The Girl Philippa
wing thrown open to the air; the kitchen stirred up to increased
activity for the emergency; the officers piloted to the rooms assigned
them.
Down on the drive a shadowy escort of hussars waited until an orderly
appeared, shining, with his breast torch, the path to the stables.
Then three sky-guns jolted up out of the darkness and halted; a company
of infantry tramped by toward the garage; the horses of the staff were
led away by mounted gendarmes; and three big military touring cars,
their hoods and glass windows grey with dust, began to purr and pant and
crawl slowly after the infantry.
Everywhere sentries were being set, taking post on every terrace, every
path and road, and before the doorways of the great house.
A single candle burned in the chapel. Beside it sat Sister Eila, intent
on her breviary, her lips moving silently as she bent above it.
The fifth part of the breviary, Matins, Lauds, and the Little Office of
the Blessed Virgin, absorbed her.
The whole of the breviary services, the duty of publicly joining or of
privately reading aloud so as to utter with the lips every word, is
generally incumbent upon all members of religious orders.
But Sisters of Charity, forming as they do an _active_ religious order,
are excepted.
Nevertheless, they are always bound to some shorter substitute, such as
the Little Office, or to some similar office. And though the hours for
devotion are prescribed, the duties of mercy sometimes interrupt the
schedule which must then be carried out as circumstances of necessity
permit.
Philippa, entering the chapel, caught sight of Sister Eila, and knelt
without disturbing her.
The girl had experienced an odd, unaccustomed, and suddenly imperative
desire for the stillness of an altar, for its shelter; for that silent
security that reigns beneath the crucifix and invites the meditation of
the pure in heart.
How long she had been seated there in the shadows she did not know, but
presently she became aware of Sister Eila beside her, resting against
her as though fatigued.
The girl put her arm around Sister Eila's neck instinctively, and drew
the drooping head against her shoulder.
They had not known each other well.
That was the beginning.
*CHAPTER XXXV*
The growling and muttering of German guns in the north and northeast
awoke Warner in his bed.
Sunrise plated his walls and ceiling with gold; the morning air hummed
with indefinite sounds and rumors, the confusion and movement of many
people stirring.
He stood for a moment by his window looking down over the plateau and
across the valley of the Recollette.
Everywhere cavalry, infantry, artillery, baggage trains, automobiles,
bicycles, motor cycles were moving slowly eastward into the blazing eye
of the rising sun and vanishing within its blinding glory.
Two French aeroplanes had taken the air. They came soaring over the
valley from the plateau, filling the air with the high clatter of their
machinery; pale green ribbons of smoke fell from them, uncoiling like
thin strips of silk against the sky; flag signals were being exchanged
between officers gathered on the terrace below and a group of soldiers
at the head of the nearest pontoon across the river.
Poles supporting field telephone and telegraph wires stretched across
the lawn, running south toward the lodge gate. Another line ran east,
another west.
Parked on the lawn were a dozen big automobiles, the chauffeurs at the
wheels, the engines running. Behind these, soldier cyclists and motor
cyclists sat cross-legged by their machines, exchanging gossip with a
squadron of hussars drawn up on the other side of the drive.
There were no tents visible anywhere, but everywhere in the open
soldiers were erecting odd-looking skeleton shelters and covering them
with freshly cut green boughs from the woods. Under one of these an
automobile was already standing, and under others hussars stood to
horse.
Across the rolling country, stretching over valley and plateau, the face
of the green and golden earth was striped, as though some giant plow had
turned furrows at random here and there, some widely separated from the
rest, others parallel and within a few yards of one another. A few dark
figures appeared along these furrows of raw earth, moved about,
disappeared. It was evident that the trenches of these prepared
positions were still in process of construction, for carts were being
driven to and from them and men were visible working near some of them.
Warner had completed his toilet when a maid brought cafe-au-lait. He
ate, listening to the grumble of the northern cannonade and watching the
movement of the columns along dry roads, where unbroken walls of dust
marked every route, seen or unseen, across the vast green panorama.
He had finished breakfast and was lighting a cigarette in preparation
for descending to the terrace, when the noise of an altercation arose
directly under his window; and, looking out, he beheld Asticot in
dispute with the sentry stationed there, loudly insisting that he was a
servant of the establishment, and demanding free entry with every
symptom of virtuous indignation.
He was a sight; his face and hands were smeared with black--charcoal, it
looked like--his clothes were muddy and full of briers, his beloved
lovelocks, no longer plastered in demicurls over each cheekbone, dangled
dankly beside his large, wide ears.
Over his shoulder he carried a sack, and to this he clung while he
flourished his free hand in voluble and impassioned argument.
Warner spoke sharply from the window above:
"Asticot!"
The disheveled one looked up with a joyous exclamation of recognition;
the sentry also looked up.
"He's my servant," said Warner quietly. "Asticot! What do you want?"
"M'sieu' Warner, I have something for you and for Mademoiselle
Philippa----"
"Very well. Go to the harness room; make something approaching a
toilet, put on the clean suit I gave you, and report to me."
"'Fait, M'sieu'!"
The sentry scowled after him as he departed, and Asticot pulled a
hideous face at him and thrust his tongue into his cheek in derision.
Warner, immensely amused, reassured the soldier on guard, folded his
arms and leaned on the sill to watch the interminable columns of motor
lorries moving through the valley.
The scenes everywhere were so intensely interesting that he had not had
enough of them when Asticot reappeared, cleansed, reclothed, his hair
sleekly plastered, still lugging his sack and looking at the sentinel
with the sad air of outraged innocence bestowing forgiveness.
"Let him pass, please," said Warner from the window. After a few moments
a disgusted maid knocked, requesting enlightenment concerning "an
individual pretending to be a servant of Monsieur Warner."
"It's true, Babette," he said, laughing. "Show him up, if you please."
Asticot entered, cap in hand, bowed, scraped the carpet with a
propitiating and crablike shuffle of his right foot, and set the sack
upon the floor.
There always had been something about the young ruffian which inclined
Warner to mirth. He waited a moment to control the amusement which
twitched at his lips, then:
"Well, Asticot, where have you been and what is in this bundle?"
"M'sieu'--may I close the door? I thank M'sieu'.... One cannot be too
careful about being overheard in these miserable days of martial law."
"What? Have you been doing something you are ashamed of?"
"No; nothing that I am ashamed of," replied Asticot naively. "I have
been to Ausone."
"To Ausone!"
"M'sieu', figurez-vous!--It occurred to me last evening--_tiens!_ there
ought to be a few odds and ends to pick up in Ausone--a few miserable
_chiffons_ which nobody wants--little fragments of no value, you
understand--what with the bombardment and all those ruined houses----"
"You went _looting_!"
"M'sieu'!" he said in pained surprise. "It was nothing like _that_!
No! I said to myself, '_Tenez, mon vieux_, to rake over a pile of
rubbish is no crime in Paris. On peut ramasser des bouts d'cigares
comme ca. Eh, bien, quoi?' I said to myself, 'Asticot, en route!'
"So I borrowed a boat----"
"Borrowed? From whom?"
"I could not find any owner, M'sieu'. So, as I say, I offered myself a
boat, and I took the fishing pole which was in it, and I rowed boldly up
the river.
"I suppose, seeing the fishing pole, nobody stopped me. Besides, there
were a few freshly caught fish in the boat. These I held up, offering
to sell to the soldiers I saw--a precaution, M'sieu', which rendered my
voyage very easy."
"It's a wonder you did not get yourself shot!"
"It was dark enough after a while. And there are no troops beyond the
second mill; and no vedettes disturbed me.
"At the Impasse d'Alcyon I tied my boat. The alley and the square were
full of the poor people of Ausone, returning to look among the ruins for
what had been their homes. Me, I said I was looking for mine, also----"
Warner said:
"That is villainous, Asticot; do you know it?"
"M'sieu'! I journeyed there only for what was rightfully mine!"
"Yours! What do you mean?"
"_Tenez_, M'sieu'; that wicked traitor, Wildresse, employed me, did he
not? Bon! Would you believe it--never yet has he paid me what he owes
me! M'sieu', such trickery, such ingratitude is nauseating! Besides,
now that I know he has sold France, I would not touch his filthy money.
No!"
He scowled thoughtfully at space, shrugged, continued:
"The question nevertheless remained: _how_ was I to reimburse myself?
Tiens! An idea! I remembered that in the cellar of that cabaret my
friend, Squelette, and I had discovered a safe.
"That very night, after M'sieu' had escaped us, taking with him
M'amzelle Philippa, Squelette and I we drilled into that safe----"
"What!"
Asticot shrugged:
"Que voulez-vous! C'est la vie! Also, M'sieu' should trouble himself
to recollect that I had not become honest and God-fearing under the
merciless blows of M'sieu'. I was still full of evil in those days,
alas! not yet sufficiently remote----"
"Go on," said Warner, controlling his laughter.
"M'sieu', we got the safe door open, Squelette and I, but found no
opportunity to rummage. Then we were sent here, M'sieu' knows the
rest--the bombardment and all.... So last night I went back to the
cabaret--or what remains of it--four walls and a heap of brick. The
fire was out. The cabaret was ruined, but the cafe had not been
destroyed.
"And now, M'sieu', comes a real vein of luck. And what do you suppose!
Face to face in the dark I came upon a pioupiou on guard as I crawl
through the cafe door.
"And I thought his bayonet was in my bowels, M'sieu', when he turned his
breast torch on me. One makes short work of looters--not that I can
rightly be called that. No! But still I thought: 'Dieu! Je claque!
C'est fini!' When, 'Tiens!' exclaims my soldier. 'C'est mon vieux
co'pain! What dost thou do here, Asticot, smelling around these ruins?'
"M'sieu', I look, I expel a cry of joy, I embrace a friend! It is One
Eye--my comrade in the Battalion of Biribi! I am within the lines of a
Battalion of Africa!"
He licked his lips furtively, and leered at Warner.
"_Voyez-vous_, M'sieu', when old friends meet an affair is quickly
arranged. I file away at full speed; I gain the cellar, I flash the
safe, I pull some old sacks under me and sit down at my leisure. It was
most comfortable.
"Can M'sieu' see the tableau? Me, Asticot, seated before the open safe
of Wildresse, who has wronged me and my country, leisurely revenging
myself by knocking off the necks of his wine bottles and refreshing
myself while I examine the contents of the traitor's safe!"