by W. F. Morris
“I would like it, if it wouldn’t be too much of an ordeal.”
“I will come,” he said.
Cecil was driving. But just before they entered the car, Baron took Clare aside. He spoke with embarrassed awkwardness. “It is only fair to tell you this,” he said. “Charles told us that—that he was very badly knocked about. And no doubt you have formed your own picture of him—as I had.”
She nodded with pathetic half-frightened eyes.
Baron looked at the ground and shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “I have seen him now, and—well, he is worse than I imagined. It is only fair to tell you this. You see, it is bound to be a—a big shock.”
She nodded her head. “I had realized that,” she answered in a hushed voice; and then she smiled bravely but a trifle unsteadily. “That is why I am all made up. He must not notice any—any weakness.”
The car left the town behind and climbed the steep mountain side in the golden afternoon sunshine. Pagan sat in front with Cecil: Clare was behind with Baron. Hardly a word was said till the car climbed over the bare grassy crest and halted in the col. Then it was Cecil who spoke. “Fine view,” he remarked, glancing at the magnificent panorama of mountains, woods, and valleys that stretched around them. Then he switched off the engine and opened the door.
Baron leant forward with his elbows on the back of the front seat. “That track to the right,” he said, “leads over into the next hollow where the inn is. I don’t know whether you could take the car along it.”
Cecil thought he could. He pulled his foot inside again and started the engine. The car bumped gently off the road and slowly climbed the uneven grassy track. It glided more swiftly over the flat grassy top of the dividing shoulder, and bumped gently down into the hollow not fifty yards from the inn.
Baron climbed out. “Charles and I will go on ahead,” he said to Clare. “You come along presently.”
He and Pagan walked towards the inn down that now familiar track, which they traversed first in the darkness of that rainy, windy night less than a fortnight ago; and as he passed through the gate in the whitewashed fence Pagan wished devoutly that his map-reading on that night had been as faulty as Baron had chaffingly suggested it was.
Baron knocked at the door. It was opened by Bertha. Without a word she held it wide for them to pass, but she looked at Pagan with reproachful eyes which he found hard to meet, and he noticed that she had been crying.
The long, brick-floored room, which had looked so cheerful that first night he entered it, now seemed gloomy and neglected. Yet the red-brick floor was clean and smelt of soap; the empty, clean scrubbed tables with their chairs pushed close to them stood in neat alignment around the walls. The sunlight, streaming through the coarse bleached muslin curtains, drove low misty wedges of light across one side of the room and made the walls and intervening spaces seem dark by contrast. The drowsy buzzing of a blue-bottle on one of the windows was the only sound that broke the country stillness.
Vigers sat silent and alone by a table at the far end of the room. The lower part of his face was covered by a coloured handkerchief, and above it his blue eyes seemed strangely watchful. He rose slowly to his feet as the two men came in and stood with one hand resting upon the table beside him. Bertha stood in tragic silence by the door.
“Hullo, Roger,” cried Baron cheerfully. “Here we are. You have met Charles Pagan already, I think.”
Vigers’ answer came slowly. His voice appeared to be under studied control and it was muffled by the handkerchief over his face. “It is very nice of you and Pagan to come.”
“Not a bit,” answered Baron. There followed an embarrassed silence for a moment or two; and then he asked quietly, “Well—shall I—shall I fetch her, Roger?”
Vigers made a slight inclination of his head. Baron turned towards the door, but before he could reach it, Clare appeared on the threshold. She came slowly into the room and glanced enquiringly at Baron. He looked at her and then turned his head slowly towards Vigers standing motionless at the far end. She followed the direction of his eyes and then halted.
“Roger!” Her voice was low, but clear and un-shaking.
Vigers neither moved nor spoke. He stood with his hand still resting on the table, his head slightly averted, his shoulders a little bent, his whole body motionless.
Clare moved slowly forward again. She covered half the distance separating him from her. Then she stopped. Her voice was very low, but had again that peculiarly clear cut quality.
“Roger—Roger, take—the handkerchief away.”
Silence followed. Only the blue-bottle buzzed intermittently upon the window. The motes revolved gently in the long oblique shafts of sunshine. Slowly Vigers raised his hand. The handkerchief dropped.
Seconds passed, seconds ticked out softly by a clock made audible in another room by the deathly stillness. Then a shoe scraped on the brick floor, and Clare moved swiftly forward. His unblinking blue eyes watched her approach as though fascinated.
“Roger,” she murmured and went close up to him. She put her arms about his neck and kissed his mutilated face.
He stood a moment with his hands hanging stupidly at his sides; then he sank upon the chair and deep sobs broke the silence.
Baron turned a strained face towards Pagan. Together they stole quickly out into the sunshine.
They walked slowly and in silence along the front of the inn and sat down at one of the little iron tables on the side terrace. Pagan pulled out his pipe and filled it mechanically. He threw the burnt match over the blistered white palings and watched it fall and come finally to rest on the mountain side fifty feet or so below. Across the valley the grassy mountain tops glowed greeny-gold in the late afternoon sunlight. Far below he could see the toy-like, clustered roofs of Munster.
“What did Vigers get his V. C. for?” he asked suddenly.
Baron, who was filling his pipe with great deliberation, stuck it in his mouth and felt in his pockets for matches. “Scuppering a machine-gun nest, I believe,” he answered absently. “It was before I joined the battalion.”
Pagan leant forward with his elbows on his knees and nodded. He took his pipe from his mouth and regarded the glowing bowl. “Well, whatever it was,” he said slowly, “I would be willing to make a bet that it wasn’t a braver act than that we have just seen—in there.” He made a motion of his head towards the inn.
Baron nodded his head solemnly. “It’s about the finest thing I have ever seen,” he agreed.
Cecil sauntered up and sat down. “I do not see why we should not have a drink,” he suggested.
Baron looked up absently. “Not a bad idea,” he murmured in a far away voice. “We shall have to get hold of Bertha, though.”
Pagan jumped up. “I will see if I can find her,” he said. He was glad to have something to do. He went along the front of the inn and round to the other side where the outbuildings projected from it. The door under the covered way was open, and he put his head inside and called. Bertha answered. She took the order in silence and put the three glasses on a tray.
“I will take them out,” said Pagan.
She looked up at him with sad eyes. “M’sieu, will she take him away?”
Pagan put down the tray which he had lifted an inch or two from the table. “I don’t know, Bertha,” he answered slowly.
“She will be kind to him, M’sieu?”
Pagan nodded his head slowly. “Yes, Bertha, you may be sure of that.”
“She is very beautiful,” said Bertha.
“Yes.” Pagan put his hands again on the tray.
“Does she love him, M’sieu?”
“She was his fiancée, Bertha.”
She looked at him with sad, sympathetic eyes. “And what will you do, M’sieu?”
“I do?” echoed Pagan. He gave an involuntary shrug of his shoulders, and then he smiled at her kindly. “It is, what shall we do, Bertha; for we are both in the same boat. I expect we shall smile and carry on, eh! Co
me.” He pushed one of the glasses towards her. “The other day I drank with you; now you must drink with me.” He took up one of the glasses.
She did not take the glass; she looked at him with grave eyes. “What shall we drink to, M’sieu?” she asked. “It would not be practicable to drink to your toast of the other day.”
“No,” agreed Pagan, “but we can drink together nevertheless.” He raised his glass. “Long life and happiness to those we love, Bertha.”
With her grave eyes still fixed on his she raised her glass and clinked it against his.
Cecil sat alone at the table on the terrace when Pagan returned.
“Where is Baron?” asked Pagan.
Cecil took a glass from the tray and drank from it. “Talking to Clare and Roger,” he answered.
A moment later Baron returned. “So you found Bertha, did you!” he remarked as he took up his glass. “Well, cheery ’o.” He took a gulp and set the glass down. “Clare may be staying up here for dinner,” he announced. “So why don’t you and Cecil clear off back. I told Clare I was going to send you back. Don’t you think it is the most sensible thing, Charles?”
“Is there nothing we can do?” asked Pagan.
“No, really nothing, old Charles. I would cut along if I were you. If you like to keep to the road, we can pick you up in the car if we overtake you.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Pagan.
“I told Clare I would bring her back. Don’t bother about me; you get along.”
Pagan rose. “Walking is something to do, at any rate,” he sighed. “Well, Cecil, what about it?”
Cecil rose languidly from his chair. “It is all downhill, anyway,” he yawned.
IV
Baron was not back to dinner that evening, and Pagan ate the meal alone. Young Cecil also was alone at his table at the other end of the room, but he hurried the meal and rose quickly to follow the fair-haired, scarlet-frocked girl into the dance room. Pagan had coffee in the lounge and smoked a cigarette. He felt curiously remote from the other visitors, and their presence jarred upon his taut nerves. He went out into the garden and smoked his pipe. Down the long avenue he could see the twinkling coloured lights of the little café. He walked restlessly towards it and then changed his mind and came back. Baron had not yet returned. He could only wait with what patience he could muster. He went upstairs and prowled restlessly round his room.
Soon after nine o’clock Baron came in and dropped into the chintz-covered easy chair. His face looked tired and drawn in the shadowed light of the stand lamp on the little table by the bed.
“Well, it’s all settled,” he said wearily.
Pagan sat on the broad window ledge with his back to the dark blue curtains. He nodded his head without speaking.
“The engagement is to stand.”
Pagan nodded his head again without speaking.
Baron threw back his head with a restless movement and went on in the same weary chafing tones.
“Vigers is to wear a mask. Young Cecil, apparently, knows of a man in Strasbourg who does that sort of thing, and he is going in to-morrow to bring him out to the inn.” He put his hands on the arms of the chair and turned his head and looked at Pagan with troubled eyes. “It is going to be modelled from an old photograph of Vigers!” He turned his head again and stared at the carpet. “Pretty ghastly, isn’t it! I hope to God Clare has the guts to stick it. It would break old Roger’s heart if anything went wrong.”
Pagan sat with clasped hands and his forearms resting on his knees. He raised his hands still clasped and removed his pipe. “She will stick it,” he affirmed. “You can’t doubt that she has the guts after what you saw this afternoon.”
Baron sat for some moments in gloomy silence, and then he rose wearily and walked across the room to the tiled alcove. “I’m as thirsty as a fish,” he said. He took a glass from the rack and filled it with water at the silvered tap over the wash basin. He drank and turned glass in hand. “This is damned hard luck on you, old Charles.”
Pagan slowly shrugged his shoulders. “I won’t pretend I’m not hard hit,” he said at last. “I am—damned hard.” He took his pipe from his mouth and regarded the stem critically. “But I am not sure it isn’t all for the best. I’m not a particularly humble cove, Dicky, as you know, but—well, even I if had been lucky, I’m not sure, after what we saw this afternoon, that a fellow like me could live up to a girl like that.”
“Oh rot,” retorted Baron. He emptied the glass into the basin and walked slowly back across the room. “I expect you will be wanting to get away from here now, Charles. It is a bit awkward, I know.”
Pagan thrust his hands into his pockets. “It isn’t too easy,” he admitted.
Baron nodded. “I quite agree, but I feel that I ought to be on hand just until things are more or less in running order. You see, Clare has only Cecil. She is going with him to Strasbourg to-morrow to bring this mask fellow out to the inn, but once he has seen Vigers and got on to the job, it ought to be more or less plain sailing, I take it. So, unless any fresh difficulties crop up, I think we might reasonably go the day after to-morrow. In fact I told Clare to-night that we should be off then.”
Pagan nodded and knocked out his pipe. “Frankly I shall not be sorry to leave Munster,” he said.
“Neither shall I,” agreed Baron emphatically. He dropped again into the easy chair, thrust his legs out before him and scowled at the carpet. “What gets me,” he complained, “is that I cannot see where it’s all going to end.” He continued to stare gloomily at the carpet. Then he went on as though talking to himself. “Years ago, during the war, I remember thinking to myself that if I came through, how wonderful it would be after it was all over to go and stay with Roger and Clare, and perhaps play with their kids. I think I was almost as keen on Roger marrying Clare as I myself was on marrying Helen. I loved old Roger. And then he was killed—as we thought.” He drew in his legs and rested his elbows on his knees. “I ought to be overjoyed to find that he is still alive: but I am not. Somehow it does not seem to me that he is really. Of course I know he is, but it still seems to me that the old Roger died—when we thought he did. This poor devil without a face doesn’t seem to me to be the Roger I knew in the old days. His elder brother perhaps, but not the old Roger I knew. I wonder whether she feels that.” He sat for a moment in moody silence, and then he took the map from beside the lamp on the little table and unfolded it.
“Well, old Charles, where shall we go when we leave here?”
Pagan wrenched his mind back to the workaday world. “Somewhere cheerful, don’t you think? Do you know, I find these hills and pine woods and particularly Munster a little depressing.”
“Depressing! Lord, depressing isn’t the word for it.”
“How about one of those old fortified villages at the foot of the valleys,” suggested Pagan. “They looked sunny and cheerful and had vineyards all round them.”
“Right. Which one?” said Baron.
Pagan came and leant over the map. “What is the name of that one we passed on the way up—near Kaysersburg? It had walls all round it and a moat covered with flowers and grass, and there was an avenue of trees leading over a stone bridge.”
“Yes, I liked the look of that one,” agreed Baron. He consulted the map. “Yes, this must be it—Kientzeim. Shall we trek all the way; what do you think?”
Pagan looked over his shoulder. “No; I suggest we train down the valley to Turkheim—that was the place with the old gate tower with the stork’s nest on top—have lunch there and then take this track over the hill to Kientzeim.”
Baron nodded agreement. “Good.” He glanced at his wrist-watch and rose with a yawn. “And now I’m going to bed. I don’t want another day like this for a very long time to come.”
“Neither do I,” murmured Pagan.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PAGAN saw nothing of Clare on the following day. She had already left in the car for Strasbourg when he came down to
breakfast and he was having coffee at the little café by the station when she returned to the hotel late in the evening. Baron, however, saw her for a few moments and learnt that all had gone well. The mask was to be ready in a few days and then Vigers was to move down to Munster. Nothing, therefore, need delay their proposed departure for Kientzeim on the morrow.
They breakfasted early, packed their few belongings, and then went into the town to buy a few things which they needed. Cecil was in the lounge when they returned. Clare, he said, had gone with Griffin up to the inn, but she would be back to lunch.
Baron looked enquiringly at Pagan as they went up the stairs. “I suppose this means taking an afternoon train,” he said.
“I don’t know,” mused Pagan. “I don’t see why we should not go this morning as arranged. She is awfully busy, and anyway she doesn’t want me hanging round sighing like a furnace to say good-bye. We can leave a note wishing her all happiness, and we can ask Cecil to say good-bye for us. If she wants anything, she knows where to find us. It is hardly our party now.”
“I quite agree,” said Baron. “I was only thinking of you; I thought perhaps you might want to—well …”
Pagan shook his head. “This may be my funeral, Baron, but I am not going to be morbid about it.”
Baron thrust his arm through Pagan’s, “I am glad you are taking it like this, old Charles.”
Pagan shrugged his shoulders. “There is no other way to take it. I doubt whether I ever had much of a chance, but whether I had or not, I am not going to whine about it.” He stared thoughtfully at the carpet for a moment. “At least it is something to have known a girl like that,” he murmured half to himself. Then he looked up and said with a smile, though there was an undercurrent of seriousness in his tone, “And so, like the old Roman johnnies, I say, Hail and Farewell.”
Half an hour later the train moved slowly out of the station down the valley, and the outlying buildings of the town slid by, one by one and disappeared. High up on the bare mountain dome, the lone ragged tree showed black and diminutive against the clouds. Pagan watched it thoughtfully. At that distance he was unable to make out the inn. He pulled out his pipe and filled it with care.
