Complete weird tales of.., p.97
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 97
Fuel and candles he bought, too, but he could purchase no oil, although petroleum was cheap. The oil was used to inflate balloons; the petroleum could not be burned in lamps.
Hildé and Yolette were very busy storing provisions in the cellar and bottling red wine, aided by Red Riding Hood and the Mouse.
The Mouse, cleaned and chastened and warmly clothed, worked as he was bidden to work — not because he wished to — but because Harewood told him to do so or get out. To find himself working was an endless source of painful amazement to the Mouse.
“Malheur — si ça fait pas pitie!” he would exclaim, regarding his apron and sabots with unfeigned astonishment. But he carried and fetched and scrubbed and rubbed, living half in a daze, half in a nightmare. He was not resentful, however; he knew his skin was safer there than in Belleville. But the degradation of manual toil crushed him to a state of gloom only lighted by three full meals a day and Harewood’s judiciously doled out cigars. He cared nothing for Yolette or Hildé, he ignored Mehemet Ali, he tolerated Red Riding Hood, he loathed Schéhèrazade with a loathing that turned his blood to water. Bourke he revered because that young man had mastered him; Harewood he followed, when Harewood did not drive him off about his business.
All day long the forts of the south pounded away at the wooded heights beyond; all day long the boulevards in the interior of the city echoed with the rattle of drums. There were fewer cabs and omnibuses now; the government was constantly seizing horses for artillery and train service. Horse meat, too, began to appear in the markets, but the government at first restricted its sale to certain designated shops.
Toward the middle of the week, the government published an order in the official, rationing the inhabitants of Paris, and assuming control of every butcher shop in the city. Bourke returned that night bringing with him a printed card, showing the number of people in their house, their names and the amount of meat allowed each — 100 grammes daily.
“It looks serious,” he said, handing the card to Yolette. “We are also obliged to secure three days rations at a time.”
The name of the Mouse did not appear on the card; they invented a name for him that served its purpose. But the alarming part was that the government flatly refused to nourish Schéhèrazade at its expense, and even suggested sending her to the Zoo in the Jardin des Plantes.
“Never!” cried Hildé, putting both arms around Schéhèrazade’s neck; but the lioness no longer responded, and Hildé looked at her sorrowfully, mourning the change in her gentle favourite.
It was Thursday, October 27. Harewood had gone as usual to the war-office; Bourke and Yolette sat in the dining-room, examining the week’s accounts; Hildé moved about her own little chamber, humming her Breton songs. Through the window she could see the Mouse, painfully splitting firewood under the uncompromising superintendence of Red Riding Hood.
“You split too large,” said the child; “don’t you know how?”
“No,” said the Mouse, sulkily.
“Then — here — give me the hatchet! There! That’s how wood should be split.”
“Don’t let me deprive you of the pleasure,” sneered the Mouse, as she handed him the hatchet again; but the child disdained to answer.
“Mince!” observed the Mouse, “do they want wood for a month?”
Red Riding Hood turned up her nose.
“Bon,” said the Mouse, “I’ll die of fatigue, but there is nobody to weep.” He shrugged his shoulders, picked up another log, and chopped on. Hildé smiled to herself, watching the comedy from her curtained window. The happy light in her eyes, the song on her lips — the song that her heart was singing, too — transfigured and glorified her face. In it the childish sweetness had changed to something more delicate and subtle; the purity of contour was almost spiritual, the curve of the scarlet lips grew finer and more exquisite. Strength had shallowed the dimples that nestled in soft corners; the beauty of her eyes was indescribable, her every gesture a caress.
There were moments when, as she sat thinking in her chamber, the swift tears filled her eyes and her heart failed. At such moments terror of death — his death — brought her to her knees at the bedside. But the rosary was near, and so was Sainte Hildé of Carhaix, mended with glue, azure-mantled, serene, still smiling in spite of a missing nose.
Hildé sewed at times — not in the dining-room, where Yolette, demure and silent, listened to Bourke’s opinion of everything under the sun. He discussed ethics and morals and human happiness; he touched on transubstantiation, on agriculture, on logic. But he never spoke of love. Possibly his opinions were valuable; probably not, for he had little imagination.
“Do you think,” said Yolette, “that it is going to rain?”
“No,” he replied.
A silence ensued. There seemed to be no further excuse for lingering; he rose unwillingly and picked up his accounts.
“Must you go?” asked Yolette, innocently.
It was the first time she had ever asked him to stay. He sat down hastily and realised it. She went to a table, sorted some silks, chose a needle or two, and presently looked at him over her shoulder as though surprised to see him there yet. He felt this; it confused and pained him.
“Perhaps I had better go,” he said. She apparently did not hear him, and, after a moment, he decided not to repeat the remark. Presently she returned to her chair, seated herself, threaded some needles and began to smooth out the embroidery on her knee. He could not withdraw his eyes; her delicate fingers fascinated him.
“One, two, three, four, and one, two, and one, two, three,” said Yolette, counting her stitches. He felt himself excluded from the conversation; he looked out of the window and chafed. Had he seen the glance that Yolette stole at him — the instant dropping of the blue eyes when he moved — perhaps he might have felt less injured. He did not: he listened in silence as she began again. “One, two, three, four, and one, two, and one, two, three.” He watched her slender fingers guiding the flying needle; those slim fingers were in her confidence; she seemed to be gossiping with every rosy tip, every polished nail. Her head was the slightest bit averted; the whiteness of her neck dazzled him.
After awhile, Yolette dropped the embroidery into her lap and sighed. Her arms rested on the arms of her chair. One hand dropped quite close to his shoulder. He regarded it with rising interest. It was white and delicately veined with blue; it looked very smooth and young and helpless. After a moment he took it naïvely. It was then that a series of thrills shot through his limbs, depriving him of sight, hearing and a portion of his other senses. He was vaguely aware that the hand he held was responsible for this; he held it tighter. Yolette, perhaps, was asleep. “Are you?” he inquired aloud. “What?” asked Yolette, amazed.
Bourke only stared at her until again she turned her head to the window. They sat there in absolute silence. A lethargy, a delicious numbness, settled over Bourke. He would have been contented to sit there for centuries.
Presently Yolette tried to withdraw her hand, failed, tried again, failed, and resigned herself — not unwillingly. She was very young.
“We will live in New York,” said Bourke, speaking in a trance. After a silence he added, “in a brownstone house. We will have many, many children.”
“Who?” said Yolette, faintly.
“Who? why you — you and I — —”
Yolette turned quickly: her cheeks were aflame. “What do you mean?” she demanded, breathlessly.
“Are you — you not going to marry me?” faltered Bourke. His expression was absurd. They had both risen; she stood, leaning a little forward, one hand resting on a chair. The silence was absolute. After a little she swayed, almost imperceptibly, toward him; he toward her. He dared not touch her again — yet now he found his arms around her waist, her head close to his. It frightened him into speech — a stammering, pleading speech, that had a burden not at all complicated, “I love you! I love you, Yolette!”
When he kissed her she rendered him his kiss innocently. His courage revived, and he told her things that only she had a right to hear. That, perhaps, is the reason why Mehemet Ali withdrew from the sofa back to the gloom under the sofa. Perhaps, too, that was the reason why Hildé, entering the room from the rear, paused, turned, and glided back to her white bedroom, where, with Sainte Hildé of Carhaix, she began a duet of silence. She had been waiting there an hour, possibly two hours, before the door creaked, swayed and swung open, and Yolette was in her arms.
“My darling! My darling!” laughed Hildé, tearfully, “I am very, very happy — don’t cry — why should we?”
All day long they sat there, arms and fingers interlaced, and night darkened the room before they kissed and parted, Yolette to her own room, Hildé to the front door, where now she always lingered until Harewood came back from the city.
She stood there, dreaming, her eyes fixed on the corner by the Prince Murat barracks. He always came around that corner.
One by one the signal lamps broke out along the bastions; the stars, at first so brilliant, faded in the cloudless sky. She could see no haze, no vapour, but the air appeared to thicken around each star till it tarnished, grew dull, and at last vanished in mid-heaven. A sudden shaft of cold struck through the street; and now, around each lamp and lantern and flaring gas-jet a gossamer eclipse began to form that grew iridescent and more palpable every moment. Once a patrol passed, lanterns swinging — a shrouded, cloaked file of silent men, trudging through the darkness with never a drum-tap to echo the clump, clump of their clumsy boots.
Yolette came to the door and waited there a few moments with her sister. “Come,” she whispered at last: “do you not know that dinner is waiting?” Neither moved to go. Presently Yolette spoke again: “What is it, little sister?” Hildé was silent. “I knew it,” said Yolette, under her breath.
Hildé turned slowly: “You knew it?” she motioned.
“Yes.”
Somewhere in the night a cab rattled over a stone pavement; a dog barked down by the Porte Rouge. “See the rockets,” said Yolette; “it is Mont-Valérien that sends them up. They are talking to Saint Denis with their rockets; Monsieur Bourke says so. And now Saint Denis will send the message to the Fortress of the East. Hildé, little sister, you are crying.”
“I am afraid.”
Was it the sudden cold that chilled her? She shivered and turned back into the house. Bourke moved about lighting candles in the dining-room — there was no more lamp oil — and Yolette went to the table and seated herself, her eyes innocently answering the adoration in her lover’s eyes. They waited in rapturous silence until Hildé entered. Then Bourke sat down and the meal began.
About nine o’clock Red Riding Hood came to clear the table. Hildé aided her, bearing out her own untouched plate, pausing to cry a little in the dark entry, until she heard Bourke laughing in the dining-room, and that comforted her. But when she returned serene and smiling, the smile died on her lips, for Bourke was saying: “I wonder what could keep Jim! I don’t like it. He ought to have been here before dark.”
A little spasm of fear passed through her heart; she turned and entered the hallway; before she had reached the front door, it opened, and a gust of icy wind swept across her face. At first she thought it was he who had entered; there was nobody there. The rising wind tore a shutter loose on the floor above; the tree in front of the house swayed, bowed, bent and creaked, showering the sidewalk with whirling leaves. Then, in a moment, it was over; the wind died out, all sounds and movements seemed to cease as at an unheard command. The hush terrified her; she looked up through the thick air, looked up through a grey descending veil, a palpable haze that covered her with a million sifting snowflakes. Straight down from the fathomless vault of midnight they fell athwart dim gas-jets — ghostly, noiseless, ominous flakes. They melted at first, wetting the sidewalks till the reflected gas-jets trembled like torches mirrored in a river. After a while, greyish patches and dim blots of snow appeared here and there, spreading faster than they melted; the tree was spotted like a forest beech, the grass on the glacis whitened as she looked. The chill in the air had vanished, yet far away she scented the cold — the clear, clean breath of winter.
Out over dark hills and valleys, over rivers, woods and spires, the unseen snow was falling; she felt it as though each flake were falling on her heart. Her eyes strove to pierce the gloom where all the world was waiting breathless in the snow — waiting as she waited — for what? Again that sick fear struck through her breast; there came a distant echo of footsteps scarcely softened in the snow, nearer, nearer — a shadow passed across a signal lamp, across the next — and the next. “Hildé!”
He held her crushed to his breast for a moment; her eyes were closed, her wet hair glistened with snow crystals under the gas-jet overhead. A minute passed — two, three; he lifted her head, seeking her lips. “Is it to-night?” she sobbed.
“Yes.”
After a moment he gently unclasped her arms, stepped to the hallway and called: “Bourke!”
“Not to-night! — not yet!—” she moaned, reaching out blindly. He caught up both her hands and kissed them again and again.
And now Bourke was coming through the hallway, bearing a lamp, and behind him was Yolette. Harewood whispered: “It’s for to-night, Cecil — Bellemare’s division is leaving Saint Denis. Get your despatches quick. The cavalry are riding by the Saint Ouen gate; the Fortress of the East supports them. Hurry, Cecil, I’ve only a second.”
Bourke turned and hurried up the stairs; Yolette looked from Harewood to Hildé. “Can’t it be helped?” she asked at last.
“No, I must go. After I have gone — then tell Bourke — not before — he would not let me go.” He kissed Hildé quietly, saying that there was nothing to fear — saying that he would soon return to be with her always. Bourke reappeared with a little packet; Yolette was crying.
“Jim,” said Bourke, “I will go — if you say the word.”
Harewood smiled and pressed his hand lightly. “Good-by,” he said; “there’ll be no trouble.” Yolette hid her head in her hands; Hildé turned a white face to Harewood. He hesitated, glanced at Bourke with inscrutable eyes, then for the last time took Hildé to his breast — a second — and was gone.
“Jim!” stammered Bourke, “you — you can’t go — I didn’t understand! — I — Jim — wait! — come back, you fool!”
“Hildé!” whispered Yolette, with ashen lips.
But Hildé no longer saw; no longer heard.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SORTIE.
AT MIDNIGHT HAREWOOD passed the fortifications, riding with a troop of hussars to a point where the Crevecœur road crosses the military highway between the fortress of Aubervilliers and the village of Le Bourget. Here the hussars wheeled westward toward Saint Denis, calling back to him a friendly “bon voyage,” and he rode on alone.
His horse was already tired; it was the only mount he had been able to find in Paris, a great raw-boned cavalry charger, condemned at the depot and destined for the omnibus or the butcher.
Harewood spared the creature when he could, but the highway was already deep in slush and ice and the horse slipped at every ascent.
Post after post was passed; the pickets at Drancy stopped him, then let him go when they found his papers satisfactory. Again he was stopped where the shattered railroad crosses the Cœurneuve highway, and there the obstinate outpost was mollified by an officer who knew Harewood and who sent him on his way with a mirthless laugh that rang false and sad through the falling snow.
There was nothing to be seen — now and then a yellow lantern lighting up the blackness, blotted out suddenly in a flurry of snow — a dim highway deep with mud, over which thin films of ice had formed, only to crackle under his horse’s feet. Off there in the darkness to the westward the three forts of Saint Denis lay in obscurity — the fort de la Briche, the Fortress of the East and the battery of the Double-Crown. Behind him the fort of Aubervilliers crouched above the highway in utter darkness, indifferent, unheeding the dim signals displayed from the bastions of the enceinte. Once a roaming quartet of Franc-tireurs appeared at his stirrups and seized his horse. They all were drunk and sullenly suspicious, cursing, shoving, demanding papers and passwords, and handling their rifles with a carelessness that threatened the existence of everybody concerned. They lighted lanterns at length and examined Harewood, commenting on his tweed Norfolk jacket, on the many pockets on breast and hip, and finally on the corded riding-breeches and spurred boots. Evidently they coveted the boots.
“Take them, gentlemen,” said Harewood, sarcastically, “and I’ll return with General Bellemare to show him how my boots fit you.”
This produced its effect; the Franc-tireurs protested that they cared neither for General Bellemare nor for the boots. They consigned General, boots and Harewood himself to a livid and prophetic future, and let him go, shouting after him that Flourens’ carbiniers would strip him. General or no General.
This was pleasant news for Harewood; he had had no idea that Flourens’ three battalions were out. With a sudden misgiving he drew bridle and looked intently ahead. There was nothing to see but swirling sheets of snow. He listened, peering into the gloom. Suppose Speyer should meet him here alone? — or Buckhurst?
He gathered the bridle nervously; the horse moved forward. “Halt! Qui Vive!” a voice broke out in the darkness.
“France!” cried Harewood, with a sudden sinking of his heart. Cloaked and shrouded mounted figures appeared on every side, a pale lantern glimmered in his face, swung again to the ground and went out.
“C’est bien,” said somebody, close at his elbow, “laissez passez, Monsieur Harewood.” Colonel Lavoignet’s escort parted right and left; one or two officers greeted the American pleasantly from the darkness.
