THE AMAZING INTERLUDE
By
Mary Roberts Rinehart
XXIII
Late in May she started for home. It had not been necessary to close
the little house. An Englishwoman of mature years and considerable
wealth, hearing from Mr. Travers of Sara Lee's recall, went out a day or
two before she left and took charge. She was a kindly woman, in deep
mourning; and some of the ache left Sara Lee's heart when she had talked
with her successor.
Perhaps, too, Mrs. Cameron understood some of the things that had
puzzled her before. She had been a trifle skeptical perhaps about Sara
Lee before she saw her. A young girl alone among an army of men! She
was a good woman herself, and not given to harsh judgments, but the
thing had seemed odd. But Sara Lee in her little house, as virginal, as
without sex-consciousness as a child, Sara Lee with her shabby clothes
and her stained hands and her honest eyes - this was not only a good
girl, this was a brave and high-spirited and idealistic woman.
And after an evening in the house of mercy, with the soldiers openly
adoring and entirely respectful, Mrs. Cameron put her arms round Sara
Lee and kissed her.
"You must let me thank you," she said. "You have made me feel what I
have not felt since-"
She stopped. Her mourning was only a month old. "I see to-night that,
after all, many things may be gone, but that while service remains there
is something worth while in life."
The next day she asked Sara Lee to stay with her, at least through the
summer. Sara Lee hesitated, but at last she agreed to cable. As Henri
had disappeared with the arrival of Mrs. Cameron it was that lady's
chauffeur who took the message to Dunkirk and sent it off.
She had sent the cable to Harvey. It was no longer a matter of the
Ladies' Aid. It was between Harvey and herself.
The reply came on the second day. It was curt and decisive.
"Now or never," was the message Harvey sent out of his black despair,
across the Atlantic to the little house so dose under the guns of
Belgium.
Henri was half mad those last days. Jean tried to counsel him, but he
was irritable, almost savage. And Jean understood. The girl had grown
deep into his own heart. Like Henri, he believed that she was going
back to unhappiness; he even said so to her in the car, on that last sad
day when Sara Lee, having visited Rene's grave and prayed in the ruined
church, said good-by to the little house, and went away, tearless at the
last, because she was too sad for tears.
It was not for some time that Jean spoke what was in his mind, and when
he had done so she turned to him gravely:
"You are wrong, Jean. He is the kindest of men. Once I am back, and
safe, he will be very different. I'm afraid I've given you a wrong
impression of him."
"You think then, mademoiselle, that he will forget all these months -
he will never be unhappy over them?"
"Why should he?" said Sara Lee proudly. "When I tell him everything he
will understand. And he will be very proud that I have done my share."
But Jean's one eye was dubious.
At the wharf in Dunkirk they found Henri, a pale but composed Henri.
Jean's brows contracted. He had thought that the boy would follow his
advice and stay away. But Henri was there.
It was as well, perhaps, for Sara Lee had brought him a letter, one of
those missives from the trenches which had been so often left at the
little house.
Henri thrust it into his pocket without reading it.
"Everything is prepared," he said. "It is the British Admiralty boat,
and one of the officers has offered his cabin. You will be quite
comfortable."
He appeared entirely calm. He saw to carrying Sara Lee's small bag on
board; he chatted with the officers; he even wandered over to a
hospital ship moored near by and exchanged civilities with a wounded man
in a chair on the deck. Perhaps he swaggered a bit too much, for Jean
watched him with some anxiety. He saw that the boy was taking it hard.
His eyes were very sunken now, and he moved his right arm stiffly, as
though the old wound troubled him.
Jean did not like leave-takings. Particularly he did not like taking
leave of Sara Lee. Some time before the boat sailed he kissed her hand,
and then patted it and went away in the car without looking back.
The boat was preparing to get under way. Henri was standing by her very
quietly. He had not slept the night before, but then there were many
nights when Henri did not sleep. He had wandered about, smoking
incessantly, trying to picture the black future.
He could see no hope anywhere. America was far away, and peaceful.
Very soon the tranquillity of it all would make the last months seem
dreamlike and unreal. She would forget Belgium, forget him. Or she
would remember him as a soldier who had once loved her. Once loved her,
because she had never seemed to realize the lasting quality of his love.
She had always felt that he would forget her. If he could only make her
believe that he would not, it would not be so hopeless.
He had written a bit of a love letter on the little table at Dunkirk
that morning, written it with the hope that the sight of the written
words might carry conviction where all his protests had failed.
"I shall love you all the years of my life," he wrote. "At any time, in
any place, you may come to me and know that I am waiting. Great love
like this comes only once to any man, and once come to him it never goes
away. At any time in the years to come you may know with certainty that
you are still to me what you are now, the love of my life.
"Sometimes I think, dearest - I may call you that once, now that you
have left me - that far away you will hear this call of mine and come
back to me. Perhaps you will never come. Perhaps I shall not live. I
feel to-day that I do not care greatly to live.
"If that is to be, then think of me somewhere, perhaps with Rene by my
side, since he, too, loved you. And I shall still be calling you, and
waiting. Perhaps even beyond the stars they have need of a little house
of mercy; and, God knows, wherever I am I shall have need of you."
He had the letter in the pocket of his tunic, and at last the moment
came when the boat must leave. Suddenly Henri knew that he could not
allow her to cross to England alone. The last few days had brought many
stories of submarine attacks. Here, so far north, the Germans were
particularly active. They had for a long time lurked in waiting for
this British Admiralty boat, with its valuable cargo, its officers and
the government oflicials who used it.
"Good-by, Henri," said Sara Lee. "I - of course it is no use to try to
tell you -"
"I am going across with you."
But -"
"I allowed you to come over alone. I shiver when I think of it. I shall
take you back myself."
"Is it very dangerous?"
"Probably not. But can you think of me standing safe on that quay and
letting you go into danger alone?"
"I am not afraid."
"I know that. I have never seen you afraid. But if you wish to see a
coward, look at me. I am a coward for you."
He put his hand into his pocket. It occurred to him to give her the
letter now so that if anything happened she would at least have had it.
He wanted no mistake about that appointment beyond the stars. But the
great world of eternity was very large, and they must have a definite
understanding about that meeting at the little house of mercy Over There.
Perhaps he had a little fever that day. He was alternately flushed and
pale; and certainly he was not quite rational. His hand shook as he
brought out her letter - and with it the other letter, from the Front.
"Have you the time to come with me?" Sara Lee asked doubtfully. "I want
you to come, of course, but if your work will suffer -"
He held out his letter to her.
"I shall go away," he said, "while you read it. And perhaps you will
not destroy it, because - I should like to feel that you have it always."
He went away at once, saluting as he passed other officers, who gravely
saluted him. On the deck of the hospital ship the invalid touched his
cap. Word was going about, in the stealthy manner of such things, that
Henri whose family name we may not know, was a brave man and doing brave
things.
The steamer had not yet cast off. As usual, it was to take a flying
start from the harbor, for it was just outside the harbor that the wolves
of the sea lay in wait. Henri, alone at last, opened his letter, and
stood staring at it. There was again movement behind the German line,
a matter to be looked into, as only he could do it. Probably nothing,
as before; but who could say?
Henri looked along the shore to where but a few miles away lay the
ragged remnant of his country. And he looked forward to where Sara Lee,
his letter in her hand, was staring blindly at nothing. Then he looked
out toward the sea, where lay who knew what dangers of death and
suffering.
After that first moment of indecision he never hesitated. He stood on
the deck and watched, rather frozen and rigid, and with a mind that had
ceased working, while the steamer warped out from the quay. If in his
subconsciousness there was any thought it was doubtless that he had done
his best for a long time, and that he had earned the right to protect
for a few hours the girl he loved. That, too, there had been activity
along the German-Belgian line before, without result.
Perhaps subconsciously those things were there. He himself was conscious
of no thought, of only a dogged determination to get Sara Lee across the
channel safely. He put everything else behind him. He counted no cost.
The little admiralty boat sped on. In the bow, on the bridge, and at
different stations lookouts kept watch. The lifeboats were hung
overboard, ready to lower instantly. On the horizon a British destroyer
steamed leisurely. Henri stood for a long time on the deck. The land
fell away quickly. From a clear silhouette of the town against the sky
- the dunes, thespire of the cathedral, the roof of the mairie - it
became vague, shadowy - the height of a hand - a line - nothing.
Henri roused himself. He was very thirsty, and the wound in his arm
ached. When he raised his hand to salute the movement was painful.
It was a very grave Sara Lee he found in the officer's cabin when he
went inside later on. She was sitting on the long seat below the open
port, her hat slightly askew and her hands folded in her lap. Her bag
was beside her, and there was in her eyes a perplexity Henri was too
wretched to notice.
For the first time Sara Lee was realizing the full value of the thing
she was throwing away. She had persistently discounted it until now.
She had been grateful for it. She had felt unworthy of it. But now,
on the edge of leaving it, she felt that something infinitely precious
and very beautiful was going out of her life. She had already a sense
of loss.
For the first time, too, she was allowing herself to think of certain
contingencies that were now forever impossible. For instance, suppose
she had stayed with Mrs. Cameron? Suppose she had broken her promise
to Harvey and remained at the little house? Suppose she had done as
Henri had so wildly urged her, and had broken entirely with Harvey?
Would she have married Henri?
There was a certain element of caution in the girl. It made the chances
she had taken rather more courageous, indeed, because she had always
counted the cost. But marriage was not a matter for taking chances. One
should know not only the man, but his setting, though she would not have
thought of it in that way. Not only the man, but the things that made up
his life - his people, his home.
And Henri was to her still a figure, not so much now of mystery as of
detachment. Except Jean he had no intimates. He had no family on the
only side of the line she knew. He had not even a country.
She had reached that point when Henri came below and saluted her stiffly
from the doorway.
"Henri!" she said. "I believe you are ill!"
I am not ill," he said, and threw himself into the corner of the seat.
"You have read it?"
She nodded. Even thinking of it brought a lump into her throat. He
bent forward, but he did not touch her.
"I meant it, Saralie," he said. "Sometimes men are infatuated, and
write what they do not mean. They are sincere at the time, and then
later on - But I meant it. I shall always mean it."
Not then, nor during the three days in London, did he so much as take
her hand. He was not well. He ate nothing, and at night he lay awake
and drank a great deal of water. Once or twice he found her looking at
him anxiously, but he disclaimed all illness.
He had known from the beginning what he was doing. But he did not touch
her, because in his heart he knew that where once he had been worthy he
was no longer worthy. He had left his work for a woman.
It is true that he had expected to go back at once. But the Philadelphia,
which had been listed to sail the next day, was held up by a strike in
Liverpool, and he waited on, taking such hours as she could give him,
feverishly anxious to make her happy, buying her little gifts mostly
flowers, which she wore tucked in her belt and smiled over, because she
had never before received flowers from a man.
He was alternately gay and silent. They walked across the Thames by the
Parliament buildings, and midway across he stopped and looked long at the
stream. And they went to the Zoological Gardens, where he gravely named
one of the sea lions for Colonel Lilias because of its mustache, and
insisted on saluting it each time before he flung it a fish. Once he
soberly gathered up a very new baby camel, all legs, in his arms, and
presented it to her.
"Please accept it, mademoiselle," he said. "With my compliments."
They dined together every night, very modestly, sitting in some crowded
restaurant perhaps, but seeing little but each other. Sara Lee had
bought a new hat in London - black, of course, but faced with white.
He adored her in it. He would sit for long moments, his elbows propped
on the table, his blond hair gleaming in the candlelight, and watch her.
"I wonder," he said once, "if you had never met him would you have loved
me?"
"I do love you, Henri."
"I don't want that sort of love." And he had turned his head away.
But one evening he called for her at Morley's, a white and crushed boy,
needing all that she could give him and much more. He came as a man
goes to the woman he loves when he is in trouble, much as a child to his
mother. Sara Lee; coming down to the reception room, found him alone
there, walking rapidly up and down. He turned desperate eyes on her.
"I have brought bad news," he said abruptly.
"The little house -"
"I do not know. I ran away, mademoiselle. I am a traitor. And the
Germans broke through last night."
"Henri!"
"They broke through We were not ready. That is what I have done."
"Don't you think," Sara Lee said in a frozen voice, "that is what I have
done? I let you come."
"You? You are taking the blame? Mademoiselle, I have enough to bear
without that."
He explained further, still standing in his rigid attitude. If he had
been white before at times he was ghastly now. It had not been an attack
in force. A small number had got across and had penetrated beyond the
railway line. There had been hand-to-hand fighting in the road beyond
the poplars. But it looked more like an experiment, an endeavor to
discover the possibility of a real advance through the inundation; or
perhaps a feint to cover operations elsewhere.
"For every life lost I am responsible," he ended in a flat and lifeless
tone.
"But you might not have known," she protested wildly. "Even if you had
been there, Henri, you might not have known." She knew something of war
by that time. "How could you have told that a small movement of troops
was to take place?"
"I should have been there."
"But - if they came without warning?"
"I did not tell you," he said, looking away from her. "There had been a
warning. I disregarded it."
He went back to Belgium that night. Sara Lee, at the last, held out her
hand. She was terrified for him, and she showed it.
"I shall not touch your hand," he said. "I have forfeited my right to
do that." Then, seeing what was in her face, he reassured her. "I shall
not do that," he said. "It would be easier. But I shall have to go
back and see what can be done."
He was the old Henri to the last, however. He went carefully over her
steamship ticket, and inquired with equal care into the amount of money
she had.
"It will take you home?" he asked.
"Very comfortably, Henri."
"It seems very little."
Then he said, apropos of nothing: "Poor Jean!"
When he left her at last he went to the door, very erect and soldierly.
But he turned there and stood for a moment looking at her, as though
through all that was coming he must have with him, to give him strength,
that final picture of her.
The elderly chambermaid, coming into Sara Lee's room the next morning,
found her fully dressed in the frock she had worn the night before, face
down on her bed.
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