The Revellers

Martin was so flabbergasted that he stammered.

“That – is the sort of thing – we don’t discuss – anywhere,” he said.

“Naturally. It happens to be also the sort of thing which Mrs. Saumarez drew out of some too-talkative lieutenant of artillery. Luckily, the fact has not crossed the border. We have the lady’s notepaper and her secret signs, so are taking the liberty to supply the Boches with intelligence more useful to us.”

“Then you haven’t grabbed the Pontarlier man?”

“Not yet. We give him ten days. He has six left. When his time is up, the Germans will have discovered that the wire has been tapped.”

Martin forced the next question.

“What of Madame de Saint-Ivoy?”

“Her case is under consideration. She is working for the Croix Rouge. That is why she was in Amiens. Her husband has been recalled from Verdun. He, by the way, is devoted to her, and she professes to hate all Germans. Thus far her record is clean.”

Martin was glad to get out into the night air, though he had a strange notion that the quietude of the darkened Paris streets was unreal – that the only reality lay yonder where the shells crashed and men burrowed like moles in the earth. His chauffeur saluted.

“Glad to see you, sir,” said the man. “Those blighters wanted to run me in.”

“No. It’s all right. The police are doing good work. Take me to the hotel. I’ll follow your example and go to bed.”

Martin’s voice was weary. He was grateful to Providence that he had been spared the ordeal which faced him when he entered the city. But the strain was heavier than he counted on, and he craved rest, even from tumultuous memories. Before retiring, however, he wrote to Elsie – guardedly, of course – but in sufficient detail that she should understand.

Next morning, making an early start, he guided the car up the Rue Blanche, as the north road could be reached by a slight detour. He saw the Impasse Fautet, and glanced at the drawn blinds of Numéro 2 bis. In one of those rooms, he supposed, Angèle was lying. He had resolved not to seek her out. When the war was over, and he and his wife visited Paris, they could inquire for her. Was she wholly innocent? He hoped so. Somehow, he could not picture her as a spy. She was a disturbing influence, but her nature was not mean. At any rate, her mother’s death would scare her effectually.

It was a fine morning, clear, and not too cold. His spirits rose as the car sped along a good road, after the suburban traffic was left behind. The day’s news was cheering. Verdun was safe, the Armentières “push” was an admitted gain, and the United States had reached the breaking point with Germany. Thank God, all would yet be well, and humanity would arise, blood-stained but triumphant, from the rack of torment on which it had been stretched by Teuton oppression!

“Hit her up!” he said when the car had passed through Crueil, and the next cordon was twenty miles ahead. The chauffeur stepped on the gas, and the pleasant panorama of France flew by like a land glimpsed in dreams.

Every day in far-off Elmsdale Elsie would walk to the White House, or John and Martha would visit the vicarage. If there was no letter, some crumb of comfort could be drawn from its absence. Each morning, in both households, the first haunted glance was at the casualty lists in the newspapers. But none ever spoke of that, and Elsie knew what she never told the old couple – that the thing really to be dreaded was a long white envelope from the War Office, with “O.H.M.S.” stamped across it, for the relatives of fallen officers are warned before the last sad item is printed.

Elsie lived at the vicarage. The Elms was too roomy for herself and her baby boy, another Martin Bolland – such were the names given him at the christening font. So it came to pass that she and the vicar, accompanied by a nurse wheeling a perambulator, came to the White House with Martin’s letter. And, heinous as were Mrs. Saumarez’s faults, unforgivable though her crime, they grieved for her, since her memory in the village had been, for the most part, one of a gracious and dignified woman.

Martha wiped her spectacles after reading the letter. The word “hotel” had a comforting sound.

“It must ha’ bin nice for t’ lad te find hisself in a decent bed for a night,” she said.

Then Elsie’s eyes filled with tears.

“I only wish I had known he was there,” she murmured.

“Why, honey?”

“Because, God help me, on one night, at least, I could have fallen asleep with the consciousness that he was safe!”

She averted her face, and her slight, graceful body shook with an uncontrollable emotion. The vicar was so taken aback by this unlooked-for distress on Elsie’s part that his lips quivered and he dared not speak. But John Bolland’s huge hand rested lightly on the young wife’s shoulder.

“Dinnat fret, lass,” he said. “I feel it i’ me bones that Martin will come back te us. England needs such men, the whole wulld needs ’em, an’ the Lord, in His goodness, will see to it that they’re spared. Sometimes, when things are blackest, I liken mesen unto Job; for Job was a farmer an’ bred stock, an’ he was afflicted more than most. An’ then I remember that the Lord blessed the latter end of Job, who died old and full of days; yet I shall die a broken man if Martin is taken. O Lord, my God, in Thee do I put my trust!”

THE END