"I"ve not seen it yet. I"ve not been able to get away. And the Paris factories have held me every minute. But now I"m here, I"m--I"m wondering--You see that dot beyond, standing separate?"
"Yes."
"That"s where I sleep to-night. That"s the house."
"But can you sleep there?" she asked, still shocked that she had not realised what this journey was to him.
"Can I?"
"I mean is the house ruined?"
"Oh, the house is in bad order," he said. "Not ruined. "Looted," my old _concierge_ writes. She was my nurse a hundred years ago. She has been there through the occupation. I wrote to her, and she expects me to-night. To-night it will be too dark, but to-morrow before I leave I shall see what they have done to the factories."
"Don"t you know at all how bad they are?"
"I"ve had letters. The agent went on ahead five days ago and he has settled there already. But letters don"t tell one enough. There are little things in the factories--things I put in myself--" He broke off and drew her to another side of the plateau. "See down there! That unfortunate railway crosses two more bridges. I can"t see now, but they"re blown up, since all the others are. And such a time for business! It hurts me to think of the things I can"t set going till that railway works. Every one is crying out for the things that I can make here."
On and on he talked in his excitement, absorbed and planning, leading her from one point of view on the plateau to another. Her eyes followed his pointing hands from crest to crest of the mountains their neighbours, till the valleys were full of creeping shadows. Even when the shades filmed his eager hand he held it out to point here and there as though the whole landscape of the mountains was printed in immortal daylight on his mind.
"I can"t see," she said. "It"s so dark down there. I can"t see it," as he pointed to the spot where the Brussels railway once ran.
"Well, it"s there," he said, staring at the spot with eyes that knew.
The blue night deepened in the sky; from east, west, north, south, sprang the stars.
"f.a.n.n.y, look! There"s a light in my house!"
Fathoms of shade piled over the village and in the heart of it a light had appeared. "Marie has lit the lamp on the steps. I mustn"t be too late for her--I must soon go down."
"What, you walk? Is there a footpath down?"
"I shall go down this mountain path below. It"s a path I know, shooting hares. Soon I shall be back again. Brussels one week; then Paris; then here again. I"ll see what builders can be spared from the Paris factories. They can walk out here from Charleville. Ten miles, that"s nothing! Then we"ll get the stone cut ready in the quarries. Do you know, during the war, I thought (when I thought of it), "If the Revins factories are destroyed it won"t be I who"ll start them again. I won"t take up that hard mountain life any more. If they"re destroyed, it"s too discouraging, so let them lie!" But now I don"t feel discouraged at all. I"ve new ideas, bigger ones. I"m older, I"m going to be richer. And then, since they"re partly knocked down I"ll rebuild them in a better way. And it"s not only that--See!" He was carried away by his resolves, shaken by excitement, and pulling out his note-book he tilted it this way and that under the starlight, but he could not read it, and all the stars in that sky were no use to him. He struck a match and held the feeble flame under that heavenly magnificence, and a puff of wind blew it out.
"But I don"t need to see!" he exclaimed, and pointing into the night he continued to unfold his plans, to build in the unmeaning darkness, which, to his eyes, was mountain valleys where new factories arose, mountain slopes whose sides were to be quarried for their stony ribs, rivers to move power-stations, railways to Paris and to Brussels. As she followed his finger her eyes lit upon the stars instead, and now he said, "There, there!" pointing to Orion, and now "Here, here!" lighting upon Aldebrande.
As she followed his finger her thoughts were on their own paths, thinking, "This is Julien as he will be, not as I have known him." The soldier had been a wanderer like herself, a half-fantastic being. But here beside her in the darkness stood the civilian, the Julien-to-come, the solid man, the builder, plotting to capture the future.
For him, too, she could no longer remain as she had been. Here, below her was the face, the mountain face, of her rival. Unless she became one with his plans and lived in the same blazing light with them, she would be a separate landscape, a strain upon his focus.
Then she saw him looking at her. Her face, silver-bright in the starlight, was as unreadable as his own note-book.
"Are you sure," he was saying, "that you won"t be blamed about the car?"
"Sure, quite sure. The men have all gone home."
"But to-morrow morning? When they see it has been out?"
"Not--to-morrow morning. No, they won"t say anything to-morrow morning.
Oh, dear Julien--"
"Yes?"
"I think, I hope you are going to have a great success here. And don"t forget--me--when you--"
"--When I come back in a week!"
"But your weeks--are so long."
"Yet you will be happy without me," he said suddenly.
"What makes you say that?"
"You"ve some solace, some treasure of your own." He nodded. "In a way,"
he said, "I"ve sometimes thought you half out of reach of pain."
She caught her breath, and the starry sky whirled over her head.
"You"re a happy foreigner!" he finished. "Did you know? Dormans called you that after the first dance. He said to me: "I wonder if they are all so happy in England! I must go and see.""
"You too, you too!" she said, eagerly, and she wanted him to admit it.
"See how happy, how busy, how full of the affairs of life you soon will be! Difficulties of every sort, and hard work and triumph--"
"And you"ll see, you"ll see, I"ll do it," he said, catching fire again.
"I"ll grow rich on these bony mountains--it isn"t only the riches, mind you, but they are the proof--I"ll wring it out in triumph, not in water, but in gold--from the rock!"
He stood at the edge of the path, a little above her, blotting out the sky with his darker shape, then turning, kissed her.
"For the little time!" he said, and disappeared.
The noise of his footsteps descended in the night below. Ten minutes pa.s.sed, and as each step trod innocently away from her for ever she continued motionless and silent to listen from her rock. The noises all but faded, yet, loth to put an end to the soft rustle, she listened while it grew fainter and less human to her ear, till it mingled at last with the rustle of nature, with the whine of the wind and the pit-pat of a little creature close at hand.
She stirred at last, and turned; and found herself alone with that flock of enormous companions, the hog-backed mountains, like cattle feeding about her. Above, uniting craggy horn to horn, was an architrave of stars.
"Good-bye"--to the light in the valley, and starting the car she began the descent on Charleville. There are moments when the roll of the world is perceptible to the extravagant senses. There are moments when the glamour of man thins away into oblivion before the magic of night, when his face fades and his voice is silenced before that wind of excited perception that blows out of nowhere to shake the soul.
In such a mood, in such a giddy hour, seated in person upon her car, in spirit upon her imagination, f.a.n.n.y rode down the mountain into the night.
She was invincible, inattentive to the voice of absent man, a hard, hollow G.o.ddess, a flute for the piping of heaven--composing and chanting unmusical songs, her inner ear fastened upon another melody. And heaven, protecting a creature at that moment so estranged from earth, led her down the wild road, held back the threatening forest branches, brought her, all but standing up at the wheel like a lunatic, safely to the foot of the last hill.
Recalled to earth by the light of Charleville she drove slowly up the main street, replaced the car in the garage, and returned to her house in the Rue de Cleves.
"It is true," she whispered, as she entered the room, "that I am half out of reach of pain--" and long, in plans for the future, she hung over the embers.
The gradual sinking of the light before her reminded her of the present.
"The last night that the fire burns for me!" She heaped on all her logs.
"Little pannikin of chocolate, little companion!" Hunger, too, awoke, and she dropped two sticks of chocolate into the water. "The fire dies down to-night. To-morrow I shall be gone." A petal from the apple blossom on the mantelpiece fell against her hand.