The Way of Diane

by Arthur Sherburne Hardy

 

The Way of Diane

BY ARTHUR SHERBURNE HARDY

IN August there was no place in Freyr so cool as the terrace of the Hôtel d'Italie et d'Angleterre. Only when the breeze lifted the leaves of its closely woven roof of vines could a few flecks of sunshine find their way to the gravel below. At the dinner hour the tables in the arbors next the railing along the river wall were always in demand, for there one could see the lights on the bridge dancing in the water-mirror and the fainter reflections from the windows of the château in the background. Even at midday, when the morning breeze had died away and the river had settled into sleep, one often had to wait for some old habitué lingering persistently over his coffee and cognac. Something in the lapping of the little waves against the foot of the wall and the shimmer under the willows that fringed the meadows rendered the busiest indifferent to the flight of time.

Under such circumstances it was no wonder that M. Achille, the proprietor, pictured to himself with satisfaction the deserted tables of the Café de la Régence in the hot, dusty square. In winter, however, the Hôtel d'Italie et d' Angleterre retreated into itself like a snail, and the Café de la Régence had its revenge.

On this particular morning the garden was almost deserted. In one of the arbors an officer and his wife were finishing their early breakfast. Beyond, quite hidden by the screen of leaves, a priest was sitting, sipping a glass of sugared water. It was the hour when M. Achille made his rounds, inspecting the arrangement of the tables, moving here a napkin, there a menu, on the white cloths, making sure, like a good general, that all was ready for the assault of noon.

Only in 'this quiet morning hour did the Abbé d'Arlot permit himself the luxury of the terrace at the price of his glass of sugared water. From his own little garden, enclosed as it was by high walls, he loved to escape from time to time to sit beside this river flowing out from the stillness of Freyr to great cities and the sea. Perhaps in some measure it symbolized for him the life of the race, or even his own. For time was when it ran joyous and free, forcing its way through the hill barriers as in olden days the northern hordes had forced their way through its valley to southern lands. Tamed now, it ran, obedient, between the stone quays of the sleepy town, by the prim rows of clipped willows as little free to bud at will as the river to change its course. Only in the eddies under the black rock of the château was there any sign of revolt or discontent. If these existed in the Abbé's heart, they were not visible on his placid face as he sat this August morning, forgetting in the call of the river the open book on his knee. Now and then a voice from the adjoining arbor roused him from his reverie, and he lifted his head, listening for a moment, as if recalling vaguely something once familiar.

“He is abominable, Minister!” The clear, insistent seemed to quicken his memory, for a bright smile illuminated his thin face. Then, lest he should become an unwilling listener, he changed his seat.

Crumbling M. Achille's bread to to the minnows at the foot of the wall, her face reflected in the water, her shoes projecting through the railing, the author of this explosion had clearly reached the limit of self-restraint. From time to time she threw a crust at the minnows with an energy which scattered them in a flurry of fear. She had come with her husband to spend his month's leave of absence in the quiet of Freyr, and he had just received a telegram from the War Office summoning him to Paris. What for? Were they going to send him away again? Such a procedure, after three years of separation, filled her with indignation. Would they never allow her little girl to become acquainted with her father? And in an hour he would begone!

“Abominable!” she repeated, “and unjust.”

At this reiterated denunciation her companion, who, having finished the feuilleton of the Echo de Paris, was endeavoring extract a last crumb of interest from the advertisements, laid down his paper.

“Be a little reasonable, Diane. How can you say a thing is unjust of which you know nothing?” The blue eyes, following the retreating minnows, smiled. Raoul was so logical! “After I have seen the Minister we shall know, and I will telegraph you to-morrow.”

“To-morrow, to-morrow! I am tired of to-morrow. Three years of it is quite enough. I want to-day.”

“Well, we shall have had half of it at all events,” said the Captain, who was apt to be literal as well as logical.

“And I want to-day to-morrow too. Please tell that to your Minister.”

At that instant a young girl, her face framed in a long veil, appeared in the terrace doorway. Something in her carriage and gray eyes suggested qualities and privileges which M. Achille had hitherto associated only with the married state. It was, however, to her and not the elderly persons accompanying her that he was rendering the things that are Cæsar's.

“Would Mademoiselle sit here, by the fish-pond, or here, behind the box trees?”

As the gray eyes wandered from table to table they met the blue ones at the railing.

“Take this one, I beg of you,” said Diane, rising and gathering up her gloves. “From here one can see the river—we have finished.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Quite, I assure you. Raoul, you are forgetting your paper.”

“Diane,” said her husband, as they passed out between the box trees, “what possessed you to speak to those people! The English do not like to be addressed n that way.”

“English! She is American.”

“You think so?'

“I do not think, I know—by ten thousand signs I know. First, no Englishwoman can tie a veil like that. Second, she did not wear an assortment of bracelets—nor furs, though it is August. Third, she spoke French without an accent. Fourth, she paid us the compliment of acknowledging that we were human beings. Fifth—shall I go on?”

“Diane, you are incorrigible. Nothing escapes you, even that which does not exist.”

She laughed-—her laugh of pure pleasure—-and took his hand. “Come, we have barely an hour left.” And they went up the stairs hand in hand.

An hour later. when Diane returned to wave a good-by to her husband as he crossed the bridge in the yellow omnibus, except for the Abbé and a solitary waiter laying the covers on the table just abandoned, the terrace was deserted.

“You will reserve this table for me,” she said. “I shall be alone.”

“Yes, Madame.”

The yellow omnibus was returning now, and a white trail of smoke marked the vanishing train.

“Does any one live in the château?”

“Oh yes, Madame, the Countess Anne.”

“Who?”

“The Countess Anne, Madame.”

“Yes, but—she has a name, I suppose.”

“I will ask, Madame.”

What an ignoramus! she thought.

Presently came M. Achille.

“What does Madame desire?' he asked.

“Really, it was not worth the trouble. I asked who lives in the château.”

“The Countess Anne, Madame.”

“Yes, I know. But afterward? Not Anne Boleyn, for example, nor Anne of Austria.”

M. Achille was visibly perplexed. Every one in Freyr had always said “the Countess Anne.”

“Madame is quite right,” he stammered, rubbing his hands together, “only—I had not thought of it. You see, being always accustomed—”

“She has lived here long?” interrupted Diane.

“Oh, many years, Madame.”

“And you mean to say— How extraordinary!”

“Perhaps Monsieur Baudoche, the notary, or the Abbé d'Arlot”—turning to the priest. “I will ask him.”

“Oh, by no means. I am not so curious as that,” said Diane, quickly, becoming aware of her neighbor.

At the mention of his name the Abbé had risen. He looked for a moment inquiringly into the blue eyes, then his face brightened, and he came forward with extended hands.

The next evening Captain de Wimpffen, dining at the Cercle Militaire, received the following letter:

“Imagine whom I have found here! An old friend, the Abbé d'Arlot, who knew me when a little girl in the Convent of the Rue Maure—before you did! He has interceded for me with the Countess Anne, who lives in the château we saw on the big rock. Who is the Countess Anne? I do not know. When I asked the Abbé he replied, 'She was a Motte-Salignac.' What a singular answer! Never mind. The essential is that she has invited a poor widow and fatherless child to visit her till you return, and that she is charming. As I write, your telegram arrives: 'A mere matter of routine. Will be back in a week.' Mere! and how nonchalantly you erase a week from our calendar! Nevertheless, give my compliments to your Minister. He also is charming. Your—em5 Oh, how. carelessly we write that word! therefore I repeat it—do you hear?—

Your Diane.”

And two days later:

“I am happy. Mind, I say happy—not absolutely happy. It seems the Countess is an old friend of General Texier, and that she often heard him speak of my father. She inspires me with the feeling that I have known her for years. The Abbé dines here once a week, but in my honor is now permitted to come every night. Last evening there was also a Doctor Leroux. I like him. He speaks his mind bluntly. The Abbé told me an amusing story about him; that a traveller, taken suddenly ill here, telegraphed to Paris for some celebrity, and received the reply: What do you want of me, since you have Leroux! Yet he is content to remain here—one, at least, whom that monster, Paris, cannot devour! Little Diane plays all day in the garden and adores the gardener, who is a murderer. It seems the Countess rescued him in some manner from the police. Every one adores him, he is so good. You remember what my father used to say: to be good one must have a chance. How many have I given you!

“There is a portrait of the Countess at eighteen, the year of her marriage, in a room which is not used, as if one wished to put the self of that day out of mind. I see no great resemblance between the two women. The one on the wall would make every woman envy her; the one sitting near me makes every one love her. But why should the one wish to forget the other?

“This morning I went to see Madam Leroux. You know I am not curious. But between women there is a sort of freemasonry. I spoke of the portrait. She had never seen it! But, I said, in those days you saw the original—was she so beautiful? For answer she raised her eyes and both hands. And the Count? I asked; I do not see any portrait of him. She shook her head. Ah, what manner of wretch must a man be that a wife should flee from him on her marriage day as from the pestilence! But all this is a kind of myth, without substance. One wishes to ask, to know more, but does not dare to. Who was this man whose very name is forbidden? Ask M. de Sade. He knows everything. No, on second thought, do not ask him. I look up from this page into the face of the woman beside me, and I wish to know nothing.”

“How industrious you are!”

Seated in the big chintz chair beside the desk where Diane was writing, the Countess had taken out the knitting which lay in her pocket, always ready for an idle moment like that of any bourgeoise of Freyr.

“One would say you were writing a book.”

Diane laid down her pen. “No, only a letter, to my husband. But, indeed, once I did begin a book—a journal,” she said, sealing her letter.

“Ah!”

The monosyllable was so charged with interest and encouragement that Diane settled herself in her chair. “It happened in this way,” she began. “Before I went to my father in Africa I read hooks under compulsion, at appointed times, as one eats.” Looking up over her knitting, the Countess smiled. They did not interest me, those books, of counsel and meditation, those lives of saints like wooden dolls. I used to say to myself: Of what use is a saint in a cell?”

“It is easier to be a saint in a cell than in life, my dear. Did you not learn that with the army in Africa?”

“Oh, but I saw saints there,” cried Diane, sitting up erect, “the real ones. The nuns used to say war was the making of demons, but I am of my father's opinion.”

“What was your father's opinion?”

“That war made men, that all great

qualities were born in conflict.” She

paused. The window where she sat was open. Not a leaf was stirring, not a window moved. From the little town whose lights would soon begin to twinkle through the trees not a sound arose. And the peace on the face into which, unobserved, she was gazing seemed a part the peace of Freyr. It was not possible for such peace, she thought, to be the child of conflict or pain.

“There is some truth in what you say. But tell me about this book, this journal must be interesting. Not every woman makes a campaign in Africa.”

“At all events it is not like Raoul's,” said Diane, with her flashing smile. “Imagine, the day we were married he wrote: Left Bordeaux at 3 p.m. Arrived Biarritz 7.”

The Countess looked up again. “The important thing is that he loved you at seven as he did at five.”

“That is true,” replied Diane, in quick assent, “and now, as then.”

The Countess's eyes turned back from the fresh young face to her knitting. The audacious confidence and happiness of youth! How poor in contrast seemed any other, how artificial and unreal the substitute offered by resignation! “What sort of a journal, then, is yours?” she asked, needles and hands moving gain regularly.

“Shall I tell you? You see, when I first went to Africa I found in. my father's chest books very different from those in the convent. One of them was the cause of my beginning my journal. It was called The Literary Remains of—some one whose name I have forgotten. But that does not matter, for the book itself did not interest me, It was the title which captivated me. Literary Remains! I said to myself: Diane, you too will some day die. It may be you will never marry. You will have no children, and there will be absolutely nothing left unless you also have literary remains. So I began my journal, and I assure you,” observing the amusement on the Countess's face, “there are some interesting things in it. Do not imagine it is like Raoul's. I reserve it for great events only.”

“Such as?”

“Well, for example, once I fought a duel with M. de Sade. If you knew, if I could explain—”

“You need not explain. General Texier told me the story. If I had the courage, perhaps, under like circumstances, I should have done as you did—at your age. And you still write in your journal?”

“Certainly. Why not?”

“Sometimes it happens, after marriage, when children come, that one thinks less of literary remains.”

“Oh,” cried Diane, “I do not permit that to make any difference. Raoul has added to my life, but he has taken nothing away.” She stopped abruptly, conscious that she had said something she would recall. She was glad when the silence was broken.

“You are fond of your husband, I perceive. You must bring him to me when he returns. He, too, was in Africa?”

“On my father's staff, yes.”

“And he fell in love with you there?”

Diane laughed joyously. “I helped him a little. I believe I fell in love with him first. It was in the campaign of Kabylia. He was to command the battalion designated for the assault of a village. All those Kabyle villages, you know, are on the crests of the hills. There was a council in the evening. Some favored the attack; others thought it impossible, a waste of life, a folly. My father asked the opinion of each in turn. Last of all he asked Raoul. There were no doors in that house, and I heard everything. In that moment before Raoul spoke my heart was torn in two. I thought: If he says 'yes' he will be killed; if he says 'no' I shall be humiliated. In either case I shall be miserable. Why? Then I knew. There came to me a saying of our surgeon, that a man may be a dead man without knowing it. I said to myself: Diane, you were in love without knowing it—and suddenly I found myself in the presence of all those men.” She paused unconsciously, as if waiting again for the answer she had waited for in the mud hut in Kabylia.

“And his answer,” said the Countess's voice beside her, “was it yes or no?”

“Neither. He said it was not for him to pass judgment on orders which he was to execute.”

“And that satisfied you.”

“Absolutely,” replied Diane, with decision.

“And then?”

“Then”—the firm little mouth broke into a smile—“then he knew also. I am sure,” she added, presently, “you will like Raoul, he is so straight—even when he blunders. He usually begins his letters: As I have nothing else to do. How that exasperated my cousin Célimène! When he was in Tonkin I used sometimes to read her parts of his letters. What a stupid brute! she would say. 'My dear Célimène,' I said to her, 'if you only knew how easy it is for men to find something else to do.” She shot a swift glance at her listener's face. Whatever she saw there instantly sobered her. For a reason she only vaguely divined she found herself again on the boundary of a zone of danger.

“I heard Doctor Leroux invite you last night to visit his hospital. Did you go this morning?”

“No. I hope he was not offended. I cannot bear them. The very odor of one makes me faint.”

“But in the army—”

“Oh, that was quite different. Then I had to. We were always short of nurses, and our surgeon preferred me to all the others.”

The Countess's knitting fell into her lap. “I should not have the courage,” she murmured, leaning back in the deep -hair and looking into Diane's face, “no—never.”

“You would have the courage whenever you could be of assistance,” said Diane, quietly. “It becomes a passion to save life. Courage fails when one can do nothing. To stand beside some poor fellow over whom the surgeon is bending to see the surgeon rise—oh, how well I know the gesture!—and hear him say, Nothing to be done—and pass on—pass on to one for whom there was hope forget the one for whom there was none—that broke my heart. And those messages—”'

“Yes, that must be terrible.”

“I used to put them all down, word for word, in my journal. Whenever possible I delivered them.”

“That part I could do,” said the Countess Anne.

“Yes—but sometimes—I remember one man, in the Foreign Legion—it would require courage to deliver his message—to a woman—they were all to women, We stumbled on him at night, in the field—”

There was a knock at the door, and a servant announced the Abbé d'Arlo'

“Go down, my child; I will join you presently.”

Diane rose, obedient. Was she indeed a child? Had she always lived in this house? The illusion was so strong that for a moment she almost believed it.

“You say 'my child' as my father used to,” she said, touching her lips to the white hair.

The Countess took the hand at Diane's side in hers. “It may be that only those who have no child can say it as I do,” she smiled. “But run; you keep the Abbé waiting.”

 

At eleven o'clock that. evening, just as Diane was about to extinguish the candles on her dressing-table, there was a knock at her door.

“What, at this hour!” she exclaimed as the maid handed her a letter.

“Madame said you were expecting a letter from Monsieur this evening, and sent into town. Usually the mail is brought in the morning. Good night Madame.”

How thoughtful! Yes, there was no doubt about it—Raoul's handwriting and, to judge by the weight, a long letter, too. She wheeled the high-backed chair close to the candles, curled herself in its deep recess, pulled the hem of her night-dress over her slippered feet, broke the seal.

“My Diane—[for one brief moment the hand which held the page fell into her lap and the eyes closed],—It is terribly hot here. As it is Sunday and I have nothing to do, I will write you. I saw de Sade last night at the Club. Though he was winning, he left the table at once to inquire for you. The admiration he has for you is inconceivable [a smile crept into the blue eyes]. Most men certainly, especially a man who prides himself on being one of the first swords in France, would sulk after being disarmed by a woman. On the contrary. he boasts of it. He says illusions are dangerous, and that you destroyed the last one he cherished. Have I told you it is atrociously hot here? In spite of all I could do I fell asleep in my chair on the terrace after dinner. De Sade wished to drag me to the opera. As you well know, there is but one person who can do that. When I woke he was at my elbow again. He proposed a ride in the Bois. We returned at two in the morning. By the way, I forgot to say I received your first letter. It is extraordinarv, that habit of yours of finding friends everywhere—or shall I say making them? And in Freyr! De Sade asked what the devil you were doing in that hole. He is an amusing fellow, and sept me from falling, out of sheer weariness, from my saddle with gossip of what has occurred during my absence. Your Abbé is quite right—she was Anne de la Motte-Salignae, and married that Count de Lussac who was obliged to leave the country. I cannot remember the half of what de Sade told me. There are times when, to speak plainly, he bores me. But he has a curious story about this Lussae—that, after dragging one of the first names of France through all the gutters of Europe, he turned up with the army in Africa. Do you remember that man who defended the priest's house in Palestro? whom we found shot through the lungs when our relieving force came up from Alma? Was not his name Lussac, or Brissac, or something of that sort? What a coincidence if he should be the husband of your châtelaine! De Sade says as a child he remembers her well—that when he wore curls he was in love with her. He had an idea she was dead. Paris forgets quickly. I expect to finish to-morrow. If possible I shall take the noon train. This place is given over te Americans, whom I am learning to distinguish after your method. Every one has left town except, as de Sade says, a few old bachelors who cannot live beyond the odor of the asphalt. Kiss little Diane.

Raoul.”

Her eyes had followed down the page mechanically, because it was there before her. But her mind had stopped at the words, Do you remember that man—em5 Indeed, yes, she remembered him well. His name was Lussac, not Brissac. He had confided it to her just before the blood bubbled up from the lungs in that awful moment after the surgeon had said, Nothing to be done—and had passed on to his work of rescue, leaving to her the woman's work of consolation. For a long time she sat motionless, the letter in her hand, her eyes staring through the open window, without seeing the stars twinkling above the trees or the vines swaying to and fro in the warm night. What a coincidence if he should be—em5 A little shiver finished the thought. She rose quickly, closed the window with an instinctive desire for privacy, and went to the small morocco case on her dressing-table. While unlocking it and lifting the tray her mind went on working. A common soldier—oh, a brave one, a hero, but a common soldier. She had never connected him with the de Lussaes. She took out the red leather volume at the bottom of the case and went back to her chair, turning the leaves rapidly. It was easy to find the page, for the torn fragment fastened to it bore a red stain. It had lain next his heart, and the hand in its failing strength had groped for it in the night as he lay alone under the stars of Africa. The handwriting was firm and clear, with a character of irrevocableness:

“Some day you will ask for forgiveness—take it now—TI give it freely, if only because to carry this weight of hate is more than I can bear. But ask no more—for on that day, if it should come to you, when you will ask for love, though you ask it in tears, it will not be mine to give—”

And then the red stain and ragged edge, as if the bullet had purposely blotted out forever the name of the writer.

She gulped down a little sob and read on, though she had no need to. Could she ever forget it? that last message, written by the light of a lantern, after covering the dead face.

“Write it down,” he had said; “don't forget it—write it down, as I say it. Tell her that that day is come—and the tears—tell her forgiveness is not enough—that—” That what? She had written it as he had wished, word for word, to the last one the soul had uttered on the brink of the precipice.

Her head slipped back in the curve of the chair, the mind still working on. Raoul had always been astonished at the rapidity of its action and the clearness of its vision. Even when they had disagreed he had been forced to admit, after time had given him the truer perspective, that her quickly reached conclusion had been just. What she saw now was Raoul, tearing the blood-stained page from its place, twisting it in his fingers, and holding it to the flame of the candle till its last shred was ash. In his every motion she followed the train of his thought: This woman had banished the past and was at peace. By what right would she, the stranger, at' the whim of chance, roll the stone of oblivion from the closed tomb? To whom did she owe loyalty, mercy, the living or the dead? for the peace of the dead nothing now could disturb forever. That was unquestionably what Raoul would do. Let the dead bury the dead.

She sat up quickly, tore the page from its fastenings, opened the door, and started down the corridor, a candle in one hand, Raoul's letter and the stained page in the other. No, she did not argue with Raoul. She did not deny that he was right, always tender of woman, and incapable of a cruel word. What is more lawful, more charitable, than to deceive happiness! God Himself withholds the truth. But she also was right, and Raoul, he would have the truth at no matter what cost of pain. With that eclipse of every justifying reason which characterizes the decisions of instinct, she knocked at the door under which she saw with relief a thin line of light. At same time her hand trembled. Her courage came in crossing the threshold.

The Countess Anne was reading. She looked up, to see a pale little figure advancing resolutely, with a letter in its hand. Instantly, in a flash of thought, she knew that some great trouble had come—not to herself, but to Diane.

“I have a letter from my husband,” said Diane. “I wish you to read it”—unconsciously she had crushed the torn page out of sight within its folds—“he is coming to-morrow—to take me away:

“My dear child—”

“Don't, please don't; but to-morrow, if you will only say that to-morrow—please let me go; you don't understand—” and the little white figure released itself and vanished like a vision in a dream.

Herself white and startled, the Countess Anne sprang to follow it, when a ragged, blood-stained page fluttered to the floor, and she recognized, as in another stranger dream, her own handwriting.

 

The yellow omnibus of the Hôtel d'Italie et d'Angleterre rumbled over the bridge under the clock tower of Freyr. When in its deepest shadow Raoul lifted the hand in his to his lips.

“Diane, I haven't told you. It was lucky Texier was in Paris. But for I might be on the way to Senegal.”

“It doesn't matter—you're here, Raoul.” He thought she would be more surprised. Calm little woman!

The omnibus clattered into the great square.

“By the way, that Lussac—”

“It wasn't Lussac; it was Brissac,” she said, quickly.

“Oh, was it? It would have been a coincidence, though, wouldn't it?”

“Yes,” said Diane.

“You like her—the Countess?”

“I adore her.”

“You're as mad as de Sade. He raved over her.”

Silence.

“You must, too, Raoul.”

He laughed. “I will if she adores you.”

“She does,” said Diane, simply. “This morning she called me her dear child.”

Raoul laughed again, a little proudly, as men will.