Читать книгу Lorraine - Robert W. Chambers - Страница 4

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There was a rustle in the bushes, the sound of twigs snapping, a soft foot-fall on the dead leaves.

Marche stopped, took his pipe out of his mouth, and listened.

Patter! patter! patter! over the crackling underbrush, now near, now far away in the depths of the forest; then sudden silence, the silence that startles.

He turned his head warily, right, left; he knelt noiselessly, striving to pierce the thicket with his restless eyes. After a moment he arose on tiptoe, unslung his gun, cocked both barrels, and listened again, pipe tightly clutched between his white teeth.

All around lay the beautiful Lorraine forests, dim and sweet, dusky as velvet in their leafy depths. A single sunbeam, striking obliquely through the brush tangle, powdered the forest mould with gold.

He heard the little river Lisse, flowing, flowing, where green branches swept its placid surface with a thousand new-born leaves; he heard a throstle singing in the summer wind.

Suddenly, far ahead, something gray shambled loosely across the path, leaped a brush heap, slunk under a fallen tree, and loped on again.

For a moment Marche refused to believe his own eyes. A wolf in Lorraine!—a big, gray timber-wolf, here, within a mile of the Château Morteyn! He could see it yet, passing like a shadow along the trees. Before he knew it he was following, running noiselessly over the soft, mossy path, holding his little shot-gun tightly. As he ran, his eyes fixed on the spot where the wolf had disappeared, he began to doubt his senses again, he began to believe that the thing he saw was some shaggy sheep-dog from the Moselle, astray in the Lorraine forests. But he held his pace, his pipe griped in his teeth, his gun swinging at his side. Presently, as he turned into a grass-grown carrefour, a mere waste of wild-flowers and tangled briers, he caught his ankle in a strand of ivy and fell headlong. Sprawling there on the moss and dead leaves, the sound of human voices struck his ear, and he sat up, scowling and rubbing his knees.

The voices came nearer; two people were approaching the carrefour. Jack Marche, angry and dirty, looked through the bushes, stanching a long scratch on his wrist with his pocket-handkerchief. The people were in sight now—a man, tall, square-shouldered, striding swiftly through the woods, followed by a young girl. Twice she sprang forward and seized him by the arm, but he shook her off roughly and hastened on. As they entered the carrefour, the girl ran in front of him and pushed him back with all her strength.

"Come, now," said the man, recovering his balance, "you had better stop this before I lose patience. Go back!"

The girl barred his way with slender arms out-stretched.

"What are you doing in my woods?" she demanded. "Answer me! I will know, this time!"

"Let me pass!" sneered the man. He held a roll of papers in one hand; in the other, steel compasses that glittered in the sun.

"I shall not let you pass!" she said, desperately; "you shall not pass! I wish to know what it means, why you and the others come into my woods and make maps of every path, of every brook, of every bridge—yes, of every wall and tree and rock! I have seen you before—you and the others. You are strangers in my country!"

"Get out of my path," said the man, sullenly.

"Then give me that map you have made! I know what you are! You come from across the Rhine!"

The man scowled and stepped towards her.

"You are a German spy!" she cried, passionately.

"You little fool!" he snarled, seizing her arm. He shook her brutally; the scarlet skirts fluttered, a little rent came in the velvet bodice, the heavy, shining hair tumbled down over her eyes.

In a moment Marche had the man by the throat. He held him there, striking him again and again in the face. Twice the man tried to stab him with the steel compasses, but Marche dragged them out of his fist and hammered him until he choked and spluttered and collapsed on the ground, only to stagger to his feet again and lurch into the thicket of second growth. There he tripped and fell as Marche had fallen on the ivy, but, unlike Marche, he wriggled under the bushes and ran on, stooping low, never glancing back.

The impulse that comes to men to shoot when anything is running for safety came over Marche for an instant. Instinctively he raised his gun, hesitated, lowered it, still watching the running man with cold, bright eyes.

"Well," he said, turning to the girl behind him, "he's gone now. Ought I to have fired? Ma foi! I'm sorry I didn't! He has torn your bodice and your skirt!"

The girl stood breathless, cheeks aflame, burnished tangled hair shadowing her eyes.

"We have the map," she said, with a little gasp.

Marche picked up a crumpled roll of paper from the ground and opened it. It contained a rough topographical sketch of the surrounding country, a detail of a dozen small forest paths, a map of the whole course of the river Lisse from its source to its junction with the Moselle, and a beautiful plan of the Château de Nesville.

"That is my house!" said the girl; "he has a map of my house! How dare he!"

"The Château de Nesville?" asked Marche, astonished; "are you Lorraine?"

"Yes! I'm Lorraine. Didn't you know it?"

"Lorraine de Nesville?" he repeated, curiously.

"Yes! How dares that German to come into my woods and make maps and carry them back across the Rhine! I have seen him before—twice—drawing and measuring along the park wall. I told my father, but he thinks only of his balloons. I have seen others, too—other strange men in the chase—always measuring or staring about or drawing. Why? What do Germans want of maps of France? I thought of it all day—every day; I watched, I listened in the forest. And do you know what I think?"

"What?" asked Marche.

She pushed back her splendid hair and faced him.

"War!" she said, in a low voice.

"War?" he repeated, stupidly. She stretched out an arm towards the east; then, with a passionate gesture, she stepped to his side.

"War! Yes! War! War! War! I cannot tell you how I know it—I ask myself how—and to myself I answer: 'It is coming! I, Lorraine, know it!'"

A fierce light flashed from her eyes, blue as corn-flowers in July.

"It is in dreams I see and hear now—in dreams; and I see the vineyards black with helmets, and the Moselle redder than the setting sun, and over all the land of France I see bayonets, moving, moving, like the Rhine in flood!"

The light in her eyes died out; she straightened up; her lithe young body trembled.

"I have never before told this to any one," she said, faintly; "my father does not listen when I speak. You are Jack Marche, are you not?"

He did not answer, but stood awkwardly, folding and unfolding the crumpled maps.

"You are the vicomte's nephew—a guest at the Château Morteyn?" she asked.

"Yes," said Marche.

"Then you are Monsieur Jack Marche?"

He took off his shooting-cap and laughed frankly. "You find me carrying a gun on your grounds," he said; "I'm sure you take me for a poacher."

She glanced at his leggings.

"Now," he began, "I ask permission to explain; I am afraid that you will be inclined to doubt my explanation. I almost doubt it myself, but here it is. Do you know that there are wolves in these woods?"

"Wolves?" she repeated, horrified.

"I saw one; I followed it to this carrefour."

She leaned against a tree; her hands fell to her sides.

There was a silence; then she said, "You will not believe what I am going to say—you will call it superstition—perhaps stupidity. But do you know that wolves have never appeared along the Moselle except before a battle? Seventy years ago they were seen before the battle of Colmar. That was the last time. And now they appear again."

"I may have been mistaken," he said, hastily; "those shaggy sheep-dogs from the Moselle are very much like timber-wolves in colour. Tell me, Mademoiselle de Nesville, why should you believe that we are going to have a war? Two weeks ago the Emperor spoke of the perfect tranquillity of Europe." He smiled and added, "France seeks no quarrels. Because a brute of a German comes sneaking into these woods to satisfy his national thirst for prying, I don't see why war should result."

"War did result," she said, smiling also, and glancing at his torn shooting-coat; "I haven't even thanked you yet, Monsieur Marche—for your victory."

With a sudden gesture, proud, yet half shy, she held out one hand, and he took it in his own hands, bronzed and brier scratched.

"I thought," she said, withdrawing her fingers, "that I ought to give you an American 'shake hands.' I suppose you are wondering why we haven't met before. There are reasons."

She looked down at her scarlet skirt, touched a triangular tear in it, and, partly turning her head, raised her arms and twisted the tangled hair into a heavy burnished knot at her neck.

"You wear the costume of Lorraine," he ventured.

"Is it not pretty? I love it. Alone in the house I always wear it, the scarlet skirts banded with black, the velvet bodice and silver chains—oh! he has broken my chain, too!"

He leaned on his gun, watching her, fascinated with the grace of her white fingers twisting her hair.

"To think that you should have first seen me so! What will they say at the Château Morteyn?"

"But I shall tell nobody," laughed Marche.

"Then you are very honourable, and I thank you. Mon Dieu, they talk enough about me—you have heard them—do not deny it, Monsieur Marche. It is always, 'Lorraine did this, Lorraine did that, Lorraine is shocking, Lorraine is silly, Lorraine—' O Dieu! que sais'je! Poor Lorraine!"

"Poor Lorraine!" he repeated, solemnly. They both laughed outright.

"I know all about the house-party at the Château Morteyn," she resumed, mending a tear in her velvet bodice with a hair-pin. "I was invited, as you probably know, Monsieur Marche; but I did not go, and doubtless the old vicomte is saying, 'I wonder why Lorraine does not come?' and Madame de Morteyn replies, 'Lorraine is a very uncertain quantity, my dear'—oh, I am sure that they are saying these things."

"I think I heard some such dialogue yesterday," said Marche, much amused. Lorraine raised her head and looked at him.

"You think I am a crazy child in tatters, neglected and wild as a falcon from the Vosges. I know you do. Everybody says so, and everybody pities me and my father. Why? Parbleu! he makes experiments with air-ships that they don't understand. Voilà! As for me, I am more than happy. I have my forest and my fields; I have my horses and my books. I dress as I choose; I go where I choose. Am I not happy, Monsieur Marche?"

"I should say," he admitted, "that you are."

"You see," she continued, with a pretty, confidential nod, "I can talk to you because you are the vicomte's American nephew, and I have heard all about you and your lovely sister, and it is all right—isn't it?"

"It is," said Marche, fervently.

"Of course. Now I shall tell you why I did not go to the Château and meet your sister and the others. Perhaps you will not comprehend. Shall I tell you?"

"I'll try to comprehend," said Marche, laughing.

"Well, then, would you believe it? I—Lorraine de Nesville—have outgrown my clothes, monsieur, and my beautiful new gowns are coming from Paris this week, and then—"

"Then!" repeated Marche.

"Then you shall see," said Lorraine, gravely.

Jack, bewildered, fascinated, stood leaning on his gun, watching every movement of the lithe figure before him.

"Until your gowns arrive, I shall not see you again?" he asked.

She looked up quickly.

"Do you wish to?"

"Very much!" he blurted out, and then, aware of the undue fervor he had shown, repeated: "Very much—if you don't mind," in a subdued but anxious voice.

Again she raised her eyes to his, doubtfully, perhaps a little wistfully.

"It wouldn't be right, would it—until you are presented?"

He was silent.

"Still," she said, looking up into the sky, "I often come to the river below, usually after luncheon."

"I wonder if there are any gudgeon there?" he said; "I could bring a rod—"

"Oh, but are you coming? Is that right? I think there are fish there," she added, innocently, "and I usually come after luncheon."

"And when your gowns arrive from Paris—"

"Then! Then you shall see! Oh! I shall be a very different person; I shall be timid and silent and stupid and awkward, and I shall answer, 'Oui, monsieur;' 'Non, monsieur,' and you will behold in me the jeune fille of the romances."

"Don't!" he protested.

"I shall!" she cried, shaking out her scarlet skirts full breadth. "Good-by!"

In a second she had gone, straight away through the forest, leaving in his ears the music of her voice, on his finger-tips the touch of her warm hand.

He stood, leaning on his gun—a minute, an hour?—he did not know.

Presently earthly sounds began to come back to drown the delicious voice in his ears; he heard the little river Lisse, flowing, flowing under green branches; he heard a throstle singing in the summer wind; he heard, far in the deeper forest, something passing—patter, patter, patter—over the dead leaves.