The Old Blood Part 27

"The one that the Germans dented, if you wish," she replied. "I can't spare another."

"And the Germans will be here very soon," Phil added, to see what the effect would be.

"It's time. They've sent enough calling cards!" replied Jacqueline.

"The dirty, worthless, murderous, savage beasts, eating, swilling, killing other women's boys and destroying other people's property!

Now, if you don't bother me it's likely that you will get a better dinner after I've cleaned up."

Advisedly they withdrew into the sitting-room, where Phil became a Roman sentinel on guard. Soon they had glimpses of green figures with cloth-covered helmets working their way through the grounds and along the village streets. But the figures seemed to be too busy to pay any attention to the house. Then sh.e.l.ls began to break over the village and grounds again, French sh.e.l.ls into the advancing German infantry, which once more sent the cousins to the cellar. When they returned upstairs Jacqueline met them, highly excited.

"I saw it with my own eyes!" she exclaimed. "I couldn't keep indoors when our sh.e.l.ls were coming. Yes, I saw one burst right in among the beasts and knock a lot of them over! Three never will get up again and they carried the others away, back to the Kaiser!"

Put a red cap on Jacqueline, and with the flas.h.i.+ng of her black eyes she would have needed no further make-up for the storming of the Bastille.

CHAPTER XIX

A CHOICE OF BILLETS

With the French guns withdrawn from range, nothing interfered with the remorselessly steady tramp of the column of infantry pa.s.sing the gate; and out on the main road an unending stream of men, guns, and transport flowed, eyes on the goal of Paris. The chateau and its grounds were an island in the green advancing tide planning to overflow the world.

The three had little appet.i.te for dinner, which Jacqueline prepared earlier than usual. They had finished when one of the green units detached itself from the procession of armed power.

"We billet here to-night," he said in French to Phil, who met him at the door. "How many of you are there? Three? Keep to your bedrooms and leave the rest of the house to us. And you, are you English?"

"No, American."

"And what are you doing here?"

"I am here with my cousins," he answered. "We managed to get their mother away to Paris."

"Keep to your rooms!" was the warning.

A few minutes later a dozen dusty officers with baggage and orderlies arrived. Their guttural voices seemed to fill the rooms. When they wanted to occupy the kitchen Jacqueline was inclined to show fight, but Phil dissuaded her and after her first temperamental outburst she yielded to Caesar and put her saucepans at the service of Caesar's minions, who were already rummaging among the preserves and the wines.

It was war, a matter of course. Jacqueline being bred of a military race accommodated herself to the fact, with a deadly hate in her heart.

By the wish of the two girls, who plainly preferred not to be alone, they all made Henriette's bedroom a sitting-room. There they sat, listening to the heavy footsteps below, the loud talk with references to Paris, the clinking of gla.s.ses and toasts of exultant militarism.

Phil's anger was hard to control. He was not of a military race.

These men were highwaymen and burglars to him, outraging a home.

A brigadier-general slept in Madame Ribot's room; captains had the sofas and lieutenants the floor. Not until there was silence below did the three separate. Before dawn they were aroused by the harsh gutturals and the noise of packing and hurried breakfasts, before the officers again took their places with their commands and the green river moved on after the few hours' rest which even German discipline had to concede to the limitations of the human machine. Half-empty preserve jars and wine bottles were on the tables and sausage grease had been ground into the floors. In the littered kitchen industrious Jacqueline had already begun putting things to rights and in due course prepared the morning coffee as usual.

"I feel as if the house had been tainted!" she said.

"They have taken what they wanted," said the cure, who came to tell them that the mayor was made hostage for the good behaviour of the villagers, which meant that all must remain indoors. "I fear, I fear!"

he said, as he went away. "They are very strong, these barbarians!"

At breakfast the cousins spoke only in monosyllables. A pall was over their thoughts. They could hear the steady tramp of men or the creak of gun-carriages and caissons pa.s.sing, like a march of fate that would never end. Something was gone from their hearts and minds, from the house, the garden, the air, the world--which was still with them as long as a French soldier stood between them and the enemy. There was nothing to do but stay indoors. The chateau and its grounds became a prison.

Helen took a chair out behind a bush by the gate, where she could look through an opening, and began sketching. Henriette tried to read a novel. Phil walked in the grounds. What were the old father and mother in Longfield thinking had become of him? How long should he be here? He had turned to go into the house when steps on the walk, with the jingle of spurs, arrested him and he looked around to see a young officer of distinctly Prussian pattern approaching.

Lieutenant von Eichborn, aide to Lieutenant-General von Stein, division commander, was probably four and twenty. From the peak of his helmet to his spurs he thought well of himself and poorly of everybody else in the world who was not Prussian and of his caste. This person in front of him was a civilian. Since August first civilians had been of no account on the continent of Europe. Besides, it was a nuisance to have the owner of a chateau about.

"Do you live here?" he asked.

"Yes, for the present," Phil replied.

"English?" von Eichborn shot at him and in English.

"American!" Phil politely gave monosyllable for monosyllable. He did not like von Eichborn.

"I am going to look over the chateau with a view to making it staff headquarters," said von Eichborn, starting toward the door past Phil.

"Evidently," said Phil.

Von Eichborn wheeled on him.

"Take care!" he said. "I am an officer."

"I judged that you were," Phil replied, with studied politeness.

Von Eichborn stared, frowned. Phil neither stared nor frowned; he smiled.

"What else am I to say?" he added. "I am not used to military customs."

Von Eichborn strolled on into the hall.

"Pleasant place. I think it will do--the best in this neighbourhood, anyway. But I'll go through it."

Henriette rose from her chair as he entered the sitting-room and the aide of General von Stein who thought so well of himself, startled, put up his eye-gla.s.s, dropped it, and made a low bow.

"The chateau belongs to Mademoiselle Ribot's mother," Phil explained.

"Most charming place, most charming!" said von Eichborn, speaking French now, while he was looking into Henriette's eyes and smiling.

"We think so," Henriette replied, and she smiled, partly in response to his admiration, perhaps, as well as for policy's sake.

"Madame, your mother is not here?"

"No. She succeeded in getting away on the last train to Paris."

"Perhaps I shall see her there," von Eichborn remarked.

"You are quite sure?" Henriette flashed.

Her spirit seemed to please him; at least, he smiled again. A straight, fine figure of militarism he made, his head inclined toward her; but the thickish lips, the rather outstanding ears with heavy lobes, and the straight line from neck to crown marked him as a brute.