The Frontier Part 2

Morestal picked a great armful of flowers, laid waste his rose-garden, sacrificed all the Gloires de Dijon of which he was so proud and returned to the drawing-room, where he himself arranged the bunches in large gla.s.s vases.

The room, a sort of hall occupying the centre of the house, with beams of timber showing and a huge chimney covered with gleaming bra.s.ses, the room was bright and cheerful and open at both fronts: to the east, on the terrace, by a long bay; to the west, by two windows, on the garden, which it overlooked from the height of a first floor.

The walls were covered with War Office maps, Home Office maps, district maps. There was an oak gun-rack with twelve rifles, all alike and of the latest pattern. Beside it, nailed flat to the wall and roughly st.i.tched together, were three dirty, worn, tattered strips of bunting, blue, white and red.

"They look very well: what do you say?" he asked, when he had finished arranging the flowers, as though his wife had been in the room. "And now, I think, a good pipe ..."

He took out his tobacco-pouch and matches and, crossing the terrace, went and leant against the stone bal.u.s.trade that edged it.

Hills and valleys mingled in harmonious curves, all green, in places, with the glad green of the meadows, all dark, in others, with the melancholy green of the firs and larches.

At thirty or forty feet below him ran the road that leads from Saint-elophe up to the Old Mill. It skirted the walls and then dipped down again to the etang-des-Moines, or Monks' Pool, of which it followed the left bank. Breaking off suddenly, it narrowed into a rugged path which could be seen in the distance, standing like a ladder against a rampart, and which plunged into a narrow pa.s.s between two mountains wilder in appearance and rougher in outline than the ordinary Vosges landscape. This was the Col du Diable, or Devil's Pa.s.s, situated at a distance of sixteen hundred yards from the Old Mill, on the same level.

A few buildings clung to one of the sides of the pa.s.s: these belonged to Saboureux's Farm. From Saboureux's Farm to the b.u.t.te-aux-Loups, or Wolves' Knoll, which you saw on the left, you could make out or imagine the frontier by following a line of which Morestal knew every guiding-mark, every turn, every acclivity and every descent.

"The frontier!" he muttered. "The frontier here ... at twenty-five miles from the Rhine ... the frontier in the very heart of France!"

Every day and ten times a day, he tortured himself in this manner, gazing at that painful and relentless line; and, beyond it, through vistas which his imagination contrived as it were to carve out of the Vosges, he conjured up a vision of the German plain on the misty horizon.

And this too he repeated to himself; and he did so this time as at every other time, with a bitterness which the years that pa.s.sed did nothing to allay:

"The German plain ... the German hills ... all that land of Alsace in which I used to wander as a boy.... The French Rhine, which was my river and the river of my fathers.... And now _Deutschland_ ... _Deutsches Rhein_...."

A faint whistle made him start. He leant over towards the staircase that climbed the terrace, a staircase cut out of the rock, by which people coming from the side of the frontier often entered his grounds so as to avoid the bend of the road. There was n.o.body there nor anybody opposite, on the roadside slope all tangled with shrubs and ferns.

And the sound was renewed, discreetly, stealthily, with the same modulations as before.

"It's he ... it's he ..." thought M. Morestal, with an uncomfortable feeling of embarra.s.sment.

A head popped from between the bushes, a head in which all the bones stood out, joined by prominent muscles, which gave it the look of the head of an anatomical model. On the bridge of the nose, a pair of copper-rimmed spectacles. Across the face, like a gash, the toothless, grinning mouth.

"You again, Dourlowski...."

"Can I come?" asked the man.

"No ... no ... you're mad...."

"It's urgent."

"Impossible.... And besides, you know, I don't want any more of it. I've told you so before...."

But the man insisted:

"It's for this evening, for to-night.... It's a soldier of the Borsweilen garrison.... He says he's sick of wearing the German uniform."

"A deserter.... I've had enough of them.... Shut up and clear out!"

"Now don't be nasty, M. Morestal.... Just think it over.... Look here, let's meet at four o'clock, in the pa.s.s, near Saboureux's Farm ... like last time.... I shall expect you.... We'll have a talk ... and I shall be surprised if ..."

"Hold your tongue!" said Morestal.

A voice cried from the drawing-room:

"Here they come, sir, here they come!"

It was the man-servant; and Mme. Morestal also ran out and said:

"What are you doing here? Whom were you talking to?"

"n.o.body."

"Why, I heard you!..."

"No, I a.s.sure you...."

"Well, I must have imagined it.... I say you were quite right. It's twelve o'clock and they are here, the two of them."

"Philippe and Marthe?"

"Yes, they are coming. They are close to the garden-entrance. Let's hurry down and meet them...."

CHAPTER II

THE GIRL WITH THE BARE ARMS

"He hasn't changed a bit.... His complexion is as fresh as ever.... The eyes are a little tired, perhaps ... but he's looking very well...."

"When you've finished picking me to pieces, between you!" said Philippe, laughing. "What an inspection! Why don't you give my wife a kiss? That's more to the point!"

Marthe flung herself into Mme. Morestal's arms and into her father-in-law's and was examined from head to foot in her turn.

"I say, I say, we're thinner in the face than we were!... We want picking up.... But, my poor children, you're soaked to the skin!"

"We were out all through the storm," said Philippe.

"And what do you think happened to me?" asked Marthe. "I got frightened!... Yes, frightened, like a little girl ... and I fainted....

And Philippe had to carry me ... for half an hour at least...."

"What do you say to that?" said Morestal to his wife. "For half an hour! He's the same strong chap he was.... And why didn't you bring the boys? It's a pity. Two fine little fellows, I feel sure. And well brought up too: I know my Marthe!... How old are they now? Ten and nine, aren't they? By the way, mother got two rooms ready. Do you have separate rooms now?"

"Oh, no," said Marthe, "only down here!... Philippe wants to get up before day-break and ramble about the roads ... whereas I need a little rest."

"Capital! Capital! Show them to their rooms, mother ... and, when you're ready, children, come down to lunch. As soon as we've finished, I'll take the carriage and go and fetch your trunks at Saint-elophe: the railway-omnibus will have brought them there by this time. And, if I meet my friend Jorance, I'll bring him back with me. I expect he's in the dumps. His daughter left for Luneville this morning. But she said she had written to you...."