The Girl Philippa
mystery impenetrable, for she had passed one arm through his and her
cheek rested lightly against his shoulder, and her grey eyes, brooding,
seemed lost in the depths of the distant smoke.
And all the while she was saying in her sweet, serene way:
"You will let me go with you, won't you? It would be very agreeable on
the river this afternoon. Such a pleasure you could not sensibly deny
me. Besides, the punt is mine, Jim. I don't let anybody charter it
unless captain and crew are included. I am, naturally, the captain.
Ariadne is the crew. If you desire to engage a passage to Ausone----"
"Philippa, you little tyrant, do you mean to refuse me the _Lys_?"
"Come down to the river and look her over," she said, drawing him away
from the balustrade. "And on the way you may get the pole from the
garage."
He was inclined to demur, but she had her way; and ten minutes later
they were walking across the fields, he with the pole across his
shoulder, she moving lightly and happily beside him, her hair in two
braids and the velvet strings of the bonnet fluttering under her rounded
chin.
The Ausone road lay white and deserted; the last fugitive from the north
had passed. Nor were there any more skiffs or laden boats on the river,
nor any signs of life on the quarry road. All was still and sunny and
silent; the Recollette slipped along, clear and silvery, between green
banks; to the east the calm blue hills stretched away vague with haze;
swallows soared and dipped, starring the glass of the stream as though
rising fish were breaking its serene surface. But the still air and
cobalt sky were heavy with the cannonade, making the stillness of the
sun-drenched world almost uncanny.
*CHAPTER XXVIII*
Philippa, curled up in the punt, had fashioned for herself a chaplet of
river lilies. The white blossoms wreathing the black velvet _bonnet a
quartiers_, and a huge bouquet of the lovely flowers which she carried
in her hand gave a bridal aspect to the affair, heightened presently
when she began to festoon the gunwales with lilies and scented rushes
from the sedge, as they slipped along inshore to avoid the stronger
current of midstream.
The air vibrated and hummed with the unbroken rolling of the
bombardment; there was not a cloud in the calm sky; no birds sang and
few, except the darting swallows of the Recollette, were on the wing at
all; but everywhere dragon flies glittered, level-winged, poised in
mid-air, or darted and hovered among the reeds with a faint, fairy-like
clash of gauzy wings.
The sound of the cannonade grew so much more distinct as they drew near
the environs of Ausone that, to Warner, the increase in volume and the
jar of concussion seemed scarcely due alone to their approach. Rather it
appeared as though the distant reverberations were very gradually
rolling toward them; and before they had poled within sight of the
outskirts of the town Warner said to Philippa:
"It sounds to me as though the whole business were miles nearer than the
mere distance we have come. And that is not an encouraging suggestion,
either."
"Could it be the wind which is carrying it toward us?"
"There is very little wind in those tree tops up there." He shrugged,
poled ahead, not apprehensive, yet conscious that Philippa had no
business in a town from the vicinity of which such ominous sounds could
be heard so distinctly.
Few people were moving on the Ausone road, merely a belated group or two
trudging southward. Except for a distant cavalry patrol riding slowly
along the quarry road across the river, the country appeared to be empty
of military movement. As they advanced upstream, one fact became
apparent; the fugitives who had passed through Sais that morning had not
come from the scattered hamlets and cottages along the Recollette. They
could see women washing linen along the river banks and hanging out the
wash on clotheslines. Old men and children fished tranquilly from the
sterns of skiffs pulled up among the rushes; cattle stood knee-deep in
the limpid stream under the fringe of trees; a farmer who had cut his
wheat and barley had already begun threshing. It was evident that the
exodus from the north was not, so far, affecting Ausone.
When their punt glided past the great willow tree where the Impasse
d'Alcyon terminated at the river bank, Warner, swinging his pole level,
pointed in silence and looked at Philippa. She smiled interrogatively
in response.
"That's where Halkett and I landed when we came to find you," he said.
Then she comprehended and the smile faded from her lips.
Around the bend lay the tree-shaded lawn of the Cafe Biribi. They gazed
at it fixedly and in silence, as they shot swiftly past. There was no
sign of life there; the beds of cannas and geraniums lay all ablaze in
the sun; the windows of the building were closed, the blinds lowered;
every gayly-painted rowboat had been pulled up on the landing and turned
keel upward. A solitary swan sailed along close inshore, probing the
shallows with his brilliant scarlet beak.
Then, as they left the deserted scene of their first meeting, and as the
pretty stone bridge of the Place d'Ausone came into sight beyond,
spanning the river in a single, silver-grey arch, Warner looked up along
the steep and mossy quay wall, and saw, above him, a line sentinel,
fully equipped, lounging on the parapet, watching them. Two others
paced the bridge.
"Halte la! Au large!" called out the sentinel. "The Pont d'Ausone is
mined."
Leaning on his pole and holding the punt against the current, Warner
called out:
"Is it permitted to land, soldier?"
"It is not forbidden," replied the soldier. "But you must not approach
the bridge any nearer. There are wires under water."
"I have business in Ausone at the Boule d'Argent!" explained Warner.
"Is it all right for us to go there?"
"If you remain there with Madame over night you must inscribe yourself
with the police and stay indoors after nine without lights," replied the
sentinel. It was evident that he took the chaplet of river lilies for a
bridal wreath, and that the young bride's beauty dazzled him. He was
very young, and he blushed when Philippa looked up laughingly and
thanked him as she put off her white chaplet.
Warner tied the skiff to a rusty ring; Philippa sprang ashore; and they
mounted the stone steps, arm in arm together. As they passed the
sentinel she drew a lily from her bouquet.
"_Bonne chance_, soldier of France!" she murmured, dropping the white
blossom into his sunburnt hand; and clasping Warner's arm she passed
lightly on into the square, hugging her bouquet to her breast.
The aspect of the town, from the quay wall above, seemed to have changed
very little. Except on fete days the Place d'Ausone, or market square,
was never animated. A few people moved about it now, as usual; a few
men sat sipping their bitters on the terrace of the Cafe Biribi;
children played under the trees by the river wall; old women knitted; a
few aged anglers, forbidden the bridge, dozed on the quay parapets,
while their brilliant scarlet quills trailed in the pools below.
True, there were no idle soldiers to be seen strolling in couples or
dawdling on benches. A patrol of _chasseurs a cheval_, in their pale
blue jackets and black "tresses," walked their wiry horses across the
square. Also, near the horse fountain, three anti-aircraft guns stood in
the sunshine, their lean muzzles tilted high, the cannoniers lying on
their blankets around them, and a single sentinel on guard, pacing the
Place with his piece shouldered. At the further end of the rue d'Auros,
where it enters the boulevard by the Church of Sainte Cassilda, cavalry
were moving; and more sky artillery was visible in front of the church
plaza. Otherwise the presence of troops was not noticeable in Ausone
town.
Nor were Philippa and Warner particularly noticed or remarked, the
girl's provincial costume being a familiar sight in the region from Sais
to Dreslin. In fact, Warner's knickers and Norfolk excited the only
attention, and every now and then some man passing, and taking him for
English, lifted his hat in cordial salutation to a comrade of an allied
nation.
But for all the absence of animation and excitement in the Ausone
streets, the deepening thunder of the cannonade began to preoccupy
Warner; and finally he inquired what it signified of a passing line
soldier, who stopped courteously and saluted.
"C'est le fort d'Ausone qui donne, Monsieur," he explained, bowing
slightly to Philippa as he spoke.
"What!" exclaimed Warner. "Is the Ausone fort firing?"
"Since two hours, Monsieur. It would appear that affairs are warming up
out there."
"What does that mean?"
"_Dame_--they must see something to fire at," replied the soldier,
laughing. "As for us here in the town, we know nothing. We others--we
never know anything that happens until it is happening to us."
"From the Chateau at Sais," said Warner, "one can see three towns on
fire in the north."
"It is more than we soldiers can see from here, Monsieur. Yet we know
it must be so, because people from Isly, from Rosales, from Dreslin,
have been passing through from the north. They must have passed through
Sais."
"Thousands," nodded Warner.
The soldier saluted; Warner lifted his cap, and he and Philippa entered
the Boule d'Argent, where, in a little, lace-curtained dining-room to
the left, they seated themselves by the street window and ordered tea
and sugar-buns.
The _gerant_, who knew Warner, came up and made a most serious and
elaborate bow to Philippa and to the American.
"Ah, Monsieur Warner!" he said. "_Voyez-vous_ the Bosches have begun at
last! But, God willing, it shall not be 1870 again!"
"It won't be; don't worry, Francois. The Republic knows how to confront
what is coming!"
"Yes. I hope we have learned something. All Frenchmen will do what is
possible. As for me, I expect that my class will be called. I shall do
my best, Monsieur Warner.... It is a great happiness to know that the
English are with us. We must stand by those poor Belgians. Have you
heard the news, Monsieur?"
"Nothing since noon."
"Ah! The Bosches are ruining everything with their artillery. Liege,
Namur, are crumbling; Louvain has been swept by shells. The great
cupola forts are in ruins; everything is on fire; they are shooting the
people in their houses, in the streets--the dead lie everywhere--women,
children, in the ditches, in the fields, on the highroads. Ah, Monsieur
Warner, c'est triste, allez!"
"Where did you hear such things, Francois?"
"It is already common talk. The noon bulletins of the _Petit Journal_
confirm it. They say that our fort is shelling the Uhlans of Guillaume
now. They say that the forest of Ausone crawls with them."
A waiter brought their tea; the _gerant_ bowed himself out and sent a
porter to the lumber room to collect and cord up Warner's canvases.
While Philippa poured their tea, the cups began to rattle in the
saucers, and the windows shivered and trembled in the increasing
thunder. Twice his cup slopped over; and he was just lifting it to his
lips when suddenly the very floor seemed to jump under them and a
tremendous shock rocked the room.
"A big gun in the fort," said Warner, coolly forcing a smile. "I think,
Philippa, as soon as you have finished----"
A terrific salvo cut him short. Somewhere he could hear a crashing
avalanche of broken glass, prolonged into a tinkling cascade; then came
a second's silence, then another splitting roar from the end of the
street.
The waiter came in hurriedly, very pale.
"An aeroplane, Monsieur! They are firing at it from the boulevard----"