Роберт Чамберс - Who Goes There!

Frau Bergner appeared with cloth and covers, beaming, curtseying to all; and very soon they were at luncheon—a simple but perfectly cooked luncheon, where everything was delectable and there did not seem to be very much of any particular variety, yet there was just a trifle more than enough for everybody. Which is the real triumph of a good German, French, or Belgian housekeeper's calculations.

And when luncheon was ended the luggage already had been placed in the car; the chauffeur emerged from the kitchen where Frau Bergner had been generous to him; and in a few moments the big blue machine was whirring smoothly on its way to Lesse, through the beautiful Ardennes forests over smooth, well–cared–for roads, the sun shining in a cloudless sky, and four young people making rapid headway in a new acquaintanceship which seemed to promise everything agreeable and gay.

At the huge, moss–grown gate–posts of Lesse a forester lifted his grey felt hat and opened the gates; and around the first curve appeared the celebrated and beautiful old lodge of weather–stained stone and slate, the narrow terrace blazing with geraniums and scarlet sage.

Guild noticed a slender, red–haired girl seated on the steps, knitting, with a heap of dark–blue wool in her lap; but when the car drew up, Valentine Courland addressed her as "mother"—to the intense surprise of Karen as well as of himself, for Mrs. Courland seemed scarce older than her own daughter, and quite as youthfully attractive.

She welcomed Karen with a sweet directness of manner which won the girl instantly; and her manner to Guild was no less charming—an older woman's delightful recognition of a young man's admiration, and a smiling concession to this young man's youth and good looks.

When Valentine mentioned Karen's plight in the matter of wardrobe, her mother laughed gaily and, slipping one arm around Karen's waist, took her off into the house.

"We shall remedy that immediately," she said. "Come and see what suits you best."

"As for you," said Darrel to Guild, "your luggage is in your room. I suppose you are glad of that."

"Rather," said Guild with such intense feeling that Valentine Courland laughed outright.

"Take him to his beloved luggage," she said to Darrel; "I had no idea he was so vain. You know the room, don't you? It is next to your own."

"Harry, why are you limping?" asked Valentine as Darrel rose to go.

"I'm not."

"You are. Why?"

"Rum. I drink too much of it," he explained seriously.

So the young men went away together; and presently Guild was flinging from him the same worn clothing which, at one terrible moment, seemed destined to become his shroud: and Darrel sat on the bed and gave him an outline of the life at Lesse Forest and of the two American women who lived there.

"Courland loved the place," said Darrel, "and for many years until his death he spent the summers here with his wife and daughter.

"That's why they continue to come. The place is part of their life. But I don't know what they'll do now. Monsieur Paillard, their landlord, hasn't been heard of since the Germans bombarded and burnt Wiltz–la–Vallée. Whether poor Paillard got knocked on the head by a rifle–butt or a 41–centimetre shell, or whether he was lined up against some garden wall with the other poor devils when the Prussian firing–squads sickened and they had to turn the machine–guns on the prisoners, nobody seems to know.

"Wiltz–la–Vallée is nothing but an ill–smelling heap of rubbish. The whole country is in a horrible condition. You know a rotting cabbage or beet or turnip field emits a bad enough smell. Add to that the stench from an entire dead and decomposing community of three thousand people! Oh yes, they dug offal trenches, but they weren't deep enough. And besides there was enough else lying dead under the blackened bricks and rafters to poison the atmosphere of a whole country. It's a ghastly thing what they've done to Belgium!"

Guild went to his modern bathroom to bathe, but left the door open.

"Go on, Harry," he said.

"Well, that's about all," continued Darrel. "The Germans left death and filth behind them. Not only what the hands of man erected is in ruins, but the very face of the earth itself is mangled out of all recognition. They tore Nature herself to pieces, stamped her features out, obliterated her very body! You ought to see some of the country! I don't mean where towns or solitary farms were. I mean the land , the landscape !—all full of slimy pits from their shells, cut in every direction by their noisome trenches, miles and miles of roadside trees shot to splinters, woodlands burnt to ashes, forests torn to slivers—one vast, distorted and abominable desolation."

Guild had reappeared, and was dressing.

"They didn't ransack the Grand Duchy," continued Darrel, "although I heard that the Grand Duchess blocked their road with her own automobile and faced the invaders until they pushed her aside with scant ceremony. If she did that she's as plucky as she is pretty. That's the story, anyway."

"Have the Germans bothered you here?" asked Guild, buttoning a fresh collar.

"Not any to speak of. Of course they don't care anything about the frontier; they'd violate it in a minute. And I've been rather worried because a lot of these Luxembourg peasants, particularly the woodsmen and forest dwellers, are Belgians, or are in full sympathy with them. And I'm afraid they'll do something that will bring the Germans to Lesse Forest."

"You mean some sort of franc–tireur business?"

"Yes, I mean just that."

"The Germans shoot franc–tireurs without court–martial."

"I know it. And there has been sniping across the border, everywhere, even since the destruction of Wiltz–la–Vallée. I expect there'll be mischief here sooner or later."

Guild, tall, broad–shouldered, erect, stood by the window looking out between the gently blowing sash–curtains, and fastening his waistcoat.

And, standing so, he said: "Harry, this is no place for Mrs. Courland and her daughter. They ought to go to Luxembourg City, or across the line into Holland. As a matter of fact they really ought to go back to America."

"I think so too," nodded Darrell. "I think we may persuade them to come back with us."

Without looking at his business partner and friend, Guild said: "I am not going back with you."

"What!"

"I can't. But you must go—rather soon, too. And you must try to persuade the Courlands to go with you."

"What are you planning to do?" demanded Darrel with the irritable impatience of a man who already has answered his own question.

"You can guess, I suppose?"

"Yes, dammit!—I can! I've been afraid you'd do some such fool thing. And I ask you, Kervyn, as a sane, sensible Yankee business man, is it necessary for you to gallop into this miserable free fight and wallow in it up to your neck? Is it? Is it necessary to propitiate your bally ancestors by pulling a gun on the Kaiser and striking an attitude?"

Guild laughed. "I'm afraid it's a matter of propitiating my own conscience, Harry. I'm afraid I'll have to strike an attitude and pull that gun."

"To the glory of the Gold Book and the Counts of Gueldres! I know! You're very quiet about such things, but I knew it was inside you all the time. Confound it! I was that worried by your letter to me! I thought you'd already done something and had been caught."

"I hadn't been doing anything, but I had been caught."

"I knew it!"

"Naturally; or I shouldn't have written you a one–act melodrama instead of a letter…. Did you destroy the letter to my mother?"

"Yes, I did."

"That was right. I'll tell you about it some time. And now, before we go down, this is for your own instruction: I am going to try to get into touch with the Belgian army. How to do it I don't see very clearly, because there are some two million Germans between me and it. But that's what I shall try to do, Harry. So, during the day or two I remain here, persuade your friends, the Courlands, of the very real danger they run in remaining at Lesse. Because any of these peasants at any moment are likely to sally forth Uhlan sniping. And you know what German reprisals mean."