The Outrage Part 22

"Yule," he said, "I shall be sorry if in following the dictates of my conscience I lose a life-long friends.h.i.+p--a friends.h.i.+p which has been very precious to me." The vicar neither answered nor moved; but Mrs.

Yule came softly across the room and stood beside the doctor--the man who had healed and watched over her and those she loved, who fifteen years before had so tenderly laid her little blind daughter in her arms.

She remained at his side with flushed cheeks, and her lips moved silently as if in prayer. Her husband stood motionless, looking out at the misty November twilight.

"Still more does it grieve me," continued the doctor, "to think that any act of mine should wound your feelings on a point of conscience which evidently touches you so deeply. But be that as it may, I must obey the dictates of common humanity which, in this case, coincide exactly with the teachings of science. Given the condition in which I find this woman, I feel that I must try my best to save her reason and her life.

The chances are a hundred to one that if the child lived it would be abnormal; a degenerate, an epileptic." The doctor stepped near the couch and looked down at the unconscious Louise. "And as for the mother," he added, pointing to the pitiful death-like face, "look at her. Can you not see that she is well on her way to the graveyard or the madhouse?"

There was no reply. In the silence that followed Mrs. Yule drew near to her husband; but he kept his face resolutely turned away and stared out of the window.

She touched his arm tremulously. "Think, dear," she murmured, "think that she has a husband--whom she loves, who is fighting in the trenches for her and for his home. When he returns, will it not be terrible enough for her to tell him that his own daughter has lost her reason?

Must she also go to meet him carrying the child of an enemy in her arms?"

The vicar did not answer. He turned his pale set face away without a word, and left the room.

CHAPTER XV

Dusk, the dreary November dusk, had fallen as Louise hurried homeward across the damp fields and deserted country roads. She had refused Mrs.

Yule's urgent offer to accompany her or to send some one with her. She wanted to be alone--alone to look her happiness in the face, alone with her new heaven-sent ecstasy of grat.i.tude. After the nightmare-days of hopelessness and despair, behold! life was to be renewed, retrieved, redeemed. Like a grey cloak of misery her anguish fell away from her; she stepped forth blissful and entranced into the pathway of her reflowering youth.

And with the certainty of this deliverance came the faith and hope in all other joys. Claude would return to her; Belgium would be liberated and redeemed. Mireille would find her speech again! Yes, Mireille would find her sweet, soft smile and her sweet shrill laughter. Might it not be Louise's own gloom that had plunged the sensitive soul of her child into darkness? Surely now that the storm-cloud was to be lifted from her, also the over-shadowed child-spirit would flutter back again into the golden springlight of its day. Surely all joys were possible in this most beautiful and joyous world. And Louise went with quick, light steps through the gloaming, half-expecting to see Mireille, already healed, come dancing towards her, gay and garrulous, calling her as she used to do by her pet name, "Loulou!"

Or it might be Cherie who would run to meet her, waving her hand to tell her that the miracle had come to pa.s.s!

Cherie! The name, the thought of Cherie struck at Louise's heart like a sudden blow. Her quick footsteps halted. As if a gust of the November wind had blown out the light of her happiness, she stood suddenly still in the middle of the road and felt that around her there was darkness again.

Cherie!... What was it that the doctor had said to her as he came with her to the gate of the Vicarage, as he held her hand in his firm, strong grasp, promising to save her from the deep waters of despair? What were the words she had then neither understood nor answered, borne away as she was on the wave of her own tumultuous joy? They suddenly came back to her now; they suddenly reached her hearing and comprehension. He had said, looking her full in the face with a meaning gaze, "What about your sister?"

"What about your sister?" Your sister. Of course he had meant Cherie.

What about her? What about her? Again Louise felt that dull thud in her heart as if some one had struck it, for she knew, she knew what he meant--she knew what there was about Cherie.

There was the same abomination, the same impending horror and disgrace.

Had not Cherie herself come and told her, in bewilderment and simplicity, of the strange questionings, the obscure warnings Mrs.

Whitaker and the doctor had subjected her to? Ah, Louise knew but too well what it all meant; Louise knew but too well what there was about Cherie that even to strangers was manifest and unmistakable. Yes, Louise had dreaded it, had felt it, had known it--though Cherie herself had not. But until now her own torment of body and soul had hidden all else from her gaze, had made all that was not her own misery as unreal and unimportant as a dream. Vaguely, in the background of her thoughts, she had known that there was still another disaster to face, another fiery ordeal to encounter, but swept along in the vortex of her own doom she had flung those thoughts aside; in her own life-and-death struggle she had not stopped to ask, What of that other soul driving to s.h.i.+pwreck beside her, broken and submerged by the self-same storm?

But now it must be faced. She must tell the unwitting Cherie what the future held for her. She must stun her with the revelation of her shame.

For Louise understood--however incredible it might seem to others--that Cherie was wholly unaware of what had befallen her on that night when terror, inebriety, and violence had plunged her into unconsciousness.

Not a glimmer of the truth had dawned on her simplicity, not a breath of knowledge had touched her inexperience. Sullied and yet immaculate, violated and yet undefiled--of her could it indeed be said that she had conceived without sin.

Louise went on in the falling darkness with lagging footsteps. Deep down in her heart her happiness hid its face for the sorrow and shame she must bring to another.

Then she remembered--with what deep thankfulness!--that though she must inflict this hideous hurt on Cherie, yet she could also speak to her of help, she could promise her release and the hope of ultimate peace and oblivion.

She hurried forward through the darkening lanes, and soon joy awoke again and sang within her. Yes! There they stood at the open gate, the two beloved waiting figures--the taller, Cherie, with her arm round the slender form of Mireille. Louise ran towards them with buoyant step.

"Louise!" cried Cherie. "Where have you been? How quickly you walk! How bright and happy you look! Why, I could see your smile s.h.i.+ning from far off in the darkness!"

Louise kissed the soft, cold cheeks of both; she took Cherie's warm hand and the chilly little hand of Mireille and went with them towards the house. How cheerful were the lighted windows seen through the trees!

How sheltered and peaceful was this refuge! How gracious and generous were the strangers who had housed and nourished them!

How kind and good and beautiful was life!

"Tell me the truth, Louise," said Cherie that evening, when, having seen little Mireille safely asleep, Louise returned to the cheerful sitting-room, where the dancing firelight gleamed on the pink walls and cosy drawn curtains. "Tell me the truth. You have heard something--something from Claude ... something----" Cherie flushed to the lovely low line of the growth of her auburn curls--"from Florian!

You have, you have! I can read it in your face. You have had news of some kind."

Yes--Louise had had news.

"Good news----"

Yes. Good news. She sat down on a low armchair near the fire and beckoned with her finger. "Cherie!"

The girl came quickly to her side and sat down on the rug at her feet.

The fire danced and flickered on her red-gold hair and milkwhite oval face.

"Cherie." ... Louise's voice was low, her eyes cast down. She felt like a torturer, she felt as if she were murdering a flower, tearing asunder the closed petals of this girlish soul and filling its cup with poison.

Cherie was looking up into her face with a radiant, expectant smile.

How should she tell her? How should she tell her?...

Louise bent forward and covered the s.h.i.+ning, questioning eyes with her hand. "Tomorrow, Cherie! Tomorrow."

CHAPTER XVI

On the morrow Cherie awoke early. She could not say what had startled her out of a deep restful slumber, but suddenly she was wide awake, every nerve tense in a kind of strained expectancy, waiting she knew not for what. Something had occurred, something had awakened her; and she was waiting for it to repeat itself; waiting to hear or feel it again.

But whatever it was, sound or sensation, it was not repeated.

Cherie rose quickly, slid her feet into her slippers, and went across the room to the window. She leaned out with her bare elbows on the window-sill and looked at the garden--at the glistening lawn, at the stripped trees, dark and clear-cut against the early sky. It was a rose-grey dawn, as softly luminous as if it were the month of February instead of November. There seemed to be a promise of spring in the pale radiance of the morning.

She knew she could not sleep any more; so she dressed quietly and quickly, wrapped a scarf round her slim shoulders, and went down into the garden.

George Whitaker also had awakened early. These were his last few days at home before leaving for the front, and his spirit was full of feverish restlessness. His sister Eva was expected back from Hastings that morning and they would spend two or three happy days together before he left for the wonderful, and awful adventure of war. He had obeyed his mother's desire, and had not seen or spoken to their Belgian guests for many days. Indeed, it was easy--too easy, thought George with a sigh--to avoid them, for they seemed day by day to grow more shy of strangers and of friends. George only caught fleeting glimpses of them as they pa.s.sed their windows; sometimes he saw a gleam of auburn hair where Cherie sat with bent head near the schoolroom balcony, reading or at work.

This morning, as he stood vigorously plying his brushes on his bright hair and gazing absent-mindedly at the garden, he caught sight of Cherie, with a scarf round her shoulders and a book in her hand, walking down the gravel pathway towards the summer-house. He flung down his brushes, finished dressing very quickly, and ran downstairs. After all, he was leaving in forty-eight hours or so--leaving to go who knows where, to return who knows when. He might never have such another chance of seeing her and saying good-bye. True, it was rather soon to say good-bye. He would probably be meeting her every moment during the next two days. Eva was coming back, and would be sure to want her little foreign friend always beside her. Eva had a way of slipping her arm through Cherie's and drawing her along, saying: "_Allons, Cherie!_"

which was very pleasant in George's recollection. He also would have liked to slip his arm through the slim white arm of the girl and say, "_Allons, Cherie!_" He could imagine the flush, or the frown, or the fleeting marvel of her smile....

In a few moments he was downstairs, out of the house, and running towards the summer-house. But she was not there.

He found her walking slowly beside the little artificial lake in the shrubbery, reading her book.