November 2nd (All Souls).—It is strange, but even yet the feeling comes over me now and again that somebody was murdered on that night. And, strangest of all, I cannot free myself of the thought that it was I—I, who was killed, I, who am no more. I cannot describe the feeling. Doubtless it is folly. It is weakness and shock. It is what the good English doctor who has been called in to see us all—especially to try and cure Mireille—calls "psychic trauma." He says Mireille is suffering from psychic trauma; that means that her soul has been wounded. Sometimes I feel as if my soul had not only been wounded but that it had been killed—murdered while I was unconscious. I feel as if it were only a ghost, a spectre that resembles me and bears my name, but not the real Chérie, that wanders in this English garden, that speaks and smiles, kisses and comforts Louise, prays for Claude and for Florian.
Florian! Florian! Where are you? Are you dead, too? Is this sense of annihilation, of unreality in me but an omen, a warning of your real death? My brave young lover, blue-eyed and gay, have you gone from life? If I wander through all the world, if I journey to the ends of the earth, shall I never meet you again?
Oh God! I wish we were all safely dead, Louise and I and poor little Mireille; all lying silent and at peace, with closed eyes and quiet folded hands. I often think how good it would be if we could all three escape from life, as we escaped from the foe-haunted wood that night; if we could silently slip away, out of the long days and the dark nights; out of the hot summers and the dreary winters; out of feverish youth and desolate old age; out of hunger and thirst, out of exile and home-sickness, out of the past and out of the future, out of love and out of hate. Oh! to lie in peace under the waving trees of the little cemetery in Bomal, all with quiet heart and closed eyes. And by our side like a marble hero, Florian, Florian as I have known and loved him, Florian faithful and brave and true.
... But what of Claude? What would he do alone in the world, poor lame Claude, whose country is ravaged, whose home is devastated, whose wife fears him, whose child cannot speak to him ... and whose sister, though she lives, has been murdered in her sleep?
November 15th.—Doctor Reynolds called today. Louise said she wanted him. Then when he came she would not see him. She locked herself in her room, and nobody could persuade her to come down.
So it was I who took Mireille into the drawing-room where Mrs. Whitaker and the doctor were waiting for us. They were talking rather excitedly when I knocked at the door—at least Mrs. Whitaker was—but when we entered she did not say a word.
She looked me up and down and I felt sorry that I had Louise's old black frock on instead of the new navy suit they had made for me a month ago. But I cannot fasten it, it is so tight round my throat and waist. That reminds me that when Mrs. Whitaker said the other day that she wished Doctor Reynolds to see me, I laughed and told her about my dresses being so tight, assuring her therefore that there could not be much wrong with me. She did not laugh, however; on the contrary, she stared at me very strangely and fixedly, and did not answer.
I don't know what is wrong in the house, but everybody seems silent and constrained and not so kind as they used to be. Eva has been sent away to stay with friends in Hastings, and George, who is at Aldershot, comes home for a day or so every now and then, but hardly ever speaks to us. He wanders about the roads near the house, or goes into the garden, the sad rainy garden, flicking the wet grasses and flowerless plants with his riding-stick. He often glances up at the window where I sit as if he would like to speak to us; but if I nod and smile at him he looks at me for an instant and then turns away. I have an idea that his mother objects to his talking with us much. He wanted Louise or me to read French with him, but after the first day his mother had a long talk with him and he did not come to our sitting-room again.
Perhaps they are tired of having us in the house. I am not surprised. We are doleful creatures, and we all have something the matter with us. I myself sometimes imagine I am going into consumption; I feel so strange and faint, I feel so sick when I eat, and I have the most terrible pains in my chest. Also I am anæmic, I know. But still I don't cough. So perhaps I am all right.