War Zone

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Her very heart was bursting with happiness, and when she looked in her mirror she felt as if a light were shining from her face, revealing her secret to all who looked at her.

She began to dress, selecting her prettiest gown and taking was for her a considerable time to arrange her hair. She was humming as she did so the same lilting, light-hearted melody which had been in her mind that night-which now seemed so long ago when she had come from the Temple to find Armand outside.

She was nearly dressed when there came a knock on the door, and before she could answer, before she could command whoever was outside to enter, the door was burst open and one of the village girls, a big loutish creature with a harelip, came into the room. "Mam'selle? Oh, Mam'selle!" she cried in an agi tated voice, slurring her words more than usual.

Rêve looked up at her in surprise. "What is the matter, Lili?" she asked, and as the girl struggled for breath she added kindly: "Has some thing frightened you? You look upset!"

There was no mistaking Lili's agitation. Her hair was tumbling in dark greasy coils from under her white cap, her big red hands were twisting themselves together, and it seemed as if she were about to burst into tears. "Come at once, Mam'selle, si'l vous plaît. The old

lady-the old lady The girls had been told time without number not to refer to the Duchess as "the old lady", but Rêve did not notice the lapse now. She sprang to her feet and before Lili had time to say another word she had rushed from the room and down the wide stairs to the Duchess's apartment.

The door was open, the curtains drawn, and with a fleeting sense of relief Rêve saw that Antoinette was at the bedside. Indeed it must have been Antoinette who sent Lili to find her.

As she sped across the room towards the big four poster bed draped with oyster-tinted satin she saw the Duchess's face among the pillows and knew what Lili had been afraid to tell her. She stood arrested half-way across the room, unable

to proceed, unable to move. The Duchess was very old and yet somehow the flame of life had burnt so strongly, so youthfully within her ancient body that it was almost impossible to im agine that the time had come when she would relinquish her hold on the world she had found so amusing.

Rêve's face was stricken as Antoinette turned to wards her, and crossing the room, the older woman put her hands about her comfortingly as she had done so often ever since she was born.

"It was a happy death, ma petite. You must not grieve. This is the way she would have wished to die." "But, Antoinette, what shall we do without her?" Rêve said in a small, broken voice.

Antoinette drew her towards the window, her arms still around her. "Yes, yes, I know, ma chérie, but we weep for our selves. Life will go on! We must only remember we are

the richer for having known her."

"Yes, that is true," Rêve said. "We are so much the richer for having known her." She laid her head for a monent on her nurse's shoulder. "How wise you are, Antoinette! You always know the right thing to say, the right thing to do. Sometimes I wish I was as old as Madame and as wise as you."

As she was talking, the tears came to her eyes and began to fall down her cheeks. Understandingly, An toinette drew her closer, consoling her as if she were a frightened child.

"I know, ma petite," she said. "We all feel like that at times. But for you life is just beginning and you must not waste any of it in useless regrets. Madame la Duch ess would not have it. She had lived her life fully. Often she has said to me: 'Antoinette, the only things I regret in my life are the times I said no-and there were not many of them.""

Rêve smiled through her tears. "I can hear her say it."

"Always Madame held out her hands towards life. She embraced it, she lived every moment of it in en joyment, in appreciation and with courage. That is what counts, ma chérie, courage."

Rêve raised her head and looked into the face of her nurse. Antoinette was over fifty, but her face was unlined. She was in fact a young-looking woman de spite the fact that her hair was almost white. Her ex pression was one of great sweetness.

It was, Rêve thought sometimes, an expression such as she had seen on the faces of nuns who had devoted their lives to tending the sick and the suffering. It was an expression of dedication and saintliness which came from an inner philosophy of strength and determination. Antoinette had all these things, and Rêve knew that she had dedicated her life to hers almost from the mo

ment of her birth at Valmont. Impulsively now she put her arms round the older woman's neck and drew her face down to hers. "I will try, Antoinette, to be as brave as Madame and

as understanding as you." Antoinette kissed her, then rose to her feet. There was a suspicion of moisture about her eyes as if she were moved by the very simplicity of Rêve's words, but her voice was calm and unemotional as she said:

"We have much to do, my dear. Send Jacques to the village with the news. He will know whom to fetch. You go into the garden and pick what flowers you can to place at Madame's feet as she lies in state in the Great Hall."

Rêve knew she was being dismissed, but she was thankful to accept Antoinette's commands without pro testation. She told old Jacques that the Duchess was dead and gave him Antoinette's instructions.

She did not carry the tidings to the kitchen knew that Lili would have preceded her there. Indeed already she could hear the hysterical sobs of the other servants and as she let herself into the gar

for she den by a side door she felt for a moment as if she had escaped into the freedom of the sunshine. But she knew there was no real escape either from

this or from anything else. The future had to be faced. She picked a great armful of flowers. There were roses which once had been cultivated and pruned and which now grew wild, growing as they would in an exo

tic wildness of their own pattern. There were too, delphiniums blue as the sky, and flame-coloured gladioli of which her Great-Aunt had been particularly fond.