The Outrage Part 17

Here she felt safe.

"Then follow the mipes,"

she warbled,

"The perry mipes----"

There seemed to be something wrong with the words, but she could not get them right

"Yet, the perry perry mipes of Pan!"

"Gracious goodness," murmured the husky Miss Snelgrove to Mrs. Whitaker, who sat near her, "what a strident voice!"

"Yes," a.s.sented Mrs. Whitaker. "And what _are_ the 'perrimipes,' I wonder?"

There was no denying it. The concert was a fiasco. Owing to the execrable behaviour of the refugees and the contagion of their senseless laughter, a kind of hysteria gained the hall and half the audience was soon in a condition of brainless and uncontrollable hilarity.

Every new number was greeted with suffocated giggles, sometimes even with screams of laughter from the younger portion of the audience.

The curate--who had himself been found holding both his sides in one of the empty schoolrooms--made a caustic speech at the close of the performance about "our well-meant efforts, our perchance too modest talents," having appealed mainly to the risible faculties of their foreign guests, and he had pleasure in stating that the sum collected was eighteen pounds seven shillings and sixpence.

The refugees slunk home and were treated like pariahs for many weeks afterwards; while the word "Concert" was not p.r.o.nounced for months in the homes of Mrs. Mellon, of Miss Johnson, or of Miss Price.

CHAPTER XI

CHeRIE'S DIARY

Loulou is ill, and I am very anxious about her. It must be the English climate perhaps, for I also do not feel as I used to feel in Bomal. I often am deathly sick, and faint and giddy; I cannot bear the sight of things and of people that before I did not mind, or even liked. Certain puddings, for instance, and all kinds of dishes which I thought so extraordinarily nice to eat when we first came here, now I cannot bear to see them when they are brought on the table. Something makes me grind my teeth and I feel as if I must get up and run out of the room. And I have the same inexplicable aversion to people; for instance the nice kind Monsieur George Whitaker--I cannot say what I feel when he comes near to me; a sort of shuddering terror that makes me turn away so as not to see him. I cannot bear to look at his strong brown hands with the little short fair hairs on his wrist. I cannot look at his clear grey eyes, or at his mouth which always laughs, or at his broad shoulders, or anything.... There is something in me that shrinks and shudders away from the sight of him. Have the sorrows and troubles we have pa.s.sed through unhinged my reason?...

But to return to Louise. I thought that what made her look so pale and wild was the anxiety of not hearing from Claude; but since his first dear letter ten days ago telling us that he is safe, she seems even worse than before. It is true he has been wounded; but that is almost a blessing, for the wound is not serious and yet it will keep him safely in the hospital at Dunkirk for months to come. He may remain slightly lame as he has been shot in the knee, but that does not matter, and he says his health is perfect.

Of course I thought Loulou would start at once to go and visit him, as she can get permission to see him and he has sent her plenty of money for the journey; but she will not hear of it. She only weeps and raves when I speak of it; and I do not think she ever sleeps at night. I can hear her in her room, which is next to mine, moaning and whispering and praying whenever I wake up. I have asked her why, why she will not go to see Claude--ah, if only I knew where to find Florian, how I should fly to his side!--but she shakes her head and weeps and her eyes are full of terror and madness. I ask her, "Is it because of Mireille? Are you afraid of telling him about her?" "Yes, yes, yes," she cries. "I am afraid, afraid of telling him what has made her as she is."

"But, Loulou, dearest, what do you mean? Was it not her fear that the Germans would kill us that took away her speech? Why should you not tell Claude? He would comfort you. He knows the Germans were in Bomal! He knows that they ransacked our house, that they killed Monsieur le Cure and poor Andre...."

"Yes, he knows that," answers Louise slowly with her eyes fixed on mine.

"But he does not know----"

Then she is silent.

"What does he not know?"

She grasps my shoulders. "Cherie, Cherie. Are you demented? Have you forgotten--have you forgotten?"

Forgotten!... In truth, I have forgotten many things. There are gaps in my memory, wide blank s.p.a.ces that, no matter how I try to remember, I cannot fill. Now and then something flashes into those blank s.p.a.ces, a fleeting recollection, a transient vision, then the blankness closes down again and when I try to remember what I have remembered, it is gone.

I ask Louise to tell me what she means, to tell me what I have forgotten; but she only stares at me with those horror-haunted eyes and whispers, "Hush! hush, my poor Cherie!" Then she places her cold hand on my lips as if to close them.

I will try to remember. I will write down in this book all that remains in my memory of those terrible days and nights when we fled from home; when we hid starving and trembling in the woods, and saw through the trees our church-tower burn like a torch, saw it list over and crash down in a cloud of smoke and flame; when, crouching in a ditch, we heard the Uhlans gallop past us and saw them drag two little boys, Cesar and emile Duroc, out of their hiding-places in the bushes only a few yards from us.

We saw them--we saw them!--crush the children's feet with the b.u.t.ts of their rifles, and then taunt them, telling them to "run away!" I can see them now--two of the men standing behind the children, holding them upright by their small shoulders, while a third beat and crunched and ground their feet into the earth....

But stay ... the wide blank s.p.a.ces in my brain go back much further than that.

What is it that Louise says I have forgotten? Let me try to remember.

Let me try to remember.

I will go back to the evening of my birthday. August the fourth. Our friends come. We dance.

Sur le pont D'Avignon On y danse, on y danse....

Then Florian arrives--and goes. The last thing I see clearly--distinct and clear-cut as a haut-relief carved upon my brain--is Florian, turning at the end of the road to wave his hand to me. Then he is gone.

I remain standing on the verandah, alone; I can see the row of pink and white carnations in their pots at my feet; Louise's favourite malmaisons fill the air with perfume, and the large white daisies among them gleam like stars in the grey-green twilight; I am wearing my white dress and the sea-blue scarf Louise has given me that morning. Then little Mireille's laughing voice calls me; they all come running out to fetch me, Lucile and Cri-cri, Verveine, Cecile and Jeannette....

Then, suddenly--the gun! the thud and roll of that first distant gun!...

The children have fled, pale, trembling, whispering to their homes, and we are left alone in the house; alone, Louise, Mireille and I, because Frieda and Fritz--wait! what do I remember about Fritz? That he is throwing our gate open to the enemy--no; it is something else ...

something that frightens me more than that--but I cannot remember. I see Fritz laughing. Whenever I remember Fritz I see him laughing. He is leaning against a door ... there is a curtain.... I seem to see a red curtain swaying beside him and he is laughing with his head thrown back.

What is he laughing at?... At me? What is happening that he should laugh at me? The blank closes round Fritz. He has vanished. I cannot hold him. It is as if he were made of mist.

But--before that; what do I remember before that?...

The guns are thundering, the windows shake ... a huge sheaf of flame rises up into the sky. There is a roar, an explosion; it is as if the world were crashing to pieces.

Then soldiers fill the house; officers take possession of our rooms--their coats and belts are on our chairs, their helmets are flung on the piano. There is a tall man with very light eyes....

A tall man with very light eyes....

Let me try to remember.

They order us about; they make Louise cry. One of them is wounded in the arm--I see it bleeding on the wet cotton-wool that Louise is binding round it--Now the blank comes.... I feel it coming down like a white cloud on my brain. Lift it, oh, holy Mother, lift it and let me remember!

There are two of the men near me; they blow their cigarette-smoke in my face; they want me to drink out of their gla.s.ses.... I weep ... I will not. They laugh and force me to drink. _Eins, zwei, drei!_--they threaten me with I know not what--the light eyes of one of them are close to mine ... impelling me, forcing me.... I am frightened, and I drink. Then they sing and clink their gla.s.ses together. I stand between them, and they make me drink again--cool frothing champagne and hot burning brandy--until I am so giddy that the floor heaves under my feet.

I cry and cry. I call Louise ... she is gone from the room. I see Mireille crouching in a corner staring at me, white and terrified. I call her--"Mireille! Mireille!" She springs up and rushes to me, she screams like a maddened animal, and the light-eyed man catches her by the wrists and laughs. The other man--one of the other men, I don't know how many there are--one who has red hair and has been reciting something in German, lies down on the sofa and goes to sleep. But another one--I remember his round face, I remember that the others were angry with him and called him names--he comes near to me and says something quickly in my ear. I am not afraid of him ... I know he is trying to help me ...

but I am so sick and giddy that I do not understand what he says. He pushes me towards the door. He says in German: "_Geh! Geh! Mach' da.s.s du fort kommst!_" and again he pushes me toward the door. But I turn to see what is being done to Mireille. She has a broken gla.s.s in her hand and she is trying to strike the tall officer in the face with it, as if she were trying to strike at his light eyes and put them out. There is a streak of blood on his chin but he is still laughing. He s.n.a.t.c.hes up my blue scarf which is lying on the floor and he ties Mireille's hands behind her back with it. Then he winds it round and round her until she cannot move. Wait--wait--let me remember!... Then he takes one of the leather belts that are on the chair and he straps her to the railing--the wrought-iron railing that ends the short flight of steps that lead to the drawing-room. I see him lifting her up those three shallow steps, I see him kick over the china flower-pot on the top step in order to get nearer to the iron banister, I see him fasten her to it with the leather strap.... Her little wild face is turned towards me, her hands are tied behind her back. I hear what he says in German--he is laughing and laughing--"_Da bleibst du ... und schaust zu!_" Is he going to kill her? "_Schau nur zu! Schau nur zu_," he repeats. What does he mean? Is he going to kill me--to kill me before her eyes?

He comes toward me ... (the white cloud is coming over my brain again).

I see the other officer--the one with the round face, the one who had tried to push me to the door--Glotz! yes, Glotz, that was his name--I see him dart forward and catch hold of the other man's arms--stopping him--keeping him away from me. I rush to Mireille and try to drag her away from the railing, to free her ... I cannot. My fingers have no strength. She is crying and moaning. I hear Glotz shouting again to me in German--"Get away--get away!" He is struggling with the tall man to give me time to escape. I stumble up the stairs screaming, "Louise!

Louise!" I fall, again and again, at almost every step, but I stumble on and reach her door--it is locked. Locked from the inside. But I hear sounds in the room--a man's hoa.r.s.e agitated voice....