The Children of Alsace Part 32

"That is right, Monica--very right. And when will it be convenient to you?"

"Just the time to let M. de Farnow know about it. You will fix the day and the hour--write to him when he answers you."

Lucienne, in spite of her want of tenderness, drew closer to her mother that evening. In the little drawing-room, where she worked at crochet for two hours, she sat near Madame Oberle, and with her watchful eyes she followed, or tried to follow, the thoughts on the lined face so mobile and still so expressive. But often one can only partly read what is pa.s.sing in a mind. Neither Lucienne nor Jean guessed the reason which had so quickly prompted Madame Oberle's act of self-sacrifice.

CHAPTER XIII

THE RAMPARTS OF OBERNAI

Ten days later, Lucienne and her mother had just entered the family house where Madame Oberle had spent all her childhood, the home of the Biehlers, which lifted its three stories of windows with little green panes, and its fortified gable above the ramparts of Obernai, between two houses of the sixteenth century--just like it.

Madame Oberle had gone upstairs, saying to the caretaker:

"You will receive a gentleman presently who will ask for me."

In the large room on the first floor which she entered, one of the few rooms which were still furnished, she had seen her parents live and die; the walnut-wood bed, the brown porcelain stove, the chairs covered with woollen velvet which repeated on every seat and every back the same basket of flowers, the crucifix framed under raised gla.s.s, the two views of Italy brought back from a journey in 1837, all remained in the same places and in the same order as in the old days. Instinctively in crossing the threshold she sought the holy water stoup hanging near the lintel, where the old people, when they went into the room, moistened their fingers as on the threshold of a holy abode.

The two women went towards the window. Madame Oberle wore the same black dress she had put on to receive the Prefect of Strasburg.

Lucienne had put on a large brimmed hat of grey straw, trimmed with feathers of the same shade, as if to cover her fair hair with a veil of shadow. Her mother thought her beautiful--and did not say so. She would have hastened to say so if the betrothed had not been he whom they expected, and if the sight of the house, and the memory of the good Alsatian folk who had lived in it, had not made the pain she already felt greater.

She leant against the windows and looked down into the garden full of box-trees clipped into rounded shapes, and flower borders outlined by box, and the winding, narrow paths where she had played, grown up, and dreamed. Beyond the garden there was a walk made on the town ramparts, and between the chestnuts planted there one could see the blue plain.

Lucienne, who had not spoken since the arrival at Obernai, guessing that she would have disturbed a being who was asking herself whether she could continue and complete her sacrifice, came quite close to her mother, and with that intelligence which always took everyone's fancy the first time they heard it, but less the second time:

"You must suffer, mamma," she said. "With your ideas, what you are doing is almost heroic!"

The mother did not look up, but her eyelids fluttered more, and quickly.

"You are doing it as a wifely duty, and because of that I admire you. I do not believe I could do what you are doing--give up my individuality to such an extent."

She did not think she was being cruel.

"And you wish to be married?" asked the mother, raising her head quickly.

"Why, yes; but we do not now look upon marriage quite as you do."

The mother saw from Lucienne's smile that she would be contending with a fixed idea, and she felt that the hour for discussion was badly chosen. She kept silence.

"I am grateful to you," continued the young girl. Then after a moment of hesitation:

"Nevertheless, you had another reason besides obeying my father when you agreed to come here--here to receive M. von Farnow."

She let her eyes wander round the room, and brought them back to the woman with smooth hair--that worn-out and suffering woman--who was her mother. There was no hesitation.

"Yes," she said.

"I was sure of it. Can you tell me what it is?"

"Presently."

"Before M. von Farnow?"

"Yes."

Keen annoyance changed the expression of Lucienne's face; it grew hard.

"Although we do not agree with each other very well, surely you are not capable of trying to turn my betrothed against me?"

Tears appeared in the corners of Madame Oberle's eyelids.

"Oh Lucienne!"

"No, I do not believe it. It is something important?"

"Yes."

"Does it concern me?"

"No; not you."

The young girl opened her mouth to continue, then listened, became a little pale, and turned completely towards the door, while her mother turned only half-round in the same direction. Some one was coming upstairs. Wilhelm von Farnow, preceded by the caretaker, who accompanied him only as far as the landing, saw Madame Oberle through the opening of the door, and as if on a military parade, he drew himself up and crossed the room quickly, and bowed his haughty head first to the mother, then to the young girl.

He was extremely well dressed in civilian clothes. His face was drawn and pallid with emotion. He said gravely in French:

"I thank you, madame!"

Then he looked at Lucienne, and in his unsmiling blue eyes there was a gleam of proud joy.

The young girl smiled.

Madame Oberle felt a shudder of aversion, which she tried to repress. She looked straight into the steel-blue eyes of Wilhelm von Farnow, who stood motionless in the same att.i.tude he would have taken under arms and before some great chief.

"You must not thank me. I play no part in what is happening. My husband and my daughter have decided everything."

He bowed again.

"If I were free I should refuse your race, your religion, your army--which are not mine. You see I speak to you frankly. I am determined to tell you that you owe me nothing, but also that I harbour no unjust animosity against you. I even believe that you are a very good soldier and an estimable man. I am so convinced of it that I am going to confide to you an anxiety which tortures me."

She hesitated a moment and continued:

"We had at Alsheim a terrible scene when Count Ka.s.sewitz came to the house."

"Count Ka.s.sewitz told me about it, madame. He even advised me to give up the idea of marrying your daughter. But I shall not do that.

To make me give her up nothing short of----"