CHAPTER VIII
OVER THE HEARTS OF FRANCE
She did not ride to Hagenau on the morrow, for the facteur brought a letter saying that the regiment was still waiting to complete its numbers, and had need of many things. Three days of suspense intolerable passed, but on the morning of the fourth a trooper, who had been in the saddle half the night, galloped to the châlet at dawn and brought the great news that the “Sixth” were upon the road to Wörth, and would be camped on the Niederwald before the sun set. MacMahon’s army was on the march at last, the fellow said. He would join de Failly at Bitche and thereafter unite with Bazaine to give battle to the Prussians who were marching to the Rhine. “Madame would see the Captain that evening. He was bringing four of his brother officers to dinner. To-morrow the regiment would rest, but the next day it would march again. He, himself, must ride into the village of Elsasshausen and billet the others who would come after. But he could drink a bottle of wine—and he had not eaten for twenty hours.”
Guillaumette took the trooper to the kitchen, and kept him there until the bell for Mass was ringing. Already, on the high-road below, the signs of the coming invasion were many. Jaded infantrymen, gunners with mud upon their very faces, weary horses stumbling through the mire, heavy waggons rolling in the ruts, horsemen crying out for food and wine, companies of Turcos and zouaves, the outposts of cuirassiers, staff officers, who rode at the gallop—all these began to block the road from Hagenau and even the by-paths through the woods. The rolling of the drums and the blare of the bugles were incessant. Rain fell pitilessly, so that the very brooks were as muddy rivers, and all the thickets droned to the babbling music of the swollen torrents. Far away towards the south the sky was an unbroken envelope of mist. The gloom of the day was intense and infectious, so that men marched listlessly and with heavy feet which squelched in the clinging mud. Many a cottage had been already deserted. The women fled to the hills before the advancing hosts. The armies of France marched on over the hearts of France.
Beatrix spent the day in a work of love which brought colour to her cheeks again, and the light to her eyes. She would see Edmond that night, if it were but for an instant. The link which the fatal day had broken would for an hour be welded again. That sense of utter loneliness, which had been with her always since he had left her, was forgotten in the new thought of his return. The sight which she had seen upon the road to Niederbronn, the dead Uhlan lying face downward in the mud—the first blood offering to those who cried, “Let there be war,” had taken so grim a hold upon her imagination that she thought death alone would obliterate the memory. Fear for herself, whom all had forsaken, fear for the house and her home, dread of the solitude of the hills which war had awakened was hers no more. Edmond was coming back. She would show him that she had learned the lesson; that she could suffer, if need be, for the country wherein she had found so great a happiness.
It was a busy day, and she tried to see nothing, to hear nothing of those sights and sounds upon the high-roads. There were roses to gather from her garden, and dinner to be thought of, and rooms to be made bright, and a hundred little things to do. Even Guillaumette’s despair could not trouble her. Edmond was coming back. There was a moment when she said to herself that she could wish he was coming alone; but she rebuked her own selfishness, and went on with her work.
“We must do our best, Guillaumette. They will not expect too much now. Captain Chandellier comes and Major de Selay. We must put them in the white room. If Lieutenant Giraud is with them he must sleep in the nursery—”
Guillaumette clapped her hands.