Читать книгу On the Borderland - F. Britten Austin - Страница 4

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In the dusk of a winter afternoon a battalion of the French Contingent of the Army of Occupation dispersed to its billets in the little German village. The Chef-de-bataillon and the médecin-major, having installed their staffs in their respective bureaux, walked up the street in search of the quarters which had been chosen for them in the meanwhile. The scared faces of slatternly women, obsequiously gesturing the mud-stained French soldiers into occupation of their cottages, turned to look anxiously at them as they passed, in evident apprehension of the order which should let loose a vengeful destruction only too probable to their uneasy consciences. Here and there a haggard-looking man, an ex-soldier probably, slunk into his house, out of sight, but the native population of the village was preponderatingly feminine. The two officers—the commandant, good-humoured and inclined to rotundity, his eyes twinkling under brows a shade less gray than his moustache; the doctor, a middle-aged man, quiet, restrained to curtness in speech and expression, with eyes that swept sombrely without interest over his environment—ignored alike the false smiles and the genuinely alarmed glances of these wives and mothers of their once arrogant enemies.

A captain came down the street toward them and saluted on near approach. It was the adjutant of the battalion. He was young and his natural cheerfulness was enhanced to perpetual high spirits in the enjoyment of the experiences following upon overwhelming victory.

“We are well housed, mon commandant,” he said joyously, with a flash of white teeth under his little brown moustache. “Comfort moderne—presque! Not a château, it is true—but large enough. The best in the village, in any case. Bedrooms for the three of us, and a room for our popote. Our baggage is already in, and dinner will be ready in half an hour. Tout ce qu’il y a de mieux, n’est-ce pas?” He finished with his young laugh.

The gray eyes of the battalion-commander twinkled at him.

“And the patronne, Jordan?—Old and ugly?”

The young man’s face lit up. He put one finger to his lips and blew an airy kiss.

“Ah, mon commandant!” he replied in a tone of assumed ecstasy. “You shall see her! A pearl, a jewel, une femme exquise!—That is to say,” he added, with a change of note, “she would be if she were not a femme boche. One almost forgets it, to look at her. But boche or not, she is young, she is beautiful, and, mon commandant, rarest of all—she is intelligent!”

The battalion commander laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder and drew him along with them as they resumed their momentarily interrupted progress.

“I see I have to congratulate you upon another conquest,” he said, with amused tolerance. “He is incredible, notre cher Jordan, Delassus!” he added with a smile to the doctor.

“Je ne dis pas,” protested the young captain with an affectation of modesty. “But we understand each other and that is already much—although, unfortunately, she speaks no French and my German lacks vocabulary. But she made me understand that her husband was an officer killed in the war. ‘Mann—Offizier—tot—Krieg.’ That’s right, doctor, n’est-ce pas?—You are the linguist.”

The doctor nodded assent.

“Quite correct. You should make rapid progress under an instructor so willing to impart interesting information,” he said drily.

The young man protested warmly against the implication.

“Your cynicism is out of place, doctor. I assure you. She is timide—timide like a frightened bird.—I extorted it from her.—But you shall see for yourselves. Here we are!”

They were at the end of the village. The young captain led them through a carriage gateway, sadly in need of a coat of paint, up a weed-grown drive to a fairly large house, that had once been white but was now stained with the overflow of gutters long left out of repair. A belt of trees hid it from the road. The main door, in the centre of the house with windows on both sides of it, was open, as if in expectation of them. Wisps of smoke from several of the chimneys hinted at hospitality in preparation.

As the three of them entered the hall, a young woman appeared on the threshold of one of the rooms communicating with it. Her natural slimness was emphasized by a gown of black, and this sombre garb threw into relief the fair hair which was massed heavily above her delicate features. It needed, perhaps, the youthful enthusiasm of the captain to call her beautiful; but her appearance had something of fragile charm which conferred a distinction rare among German women. She stood there, a little drawn back from her first emergence, contemplating them with eyes that evidently sought to measure the potentiality for mischief in these forced guests. Her attitude appealed dumbly for protection, so forlorn and frail and timid was it as she shrunk back in the doorway.

“Introduce us, Jordan!” whispered the battalion-commander to his subordinate. “On est civilisé, quoi donc!”

The young captain had lost a considerable amount of his assurance. Rather flustered, he saluted and pointed to his superior.

“Commandant!” then, turning to the other, “Doctor!” he blurted, clumsily.

Their hostess bowed slightly with a pathetic little smile as the two officers saluted. The doctor advanced a step.

“Have no fear, gnädige Frau,” he said politely in German. “The war is over and France does not avenge itself upon women. No harm will come to you.”

Her face lit up.

“Ach, you speak German!”

“I studied in Germany in my youth, gnädige Frau, and I have not quite forgotten the language.”

She smiled at him.

“Gewiss nicht!” Then, with a swift change of expression, she clutched imploringly at his arm. “You will protect me? I am so alone and frightened!” She hesitated as though seeking a cognate circumstance in him that should compel his sympathy. “You are married?”

The polite smile went out of his face. His expression hardened.

“I was, gnädige Frau,” he replied, curtly.

She stared at him, divining that she had blundered upon some painful mystery. With feminine tact she steered quickly away from it into the region of safe commonplace. She threw open one of the doors leading into the hall.

“Here, meine Herren, is the Speisezimmer,” she said in a tone of colourless courtesy that contrasted with her emotion-charged voice of a moment before. “It is at your service for your meals. There,” she pointed to a door at the other side of the hall, “is the Salon—also at your service. I have had a fire lit in it. Your orderlies are now in the kitchen. I will send them to you to show you your rooms.” She inclined her head slightly in sign of farewell and passed out through a door at the end of the hall.

The young captain looked at his commanding officer.

“Eh bien, mon commandant? What did I tell you? Is she not——?”

His superior interrupted him, a twinkle in his eye.

“She is, mon cher Jordan—but you have not a chance against the doctor here!” He laughed, clapping the doctor on the back.

The médecin-major frowned. His ascetic features hardened again.

“Mon cher commandant, you do me too much honour,” he said coldly. “I assure you that there is no living woman who can interest me.”

“Bah!” said the battalion-commander a trifle fatuously, “moi, je suis connaisseur dans ces affaires-lá! I am sure that something is going to happen between you and that woman. I can always feel that sort of thing in the air like—” he hesitated for an illustration, “like some people can see ghosts.”

The doctor looked him in the eyes.

“Mon Commandant,” he said, curtly, “if you could see ghosts you would not feel so sure.”

There was a moment of unpleasant silence. The captain broke it by shouting for the orderlies.

The three officers were introduced to their rooms and parted to perform their toilet before dinner.

The meal which followed in the rather overfurnished Speisezimmer was overshadowed by the gloomy taciturnity of the doctor who appeared still to resent the battalion-commander’s suggestions of gallantry. Not all the sprightly sallies of the adjutant, not the persistent bonhomie of the battalion-commander, resolutely ignoring any hostility between himself and the doctor, could bring a smile into that hard-set face with the sombre eyes. Their hostess did not appear again and was not mentioned between them. When they had finished, the captain suggested that they should smoke their cigars in the Salon.

“I feel I want to put my feet on the piano,” he said, with a vague remembrance of a popular picture, “like the boches at Versailles in ’seventy! To infect our hostess’s curtains with cigar-smoke is a poor compromise, but it is something! Allons, messieurs!—let us indulge in hideous reprisals! The boche has devastated our homes—let us avenge ourselves by spoiling his curtains!”

The battalion-commander looked smilingly across to the doctor.

“Mon cher Delassus, are you for this policy of reprisals?”

The doctor looked up as though startled out of a train of thought.