CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

PAGAN saw nothing of Clare on the following day. She had already left in the car for Strasbourg when he came down to breakfast and he was having coffee at the little café by the station when she returned to the hotel late in the evening. Baron, however, saw her for a few moments and learnt that all had gone well. The mask was to be ready in a few days and then Vigers was to move down to Munster. Nothing, therefore, need delay their proposed departure for Kientzeim on the morrow.

They breakfasted early, packed their few belongings, and then went into the town to buy a few things which they needed. Cecil was in the lounge when they returned. Clare, he said, had gone with Griffin up to the inn, but she would be back to lunch.

Baron looked enquiringly at Pagan as they went up the stairs. “I suppose this means taking an afternoon train,” he said.

“I don’t know,” mused Pagan. “I don’t see why we should not go this morning as arranged. She is awfully busy, and anyway she doesn’t want me hanging round sighing like a furnace to say good-bye. We can leave a note wishing her all happiness, and we can ask Cecil to say good-bye for us. If she wants anything, she knows where to find us. It is hardly our party now.”

“I quite agree,” said Baron. “I was only thinking of you; I thought perhaps you might want to—well …”

Pagan shook his head. “This may be my funeral, Baron, but I am not going to be morbid about it.”

Baron thrust his arm through Pagan’s, “I am glad you are taking it like this, old Charles.”

Pagan shrugged his shoulders. “There is no other way to take it. I doubt whether I ever had much of a chance, but whether I had or not, I am not going to whine about it.” He stared thoughtfully at the carpet for a moment. “At least it is something to have known a girl like that,” he murmured half to himself. Then he looked up and said with a smile, though there was an undercurrent of seriousness in his tone, “And so, like the old Roman johnnies, I say, Hail and Farewell.”

Half an hour later the train moved slowly out of the station down the valley, and the outlying buildings of the town slid by, one by one and disappeared. High up on the bare mountain dome, the lone ragged tree showed black and diminutive against the clouds. Pagan watched it thoughtfully. At that distance he was unable to make out the inn. He pulled out his pipe and filled it with care.

“Well, there goes Munster,” he said at last. He rolled up his pouch and returned it to his pocket. “And do you know, Baron,” he went on slowly, “I think we had better forget we went there, and try to enjoy what remains of our holiday.”

Baron nodded agreement. “I think so too, old Charles. We will make a fresh start. It’s a topping day for it. We will have the most gorgeous lunch that Turkheim can produce, and then if we are still mobile after it, we will totter over the hill through the vineyards to Kientzeim.”

The train rumbled on down the valley. The sombre pine woods and grey ragged outcrops of bare rock gave place to dark green broad-leaved woods and cherry orchards. Lush green water meadows formed the valley floor, through which meandered the stream and the straight, white, tree-shaded road.

Presently the hotels of Trois Epis came into view, peeping white and red-roofed among the trees on the hill top to the left. Beyond them the line of hill ran gently downwards, and the trees gave place to sunny terraced vineyards.

Here at its mouth the valley broadened; it was, perhaps, threequarters of a mile in width. The enclosing mountains, shrunk now to the stature of hills, swept outwards in two low, sunny headlands, and between them flowed the vineyards in a broad green flood to the wide Alsatian plain. On either side, against these terraced headlands, the green vines lapping round their walls and towers, nestled two tiny towns like fishing harbours on a river estuary.

The little railway had thus far hugged the southern hill slope, but now it curved across the valley through the horse-high vines towards the tiny town of Turkheim, nestling at the foot of the terraced northern headland. But the railway, small though it was, did not enter the town; nor did unsightly buildings straggle out to meet it. The old protecting walls, pierced now though they were by window casements, and the moat though dry and bush-grown stayed the houses from straying out and the railway from straying in.

The train approached the walls no nearer than a hundred yards and set down its passengers at a tidy rural platform on the tree-shaded bank of a stream.

Pagan dumped his pack on the platform and watched the little train go puffing out towards the open plain. Then he turned and surveyed approvingly the little town across the stream.

“Nice old sleepy little place,” commented Baron.

Pagan nodded. “By the waters of Turkheim we sat down, yea we slept,” he murmured.

“I thought you confined your gross misquotations to Shakespeare, Charles,” protested Baron.

“A Pagan can quote scripture for his purpose,” retorted Pagan.

They crossed the little bridge towards the town. Flags and streamers fluttered on the further bank among the trees upon the strip of grassland, some fifty yards in width, that ran between the town walls and the river. Booths were set beside the road, and wide umbrellas sheltered from the sun large baskets of foodstuffs and the fat loquacious countrywomen who owned them.

Pagan halted before a stall and examined its varied contents with great solemnity.

“What shall we buy, Charles?” said Baron. “Black ribbed stockings, gingerbread, toffee apples or a pair of pink stays?”

“Stay me with flagons; comfort me with apples,” sighed Pagan.

“That’s really not a bad idea, Charles—the flagon part,” agreed Baron.

Pagan nodded his head sagely. “Such ideas come to me at times,” he murmured modestly. “Yonder lies the town and—if only there’s a tavern in the town in the town …”

“Quite so,” said Baron.

They walked towards the great gate of the town, a tunnelled archway, dark by contrast with the glare outside, between two flat and massive buttresses at the foot of a low square tower of scarred brown stone. A coat of arms in faded colours was painted on the stones above the arch; the tower was loopholed and topped by a tiled pyramid roof on the apex of which was perched an enormous stork’s nest. Flanking the gate tower was a café with two rows of white, sun-blistered shutters on its yellow-washed walls. Baron nodded towards the little green tables and shrubs in tubs which stood before it. “How will this do, Charles?”

Pagan glanced up apprehensively at the stork’s nest on the tower. “Excellently—so long as we don’t get an omelette direct from factory to dinner table.”

After lunch they shouldered their packs and walked through the narrow streets of the old town and out through the eastern gate-tower across the moat. Then up over the low hill they tramped, through the vines, and down to Kientzeim in the next valley.

This village was smaller and quieter even than Turkheim. In the hot, still, scented air it seemed to doze among the vineyards. An avenue of tall, graceful poplars led to the main gate. Gay clusters of flowers patterned the lush grass on the dry bed of the moat, and rock plants bloomed profusely from the crannies of the crumbling, sun-baked walls.

They walked slowly up the main street of the village. The gables and quaint Alsatian chimneys of the bordering houses cast hard black shadows on its dazzling white surface. In the middle of the road a dog slept undisturbed in the dust.

They asked for lodging at a simple estaminet and were shown a cool, dark, brick-floored room for meals, and upstairs a large, low-beamed room for sleeping. It contained two massive beds and opened on to a covered, vine-entwined balcony above a tiny courtyard.

Pagan went out to the bureau-de-poste. The little town was very quiet and peaceful. A clumsy open framework waggon, drawn by a long-maned chestnut horse rumbled slowly along one of the narrow streets; that was the only sound, except the pleasant hum of bees and the chime of the clock on the church tower. The town lay somnolent and passive in the sun, and only a coloured overall, flitting occasionally behind the dark square of a window, and the cats basking on the hot doorsteps showed that the houses were not deserted.

He returned towards the estaminet. The dog still lay stretched asleep in the road with its head sunk on its forepaws, but a car was drawn up before the door, and Griffin drowsed at the wheel.

Pagan opened the door of their little sitting-room. It seemed very dark and cool after the glare outside. Baron sat in one of the stiff high-backed old chairs; in the other sat a girl. She had her back to the light square of the window. Her features were undistinguishable above the pale glimmer of her light-coloured frock; but the dear familiar poise of her head was unmistakable to Pagan. She was silent, but to him the room seemed charged with her personality.

Baron rose slowly from his chair. “Hullo, Charles,” he said. “Here’s Clare dropped in to pay us a call. She likes our simple quarters.”

Pagan murmured, “I’m glad.” A pause followed, and then Baron asked, “Did you see Griffin anywhere about when you came in?”

“He is dozing in the car outside,” answered Pagan mechanically.

Baron moved towards the door. “Good! I want to have a word with him before he goes.” The door closed behind him.

Pagan remained standing in the middle of the room. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the subdued light; he was conscious that she was looking at him. On the mantelpiece a country clock ticked monotonously; from outside came the murmur of Baron’s voice.

He broke the long silence. “It was very good of you to come,” he murmured.

She answered slowly in her low, clear voice, “Charles, you went without saying good-bye.”

He gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. “I knew you were very busy and I did not want to bother you.”

Silence came again. She rose from her chair and came slowly towards him. A yard from him she halted. “Charles, are you very angry with me?” she asked gently.

He was silent for a moment, and then he shook his head sadly. “Angry! No—what right have I to be angry?”

She shook her head at him sadly. “And you are not bitter, are you?” she pleaded.

He shook his head. On the mantelpiece the clock ticked on monotonously.

“I’m very, very sorry,” she said gently. She raised her eyes to his pleadingly, “Think of that poor maimed man; you can’t be angry with me, Charles.” Her voice was low.

He raised his eyes to hers and shook his head slowly. “Angry—I’m not angry, nor bitter. I think—I think you are wonderful. I think you are the most wonderful woman in the world.” His voice was low and vibrant with feeling. “I think—I think I should have been disappointed if you had not done what you have done. My ideal of you was so—so high.” He paused with his eyes fixed shiningly on hers, and then he ended in a whisper, “Thank you—thank you for making it come true.”

She put her hand to her face. “Don’t, unless you want to make me cry,” she whispered.

“It’s true, every word of it,” he said solemnly.

A wasp was droning erratically about the room. The hoarse murmur of Griffin’s voice came from the sunny street.

“Charles dear, promise me you will not be very unhappy,” she said gently.

He raised his head. “If you are happy, I shall not be unhappy,” he said slowly. “Sad, maybe; but there is sadness in most happiness, and some sadness is sweet.”

She bit her lip and looked down quickly at the tiny handkerchief she was twisting in her hands. “I see you are determined to make me cry,” she said in a low voice.

He put out his hand protestingly, and went on earnestly, “No—I speak the truth. I have lived long enough to know that we have our moments of happiness and sadness and that together they make up all that is worth while in life; and I have learned to thank God for both.” He raised his eyes and looked at her with a sad little smile. “And I thank God for you.”

In the silence that followed she was very still. When she spoke it was without looking up, and her voice was low but had that peculiarly clear cut quality that always thrilled him. “Charles, do you remember what you said to me that night just before we went to the café and saw Griffin?”

“I said so much that night and it seems years ago.”

“You said,” she went on in that low clear voice, “you said, ‘I am greedy of life; I am greedy of the moment. This moment, the only moment we know for certain we shall ever have.’”

He nodded his head, without speaking.

Without looking up she went on monotonously as though reading from a book, “You said to me, ‘Just say, I love you. It shall not bind you beyond the moment; but say it—if you can with truth’. ”

He nodded his head and smiled sadly. “And—you did not answer.”

Her voice was very low. “Are you still greedy of the moment?”

“I am greedy of every moment with you,” he murmured.

“Of the moment that does not bind beyond the moment?” she whispered.

He nodded his head in silence.

She raised hers slowly and allowed him to see her eyes. “Then I will say it—and I can with truth.” Her voice was low and clear. “I, I—love you—Charles.”

The wasp buzzed nervously on the window pane. The ticking of the clock seemed to fill the whole room. Only, the two human figures were still and silent. She stood before him with a sad, wistful little smile and infinite love and tenderness in her eyes. He half raised his hands and let them fall again to his sides. His eyes clung to hers as though he would cram into those few moments the love and longing of a whole lifetime. Her eyes met his with that wise and wistful smile that spoke more fluently than fumbling speech.

“The most wonderful woman in God’s wide world,” he murmured hoarsely.

She shook her head ever so slightly and smiled again wistfully. “Good-bye—dear Charles,” she said at last. She dragged her eyes from his reluctantly and moved towards the door. He opened it for her like one in a trance. On the threshold she paused and their eyes met and lingered. Then she passed slowly out.

He did not follow. He moved slowly back across the room to the high-backed chair in which she had sat. He lowered himself into it gently and sat staring at the clean bricked floor with bright shining eyes.

From the sunny street came the sudden quick throb of the car starting up. He heard Baron’s voice call good-bye, and then the soft crackle of tyres on the dusty road as the car moved off. The hooter purred twice distantly and then was quiet.

Baron’s footsteps sounded in the passage. They seemed to hesitate outside the door, and then they passed on and went quietly upstairs.