III
THE NOTE—AND NO REASONS
THAT feverish month of July—fitting climax to the scorching, arid summer of 1870 had run full half its course. Madness had stricken the rulers of France; to avoid danger they rushed on destruction. Gay madness spread through the veins of Paris. Perverse always, Lady Meg Duddington chose this moment for coming back to her senses—or at least for abandoning the particular form of insanity to which she had devoted the last five years.
One afternoon she called her witch and her wizard. "You're a pair of quacks, and I've been an old fool," she said, composedly, sitting straight up in her high-backed chair. She flung a couple of thousand-franc notes across the table. "You can go," she ended, with contemptuous brevity. Mantis's evil temper broke out: "She has done this, the malign one!" Pharos was wiser; he had not done badly out of Lady Meg, and madness such as hers is apt to be recurrent. His farewell was gentle, his exit not ungraceful; yet he, too, prayed her to beware of a certain influence. "Stuff! You don't know what you're talking about!" Lady Meg jerked out, and pointed with her finger to the door. "So we went out, and to avoid any trouble we left Paris the same day. But this man here would not give me any of the money, though I had done as much to earn it as he had, or more." So injured Madame Mantis told Monsieur le Président at Lille.
Early on the morning of Sunday, the 17th, having received word through Lady Meg's maid that her presence was not commanded in the Rue de Grenelle, Sophy slipped round to the Rue du Bac and broke in on Marie Zerkovitch, radiant with her great news and imploring her friend to celebrate it by a day in the country.
"It means that dear old Lady Meg will be what she used to be to me!" she cried. "We shall go back to England, I expect, and—I wonder what that will be like!"
Her face grew suddenly thoughtful. Back to England! How would that suit Sophie de Gruche? And what was to happen about Casimir de Savres? The period of her long, sweet indecision was threatened with a forced conclusion.
Marie Zerkovitch was preoccupied against both her friend's joy and her friend's perplexity. Great affairs touched her at home. There would be war, she said, certainly war; to-day the Senate went to St. Cloud to see the Emperor. Zerkovitch had started thither already, on the track of news. The news in the near future would certainly be war, and Zerkovitch would follow the armies, still on the track of news. "He went before, in the war of 'sixty-six," she said, her lips trembling. "And he all but died of fever; that kills the correspondents just as much as the soldiers. Ah, it's so dangerous, Sophie—and so terrible to be left behind alone. I don't know what I shall do! My husband wants me to go home. He doesn't believe the French will win, and he fears trouble for those who stay here." She looked at last at Sophy 's.clouded face. "Ah, and your Casimir—he will be at the front!"
"Yes, Casimir will be at the front," said Sophy, a ring of excitement hardly suppressed in her voice.
"If he should be killed!" murmured Marie, throwing her arms out in a gesture of lamentation.
"You bird of ill omen! He'll come back covered with glory."
The two spent a quiet day together, Sophy helping Marie in her homely tasks. Zerkovitch's campaigning kit was overhauled—none knew how soon orders for an advance might come—his buttons put on, his thick stockings darned. The hours slipped away in work and talk. At six o'clock they went out and dined at a small restaurant hard by. Things seemed very quiet there. The fat waiter told them with a shrug:
"We sha'n't have much noise here to-night—the lads will be over there!" He pointed across the river.
"They'll be over there most of the night—on the grands boulevards. Because it's war, madame. Oh, yes, it's war!" The two young women sipped their coffee in silence. "As a lad I saw 1830. I was out in the streets in 1851. What shall I see next?" he asked them as he swept his napkin over the marble table-top. If he stayed at his post, he saw many strange things; unnatural fires lit his skies, and before his doors brother shed brother's blood.
The friends parted at half-past seven. Marie hoped her husband would be returning home soon, and with news; Sophy felt herself due in the Rue de Grenelle. She reached the house there a little before eight. The concierge was not in his room; she went up-stairs unseen, and passed into the drawing-room. The inner door leading to the room Lady Meg occupied stood open. Sophy called softly, but there was no answer. She walked towards the door and wag about to look into the room, thinking that perhaps Lady Meg was asleep, when she heard herself addressed. The Frenchwoman who acted as their cook had come in and stood now on the threshold with a puzzled, distressed look on her face.
"I'm sorry, Mademoiselle Sophie, to tell you, but my lady has gone."
"Gone! Where to?"
"To England, I believe. This morning, after you had gone out, she ordered everything to be packed. It was done. She paid us here off, bidding me alone stay till orders reached me from Monsieur le Marquis. Then she went; only the coachman accompanied her. I think she started for Calais. At least, she is gone."
"She said—said nothing about me?"
"You'll see there's a letter for you on the small table in the window there."
"Oh yes! Thank you."
"Your room is ready for you to-night."
"I've dined. I shall want nothing. Good-night."
Sophy walked over to the little table in the window, and for a few moments stood looking at the envelope which lay there, addressed to her in Lady Meg's sprawling hand. The stately room in the Rue de Crenelle seemed filled with a picture which its walls had never seen; old words re-echoed in Sophy's ears: "If I want you to go, I'll put a hundred-pound note in an envelope and send it to you; upon which you'll go, and no reasons given! Is it agreed?" As if from a long way off, she heard a servant-girl answer: "It sounds all right." She saw the old elmtrees at Morpingham, and heard the wind murmur in their boughs; Pindar chuckled, and Julia Robins's eyes were wet with tears.
"And no reasons given!" It had sounded all right—before five years of intimacy and a life transformed. It sounded different now. Yet the agreement had been made between the strange lady and the eager girl. Nor were reasons hard to find. They stood out brutally plain. Having sent her prophet to the right about, Lady Meg wanted no more of her medium—her most disappointing medium. "They" would not speak through Sophy; perhaps Lady Meg did not now want them to speak at all.
Sophy tore the envelope right across its breadth and shook out the flimsy paper within. It was folded in four. She did not trouble to open it. Lady Meg was a woman of her word, and here was the hundred-pound note of the Bank of England—"upon which you'll go, and no reasons given!" With a bitter smile she noticed that the note was soiled, the foldings old, the edges black where they were exposed. She had no doubt that all these years Lady Meg had carried it about, so as to be ready for the literal fulfilment of her bond.
"Upon which," said Sophy, "I go."
The bitter smile lasted perhaps a minute more; then the girl flung herself into a chair in a fit of tears as bitter. She had served—or failed to serve—Lady Meg's mad purpose, and she was flung aside. Very likely she had grown hateful—she, the witness of insane whims now past and out of favor. The dismissal might not be unnatural; but, for all their bargain, the manner was inhuman. They had lived and eaten and drunk together for so long. Had there been no touch of affection, no softening of the heart? It seemed not—it seemed not. Sophy wept and wondered. "Oh, that I had never left you, Julia!" she cries in her letter, and no doubt cried now; for Julia had given her a friend's love. If Lady Meg had given her only what one spares for a dog—a kind word before he is banished, a friendly lament at parting!
Suddenly through the window came a boy's shrill voice: "Vive la guerre!"
Sophy sprang to her feet, caught up the dirty note, and thrust it inside her glove. Without delay, seemingly without hesitation, she left the house, passed swiftly along the street, and made for the Pont Royal. She was bound for the other bank and for the Boulevard des Italiens, where Casimir de Savres had his lodging. The stream of traffic set with her.She heeded it not. The streets were full of excited groups, but there was no great tumult yet. Men were eagerly reading the latest editions of the papers. Sophy pushed on till she reached Casimir's house. She was known there. Her coming caused surprise to the concierge—it was not the proper thing; but he made no difficulty. He showed her to Casimir's sitting-room, but of Casimir he could give no information, save that he presumed he would return to sleep.
"I must wait—I must see him," she said; and, as the man left her, she went to the window, flung it open wide, and stood there, looking down into the great street.
The lights blazed now. Every seat at every cafe was full. The newspapers did a great trade; a wave of infinite talk, infinite chaff, infinite laughter rose to her ears. A loud-voiced fellow was selling pictures of the King of Prussia—as he looks now, and as he will look! The second sheet never failed of a great success. Bands of lads came by with flags and warlike shouts. Some cheered them, more laughed and chaffed. One broad - faced old man she distinguished in the café opposite; he looked glum and sulky and kept arguing to his neighbor, wagging a fat forefinger at him repeatedly; the neighbor shrugged bored shoulders; after all, he had not made the war—it was the Emperor and those gentlemen at St. Cloud! As she watched, the stir grew greater, the bands of marching students more frequent and noisy, "A Berlin!" they cried now, amid the same mixture of applause and tolerant amusement. A party of girls paraded down the middle of the street, singing "J'aime Us militaires!" The applause grew to thunder as they went by, and the laughter broke into one great crackle when the heroines had passed.
She turned away with a start, conscious of a presence in the room. Casimir came quickly across to her, throwing his helmet on the table as he passed. He took her hands. "I know. Lady Meg wrote to me," he said. "And you are here!"
"I have no other home now," she said.
With a light of joy in his eyes he kissed her lips.
"I come to you only when I'm in trouble!" she said, softly.
"It is well," he answered, and drew her with him back to the window. Together they stood looking down.
"It is war, then?" she asked.
"Without doubt it's war—without doubt," he answered, gravely. "And beyond that no man knows anything."
"And you?" she asked.
He took her hands again, both of hers in his. " My lady of the Red Star!" he murmured, softly.
"And you?"
"You wouldn't have it otherwise?"
"Heaven forbid! God go with you as my heart goes! When do you go?"
"I take the road in an hour for Strasburg. We are to be of MacMahon's corps."
"In an hour?"
"Yes."
"Your preparations—are they made?"
"Yes."
"And you are free?"
"Yes."
"Then you've an hour to make me sure I love you!"
He answered as to a woman of his own stock.
"I have an hour now—and all the campaign," said he.