Barbarians Part 36

"Vigilance," repeated the girl. "Yes, always now in France. Because always the enemy is listening." ... Her strong young arm around her father, she traversed the garden slowly toward the house. A pleasant odour came from the kitchen of the White Doe, where an old peasant woman was cooking.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SUSPECT

That night she wrote to her lover at the great hospital in the south, where he lay slowly growing well:

MY DJACK:

Today has been very beautiful, made so for me by my thoughts of you and by a warm September sun which makes for human happiness, too.

I am wearing my ribbon of the Legion. Ah, my Djack, it belongs more rightly to you, who would not let me go alone to Nivelle that dreadful day. Why do they not give you the cross? They must be very stupid in Paris.

All day my happy thoughts have been with you, my Djack. It all seems a blessed dream that we love each other. And I--oh, how could I have been so ignorant, so silly, not to know it sooner than I did!

I don't know; I thought it was friendship. And that was so wonderful to me that I never dreamed any other miracle possible!

_Allons_, my Djack. Come and instruct me quickly, because my desire for further knowledge is very ardent.

The news? _Cher ami_, there is little. Always the far thunder beyond Nivelle in ruins; sometimes a battle-plane high in the blue; a convoy of your beloved mules arriving from the coast; nothing more exciting.

Monsieur Smeet and Monsieur Glenn inquire always concerning you.

They are brave and kind; their odd jests amuse me.

My father caught a tench in the Lesse this morning.

My gardener, Karl, collected many unpleasant creatures while hoeing our potatoes. Poor lad, he seems unhealthy. I am glad I could offer him employment.

My Djack, there could not possibly be any mistake about him, could there? His papers are en regle. He is what he pretends, a Belgian student from Ypres in distress and ill health, is he not?

But how can you answer me, you who lie there all alone in a hospital at Nice? Also, I am ashamed of myself for doubting the unfortunate young man. I am too happy to doubt anybody, perhaps.

And so good night, my Djack. Sleep sweetly, guarded by powerful angels.

Thy devoted, MARYETTE.

She had been writing in the deserted cafe. Now she took a candle and went slowly upstairs. On the white plaster wall of her bedroom was a Death's Head moth.

The girl, startled for an instant, stood still; an unfeigned shiver of displeasure pa.s.sed over her. Not that the Death's Head was an unfamiliar or terrifying sight to her; in late summer she usually saw one or two which had flown through some lighted window.

But it was the amorous history of this creature which the student Karl had related that now repelled her. This night creature with the skull on its neck, once scarcely noticed, had now become a trifle repulsive.

She went nearer, lifting the lighted candle. The thing crouched there with slanted wings. It was newly hatched, its sleek body still wet with the humors of incubation--wet as a soaked mouse. Its abdomen, too, seemed enormous, all swelled and distended with unfertilized eggs. No, there could be no question concerning the s.e.x of the thing; this was a female, and her tumefied body was almost bursting with eggs.

In startling design the yellow skull stood out; the ribs of the skeleton.

Two tiny, fiery eyes glimmered at the base of the antennae--two minute jewelled sparks of glowing, lambent fire. They seemed to be watching her, maliciously askance.

The very horrid part of it was that, if touched, the creature would cry out. The girl knew this, hesitated, looked at the open window through which it must have crawled, and sat down on her bed to consider the situation.

"After all," she said to herself resolutely. "G.o.d made it. It is harmless.

If G.o.d thought fit to paint one of his lesser creatures like a skeleton, perhaps it was to remind us that life is brief and that we should lose no time to live it n.o.bly in His sight.... I think that perhaps explains it."

However, she did not undress.

"I am quite foolish to be afraid of this poor moth. I repeat that I am foolish. _Allez_--I am _not_ afraid. I am no longer afraid. I--I admire this handiwork of G.o.d."

She sat looking at the creature, her hands lying clasped in her lap.

"It's a very odd thing," she said to herself, "that a lover can find this creature even if he be miles and miles away.... Maybe he's on his way now----"

Instinctively she sprang up and closed her bedroom window.

"No," she said, looking severely at the motionless moth, "you shall have no visitors in my room. You may remain here; I shall not disturb you; and tomorrow you will go away of your own accord. But I cannot permit you to receive company----"

A heavy fall on the floor above checked her. Breathless, listening, she crept to her door.

"Karl!" she called.

Listening again, she could hear distant and vaguely dreadful sounds from the gardener-student's room above.

She was frightened but she went up. The youth had had a bad hemorrhage.

She sat beside him late into the night. After his breathing grew quieter, sitting there in silence she could hear odd sounds, rustling, squeaking sounds from the box of Death's Head chrysalids on the night table beside his bed.

The pupae of the Death's Head were making merry in antic.i.p.ation of the rapidly approaching change--the Great Adventure of their lives--the coming metamorphosis.

The youth lay asleep now. As she extinguished the candle and stole from the room, all the pupae of the Death's Head began to squeak in the darkness.

The student-gardener could do no more work for the present. He lay propped up in bed, pasty, scarlet lipped, and he seemed bald and lidless, so colourless were hair and eye-lashes.

"Can I do anything for you, Karl?" asked Maryette, coming in for a moment as usual in the intervals of her many duties.

"The ink, if you would be so condescending--and a pen," he said, watching her out of hollow, sallow eyes of watery blue.

She fetched both from the cafe.

She came again in another hour, knocking at his door, but he said rather sharply that he wished to sleep.

Scarcely noticing the querulous tone, she departed. She had much to do besides her duties in the belfry. Her father was an invalid who required constant care; there was only one servant, an old peasant woman who cooked. The Government required her father to keep open the White Doe Tavern, and there was always a little business from the scanty garrison of Sainte Lesse, always a few meals to get, a few drinks to serve, and n.o.body now to do it except herself.

Then, in the belfry she had duties other than playing, than practice.