CHAPTER XIII
A MATTER OF GALLANTRY
After Helen had left the room, Henriette staring at the closed door suddenly swept toward it and swung it half open, only to shut it with a bang. Doubtfully she turned, then sprang to the window as if to call Helen back. She had a glimpse of her sister on the path, but again her impulse was arrested.
Now she sat down on the edge of the bed, pressed her fingers to her temples, and for a while was motionless except for the restless tapping of her foot on the floor. At length her hands dropped to her side, the tapping ceased and, with a shrug of her shoulders, she rose, turned on the lights and looked at herself in the mirror, where she had always found the solution of the few problems that had ever vexed her. As reassuring this in her present mood as for the miser to find his gold still there when he opens his strong box upon returning from a journey. She smiled at the mirror and the mirror smiled back, and she allowed herself a prolonged, luxurious sigh.
In the cup of valley where the chateau was hidden, surrounded by walls of trees, the sound of the distant artillery duel was inaudible; but the sharp blasts of the soixante-quinze from behind the clump of woods prevented any second sigh. She flew to the window. Outside the silence of the night and again that unmistakable sound. She leaned against the casement for support, trembling.
Madame Ribot, also looking into a mirror, had also sprung to the window and also leaned against the casement in a convulsion of trembling. At almost the same instant mother and daughter, such was their likeness of nature, recovered their volition in the demand for companionship in danger. Even with men it is largely the herd instinct which makes armies brave. The two women met on the landing and involuntarily clasped each other's hands, and the fact of being together took the tremor out of their limbs. Madame Ribot became articulate. It was her duty as the elder, the parent, to show initiative.
"Where is Cousin Phil?" she asked.
"Out in the grounds."
"And Helen?"
"With him."
There was reassurance to her strictly feminine mind in the utterance of that masculine pronoun. The guns were silent for the time being; out of doors was only the moist stillness of night.
"We must find them," said Madame Ribot, starting down the stairs.
As they reached the sitting-room the battery began a vicious spasm of drum-head fire. Madame Ribot grasped the nearest thing to steady herself, which was the table. She broke into a petulant rage which defied her fears with the truth of her heart.
"Truckleford! That's it! There's no war in England. Truckleford and the bore of an old parson and his wife! I have nothing to do with this beastly war. Why couldn't they keep it away from Mervaux?"
"Yes, Truckleford!" assented Henriette.
"If we can get there," continued her mother. "We don't know what may happen. The Germans are blowing chateaux and villages to pieces. If we can get there! Why doesn't Helen come? Doesn't that cousin know we are here alone? He probably thinks all this is another spectacle for an American tourist."
The firing ceased as suddenly as it had begun, her words sounding shrewish in the silence and uttered in the face of Phil and Helen as they entered together. Phil was smiling in a way that was helpful and Helen's manner was that of the elation of a great experience.
"It must have been awful for you, not knowing what it all meant and coming so suddenly!" she said, at sight of her mother's drawn features. Briefly she told what the battery commander had said; and then naturally, for the first time in her life, became the family leader. "The thing is for everybody to pack," she added, "and I'll find out about the trains and getting a cart to the station."
"Yes, the government takes all the horses and the trains and even then they can't stop the Germans!" Madame Ribot complained.
"At least you will let me look up the starting time," Phil urged. "I know enough French for that."
"You could not ask without alarming the village," she replied. "I know whom to go to for a conveyance."
Further concern on this score was abated by the arrival of two gallants, neck and neck, for Count de la Grange and General Rousseau, breathless, reached the chateau together. They addressed themselves to Madame Ribot in characteristic fashion; the General as became a soldier, the Count as became the old noblesse come to the succour of a lady in distress.
"The French army will hold," said the General. "We are only drawing the Germans on; but being in the sphere of operations, it will not be comfortable for you here and, though you are in no danger, I think an early departure advisable."
"The government has left Paris," said the Count, not failing to appear important, "as I have just learned through trustworthy sources." (The station master had told him.)
"Politicians! Cravens!" growled the General.
"What does one expect from a republic?" demanded the Count.
"I have served both the republic and the empire, but I always served France!" replied the General. "The army will hold. Madame Ribot, pack such things as you need. Rest perfectly assured. I am at your service."
"And I shall have my trap here to take you to the first train. It goes at seven," said the Count, with a side glance of triumph at the General, who had no conveyance. "I have some influence and I shall see that you have a place—and I shall drive you myself."
Madame Ribot, completely reassured, gratified that she had not taken down her hair for the night and not unconscious that a dressing-gown became her well, smiled at the Count with a charming gratitude.
"You take it all so calmly, Madame, as I knew you would," he said. "Like a true Frenchwoman. It is women who are brave, not men."
The General was tugging at his moustache. Thanks to one dilapidated old trap, he who had led charges in '70 and fought from Gravelotte to Paris was holding a small hand; but he was still a strategist, who now had a Napoleonic flash of initiative.
"Madame, while as a soldier I think there is no danger," he said, "I feel it my duty to remain at the chateau overnight, so that you will know I am near in case there should be an unexpected crisis which in time of war only a soldier knows how to face. I shall take forty winks on the sofa here as I have done many times in my tent on campaign. Ah, those days! And you will find me here in the morning," he concluded, turning triumphantly to the Count.
Ever impartial, Madame Ribot now bestowed her smile on the General.
"But Madame is not afraid," put in the Count. "I fear she will take your offer, General, as an indication that she is."
"On the contrary," said Madame Ribot, "it takes crises like this to prove what good neighbours one has. You have assured my reaching the station"—with a smile to the Count—"and you have assured that some one is on guard," with a smile to the General.
"But you will have to pack, you forget that, mon general!" the noblesse remarked to the army, with extreme politeness.
"I pack! I go!" the General snorted. "I shall not let the Germans drive me from my house!" he said. "I remain! I know that the army will hold!"
"And I shall see Madame safely to Paris, feeling that a Frenchman can serve France best not with the Germans but with the French," remarked the Count pithily.
"Sometimes a soldier too old to fight can serve in other ways," replied the General.
"Madame, I am sorry that it is to be at such an early hour," the Count concluded, as he kissed Madame Ribot's hand and withdrew. The General also kissed it; and Madame Ribot, quite stately, ascended to her room.
"We also must pack," said Henriette to Helen.
They, too, went upstairs and left America and the French army together.
"A fine woman, Madame Ribot!" said the General. "Ah, our guns! Hear them! Our guns—and I a gouty old man—a bag of bones! But this old heart," he placed his hand over it, "has all the desire it ever had."
"You can see the guns from the upper terrace," suggested Phil.
"Come on, then, Monsieur," exclaimed the General. "You will forgive me," he added, as they started up the path, "for intruding myself when there was already a man here, a young, self-reliant man, as I see you are. But that pestiferous Count!" he exclaimed belligerently; then he chuckled philosophically. "Ah, he and I play a game which pleases Madame and pleases us, we who live on memory—though she need not if she were not so selfish. I do not like to allow the Count to score—it makes him so jealous when you score off him. Then, one must be amused in the country when time hangs idle on the hands and one grows old."
The great main road was now dark with transport and infantry under the moonlight, and across the fields squadron of cavalry could be seen going at the trot. Every gun-flash near and far, every movement, had its message for General Rousseau. He talked of '70, ran on in reminiscence as he stared out into the night; and finally was silent, as if a great weight had been laid on his heart. Phil understood that the signs which the old soldier read were not good.
"They are the lucky ones, our officers and men who are fighting," he said. "It's so simple—fighting! You forget everything. You do your all for France. I was twice wounded, Monsieur. All night I crawled and hid in a barn till I got stronger; and then I worked my way through the German lines and fought till I was too weak to stand in the siege. Yes, that was good—so simple!"
Was it to be '70 over again? His army, his France to submit to the old fate? A second and final tragedy coming?
"Yes, yes—and," said the General, a new note in his voice, as if an inspiration had come to him, "and I may still serve not only France, but you in America—all democracy, all civilisation. Monsieur, you will tell Madame Ribot if she does not see me again that I had to look after an important affair. I am going to locate some commander of ours who will pass me onto the staff. Yes, tell Madame that I kiss her hand."
His old legs seemed to have found new life as he parted from Phil.