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_ Gerhardt and Claude Wheeler alighted from a taxi before the open
gates of a square-roofed, solid-looking house, where all the
shutters on the front were closed, and the tops of many trees
showed above the garden wall. They crossed a paved court and
rang at the door. An old valet admitted the young men, and took
them through a wide hall to the salon, which opened on the
garden. Madame and Mademoiselle would be down very soon. David
went to one of the long windows and looked out. "They have kept
it up, in spite of everything. It was always lovely here."
The garden was spacious,--like a little park. On one side was a
tennis court, on the other a fountain, with a pool and
water-lilies. The north wall was hidden by ancient yews; on the
south two rows of plane trees, cut square, made a long arbour. At
the back of the garden there were fine old lindens. The gravel
walks wound about beds of gorgeous autumn flowers; in the rose
garden, small white roses were still blooming, though the leaves
were already red.
Two ladies entered the drawing-room. The mother was short, plump,
and rosy, with strong, rather masculine features and yellowish
white hair. The tears flashed into her eyes as David bent to kiss
her hand, and she embraced him and touched both his cheeks with
her lips.
"Et vous, vous aussi!" she murmured, touching the coat of his
uniform with her fingers. There was but a moment of softness. She
gathered herself up like an old general, Claude thought, as he
stood watching the group from the window, drew her daughter
forward, and asked David whether he recognized the little girl
with whom he used to play. Mademoiselle Claire was not at all
like her mother; slender, dark, dressed in a white costume de
tennis and an apple green hat with black ribbons, she looked very
modern and casual and unconcerned. She was already telling David
she was glad he had arrived early, as now they would be able to
have a game of tennis before tea. Maman would bring her knitting
to the garden and watch them. This last suggestion relieved
Claude's apprehension that he might be left alone with his
hostess. When David called him and presented him to the ladies,
Mlle. Claire gave him a quick handshake, and said she would be
very glad to try him out on the court as soon as she had beaten
David. They would find tennis shoes in their room,--a collection
of shoes, for the feet of all nations; her brother's, some that
his Russian friend had forgotten when he hurried off to be
mobilized, and a pair lately left by an English officer who was
quartered on them. She and her mother would wait in the garden.
She rang for the old valet.
The Americans found themselves in a large room upstairs, where
two modern iron beds stood out conspicuous among heavy mahogany
bureaus and desks and dressing-tables, stuffed chairs and velvet
carpets and dull red brocade window hangings. David went at once
into the little dressing-room and began to array himself for the
tennis court. Two suits of flannels and a row of soft shirts hung
there on the wall.
"Aren't you going to change?" he asked, noticing that Claude
stood stiff and unbending by the window, looking down into the
garden. "Why should I?" said Claude scornfully. "I don't play
tennis. I never had a racket in my hand."
"Too bad. She used to play very well, though she was only a
youngster then." Gerhardt was regarding his legs in trousers two
inches too short for him. "How everything has changed, and yet
how everything is still the same! It's like coming back to places
in dreams."
"They don't give you much time to dream, I should say!" Claude
remarked.
"Fortunately!"
"Explain to the girl that I don't play, will you? I'll be down
later."
"As you like."
Claude stood in the window, watching Gerhardt's bare head and
Mlle. Claire's green hat and long brown arm go bounding about
over the court.
When Gerhardt came to change before tea, he found his fellow
officer standing before his bag, which was open, but not
unpacked.
"What's the matter? Feeling shellshock again?"
"Not exactly." Claude bit his lip. "The fact is, Dave, I don't
feel just comfortable here. Oh, the people are all right But
I'm out of place. I'm going to pull out and get a billet
somewhere else, and let you visit your friends in peace. Why
should I be here? These people don't keep a hotel."
"They very nearly do, from what they've been telling me. They've
had a string of Scotch and English quartered on them. They like
it, too,-or have the good manners to pretend they do. Of course,
you'll do as you like, but you'll hurt their feelings and put me
in an awkward position. To be frank, I don't see how you can go
away without being distinctly rude."
Claude stood looking down at the contents of his bag in an
irresolute attitude. Catching a glimpse of his face in one of the
big mirrors, Gerhardt saw that he looked perplexed and miserable.
His flash of temper died, and he put his hand lightly on his
friend's shoulder.
"Come on, Claude! This is too absurd. You don't even have to
dress, thanks to your uniform,--and you don't have to talk, since
you're not supposed to know the language. I thought you'd like
coming here. These people have had an awfully rough time; can't
you admire their pluck?"
"Oh, yes, I do! It's awkward for me, though." Claude pulled off
his coat and began to brush his hair vigorously. "I guess I've
always been more afraid of the French than of the Germans. It
takes courage to stay, you understand. I want to run."
"But why? What makes you want to?"
"Oh, I don't know! Something in the house, in the atmosphere."
"Something disagreeable?"
"No. Something agreeable."
David laughed. "Oh, you'll get over that!"
They had tea in the garden, English fashion--English tea, too,
Mlle. Claire informed them, left by the English officers.
At dinner a third member of the family was introduced, a little
boy with a cropped head and big black eyes. He sat on Claude's
left, quiet and shy in his velvet jacket, though he followed the
conversation eagerly, especially when it touched upon his brother
Rene, killed at Verdun in the second winter of the war. The
mother and sister talked about him as if he were living, about
his letters and his plans, and his friends at the Conservatoire
and in the Army. Mlle. Claire told Gerhardt news of all the girl
students he had known in Paris: how this one was singing for the
soldiers; another, when she was nursing in a hospital which was
bombed in an air raid, had carried twenty wounded men out of the
burning building, one after another, on her back, like sacks of
flour. Alice, the dancer, had gone into the English Red Cross and
learned English. Odette had married a New Zealander, an officer
who was said to be a cannibal; it was well known that his tribe
had eaten two Auvergnat missionaries. There was a great deal more
that Claude could not understand, but he got enough to see that
for these women the war was France, the war was life, and
everything that went into it. To be alive, to be conscious and
have one's faculties, was to be in the war.
After dinner, when they went into the salon, Madame Fleury asked
David whether he would like to see Rene's violin again, and
nodded to the little boy. He slipped away and returned carrying
the case, which he placed on the table. He opened it carefully
and took off the velvet cloth, as if this was his peculiar
office, then handed the instrument to Gerhardt.
David turned it over under the candles, telling Madame Fleury
that he would have known it anywhere, Rene's wonderful Amati,
almost too exquisite in tone for the concert hall, like a woman
who is too beautiful for the stage. The family stood round and
listened to his praise with evident satisfaction. Madame Fleury
told him that Lucien was tres serieux with his music, that his
master was well pleased with him, and when his hand was a little
larger he would be allowed to play upon Rene's violin. Claude
watched the little boy as he stood looking at the instrument in
David's hands; in each of his big black eyes a candle flame was
reflected, as if some steady fire were actually burning there.
"What is it, Lucien?" his mother asked.
"If Monsieur David would be so good as to play before I must go
to bed--" he murmured entreatingly.
"But, Lucien, I am a soldier now. I have not worked at all for
two years. The Amati would think it had fallen into the hands of
a Boche."
Lucien smiled. "Oh, no! It is too intelligent for that. A little,
please," and he sat down on a footstool before the sofa in
confident anticipation.
Mlle. Claire went to the piano. David frowned and began to tune
the violin. Madame Fleury called the old servant and told him to
light the sticks that lay in the fireplace. She took the
arm-chair at the right of the hearth and motioned Claude to a
seat on the left. The little boy kept his stool at the other end
of the room. Mlle. Claire began the orchestral introduction to
the Saint-Saens concerto.
"Oh, not that!" David lifted his chin and looked at her in
perplexity.
She made no reply, but played on, her shoulders bent forward.
Lucien drew his knees up under his chin and shivered. When the
time came, the violin made its entrance. David had put it back
under his chin mechanically, and the instrument broke into that
suppressed, bitter melody.
They played for a long while. At last David stopped and wiped his
forehead. "I'm afraid I can't do anything with the third
movement, really."
"Nor can I. But that was the last thing Rene played on it, the
night before he went away, after his last leave." She began
again, and David followed. Madame Fleury sat with half-closed
eyes, looking into the fire. Claude, his lips compressed, his
hands on his knees, was watching his friend's back. The music was
a part of his own confused emotions. He was torn between generous
admiration, and bitter, bitter envy. What would it mean to be
able to do anything as well as that, to have a hand capable of
delicacy and precision and power? If he had been taught to do
anything at all, he would not be sitting here tonight a wooden
thing amongst living people. He felt that a man might have been
made of him, but nobody had taken the trouble to do it;
tongue-tied, foot-tied, hand-tied. If one were born into this
world like a bear cub or a bull calf, one could only paw and
upset things, break and destroy, all one's life.
Gerhardt wrapped the violin up in its cloth. The little boy
thanked him and carried it away. Madame Fleury and her daughter
wished their guests goodnight.
David said he was warm, and suggested going into the garden to
smoke before they went to bed. He opened one of the long windows
and they stepped out on the terrace. Dry leaves were rustling
down on the walks; the yew trees made a solid wall, blacker than
the darkness. The fountain must have caught the starlight; it was
the only shining thing,--a little clear column of twinkling
silver. The boys strolled in silence to the end of the walk.
"I guess you'll go back to your profession, all right," Claude
remarked, in the unnatural tone in which people sometimes speak
of things they know nothing about.
"Not I. Of course, I had to play for them. Music has always been
like a religion in this house. Listen," he put up his hand; far
away the regular pulsation of the big guns sounded through the
still night. "That's all that matters now. It has killed
everything else."
"I don't believe it." Claude stopped for a moment by the edge of
the fountain, trying to collect his thoughts. "I don't believe it
has killed anything. It has only scattered things." He glanced
about hurriedly at the sleeping house, the sleeping garden, the
clear, starry sky not very far overhead. "It's men like you that
get the worst of it," he broke out. "But as for me, I never knew
there was anything worth living for, till this war came on.
Before that, the world seemed like a business proposition."
"You'll admit it's a costly way of providing adventure for the
young," said David drily.
"Maybe so; all the same . . ."
Claude pursued the argument to himself long after they were in
their luxurious beds and David was asleep. No battlefield or
shattered country he had seen was as ugly as this world would be
if men like his brother Bayliss controlled it altogether. Until
the war broke out, he had supposed they did control it; his
boyhood had been clouded and enervated by that belief. The
Prussians had believed it, too, apparently. But the event had
shown that there were a great many people left who cared about
something else.
The intervals of the distant artillery fire grew shorter, as if
the big guns were tuning up, choking to get something out. Claude
sat up in his bed and listened. The sound of the guns had from
the first been pleasant to him, had given him a feeling of
confidence and safety; tonight he knew why. What they said was,
that men could still die for an idea; and would burn all they had
made to keep their dreams. He knew the future of the world was
safe; the careful planners would never be able to put it into a
strait-jacket,--cunning and prudence would never have it to
themselves. Why, that little boy downstairs, with the candlelight
in his eyes, when it came to the last cry, as they said, could
"carry on" for ever! Ideals were not archaic things, beautiful
and impotent; they were the real sources of power among men. As
long as that was true, and now he knew it was true--he had come
all this way to find out--he had no quarrel with Destiny. Nor did
he envy David. He would give his own adventure for no man's. On
the edge of sleep it seemed to glimmer, like the clear column of
the fountain, like the new moon,--alluring, half-averted, the
bright face of danger. _
Read next: Book Five: "Bidding the Eagles of the West Fly On": Chapter 15
Read previous: Book Five: "Bidding the Eagles of the West Fly On": Chapter 13
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