The Outrage Part 4

"Since your brother has left," she said, "Fritz is very much changed. He does not behave like a servant; he never asks for my orders. Yesterday at Roche-a-Frene he was like a lunatic. And so was Frieda." Poor Loulou looked very white as she said this, and added that she wished Claude would come back.

There is certainly something curious about Fritz. This evening he brought us the paper and stood looking at us while we opened it. I read over Loulou's shoulder that the Germans had marched into the Grand-duchy of Luxembourg and taken possession of the railways as if the place belonged to them. When I raised my eyes I saw Fritz staring at us and he had his hands in his pockets. He took them out when Loulou looked up and spoke to him.

She said, "Fritz, this is dreadful news"; and he said, "Yes, madam," and smiled that curious rabbity smile of his.

"Tell me," said Loulou, "did the master say anything to you when you saw him to the train the other night?"

"Yes, madam," said Fritz.

"What--what did he say?" asked Loulou very anxiously.

Fritz waited a long time before he answered. "The master said"--and he smiled that horrible smile again,--"the master said I was to protect you in case _those dogs_ came here. That's what he said--those dogs! Those dogs--" he repeated, glaring at Loulou and at me until we felt quite strange and sick.

Little Mireille had just come into the room, and she asked somewhat anxiously, "What dogs are you talking about?"

Fritz wheeled round on her with a savage look. "German dogs," said he.

"And they bite."

n.o.body spoke for a moment. Then Loulou sighed. "Who would have conceived it possible a month ago!" she murmured. "Why, even ten days ago, no one dreamed of war."

Fritz took a step forward. "Some of us have been dreaming of war," he said--and there was something in his tone that made Loulou look up at him with startled eyes,--"dreaming of war, not for the past ten days, but for the past ten years." He rolled his eyes at us; then he turned on his heel and strode out of the room.

Loulou has written a long letter to Claude. But will it reach him?

CHAPTER IV

MIREILLE'S DIARY

This is an important day, August the 4th--Cherie's birthday. Loulou has given her a gold watch and a sky-blue chiffon scarf; and I gave her a box of chocolates--almost full!--and a rubber face that makes grimaces according to how you squeeze it, and also a money-box in the shape of an elephant that bobs its head when you put money in it and keeps on bobbing for quite a long time afterwards; Cecile and Jeannette sent roses, Lucile and Cri-cri a box of fondants, and Verveine Mellot, from whom we never expected anything, sent a parasol. We had not invited Verveine for tonight because she lives so far away, quite out of the village; but we shall do so now because of the parasol.

We nearly had no party at all, Maman and Cherie being worried about the Germans. But I cried, and they hate to see me cry, so they said that just those five girls whom we see every day were not really a party at all and they might come.

The great event of today has been that Amour has arrived in his basket, with 14 francs to pay on him; we were very glad, and Cherie said it was just like receiving a new dog as a birthday present. Andre was not able to bring Amour himself because he had been sent on some other Service Militaire in a great hurry on his motorcycle. The one drawback about Amour has been that he took the rubber face in his mouth and would not drop it and hid with it. We found it afterwards under the bed, but most of the colours had been licked off and Mariette says it is permanently distorted.

Mariette and Marie are going away today. They are taking only a few things and are going to Liege, where they say they will feel safer.

Marie said we ought to go too, and Maman answered that if things went on like this we certainly should. Maman has cried a good deal today; and Frieda is shamming sick and has locked herself in her room. We have not seen Fritz since last night. Altogether everything is very fearful and exciting. Dinner is going to be like a picnic with nothing much to eat; but there are cakes and sweets and little curly sandwiches, all beautifully arranged with flowers, on the long table for this evening; and we shall drink orangeade and grenadine. We were to have had ices as well, but the patissier has joined the army and his wife has too many children and is so miserable that she will not make ices. She told us that her husband and other soldiers were digging ditches all round Belgium to prevent the Germans from coming in.

Now I am going to dress. I shall wear pink, and Cherie will be all in white like a bride. She will have her hair up for the first time, done all in curls and whirligigs, to look like that cake Frieda calls _Kugelhopf_.

Maman is going to make herself pretty too. She has promised not to think of war or of the Germans until tomorrow morning because, as Cherie said, one is eighteen only once in one's life. Now I come to think of it, one is also eleven only once in one's life. I shall remember to say that when my next birthday comes....

While Mireille sat in the little study writing her diary with exceeding care, her head very much on one side and the tip of her tongue moving slowly from one side of her half-open mouth to the other, the door was opened and Fritz looked into the room. He shut the door again, and having listened for a moment on the landing to the soft-murmuring voices of Louise and Cherie, he went upstairs to the second floor and turned the handle of Frieda's door. It was locked.

"Open the door," he said.

Frieda obeyed. It was not the first time that she opened her door to Fritz.

"How loud you speak," she murmured, locking and bolting the door again, "they may hear you."

"I don't care if they do," said Fritz, sitting down and lighting a cigarette. "For two years I have played the servant. Tomorrow I shall be the master."

"Tomorrow!" gasped Frieda. "Is it--as near as all that?"

"Nearer, perhaps," murmured Fritz looking out of the window at the crimsoning western sky. The round red August sun had set, but the day still lingered, as if loth to end. Where the sky was lightest it bore on its breast the colourless crescent of the moon, like a pale wound by which the day must die.

"Nearer, perhaps," repeated Fritz. "Be ready to leave."

That day the storm had already broken over Europe. The Grey Wolves were pouring into Belgium from the south-east. At Dohain, at Francorchamps, at Stavelot the grey line rolled in, wave on wave, and in their wake came violence and death.

But the guns were not speaking yet. In the village of Bomal, a bare twenty miles away, n.o.body knew of it; and Louise, fastening a rose in Cherie's shining tresses said, "We will think of the war tomorrow."

Cherie kissed her and smiled. She smiled somewhat wistfully, and gazed at her own lovely reflection in the mirror. The hot blue day had faded into a gentle blue evening and Florian Audet had not kept his promise.

Perhaps, thought Cherie, his regiment has received orders to leave their encampment on the Meuse; perhaps he has been sent to the frontier, but still--and she sighed--she would have loved to have seen him and bidden him good-bye....

But now little Mireille in her pink frock, looking like a blossom blown from a peach-tree, came running in to call her. The door-bell had rung and there was no one to answer it, since Marie and Mariette had gone and Frieda was locked in her room and Fritz had vanished. So the two ran lightly downstairs and opened the door to Lucile and Cri-cri, radiant in pale blue muslin; and soon Cecile and Jeannette and Verveine arrived too, and they all tripped into the drawing-room with light skirts swinging and buoyant curls afloat.

Verveine sat at the piano and the others danced and sang.

Sur le pont D'Avignon On y danse On y danse, Sur le pont D'Avignon On y danse Tout en rond!

The laughing treble voices could be heard through the windows, thrown wide open to the mild evening air, and a young soldier on horseback galloping through the quiet village heard the song before he pulled up at Dr. Brandes's door. It was Florian Audet keeping his promise.

He slipped his bridle over the little iron gate and rang the bell.

Louise herself came down and opened the door to him.

"Ah, Florian! How glad Cherie will be!" she exclaimed. Then, as the light from the hall beat full on his set face, "Why, how pale you are!"

she cried.

"I must speak to you," said Florian drawing her into the doctor's surgery and shutting the door.

Louise felt her heart drop like a stone within her. "Is there worse news?"

"The worst possible," said Florian. Then his eyes wandered over the pretty, helpless figure before him. "Why are you dressed up like this?"

he asked harshly.

"Why, Florian ..." stammered Louise, "it is Cherie's birthday ...

and...."

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

sang the girlish voices upstairs.