The Outrage Part 32

"Mireille ... Mireille...." she whispered breathlessly. "Look, darling ... don't you remember? Don't you remember?"

The girl's pale eyes roved from the tapestried archway to the panelled doors, from the ornamental panoply to the Van de Welde winter landscapes hanging on the wall before her. No ray of recognition lit the unmoved face, which was fair and still as a closed flower. With beating heart Louise placed her arm around the girl's narrow shoulders and guided her light, uncertain footsteps up the stairs. The door to the sitting-room was open; Louise stretched out her hand, and the brilliancy of the electric light lit up the room.

With a gasp Louise felt Mireille falter on the threshold ... she stood breathless and watched her. Surely, surely she must recognize this scene: there to the right, the large Flemish fireplace; there beyond it the old-fas.h.i.+oned oak settee; and there the shallow flight of stairs, with the wrought-iron banisters running right down into the room, facing the door with the red-tapestried curtains.... Surely, with this scene of her martyrdom brought suddenly before her, the veil of unconsciousness would be rent from her soul. Louise felt it. Louise knew it. Already she could almost hear the cry with which her child would turn to her and fall into her arms....

Nothing. Nothing happened.

For an instant a vague expression, a pale light as of dread, had flickered over the tranquil countenance. She had faltered, and stood still, with her eyes fixed on the red drapery of the closed door. Then the pale flicker of emotion had faded from her face as if blown out by a gust of wind.

Nothing more. With limp, pendant hands and vacant eyes she stood before Louise in her usual drooping posture--pale, ethereal and unreal, like a little weary seraph walking in its dreams.

The flaming torch of hope in the mother's heart was dashed to the ground.

And all was dark.

CHAPTER XXVII

Cherie, kneeling beside her child's cradle, had heard them enter the adjoining room. She rose slowly. She must go and meet them; she must greet Mireille and tell Louise that Florian had come; had come ... and gone!

The profound silence in the adjoining room struck her. She wondered, as she hesitated at the door, why Louise did not speak. For did she not always talk to Mireille in that low, tender voice of hers, as if the child could understand? Now there was not a sound. It was if the room were empty.

Suddenly she understood. Louise was waiting, hoping that the miracle might be accomplished--that Mireille might speak. Then Cherie also stood motionless with clasped hands, and waited, waited for a sound, a word, a cry.

But the silence remained unbroken.

At last she heard the sound of Louise's weeping; and, soon after, their soft, retreating footsteps on the carpeted stairs. Then utter silence.

And Cherie still stood at the closed door, leaning her forehead against its panels.

They had gone. Louise was taking Mireille to bed. She had not called Cherie. She had not said good-night, nor asked her to come and see Mireille. No. Cherie was not needed. Louise, even in her great sorrow, did not think of coming to Cherie. She had gone with Mireille to her room, and she would stay there and weep all alone, and sleep at last, never knowing that Florian had been, never knowing that he had gone away for ever, never knowing that Cherie's heart was broken!... With a rush of pa.s.sionate grief Cherie drew back from the door and fell on her knees beside the cradle.

And there the great May moon, rising like a golden disc over the hills of the Ardennes, found her and shone down through the round window, upon her and her sleeping babe.

Louise, lying awake in the dark, heard the church clock strike eleven.

She lay quite still in the silent room, listening to Mireille's soft breathing. Then she thought of Claude, and prayed for his safety; but not for his return.

At last, exhausted, she slept.

But Mireille, though her soft breathing never varied, was not asleep.

She lay motionless in the dark, with her eyes wide open. She was listening to something that had awakened within her--Memory!...

The church clock struck half-past eleven. Louise still slept, with the occasional catch in her breath of those who have cried themselves to sleep.

Mireille sat up. The room was quite dark, the shutters closed and the curtains drawn. But Mireille slipped from her bed, a slim, white-robed spectre, and her bare feet crossed the room without a sound. She found the door and opened it noiselessly; she crossed the landing, and her small feet trod the carpeted staircase as lightly and silently as the falling petals of a flower.

Where was she going to? What drew her through the dark and silent house?

Terror--and the memory of a red-draped door. Nothing else did her haunted eyes perceive, nothing else did her stricken soul realize, but that red curtain draped over a door. She remembered it with a vague, horrible sense of fear. She must see it again.... Had she not once stood before that draped door for hours and years and eternities?... Yes. She must see it again. And if that door were to open--she must die!...

She went on, drawn by her terror as by an unseen force, until she reached the last shallow flight of stairs--three steps skirted by a wrought-iron banister--and there she stopped suddenly, as if fettered to the spot. For though the room was plunged in darkness she knew that there, opposite her, was the door with the red curtain....

And thus she stood, in the self-same att.i.tude of her past martyrdom, feeling that she was pinioned there, feeling that she must stand for ever with her eyes fixed in the darkness on that part of the room where she knew was the door--the door with the red curtain....

Cherie heard the clock strike eleven; then the quarter; then the half-hour. And still she lay on the floor with her face hidden in her arms.

For her all was at an end. Her resolve was taken. Her mind was clear.

Now she had seen Florian there was nothing left to wait for. What good would she or the child ever do in the world? n.o.body wanted them. n.o.body ever wanted to see them or speak to them. They were outcasts. Not even Louise could look without loathing at the hapless little child. Not even Louise could invoke a benediction upon him. He was ill-omened, hated and accursed.

Cherie rose to her feet and went to the window--the old-fas.h.i.+oned circular window like a s.h.i.+p's porthole--and opened it wide.

The level rays of the moon poured in, flooding the room with light.

"Good-night, moon," said Cherie. "Good-night, sky. Good-night, world."

Then she turned away and went to the cradle. She bent over it, and lifted her sleeping infant in her arms. How warm he was! How warm and soft and tender!... He must not catch cold.... Instinctively Cherie caught up her wide blue silk scarf and wrapped it round herself and the child. They were going out into the night air, out into the chilly moonlight; they were going to cross the bridge over the Ourthe, and then go up the lower bank of the river, up through the dank gra.s.ses, past the old mill.... There, where the bank shelved down so steeply she would run into the water.

She knew what it would feel like. Last year, had she not run into the rippling waves at Westende every morning? She remembered it well.

Yes; she would feel the cool chill embrace of the water rising from her feet to her knees ... to her waist ... to her breast ... to her throat.... Then she would clasp her arms tightly round her child, putting her lips close to his so as not to hear him cry, and her last breath would be exhaled on the sweet warmth of that little mouth, the dear little open mouth that seemed always to be asking for the balm of milk and kisses.

She raised her eyes once more to the open window. "Good-bye," she said again to the sky, to the world, and to life. Then she resolutely turned away from the s.h.i.+ning circle of light.

She drew the long blue scarf over her own head and shoulders, crossing it over her arms and wrapping the infant in its azure folds as she held him to her breast. Then she opened the door.

The red curtain fell in a straight line before her, and she pushed it softly aside; it slid smoothly back on its rings.

Clasping her infant in the s.h.i.+mmering folds of blue, she took a step forward--then stopped and stood transfixed in the doorway.

Some one was there! Some one was standing silent, there in the dark.

Who was it?

_Mireille!_

Mireille had stood motionless, almost cataleptic, with her fear-maddened eyes fixed upon the dark spot which was the door. Now--now it was opening! it was opening! A white light had streamed suddenly under the curtain.

Yes. The door was opening.... Now Mireille would die! She knew it! What she was going to see would kill her, as it had killed her soul before.

Gasping, with open mouth, with clenched hands, she saw the gap of light widen beneath the moving curtain.... Now ... now.... The curtain had slid back. There was a dazzling square of light....