The Girl Philippa
"Oh, yes. In our service I am squadron commander, and Gray is wing
commander. But I have a flight-lieutenant yonder at the sheds and a
mechanic.
"As a matter of fact, Warner, I am the British Official Observer with
General Pau's army, and Gray, when he can get about, is to act with me.
That is what I am doing."
"You make no flights?"
"Oh, yes, we shall fly, Gray and I--not doing any range finding for the
artillery and not making ordinary raids with bombs. Observation is to
be our role. It's interesting, isn't it?"
"It's fascinating," said Warner, linking his arm in Halkett's as they
left the room.
"As a matter of fact," he added, "in spite of the horrors in Belgium,
the slaughter there and in Alsace, this war has not really begun."
Halkett turned a drawn and very grave face to him:
"Warner," he said, "this war will not really begin until next spring.
And there will be a million dead men under ground by that time."
Dinner that evening at the Chateau des Oiseaux was a most cheerful
function. The passing of an army for miles and miles through the
country around them was a relief and a reassurance which brought with it
a reaction of gayety slightly feverish at moments.
The Countess de Moidrey gave her arm to Gray, tall, slim, yellow-haired,
and most romantically pale: Captain the Vicomte d'Aures took out Peggy
Brooks--they turned to each other with the same impulse, as naturally as
two children coming together--and the words designating them to other
partners remained unspoken on Ethra's lips.
Philippa, in an enchanting gown of turquoise, looked up at the Countess,
flushed and expectant, but the elder woman, much amused, designated
Halkett, and the girl took the arm he offered with a faint smile at
Warner, as though to reassure him concerning matters temporarily beyond
her own control.
The Countess saw it, stood watching Warner, who had drawn Sister Eila's
arm through his own, and was taking her out--saw Halkett and Philippa
halt and draw aside to let them pass; saw the expression in Sister
Eila's face as her glance met Halkett's, wavered, and passed elsewhere.
Before she and Gray had moved to close the double file, the Cure of
Dreslin was unexpectedly announced, and she turned to receive him,
asking him to support Gray on the other side. Always Father Chalus was
a welcome guest at the Chateau; every house, humble or great, from
Dreslin to Sais, was honored when this dim-eyed old priest set foot
across the threshold.
The dinner was lively, gay at times, and always cheerful with the
excitement lent by the arrival of the army--an arrival verging closely
on the dramatic, with the echoes of the cannonade still heavy among the
northern forests, the evening sky still ruddy above Ausone, and the
August air tainted with the odor of burning.
Through the soft candlelight servants moved silently; the Countess, with
the old Cure on her right, devoted herself to him and to Gray.
As though utterly alone in the center of some vast solitude peopled only
by themselves, young D'Aures and Peggy Brooks remained conspicuously
absorbed in each other and equally oblivious to everything and everybody
else on earth.
"How is Ariadne?" inquired Halkett of Philippa,
"Poor dear! I have not seen her since she soiled a whisker in Jim's
ultramarine!"
Sister Eila's lowered eyes were lifted; she tried to smile at Halkett.
"I saw Ariadne the other day," she said. "The cat is quite comfortable
in the garden of the Golden Peach."
Halkett said lightly:
"Ariadne introduced me to Sister Eila. Do you remember, Sister?"
But Sister Eila had already turned to Warner, and perhaps she did not
hear.
Later Warner bent toward Philippa:
"You are enchanting in that filmy turquoise blue affair."
"Isn't it a darling? Peggy _would_ make me wear it. It's hers, of
course.... Do I please you?"
"Did you ever do anything else, Philippa?"
She colored, looked up at him confused, and laughed:
"Oh, yes," she said, "I have annoyed you too, sometimes. Do you
remember when I ran away from Ausone and told you about it in the meadow
by the river? Oh, you were very much annoyed! You need not deny it. I
realize now how much annoyed you must have been----"
"Thank God you did what you did," he said under his breath.
"What else could I do?"
"Nothing.... I must have been blind, there in Ausone, not to understand
you from the first moment. And I must have been crazy to have gone away
and left you there.... When I think of it, it makes me actually
ill----"
"Jim! You didn't know."
"I should have known. Any blockhead ought to have understood. That was
the time I should have heard the knocking of opportunity! I was deaf.
That was the time I should have caught a glimpse of that clean flame
burning. I seemed to know it was there--words are cheap!--but my eyes
were too dull to perceive a glimmer from it!"
"Jim! You saw a girl with painted lips and cheeks insulting the
sunlight. How could you divine----"
"I couldn't; I didn't. I was not keen enough, not fine enough. Yet,
that was the opportunity. That was the moment when I should have
comprehended you--when I should have stood by you--taken you, held you
against everybody, everything---- Good God! I went away, smug as any
Pharisee, and with a self-satisfied smile left you on the edge of
hell--smiling back at me out of those grey, undaunted eyes----"
"Please! You were wonderful every minute from the beginning--every
minute--all through it, Jim----"
"_You_ were! I know what I was. Halkett knows, too. I was not up to
the opportunity; I did not measure up to the chance that was offered me;
I was not broad enough, fine enough----"
"What are you saying!--When you know how I feel--how I regard you----"
"How can you regard me the way you say you do?"
"How can I help it?" She looked down at her glass, touched the slender
stem absently.
"Out of all the world," she said under her breath, "you alone held out a
comrade's hand. Does anything else matter? ... Think! You are
forgetting. Remember! Picture me where I was--as I was--only yesterday!
Look at me now--here, beside you.--here under this roof, among these
people--and the taste of their salt still keen in my mouth! Now, do you
understand what you have done for me--you alone? Now, do you understand
what I--feel--for you?--For you who mean not only life to me, but who
have made possible for me that life which follows death?"
Her cheeks flushed; she turned breathlessly toward him.
"I tell you," she whispered, "you have offered me Christ, as surely as
He has ever been offered at any communion since the Last Supper! ...
_That_ is what you have done for me!"
*CHAPTER XXXIV*
Dinner was ended.
Gray had retired to his room, persuaded by Madame de Moidrey, who bribed
him by promising to read to him when he was tired of talking shop to
Captain Halkett.
Sister Eila had returned to the east wing, which was convenient to her
business as well as to her devotions.
Also, she had need of Father Chalus, who had come all the way from
Dreslin on foot. For it was included in the duty of the parish priest
to confess both Sister Eila and Sister Felicite; only the sudden perils
and exigencies of home duties in Dreslin had detained him since the war
broke out.
He was old, lean, deeply worn in the service of the poor--a white-haired
man who looked out on the world through kindly blue eyes dimmed by
threescore years of smoky candlelight and the fine print of
breviaries--a priest devotedly loved in Dreslin, and by the household of
the Chateau, and by every inhabitant of the scattered farms composing
the little hamlet called Sais.
It appeared that Sister Eila had great need of Father Chalus, for they
had gone away together, into the eastern wing of the house. And the
Countess, noticing their departure, smiled to herself; for, like
everybody else, she was skeptical regarding the reality of any sins that
Sister Eila might have to confess.
The young Vicomte d'Aures had taken his leave with all the unspoiled,
unembarrassed, and boyish cordiality characteristic of his race; also he
departed in a state of mind so perfectly transparent to anybody who
cared to notice it that Madame de Moidrey retired to the billiard room
after his departure, looking very serious. She became more serious
still when Peggy did not appear from the southern terrace, whither she
had returned to mention something to Monsieur D'Aures which she had
apparently forgotten to say to him in the prolonged ceremony of
leavetaking.
When fifteen minutes elapsed and no Peggy appeared, Madame de Moidrey
rose from her chair, flushed and unsmiling. But before she had taken a
dozen steps toward the southern terrace her younger sister reappeared,
walking rapidly. When she caught sight of the Countess advancing, she
halted and gazed at her sister rather blankly.
"Well, Peggy?"
"Well?"
"I am not criticising you or that boy, but perhaps a little more
reticence--repose of manner--reserve----"
"Ethra," she said in an awed voice, "I am in love with D'Aures."
"_What!_"
"I am. It came."
"Good heavens, Peggy----"
"I know! I said 'good heavens,' too--I mean I thought it. I don't know
what I've been saying this evening----"
"When? Where?"
"Everywhere. Just now, on the terrace----"
"Peggy!"
"What?"
"You didn't say anything that could be----"
"Yes, I did. I think he knows I'm in love with him. I meant him to
know!"
"Peggy!"
"Oh, Ethra, I don't remember what I said.... And I think he cares for
me--I think we're in love with each other----"
The girl dropped into a chair and stared at her sister.
"I'm bewitched, I think. Ever since I saw him that first time it's been
so. I've thought of him all the time.... He says that it was so with
him, also----"'
"Oh, heavens, Peggy! Are you mad? Is he? You're acting like a pair of
crazy children----"
"We _are_ children. He's only a boy. But I know he's growing into the
only man who could ever mean anything to me.... He's writing to his
father now. I expect his father will write to you. Isn't it wonderful!"
Ethra de Moidrey gazed at her sister dizzily. The girl sat with her
face between her hands looking steadily at the carpet. After a moment
she glanced up.
"It's the way _you_ fell in love," she said under her breath.
Madame de Moidrey rose abruptly, as though a sudden shaft of pain had
pierced her. Then, walking over to her sister, she dropped one hand on
her dark head; stroked the thick, lustrous hair gently, absently; stood
very silent, gazing into space.
When Peggy stood up the Countess encircled her waist with one arm. They
walked together slowly toward the southern terrace.
A million stars had come out in the sky; there was a scent of lilies
lingering above the gardens. Sounds from distant bivouacs came to their
ears; no camp fires were visible, but the Recollette glittered like snow
in the white glare of searchlights.
"That boy," said Peggy, "--wherever he is riding out there in the
night--out there under the stars--that boy carries my heart with him....
I always thought that if it ever came it would come like this.... I
thought it would never come.... But it has."
Halkett, returning from a conference with Warner and Gray, came out on
the terrace to take his leave. They asked him to return when he could;
promised to visit the sheds and see the Bristol biplane.
Part way down the steps he turned and came back, asked permission to
leave his adieux with them for Sister Eila from whom he had not had an
opportunity to take his leave, turned again and went away into the
night, using his flashlight along the unfamiliar drive.