The Girl Philippa
nearer and nearer, until the shattering crash of the explosion in the
town behind them relaxed the nerve-breaking tension.
Farther out in the green countryside he no longer looked up and back.
Philippa still lay huddled at his feet, looking up out of grey eyes that
quivered and winced sometimes, but always opened again, steady and clear
with faith.
On the Ausone road fugitives from every farm and hamlet were afoot
again, but he could not see them very distinctly through the dust that
hung there. Also clouds now obscured the declining sun; the world had
turned grey around them; and the Recollette flowed away ahead with
scarcely a glimmer on its tarnished flood, save where a dull and leaden
sparkle came and went along the water weeds inshore.
It was as though the subtle poison of war itself had polluted material
things, killing out brightness and health and life, staining sky and
water and earth with its hell-distilled essence.
Then a more concretely sinister omen took shape, floating under the
trees in a deep, still cove--a dead cavalry horse, saddled and bridled,
stranded there, barely awash; and a hooded crow already walking busily
about over the level gravel of the shoal.
As they neared Sais, the quarry road across the river became visible.
Dust eddied and drifted there, and he could distinguish the slanted
lances of cavalry in rapid motion and catch the muffled roar of hoofs.
They were galloping north, a dusty, interminable column enveloped in an
endless grey cloud of their own making in the thickening evening mist
already hanging palely over land and water.
There was scarcely a tint of color left in the east, and that vague hue
died out under clotted clouds as he looked.
And after a while he was aware of a vague rumor in the air, which seemed
to come from the east--a vibration, low, indefinite, almost inaudible,
yet always there to challenge his attention.
The Vosges lay beyond; and the Barrier Forts.
Duller and duller grew the twilight. He drove the punt forward into
dusky reaches shrouded in mist, where not a ripple glimmered, and the
trees and river reeds stood motionless in the fog.
There were no stars, no lights ashore. On his left he could hear the
unbroken trample of cavalry riding north; far beyond, the air was
heavily unsteady with the dull rumor beyond the hills; behind him the
shriller tumult had died away and the deadened booming of the guns
sounded like the heavy thunder of surf on sand.
Philippa had risen to a sitting position, and now she was lying back
comfortably extended among the cushions.
They exchanged a few words; her voice was calm, cheerful, untroubled.
She offered to take the punt pole; said that at first she had felt more
bewildered and dazed than frightened; explained that real fear had first
possessed her when the dead and bloody swan floated past, and that then
she had been horribly afraid of the sky noises--the shrieking, hooting,
whistling approach of the unseen.
He had been under fire in the Balkans; Lule Bourgas had blunted for him
the keener edge of terror. And now, still thoroughly stirred, only the
excitement of the past hour remained and stimulated him.
"It's war all around us now," he said, driving his punting pole steadily
and straining his keen eyes into the shadows beyond. "There are
stirring days ahead for France in this region, I fear; the Barrier Forts
are far away and there is nothing in the north to hold the deluge
breaking over Luxembourg into Belgium.
"A great war is beginning, Philippa; the greatest that the earth has
ever faced.... I never supposed that I should live to see such a
war--the greatest of all wars--the last _great_ war, I think.
"If I were anything except a useless painter, I'd go into it.... I
don't know what good I'd be to anybody. But if anybody wants me----"
"We both can offer ourselves," said Philippa.
"Dear child! I'd like to catch _you_ wandering into this sort of----"
"I shall volunteer if you do!"
"You shall _not_! You'll go to Paris with Madame de Moidrey--that's
what you'll do!"
"Jim, that is absurd. If I'm wanted I shall volunteer for hospital
service, anyway. And if you offer yourself I shall wait until I find
out where you are to be sent, and then I shall beg them to take me at
the nearest field ambulance."
"No good, Philippa. They do that sort of thing in romances, but in real
life a course of hospital training is required of volunteers."
"I can scrub floors and sew and cook," she said serenely. "Do they not
need such people?"
"There's no use discussing it," he said. "Only trained women will be
wanted--tolerated; and I suppose only trained men. The amateur nurse
and warrior were utterly and definitely discredited in South Africa.
There'll be no more of that. There's no room for us, Philippa; the
firing line would reject me with derision, and the base hospital would
politely bow you out." He laughed rather mirthlessly. "There remains
for us," he said, "the admirable, but somewhat monotonous thinking-roles
of respectable citizens--items in the world-wide chorus which marches
harmlessly hither and thither during the impending drama, and forms
pleasing backgrounds for the principals when they take their curtain
calls."
She felt the undertone of slight bitterness in his voice; understood it,
perhaps, for, when the punt was turned and driven gently ashore among
the foggy rushes, she retained the supporting arm he offered, clung to
it almost caressingly.
"I know you," she murmured, as they mounted the grassy bank together;
"you have no need to tell me what you are--dearest, noblest, best among
men."
He answered almost impatiently:
"I don't want you to think that of me! You must not believe it,
Philippa. Keep your head clear, and your judgment independent of that
warm, sweet heart of yours. I'm a most ordinary sort of man, little
distinguished, not in any way remarkable----"
"Don't!" she said. "You only hurt me, not yourself. Of what use is it
saying such things to a girl when the whole world would be a solitary
place if you were not in it--if your living mind did not make the earth
a real and living place to me!
"I tell you that, to me, life itself--the reality of the living
world--depends on you. If you die, all dies. Without you there is
nothing--absolutely nothing!--Not even myself!"
Calm, passionless, clear, her voice serenely pronounced and emphasized
her childish creed. And, impatient, restless, disturbed at first, yet
in this young girl's exaggerated and obstinate devotion he found no
reason for mirth, no occasion for the suppressed amusement of
experience.
He said:
"I can try to be what you think me, Philippa. Yours is a very tender
heart, and noble. Perhaps your heart may gradually lend me a little of
its own quality, so that the glamour with which you invest me shall not
be all unreal."
There was a short silence, then Philippa laughed. It was a sweet, happy,
confused little laugh. She made an effort to explain it.
"The greatest thing in the world," she said--"the _only_ thing!"
"What, Philippa?"
"Our friendship."
It was still early evening as they entered the house together and
traversed the hall to the north terrace.
The Countess de Moidrey, a book on her lap, was seated by a lighted lamp
in the billiard room, gazing out of the open windows, through which the
thunder of the cannonade, wave after wave, came rolling in from the
north.
"Madame--" began the girl timidly.
"Philippa!" she exclaimed, rising.
The girl came forward shyly, the unuttered words of explanation still
parting her lips; and the Countess de Moidrey drew her into her arms.
"My darling," she whispered unsteadily, "my darling child!"
Suddenly Philippa's eyes filled and her lips quivered; she turned her
face away, stood silent for a moment, then slowly she laid her cheek on
the elder woman's breast, and a faint sigh escaped her.
Madame de Moidrey looked at Warner over the chestnut head in its velvet
bonnet, which lay close and warm against her breast.
"Jim," she said, "they told me where you had taken this child. Can you
imagine what my state of mind has been since that horrible uproar began
over there in Ausone?"
"I must have been a lunatic to take her," he admitted; but Philippa's
protesting voice interrupted, unruffled, childishly sweet.
"The fault was mine, Madame. I was very willful; I made him take me.
I'll try not to be willful any more----"
"Darling! He ought to have known better. Do you understand how far you
have crept into all our hearts? It was as though a child of my own were
out there among the cannon----" She bent and kissed the girl's flushed
cheek. "I'm not inclined to forgive Mr. Warner, but I shall if you want
me to. Now, run up stairs, darling, and speak to Peggy. She's still
sitting at her bedroom window, I fancy, watching those dreadful flashes
out there, and perfectly miserable over you----"
"Oh!" cried Philippa, lifting her head. "You all are so sweet to me--so
dear! I shall hasten immediately----" She stooped swiftly and touched
her lips to the hands that held and caressed her, then turned and
mounted the stairs with flying feet.
Warner gazed rather blankly at Madame de Moidrey.
"I must have been crazy to risk taking her. But, Ethra, I hadn't any
reason to suppose there was any danger."
"Were you in Ausone when the fort began firing? Didn't you know enough
to come home?"
"Yes; I didn't realize it was the Fort d'Ausone. We were at tea in the
Boule d'Argent when the Taube appeared. Then everything was in a mess,
Ethra. I know a number of people have been killed. We saw a shop blown
up across the street. After that the cupola guns on the fort opened and
the town shook; and before we could cross the rue d'Auros to find our
punt, where we had left it tied under the river wall, the big German
shells began to fall all over the town. It was certainly a rotten
deal----"
"Jim, I am furious at you for taking that child into such a place. I
wish you to understand now, from this moment, that I love her dearly.
She is adorable; and she's mine. You can't take her about with you
without ceremony, anywhere and everywhere. Anyway, it's sheer madness
to go roaming around the country in such times as these. Hereafter, you
will please ask my permission and obtain my sanction when you are
contemplating any further harebrained performances."
Warner took his rebuke very humbly, kissed the pretty hand that,
figuratively, had chastised him, and went away to dress, considerably
subdued.
"By the way," he asked, when halfway up the stairs, "how is that man,
Reginald Gray?"
"I think he is better, Jim. Sister Eila is with him. Poor child, she
has been superintending the placing of the cot beds which have arrived,
and she is really very tired. If you are going to stop in and speak to
Mr. Gray, please say to Sister Eila that I shall relieve her in a few
moments."
He met Peggy with Philippa in the upper hall.
"You brute!" remarked Peggy, turning up her nose; and Philippa laughed
and closed the girl's lips with her soft hand.
"You may chase me about and kick me, too," said Warner, contritely.
"Anyway, I'm not to go anywhere with Philippa any more, it seems----"
"What!" exclaimed Philippa, then smiled and flushed as Peggy said
scornfully:
"You couldn't keep away from her if you tried. But hereafter you'll
include me on your charming excursions in quest of annihilation!" And
she tightened her arm around Philippa's waist and swung her with her
toward the further end of the hall.
Very conscious of his temporary unpopularity, he went in to see how Gray
was feeling, and found him sitting up in bed and Sister Eila preparing
his dose for him.