The Frontier Part 42

"Yes ... it's declared...."

"By whom?"

"They didn't say."

And Saboureux, seized with fresh anger, stuttered:

"Of course!... I said so!... I saw the Uhlans ... there were five of them."

There was a stir among the servants. All rushed to meet a new arrival, Gridoux, the official game-keeper, who came prancing along the terrace, brandis.h.i.+ng a stick. He pushed them aside:

"Don't bother me!... I've a message to give! Where's monsieur le maire?

He must come at once! They're waiting for him!"

He seemed furious at not finding the Mayor of Saint-elophe there, ready to go back with him.

"Not so loud, not so loud, Gridoux," Mme. Morestal ordered. "You'll wake him up."

"He's got to be woke up. I've been sent from the town-hall.... He's got to come at once."

Philippe laid hold of him:

"Stop that noise, I tell you, hang it all! My father is ill."

"That doesn't matter. I've got the butcher's cart.... I'll take him with me straight away, as he is."

"But it's impossible," moaned Mme. Morestal. "He's in bed."

"That doesn't matter.... There's orders to be given.... There's a whole company of soldiers ... soldiers from the manoeuvres.... The town-hall is upside down.... He's the only one to put things right."

"Nonsense! Where are his deputies? Arnauld? Walter?"

"They've lost their heads."

"Who's at the town-hall?"

"Everybody."

"The parish-priest?"

"A milksop!"

"The parson?"

"An a.s.s! There's only one man who isn't crying like the others.... But M. Morestal would never consent.... They're not friends."

"Who is that?"

"The school-master."

"Let them obey him, then!... The school-master will do!... Let him give orders in my husband's name."

The wish to save Morestal any annoyance gave her a sudden authority.

And she pushed everybody out, to the stairs, to the hall:

"There, go away, all of you.... Gridoux, go back to the town-hall...."

"Yes, that's it," said Saboureux, gripping the gamekeeper's arm, "go back to Saint-elophe, Gridoux, and send the soldiers to me, eh? Let them defend me, hang it all! The Uhlans will burn down everything, my house, my barn!"

They all went out in high excitement. Philippe was able for a long time to distinguish Farmer Saboureux's exclamations through the garden window. And the picture of all those anxious, noisy people, drunk with talk and action, rus.h.i.+ng from side to side in obedience to unreasoning impulses, that picture suggested to him a vision of the great mad crowds which the war was about to let loose like the waves of a sea.

"Come on," he said. "It's time to act."

He took a railway-guide from the table and turned up the station at Langoux. The new strategic line pa.s.sed through Langoux, the line which follows the Vosges and runs down to Belfort and Switzerland. He found that he could reach Bale and sleep at Zurich that same evening.

He stood up and looked around him, with his heart wrung at the thought of going away like that, without bidding good-bye to any one. Marthe had not answered his letter and remained invisible. His father had turned him out and would never forgive him. He must go away by stealth, like a malefactor. "Well," he murmured, thinking of the act which he was on the point of accomplis.h.i.+ng, "it's better so. In any case and in spite of everything, I was bound, now that war has been declared, to appear a miscreant and a renegade in my father's eyes. Have I the right to rob him of the least affectionate word?"

Mme. Morestal came up from the garden and he heard her moaning:

"War! Oh, heaven, war, like last time! And your poor father forced to keep his bed! Ah, Philippe, it's the end of all things!"

She s.h.i.+fted a few chairs in their places, wiped the table-cover with her ap.r.o.n and, when the drawing-room seemed tidy to her eyes, went to the door:

"Perhaps he is awake.... What will he want to do, when he hears?... If only he keeps quiet! A man of his age ..."

Philippe went up to her, in an instinctive burst of confidence:

"You know I'm going, mother?"

She replied:

"You're going? Well, yes, you are right. I dare say I shall persuade Marthe to come back to you...."

He shook his head:

"I'm afraid not...."

"Yes, yes," she declared, "Marthe loves you very much. And then there are the children to bring you together. Leave it to me.... The same with your father: don't be alarmed.... Everything will smooth down in time between the two of you. Go, my boy.... Write to me often...."

"Won't you kiss me, mother?"

She kissed him on the forehead, a quick, cold kiss that revealed her lingering bitterness.

But, as she was opening the door, she stopped, reflected and said:

"You are going back to Paris, are you not? To your own place?"

"Why do you ask, mother?"