Warm, brilliant, and cloudless was the July noon.
Beneath the summer sun the broad, shallow waters of the Meuse sparkled as they rippled swiftly onward through the deep, winding valley of grey rocks and cool woods on their way from the mountains of Lorraine, through peaceful, prosperous Belgium, towards the sea.
That quiet, smiling land of the Ardennes was, in July in the year of grace 1914, surely one of the most romantic in all Europe—a green, peaceful land, undisturbed by modern progress; a land where the peasantry were still both honest and simple, retaining many of their primitive customs; a land where the herdsmen still called home the cattle by the blast of the horn as they had done for past centuries, where the feudal castles studding the country—mostly now in ruins—were once the abodes of robber-knights.
In that long, deep green valley, which wound from Namur up past Dinant to the French frontier at Givet, the people had advanced but little. Legend and history, poetry and fiction, provoked an interesting reminiscence at almost every turn, for it was, indeed, a land that fascinated those used to the mad hurry of our modern money-making life.
Not far from quaint, old-world Dinant, with its church with the slate-covered, bulgy spire nestling beneath its fortress-crowned rock, its narrow cobbled streets, and its picturesque little Place, lay the pretty riverside village of Anseremme, the favourite resort of artists, being situated at the junction of the Lesse—one of the loveliest of rivers—with the Meuse.
Seated at a shaded table eating their déjeuner, upon the rose-embowered terrasse of the unpretending little Hôtel Beau Séjour, which ran beside the rippling Meuse, sat a young man with a girl.
That the pair had met clandestinely was apparent to the white-aproned patron—who also acted as chef—from the fact that the young man had arrived on foot with rather dusty boots an hour before, had seated himself, ordered an apéritif and idled somewhat impatiently over the Indépendance Belge, until, from the direction of Givet, a fine grey car, sweeping along the road and raising a cloud of dust, suddenly pulled up before the hotel. From it a well-dressed young girl had alighted, and as she passed on to the terrasse, the young man had sprang up, uttered a loud cry of welcome, and bent over her hand.
Meanwhile, the chauffeur had discreetly moved on to the Hôtel de la Meuse, where he apparently intended to get his luncheon.
The young girl was distinctly handsome, as she sat leaning her elbows upon the table, gazing into her companion’s eyes, and bending forward to listen to the low words he was uttering. She was little more than twenty, with dark hair, regular, well-chiselled features; a small, pretty mouth, which puckered when she smiled; soft, delicate cheeks, and a pair of those great, dark-brown liquid eyes, which are so characteristically Belgian. Her dark-blue serge gown was a model of tailored neatness, while her little, close-fitting hat, in black straw, suited admirably a delicate, refined face, about which there could be no two opinions.
The poise of her head, the white, delicate throat, discreetly open, and upon which hung a beautiful diamond and pearl pendant; the smallness of her white, ungloved hands, and the daintiness of her grey suede shoes and silk stockings to match, all combined to produce a chic which was that of one living in a smart circle of the haut monde.
Both speech and gesture betrayed an education in France, for her accent was not of the Bruxellois but, like her graceful bearing, that of the true Parisienne.
She was laughing merrily at some remark the young man had made, and in her eyes, as they fixed themselves upon his, there showed the love-light—that one expression that can never be feigned by any man or woman in the world.
Her companion, a dark, oval-faced, well-set-up young fellow, was under thirty, above the average height for a Belgian, perhaps, with a pair of keen, shrewd eyes, in which was a kindly, sympathetic look, closely trimmed hair, and a small dark moustache cut in English fashion. He was broad-shouldered, strong, and manly, and by his gesture and attitude the keen observer would have marked that he had had more military training than was usual in the circle in Brussels in which he moved. He was dressed in a suit of well-cut grey tweeds, with straw hat, while the silver watch set in the well-worn leather wristlet gave him an altogether English air. Indeed, he had lived five years in London—in lodgings in Shepherd’s Bush—when a student, and, as a consequence, spoke English fairly well.
That they were a handsome pair Monsieur le Patron of the hotel, quizzing them through the low-set window of his kitchen which looked out upon the terrasse, could not disguise from himself. Often he had seen the big car sweep past, but of its ownership he was in ignorance. Yet more than once the interesting pair had met at his hotel and had lunched quietly together, while signs had not been wanting that those meetings were in secret.
Jules, the little bald-headed waiter from Rochefort, had flicked out the white cloth and spread it between them; he had placed two yard-long loaves crosswise upon it, with serviettes flat upon the plates and single knives and forks, when Aimée, with a light musical laugh, exclaimed in French:
“I had the greatest difficulty to get away to-day, Edmond. At the very last moment I feared lest I should disappoint you. My mother wanted some lace from Teitz’s, in Brussels, and I, of course, last night volunteered to go shopping for her. But this morning, while I was taking my petit déjeuner, Mélanie came to me to say that mother had made up her mind to come with me, as she wanted to see the Countess d’Echternach before she went to England. She and her husband are taking their yacht to Cowes, and we had been asked to join the party, as you know, but father unfortunately is kept at home because of important meetings of the Senate.”
“Then your mother, the Baroness, may suspect—eh?” exclaimed Edmond Valentin with some apprehension.
“No. I think not,” reflected the girl. “But at first I didn’t know what to do. I knew that by that time you had already left Brussels, and I could not telephone and stop you. Suddenly I recollected that mother has a bad memory, so presently I reminded her of a purely fictitious engagement she had made with the Committee of the Archaeological Society of Antwerp on that day, and succeeded in inducing her to remain to receive the Burgomaster and his antiquarian friends, to whom her father had granted a permit to see over the Château.”
“And so you succeeded in escaping!” he laughed; “and instead of shopping in Brussels and lunching with old Madame Garnier, you are here. Splendid!” Then, glancing round to reassure himself that nobody was present, his fingers tenderly closed over the tiny hand which lay upon the tablecloth.
“But, dearest,” he went on in French, with a grave expression in his kind, dark eyes, “when you did not come at eleven o’clock I began to fear—fear what I am, alas! always fearing—”
“What?” she asked quickly.
He hesitated for a few seconds.
“That somebody may have discovered the truth, and told the Baron—Aimée,” he replied very slowly.
“Really, Edmond, I don’t see what there is to fear. I know you have enemies, and further, that my father does not view you in exactly a friendly spirit, simply because you are not rich, like Arnaud—”
“Arnaud Rigaux!” Interrupted Edmond angrily. “I hate to hear the very name of the fellow! Your father, the Baron, wishes you to marry him, in order to cement the two greatest financial houses in Belgium—that of Neuville Frères and the Banque de Tervueren. Besides, he must be at least thirty years your senior, Aimée.”
“This is really unkind of you, Edmond,” exclaimed the girl in reproach, withdrawing her hand. “I came to meet you, so that we might spend a pleasant day in the country. Surely you believe that I love you, and that being so, how could I possibly consent to marry Monsieur Rigaux?”
“But I am only a mere obscure Brussels lawyer, Aimée,” he said. “How can I ever hope to marry you?”
The girl did not reply. Her heart was too full for mere words. They were alone upon that shady terrasse, with the great river swirling and rippling past them, while at the moment the quiet was broken by the sweet carillon of old church bells somewhere, chiming the hour of noon.
“I know, my darling,” he said in a low voice, in English, so that none should overhear and understand, as he looked at her across the table, “that your father and his friends hold the money-strings of our little nation. They reckon the world by its millions of francs, and the finances of Belgium are in their hands. He will make the most strenuous effort to force you to marry Rigaux, and so strengthen the position of both houses.”
“I will never marry the man—never!” Aimée de Neuville declared emphatically in good English. “I hate him!”
“You swear that?” he demanded quickly, a fierce light suddenly in his eyes.
“I do, Edmond.”
“Ah?” he sighed in deep relief. “Then I am satisfied. Let us discuss the subject no further.”
And at that moment old Jules reappeared with the plate of tempting hors d’oeuvres and the carafe of vin-blanc ordinaire.
Edmond Valentin, the avocat, who struggled hard and fought for small fees in that most palatial Palais de Justice in the world, sat for a few moments gazing thoughtfully across the broad sunlit Meuse, where, on the opposite bank, a train, looking like a small toy, was following the bend of the river on its way to France, leaving a long trail of white smoke behind. He was thinking—thinking of something he knew—a secret—and as it arose in his mind his strong hands clenched themselves tightly beneath the table.
The girl, watching his countenance, wondered when she saw that strange expression of fierce hatred flit across his broad brow. But next second it had vanished, and smiling upon her, he began to help her to the anchovies and salad which the bald-headed waiter had placed before them.
They were truly a striking pair, she pretty and dainty, with a soft, sweet expression that men always found so charming, while he was particularly smart and handsome, without the slightest trace of foreign effeminacy, a fine, well-set-up fellow, who, but for the depth and largeness of his eyes, might easily have been mistaken for an Englishman. Yet their social positions were wide as the poles. She was the only child of Baron Henri de Neuville, the great financier, whose money controlled railways and tramways in half a dozen countries in Europe, and whose splendid old Château de Sévérac, higher up the river, was one of the show-places of Belgium. Ex-Minister of Finance and a member of the Senate, his position gave his wife, the Baroness, and her daughter, the entrée to the Court circle in Brussels, hence Aimée moved in the most exclusive set.
Her companion, however, was the son of the late Burgomaster of Ghent, an estimable man, who had amassed a considerable fortune and possessed much land around Antwerp, but who had, with hundreds of others, been completely ruined by dabbling in a wild-cat scheme on the Congo, and who had died penniless, save for the little pittance which his son Edmond could afford him.
Love, however, laughs at money-bags, and Aimée, while she was passionately fond of the man before her, detested that thin-faced, black-haired, narrow-eyed man, Monsieur Rigaux, whose praises the Baron was so constantly singing when they sat at table together. There was an indescribable look in the financier’s eyes which had, for the past four years—ever since she returned from school at Roedean—always frightened her. It was an expression which, though with her woman’s intuition she distrusted, yet she could neither describe it, nor the feeling which it always aroused within her. What we too often term natural antipathy, is a silent, mysterious warning which springs from our innermost conscience, and surely should never be dismissed.
The little cloud which had descended between the pair had quickly lifted, and as they sat eating their déjeuner, childishly happy in each other’s love, two officers of the 8th Chasseurs, in their braided tunics and undress caps, came along the terrasse, and, seeing a lady, saluted as they passed, and took seats at a little table at the farther end.
“My old regiment!” Edmond remarked. “Sometimes, Aimée, I regret that I resigned to take up law,” he added, with a sigh and a wistful look as he glanced at the two men in uniform.
“But you are making a name at the Courts,” the girl declared. “I read in the paper yesterday a case in which you are defending—the Affaire of the Rue du Trône, they call it—a murder-mystery.”
“Yes,” the man answered, with a touch of bitterness in his voice. “I am defending the man Sigart, though I myself am convinced of his guilt.”
“And yet you defend him?”
Edmond Valentin shrugged his shoulder.
“An advocate is forced to serve whichever side engages him,” he replied. “That is why the profession of arms is so much more honest.”
“Granted,” his companion said. “It gives you an entrée to the better houses—you can become a member of the Cercle Militaire, and all that, but is it not all useless? The war, which has been predicted all these years, has never come—nor, in my belief, will it ever come. Germany only raises a bogey from time to time, in order to terrify Europe, as my father puts it,” the girl added.
“Ah! I fear the Baron is a little too optimistic,” replied her lover. “War, when it comes—as it most assuredly will—will come in the hour when we least expect it. Then, when the Teuton hordes burst their bonds, woe-betide the nations they attack.”
“Well, Edmond, we have one consolation, that they will never attack us. We are neutral, and the Powers—even Germany herself—have agreed to respect our neutrality.”
“Ah, Aimée, that remains to be seen,” was his slow, apprehensive reply. “Germany, when she fights, will fight for world-wide power, irrespective of treaties or of agreements. The Kaiser is the great War Lord, and his intention is to vindicate his self-assumed title, and to rule the world.”
“Father, who is behind the scenes of international politics, quite disputes that view.”
“The Baron will not admit it—nobody in Belgium will admit it—because no cloud appears to-day upon the political horizon. But the dark cloud will arise ere long, depend upon it, and then we shall, every man of us, be compelled to fight for our lives, and for all we hold most dear.”
A silence fell between them. The young man slowly stirred his coffee, and then, taking a cigarette from his case, lit it, with a word of apology at having expressed such words of warning, and daring to disagree with the view held by the Baron de Neuville.
“But do you really fear war, Edmond?” asked the girl at last, having reflected deeply upon her lover’s words.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to alarm you, dearest,” he laughed quickly. “War will, I believe, break out in Europe; but not yet—probably not for years to come. Germany is not ready; and besides, she fears both France and England. Nevertheless, she is preparing to conquer the world. Of that, one has evidence everywhere in Germany.”
“My father does not believe it.”
“Because, like so many others all the world over who are piling up their money and reaping rich dividends, he does not wish to believe it. He, like millions of others, is content in the blissful paradise which he himself creates. But there, dearest, enough of my controversial subjects. Let us enjoy this glorious day,” and he blew a cloud of blue cigarette smoke from his lips, and laughed at her merrily across the little coffee-cup which he raised to his lips.
Then presently, Edmond having settled the account, the blissful pair entered the great grey car, in which Antoine, the Baron’s clean-shaven chauffeur, loyal to his young mistress, drove them rapidly away, up the white, winding road which led due east into the heart of the peaceful, picturesque Ardennes.