CHAPTER IV

Mireille's Diary

This is an important day, August the 4th—Chérie's birthday. Loulou has given her a gold watch and a sky-blue chiffon scarf; and I gave her a box of chocolates—almost full!—and a rubber face that makes grimaces according to how you squeeze it, and also a money-box in the shape of an elephant that bobs its head when you put money in it and keeps on bobbing for quite a long time afterwards; Cécile and Jeannette sent roses, Lucile and Cri-cri a box of fondants, and Verveine Mellot, from whom we never expected anything, sent a parasol. We had not invited Verveine for tonight because she lives so far away, quite out of the village; but we shall do so now because of the parasol.

We nearly had no party at all, Maman and Chérie being worried about the Germans. But I cried, and they hate to see me cry, so they said that just those five girls whom we see every day were not really a party at all and they might come.

The great event of today has been that Amour has arrived in his basket, with 14 francs to pay on him; we were very glad, and Chérie said it was just like receiving a new dog as a birthday present. André was not able to bring Amour himself because he had been sent on some other Service Militaire in a great hurry on his motorcycle. The one drawback about Amour has been that he took the rubber face in his mouth and would not drop it and hid with it. We found it afterwards under the bed, but most of the colours had been licked off and Mariette says it is permanently distorted.

Mariette and Marie are going away today. They are taking only a few things and are going to Liège, where they say they will feel safer. Marie said we ought to go too, and Maman answered that if things went on like this we certainly should. Maman has cried a good deal today; and Frieda is shamming sick and has locked herself in her room. We have not seen Fritz since last night. Altogether everything is very fearful and exciting. Dinner is going to be like a picnic with nothing much to eat; but there are cakes and sweets and little curly sandwiches, all beautifully arranged with flowers, on the long table for this evening; and we shall drink orangeade and grenadine. We were to have had ices as well, but the pâtissier has joined the army and his wife has too many children and is so miserable that she will not make ices. She told us that her husband and other soldiers were digging ditches all round Belgium to prevent the Germans from coming in.

Now I am going to dress. I shall wear pink, and Chérie will be all in white like a bride. She will have her hair up for the first time, done all in curls and whirligigs, to look like that cake Frieda calls Kugelhopf.

Maman is going to make herself pretty too. She has promised not to think of war or of the Germans until tomorrow morning because, as Chérie said, one is eighteen only once in one's life. Now I come to think of it, one is also eleven only once in one's life. I shall remember to say that when my next birthday comes....

While Mireille sat in the little study writing her diary with exceeding care, her head very much on one side and the tip of her tongue moving slowly from one side of her half-open mouth to the other, the door was opened and Fritz looked into the room. He shut the door again, and having listened for a moment on the landing to the soft-murmuring voices of Louise and Chérie, he went upstairs to the second floor and turned the handle of Frieda's door. It was locked.

"Open the door," he said.

Frieda obeyed. It was not the first time that she opened her door to Fritz.

"How loud you speak," she murmured, locking and bolting the door again, "they may hear you."

"I don't care if they do," said Fritz, sitting down and lighting a cigarette. "For two years I have played the servant. Tomorrow I shall be the master."

"Tomorrow!" gasped Frieda. "Is it—as near as all that?"

"Nearer, perhaps," murmured Fritz looking out of the window at the crimsoning western sky. The round red August sun had set, but the day still lingered, as if loth to end. Where the sky was lightest it bore on its breast the colourless crescent of the moon, like a pale wound by which the day must die.

"Nearer, perhaps," repeated Fritz. "Be ready to leave."

That day the storm had already broken over Europe. The Grey Wolves were pouring into Belgium from the south-east. At Dohain, at Francorchamps, at Stavelot the grey line rolled in, wave on wave, and in their wake came violence and death.

But the guns were not speaking yet. In the village of Bomal, a bare twenty miles away, nobody knew of it; and Louise, fastening a rose in Chérie's shining tresses said, "We will think of the war tomorrow."

Chérie kissed her and smiled. She smiled somewhat wistfully, and gazed at her own lovely reflection in the mirror. The hot blue day had faded into a gentle blue evening and Florian Audet had not kept his promise. Perhaps, thought Chérie, his regiment has received orders to leave their encampment on the Meuse; perhaps he has been sent to the frontier, but still—and she sighed—she would have loved to have seen him and bidden him good-bye....

But now little Mireille in her pink frock, looking like a blossom blown from a peach-tree, came running in to call her. The door-bell had rung and there was no one to answer it, since Marie and Mariette had gone and Frieda was locked in her room and Fritz had vanished. So the two ran lightly downstairs and opened the door to Lucile and Cri-cri, radiant in pale blue muslin; and soon Cécile and Jeannette and Verveine arrived too, and they all tripped into the drawing-room with light skirts swinging and buoyant curls afloat.

Verveine sat at the piano and the others danced and sang.

 
Sur le pont
D'Avignon
On y danse
On y danse,
Sur le pont
D'Avignon
On y danse
Tout en rond!
 

The laughing treble voices could be heard through the windows, thrown wide open to the mild evening air, and a young soldier on horseback galloping through the quiet village heard the song before he pulled up at Dr. Brandès's door. It was Florian Audet keeping his promise.

He slipped his bridle over the little iron gate and rang the bell. Louise herself came down and opened the door to him.

"Ah, Florian! How glad Chérie will be!" she exclaimed. Then, as the light from the hall beat full on his set face, "Why, how pale you are!" she cried.

"I must speak to you," said Florian drawing her into the doctor's surgery and shutting the door.

Louise felt her heart drop like a stone within her. "Is there worse news?"

"The worst possible," said Florian. Then his eyes wandered over the pretty, helpless figure before him. "Why are you dressed up like this?" he asked harshly.

"Why, Florian …" stammered Louise, "it is Chérie's birthday … and...."

 
Sur le pont
D'Avignon
On y danse
On y danse,
 

sang the girlish voices upstairs.

Florian turned away with a groan. "What shall I do?" he muttered. "What will be the end of it?" Turning he saw Louise's stricken eyes gazing at him, and he took her hand. "Marraine," he said, "you will be very brave—it is best that I should tell you–"

"Yes, Florian," said Louise, and the colour ebbed slowly from her face, leaving it as white as milk.

"The country is invaded at all points. There has been fighting at Verviers...."

"At Verviers!" gasped Louise, and her large eyes were like inkblots in her colourless face.

"Yes, and at Fleron."

There was silence. Then Louise spoke. "What—what will happen to us? What does it mean … to our country?"

"It means ruin and butchery," muttered Florian through his clenched teeth; "it means violence, carnage, and devastation." Then he walked up and down the room. "We are holding Visé," he muttered, "we are holding it against Von Emmich's hell-hounds. And when we cannot hold it any longer we will blow up the bridge on the Meuse."

Louise had sunk into a chair. For a few moments neither spoke. Then Louise looked up.

"Will they—is it likely that they will come here?"

"They may," said Florian gravely, and as he looked at her and thought of her alone in the house with Chérie and Mireille a spasm crossed his face and tightened his lips.

"Will you be with us?" asked Louise, gazing at his stalwart figure and strong clenched hands. "How long can you stay here?"

"Forty minutes," replied Florian bitterly.

Again there was silence. Then he said, "What about that Dutchman—Claude's servant? Where is he?"

"Fritz?" said Louise, trembling. Then she told him what had taken place the night before, and also the events at Roche-à-Frêne. Florian listened to her with grim face. Then he strode up and down the room again in silence.

"Well," he said at last, "you have promised to be brave. You must listen to what I tell you and obey me."

He gave her brief, precise instructions. They were to pack their few most valuable possessions at once, and leave for Bomal early next morning for Brussels, via Marché and Namur—not Liège. "Remember," he added, "not Liège." If no trains were available they must hire a carriage, or a cart, or anything they could get. If no vehicle could be found, then they must go on foot to Huy and thence to Namur. "Do you understand?"

Yes, Louise understood.

Why not start now,—this evening? he suggested. They could go through the wood to Tervagne–

Through the wood to Tervagne!… in the dark! Louise looked so terrified that he did not insist. Besides, he reflected, there might be Uhlans scouting in the woods tonight. No. They must leave at dawn. At three or four o'clock in the morning. Was that understood?

Yes, it was understood.

"And—and–" asked Louise, "what are we to do with Frieda?"

"Don't trust her. But take her with you if she wants to go. Otherwise leave her alone. Keep your doors locked."

"Yes."

"And have you got money?"

Yes, they had plenty of money.

"And now," said Florian, looking at his watch, which told him that twenty of the forty minutes had passed, "I should like to see Chérie."

"I will call her," said Louise; then, at the door she turned to question him with her fear-stricken eyes, "Shall I tell them—shall I tell the children of the danger that threatens us?"

"Yes, you must tell them," said Florian. "And send them to their homes at once."

"Oh, what will Mireille do?" gasped Louise. "What if she were to cry? What if she were to fall ill with fear?"

"Little Mireille is braver than we are," he said, smiling and putting his arm around her drooping shoulders. "Courage, petite marraine" and he bent over her with fraternal tenderness and kissed her cheek.

He was left alone for a few moments; he heard the singing overhead stop suddenly. Light fluttering footsteps came running down the stairs; the door opened and Chérie stood on the threshold.

He caught his breath. Was this vision of beauty in the floating silken draperies his little friend Chérie? How had she been transformed without his noticing it from the awkward little school-girl he had known into this enchanting flower-like loveliness? She noticed his wonder and stood still, smiling and drawing a diaphanous scarf that floated mistily about her somewhat closer over her pearly shoulders. Her limpid eyes gazed up at him with blue and heavenly innocence.

A shudder passed through the man as he looked at her—a shudder of prescient horror. Were not the wolves on the way already? Were not the blood-drunken hordes already tearing and slashing their way towards this virginal flower? Must he leave her to the mercy of their foul and furious lust?

Again the fearful shudder passed through him. And still those limpid, childish eyes gazed up at him and smiled.

"Chérie!" he said. "Chérie!" and with his hand he raised the delicate face to his, and gazed into the azure wonder of her eyes.

She did not speak. Nor did her lashes flutter. She let him look deeply into the translucent profundity of her soul.

"Chérie!" he said again. And no other word was spoken or needed.

The forty minutes had passed. There was a hurried leave-taking, a few eager words of warning and admonition; then Florian had run downstairs, spurs clinking, and swung himself into his saddle.

As he turned the prancing horse's head to the north he looked up at the windows. Yes; they were all there, waving their hands, clustered together, the blonde heads and the brown, the blue eyes and the dark eyes following him.

"Remember," he cried to Louise, "remember—at dawn tomorrow! You will leave tomorrow at dawn." And even as he spoke the unspeakable shudder thrilled him again. Was it a foreboding of what the morrow might bring? Was it a vision of what the tragic and sanguinary dawn had in store for those he was leaving, alone in their defenceless beauty and youth?…

At the end of the street he turned again and saw that Chérie had run out on to the terrace and stood white as a lily in the moonlight, gazing after him.

He raised his hand high in the air in token of salute. Then he rode away. He rode away into the night—away towards the thunderous guns of Liège, the blood-drenched fields of Visé. And he carried with him that vision of delicate loveliness. He had spoken no word of love to her nor had his lips dared to touch hers. Her ethereal purity had strangely awed and enthralled him. It seemed to him that the halo of her virginal youth was around her like an armour of snow.

Thus he left her, fragile and sweet—white as a lily in a moonlit garden.

He left her and rode away into the night.