank you, I prefer to sit on this dear little fountain, — where, Monsieur de Carette, I have often sat before—”
“With Jack Ellice,” said Alain; “I am very jealous and — hello! where has Philip gone?”
“You goose!” whispered Marguerite, “why don’t you let them alone? Turn your back, as I — do.”
Jeanne de Brassac stood under the almond trees that she knew so well, and now Philip was beside her and was bending over her.
“I did not know,” he stammered; “Madame de Carette did not tell me. I thought you were in Zurich—”
“How should you know?” she said, with a happy light in her eyes; “I did not know it myself until Madame de St. Gildas told me that we were going to Paris.” Then looking around: “Oh, the dear old garden! — and the fountain and the almond trees! I met Joseph in the court and I shook both his hands very hard, and I also smiled at Jacques Jean Marie Louis Joseph Bottier, — and I wish to hug Tcherka and Toodles at once.”
She walked swiftly over to the chess-table and sat down under the almond trees.
“Sit there, opposite,” she said,—” and tell me everything. Oh, Monsieur Ellice!”
Jack came up radiant, and seemed disposed to stay, but Marguerite got him away, and between her and Alain he found no time to intrude on Philip and Jeanne.
“Alain has seen the studio?” she asked, with a charming smile.
“Oh, he’s seen it,” said Ellice, but Alain took his cue, and insisted on seeing it again.
“We are going to drink a cup of tea in the studio,” said Marguerite to Jeanne.
The sunlight fell across the gravel, gilding the pebbles and searching the depths of the brown water in the fountain. Tcherka was polishing her claws on the lilac trees, and Toodles, who had unearthed an ancient bone, dry and toothless as an Egyptian mummy, sprawled at full length on the gravel, gnawing and cracking it as if he were dying of starvation.
“Make him stop, Philip,” said Jeanne, unconsciously falling into the familiar tone of the past.
“Toodles!” cried Philip.
The dog thumped his silky tail on the gravel.
“He won’t — oh, let him have his bone,” laughed Jeanne, capriciously. “Is the blackbird here yet, Philip?”
“Yes. He’s out in the Luxembourg Gardens a good deal, but he always comes back. There is Monsieur Prudhomme too.”
“That toad! But — I am even glad to see him.” Monsieur Prudhomme hopped stolidly into the hole under the wall, and Toodles raced after him, — too late.
“He’s gone, Toodles,” said Philip, kicking the bone into a clump of grass. Then he went back to Jeanne. “I have not even asked you how you are,” he said, with a little return of his constraint.
“Why, I am well, of course. And you, Philip? Are you happy?”
“Well, thank you, — and happy.” She noticed the stiffness of his manner.
“Here is a chess-board,” she said, “I did not know you played.”
“I was playing with Captain de Carette,” he said, looking vacantly at the pieces.
“But which were yours? Come, I will finish the game with you if you wish. Do you care to?”
“Yes,” he smiled, “these are mine, the blade. It is your move.”
“Very well, check! to you, Monsieur.”
“You play too rapidly; check! in turn to you, Mademoiselle!”
Jeanne leaned back in her chair, examining the board with grave attention. Once she bent to pick up a piece which had rolled to the edge of the board, and her white hand, resting so easily on the arm of the chair, brought back to Philip the picture of the past, — that Christmas, Victor, the blue-eyed child, standing so quietly in the firelight, her slender hand on her mother’s arm.
“Check! to your Queen, Philip,” said Jeanne. Then raising her eyes: “Why do you look at me so strangely?”
“Checkmate! Jeanne.”
“Mated already! Oh, Philip!”
“Mated,” he repeated. “Listen, Jeanne, I had no mercy.”
She raised her eyes again, and looked at him long and silently.
“What does Monsieur de St. Gildas say?” asked Philip, meeting her gaze steadily.
She did not pretend to misunderstand him. “He says what I say,” she replied. Then the soft color spread over her neck and temple. Her lips trembled imperceptibly.
“And what do you say, Jeanne?”
She held both her arms out toward him.
“Philip, can you ask?”
* * * * * *
There was a flash of wings in the branches of the almond tree, a flutter and rustle among the leaves, then the blackbird uttered a low, sweet note.
THE END
LORRAINE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
TO
MY FATHER
LORRAINE!
When Yesterday shall dawn again, And the long line athwart the hill Shall quicken with the bugle’s thrill, Thine own shall come to thee, Lorraine!
Then in each vineyard, vale, and plain, The quiet dead shall stir the earth And rise, reborn, in thy new birth — Thou holy martyr-maid, Lorraine!
Is it in vain thy sweet tears stain Thy mother’s breast? Her castled crest Is lifted now! God guide her quest! She seeks thine own for thee, Lorraine!
So Yesterday shall live again, And the steel line along the Rhine Shall cuirass thee and all that’s thine. France lives — thy France — divine Lorraine!
R. W. C.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to the valuable volumes of Messrs. Victor Duruy, Archibald Forbes, Sir William Fraser, Dr. J. von Pflugk-Harttung, G. Tissandier, Comdt. Grandin, and “Un Officier de Marine,” concerning (wholly or in part) the events of 1870-1871.
Occasionally the author has deemed it best to change the names of villages, officers, and regiments or battalions.
The author believes that the romance separated from the facts should leave the historical basis virtually accurate.
R. W. C.
New York, September, 1897.
CHAPTER I
A MAKER OF MAPS
There was a rustle in the bushes, the sound of twigs snapping, a soft foot-fall on the dead leaves.
Marche stopped, took his pipe out of his mouth, and listened.
Patter! patter! patter! over the crackling underbrush, now near, now far away in the depths of the forest; then sudden silence, the silence that startles.
He turned his head warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly, striving to pierce the thicket with his
restless eyes. After a moment he arose on tiptoe, unslung his gun, cocked both barrels, and listened again, pipe tightly clutched between his white teeth.
All around lay the beautiful Lorraine forests, dim and sweet, dusky as velvet in their leafy depths. A single sunbeam, striking obliquely through the brush tangle, powdered the forest mould with gold.
He heard the little river Lisse, flowing, flowing, where green branches swept its placid surface with a thousand new-born leaves; he heard a throstle singing in the summer wind.
Suddenly, far ahead, something gray shambled loosely across the path, leaped a brush heap, slunk under a fallen tree, and loped on again.
For a moment Marche refused to believe his own eyes. A wolf in Lorraine! — a big, gray timber-wolf, here, within a mile of the Château Morteyn! He could see it yet, passing like a shadow along the trees. Before he knew it he was following, running noiselessly over the soft, mossy path, holding his little shot-gun tightly. As he ran, his eyes fixed on the spot where the wolf had disappeared, he began to doubt his senses again, he began to believe that the thing he saw was some shaggy sheep-dog from the Moselle, astray in the Lorraine forests. But he held his pace, his pipe griped in his teeth, his gun swinging at his side. Presently, as he turned into a grass-grown carrefour, a mere waste of wild-flowers and tangled briers, he caught his ankle in a strand of ivy and fell headlong. Sprawling there on the moss and dead leaves, the sound of human voices struck his ear, and he sat up, scowling and rubbing his knees.
The voices came nearer; two people were approaching the carrefour. Jack Marche, angry and dirty, looked through the bushes, stanching a long scratch on his wrist with his pocket-handkerchief. The people were in sight now — a man, tall, square-shouldered, striding swiftly through the woods, followed by a young girl. Twice she sprang forward and seized him by the arm, but he shook her off roughly and hastened on. As they entered the carrefour, the girl ran in front of him and pushed him back with all her strength.
“Come, now,” said the man, recovering his balance, “you had better stop this before I lose patience. Go back!”
The girl barred his way with slender arms out-stretched.
“What are you doing in my woods?” she demanded. “Answer me! I will know, this time!”
“Let me pass!” sneered the man. He held a roll of papers in one hand; in the other, steel compasses that glittered in the sun.
“I shall not let you pass!” she said, desperately; “you shall not pass! I wish to know what it means, why you and the others come into my woods and make maps of every path, of every brook, of every bridge — yes, of every wall and tree and rock! I have seen you before — you and the others. You are strangers in my country!”
“Get out of my path,” said the man, sullenly.
“Then give me that map you have made! I know what you are! You come from across the Rhine!”
The man scowled and stepped towards her.
“You are a German spy!” she cried, passionately.
“You little fool!” he snarled, seizing her arm. He shook her brutally; the scarlet skirts fluttered, a little rent came in the velvet bodice, the heavy, shining hair tumbled down over her eyes.
In a moment Marche had the man by the throat. He held him there, striking him again and again in the face. Twice the man tried to stab him with the steel compasses, but Marche dragged them out of his fist and hammered him until he choked and spluttered and collapsed on the ground, only to stagger to his feet again and lurch into the thicket of second growth. There he tripped and fell as Marche had fallen on the ivy, but, unlike Marche, he wriggled under the bushes and ran on, stooping low, never glancing back.
The impulse that comes to men to shoot when anything is running for safety came over Marche for an instant. Instinctively he raised his gun, hesitated, lowered it, still watching the running man with cold, bright eyes.
“Well,” he said, turning to the girl behind him, “he’s gone now. Ought I to have fired? Ma foi! I’m sorry I didn’t! He has torn your bodice and your skirt!”
The girl stood breathless, cheeks aflame, burnished tangled hair shadowing her eyes.
“We have the map,” she said, with a little gasp.
Marche picked up a crumpled roll of paper from the ground and opened it. It contained a rough topographical sketch of the surrounding country, a detail of a dozen small forest paths, a map of the whole course of the river Lisse from its source to its junction with the Moselle, and a beautiful plan of the Château de Nesville.
“That is my house!” said the girl; “he has a map of my house! How dare he!”
“The Château de Nesville?” asked Marche, astonished; “are you Lorraine?”
“Yes! I’m Lorraine. Didn’t you know it?”
“Lorraine de Nesville?” he repeated, curiously.
“Yes! How dares that German to come into my woods and make maps and carry them back across the Rhine! I have seen him before — twice — drawing and measuring along the park wall. I told my father, but he thinks only of his balloons. I have seen others, too — other strange men in the chase — always measuring or staring about or drawing. Why? What do Germans want of maps of France? I thought of it all day — every day; I watched, I listened in the forest. And do you know what I think?”
“What?” asked Marche.
She pushed back her splendid hair and faced him.
“War!” she said, in a low voice.
“War?” he repeated, stupidly. She stretched out an arm towards the east; then, with a passionate gesture, she stepped to his side.
“War! Yes! War! War! War! I cannot tell you how I know it — I ask myself how — and to myself I answer: ‘It is coming! I, Lorraine, know it!’”
A fierce light flashed from her eyes, blue as corn-flowers in July.
“It is in dreams I see and hear now — in dreams; and I see the vineyards black with helmets, and the Moselle redder than the setting sun, and over all the land of France I see bayonets, moving, moving, like the Rhine in flood!”
The light in her eyes died out; she straightened up; her lithe young body trembled.
“I have never before told this to any one,” she said, faintly; “my father does not listen when I speak. You are Jack Marche, are you not?”
He did not answer, but stood awkwardly, folding and unfolding the crumpled maps.
“You are the vicomte’s nephew — a guest at the Château Morteyn?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Marche.
“Then you are Monsieur Jack Marche?”
He took off his shooting-cap and laughed frankly. “You find me carrying a gun on your grounds,” he said; “I’m sure you take me for a poacher.”
She glanced at his leggings.
“Now,” he began, “I ask permission to explain; I am afraid that you will be inclined to doubt my explanation. I almost doubt it myself, but here it is. Do you know that there are wolves in these woods?”
“Wolves?” she repeated, horrified.
“I saw one; I followed it to this carrefour.”
She leaned against a tree; her hands fell to her sides.
There was a silence; then she said, “You will not believe what I am going to say — you will call it superstition — perhaps stupidity. But do you know that wolves have never appeared along the Moselle except before a battle? Seventy years ago they were seen before the battle of Colmar. That was the last time. And now they appear again.”
“I may have been mistaken,” he said, hastily; “those shaggy sheep-dogs from the Moselle are very much like timber-wolves in colour. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Nesville, why should you believe that we are going to have a war? Two weeks ago the Emperor spoke of the perfect tranquillity of Europe.” He smiled and added, “France seeks no quarrels. Because a brute of a German comes sneaking into these woods to satisfy his national thirst for prying, I don’t see why war should result.”
“War did result,” she said, smiling also, and glancing at his torn shooting-coat; “I haven’t even tha
nked you yet, Monsieur Marche — for your victory.”
With a sudden gesture, proud, yet half shy, she held out one hand, and he took it in his own hands, bronzed and brier scratched.
“I thought,” she said, withdrawing her fingers, “that I ought to give you an American ‘shake hands.’ I suppose you are wondering why we haven’t met before. There are reasons.”
She looked down at her scarlet skirt, touched a triangular tear in it, and, partly turning her head, raised her arms and twisted the tangled hair into a heavy burnished knot at her neck.
“You wear the costume of Lorraine,” he ventured.
“Is it not pretty? I love it. Alone in the house I always wear it, the scarlet skirts banded with black, the velvet bodice and silver chains — oh! he has broken my chain, too!”
He leaned on his gun, watching her, fascinated with the grace of her white fingers twisting her hair.
“To think that you should have first seen me so! What will they say at the Château Morteyn?”
“But I shall tell nobody,” laughed Marche.
“Then you are very honourable, and I thank you. Mon Dieu, they talk enough about me — you have heard them — do not deny it, Monsieur Marche. It is always, ‘Lorraine did this, Lorraine did that, Lorraine is shocking, Lorraine is silly, Lorraine—’ O Dieu! que sais’je! Poor Lorraine!”
“Poor Lorraine!” he repeated, solemnly. They both laughed outright.
“I know all about the house-party at the Château Morteyn,” she resumed, mending a tear in her velvet bodice with a hair-pin. “I was invited, as you probably know, Monsieur Marche; but I did not go, and doubtless the old vicomte is saying, ‘I wonder why Lorraine does not come?’ and Madame de Morteyn replies, ‘Lorraine is a very uncertain quantity, my dear’ — oh, I am sure that they are saying these things.”
“I think I heard some such dialogue yesterday,” said Marche, much amused. Lorraine raised her head and looked at him.
“You think I am a crazy child in tatters, neglected and wild as a falcon from the Vosges. I know you do. Everybody says so, and everybody pities me and my father. Why? Parbleu! he makes experiments with air-ships that they don’t understand. Voilà! As for me, I am more than happy. I have my forest and my fields; I have my horses and my books. I dress as I choose; I go where I choose. Am I not happy, Monsieur Marche?”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 54