The walk about Roche-à-Frêne was fantastic and beautiful.
After eating our sandwiches we lay on the grass and looked at the sky.
Perhaps I dozed, for suddenly I thought I was in Westende the day that the aeroplane passed above me as I swam far out in the sea. I heard the angry whirr of the engine, but this time it seemed to sound much louder than any I had ever heard.
I opened my eyes and there it was, above us, flying very high and looking for all the world like a beetle. It was all white except for a panel of sky-blue painted across the centre of each wing. I noticed that its wings were not straight as all the others I have seen, but sweeping backwards like those of a bird. I called out to the others, and Mireille said—
"How lovely it is! Like a white beetle with blue under its wings!"
Then an extraordinary thing happened. Fritz, who had been sitting some distance off looking at a paper, leaped to his feet as if he had been shot. He is short-sighted, and his glasses dropped off his nose into the grass.
"My glasses, my glasses!" he cried out, as if he were quite off his head. And Frieda actually ran to look for them, just as if she were his servant. "What did she say?" Fritz was crying; "like a beetle? white? with blue under its wings?" Frieda kept looking up and saying, "Ja! ja! ja!" and Fritz was calling for his glasses. They both seemed demented. The scarab-like aeroplane whirred out of sight.
Loulou had got up and was very pale. She made us go home at once and never spoke all the way.
It was when we were passing through Suzaine that we met Florian. He was on horseback. I did not think he looked like Lohengrin, but more like Charles le Téméraire, or the Cid, el Campeador.
He told us—and his horse kept prancing and dancing about while he spoke—that his regiment was encamped on the banks of the Meuse awaiting orders. They might be sent to the frontier at any moment. But, unless that happened, he said he would make a point of coming to see us on the 4th—even if he could only get an hour's leave. I reminded him that he had never missed coming to see us on that day since the very first birthday I had in Claude's house, when I was eight years old and my father and mother had just died in Namur.
Loulou always tells me that I was like a little wild thing, shrinking and trembling and weeping in my black dress, and afraid of everybody. On that particular birthday I wept so much that my brother Claude had the idea of sending for Florian—who is his godson—and asking him to try and make friends with me. I remember Florian coming into the room—this very room that I am writing in now—a boy of fourteen with short curly hair and very clear steely-blue eyes. A little like André but better-looking. He was what Loulou calls "tres-crâne." "Bonjour," he said to me in his firm, clear voice. "My name is Florian. I hate girls." I thought that rather a funny thing to say, so I stopped crying and gave a little laugh. "Girls," Florian continued, looking at me with disapproval, "are always either moping or giggling."
I stopped giggling at once; and I also left off moping so as not to be hated by Florian.
All these thoughts passed through my head as I watched him bending down and talking to Loulou very quickly and earnestly, while his horse was dancing about sideways all over the road. He certainly looked like a very young Charles le Téméraire or like the knight who went to waken la Belle au Bois dormant.
August 3rd.—We are very happy. Amour is safe! He is in the care of the station-master at Marché and André is going very early tomorrow morning to fetch him. André says that fetching dogs is not exactly a Service Militaire, but it is in the line of a Scout's work to sally forth in subservience to ladies' wishes, and obey their behests. He said he would wear Mireille's colours, and she gave him the crumpled Scotch ribbon from the bottom of her plait.
We have invited Lucile, Jeannette, Cécile and Cri-cri, to come tomorrow evening. It will not be a real birthday party with dancing as it was last year, because everything is uncomfortable and unsettled owing to the Germans behaving so badly. However neutral one may be, one cannot help being very disgusted with them. Even Frieda had a hang-dog air today when Loulou read out loud that the Germans had actually sent a note to our King proposing that he should let them march through our country to get at France! Of course our King has said No. And we all went out to the Place de l'Église to cheer for him this afternoon. It was André who came to tell us that all Bomal was going.
It was beautiful and every one was very enthusiastic. The Bourgmestre made a speech; then we sang la Brabançonne and the dear old Curé invoked a blessing on our land and on our King. We all waved handkerchiefs and some people wept. Marie and Mariette came too, but Frieda hid in the house, being ashamed of her country, as she may well be.
Fritz was there, and Mariette remarked that he seemed to be the only young man left in Bomal. It is true. All the others have either been called to military service or have gone as volunteers. The Square today was full of girls and children and quite old people.
I felt rather pleased that Fritz belongs to us. "A man in the house gives one a sense of security," said Loulou the other day. I reminded her of it as we were coming home, but she seemed worried and unhappy. "Since your brother has left," she said, "Fritz is very much changed. He does not behave like a servant; he never asks for my orders. Yesterday at Roche-à-Frêne he was like a lunatic. And so was Frieda." Poor Loulou looked very white as she said this, and added that she wished Claude would come back.
There is certainly something curious about Fritz. This evening he brought us the paper and stood looking at us while we opened it. I read over Loulou's shoulder that the Germans had marched into the Grand-duchy of Luxembourg and taken possession of the railways as if the place belonged to them. When I raised my eyes I saw Fritz staring at us and he had his hands in his pockets. He took them out when Loulou looked up and spoke to him.
She said, "Fritz, this is dreadful news"; and he said, "Yes, madam," and smiled that curious rabbity smile of his.
"Tell me," said Loulou, "did the master say anything to you when you saw him to the train the other night?"
"Yes, madam," said Fritz.
"What—what did he say?" asked Loulou very anxiously.
Fritz waited a long time before he answered. "The master said"—and he smiled that horrible smile again,—"the master said I was to protect you in case those dogs came here. That's what he said—those dogs! Those dogs—" he repeated, glaring at Loulou and at me until we felt quite strange and sick.
Little Mireille had just come into the room, and she asked somewhat anxiously, "What dogs are you talking about?"
Fritz wheeled round on her with a savage look. "German dogs," said he. "And they bite."
Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Loulou sighed. "Who would have conceived it possible a month ago!" she murmured. "Why, even ten days ago, no one dreamed of war."
Fritz took a step forward. "Some of us have been dreaming of war," he said—and there was something in his tone that made Loulou look up at him with startled eyes,—"dreaming of war, not for the past ten days, but for the past ten years." He rolled his eyes at us; then he turned on his heel and strode out of the room.
Loulou has written a long letter to Claude. But will it reach him?
CHAPTER IV
This is an important day, August the 4th—Chérie's birthday. Loulou has given her a gold watch and a sky-blue chiffon scarf; and I gave her a box of chocolates—almost full!—and a rubber face that makes grimaces according to how you squeeze it, and also a money-box in the shape of an elephant that bobs its head when you put money in it and keeps on bobbing for quite a long time afterwards; Cécile and Jeannette sent roses, Lucile and Cri-cri a box of fondants, and Verveine Mellot, from whom we never expected anything, sent a parasol. We had not invited Verveine for tonight because she lives so far away, quite out of the village; but we shall do so now because of the parasol.
We nearly had no party at all, Maman and Chérie being worried about the Germans. But I cried, and they hate to see me cry, so they said that just those five girls whom we see every day