Nivelles

“ This Chapter, filled up exclusively from the ranks of rich and high-born women, while the Abbess, nominated by the Sovereign, assumed the title of Princess of Nivelles, led a devout and frivolous life, passing strange. Not only might these semi-nuns go out walking whenever they thought fit, they had a right to live at home for a certain part of their time, and might even marry after obtaining the consent of the Abbess. ”

“ The most interesting feature of the town of Nivelles is, of course, the old Minster, with the exception, [Pg 191] perhaps, of Tournai Cathedral, the finest Romanesque church in Belgium. It is a noble pile three hundred and twenty feet long, with three towers at the west end, single nave-aisles, strongly-marked transepts, and an unusually long rectangular choir built over a crypt. Within, however, it is disappointing, for the interior was so completely transformed in the course of the seventeen hundreds that no vestige of the original work was left visible. ”

“ Nivelle lived here during the battle of Verdun. It is a fine gift, simplicity. Some great men, or those who are called great, lack it; but nothing is so attractive in any man. No sentry at the door, no servant to open it. You simply went in, hung up your cap and took off your raincoat.
Hundreds of staffs were sitting down to the same kind of dinner with a choice of red or white wine and the menu was that of an average French household. ”

“ A deputation of about one hundred gentlemen and well-to-do farmers, all mounted, and headed by the Lord Lieutenant of the County, met the happy couple as they stepped from the platform into their open barouche, with its four prancing and gaily decorated horses, which was in waiting at the Switchem station. After several addresses had been read and replied to, the cortege passed slowly on towards Vellenaux, the cavalry filing in rear and the gay holiday seekers following as best they could. ”

“ Nelly heard the sharp, clear sound of an old woman's voice above the hum of a spinning-wheel, and then the glad burst of joy as the mother recognized her son. Unwilling to interrupt their happiness, Nelly moved away out of hearing, when Hanserl came running out, followed by the old woman.
“This is the Fräulein, mother,” cried he, with a burst of delight; and the old woman, taking Nelly's hand, kissed it with deep respect.
With native courtesy she welcomed Nelly, and, as she entered her house, pointed with pride to a Madonna of Nelly's own carving, which stood on a bracket against the wall. ”

“ From hence I went to Henley, which is eleven miles from Maidenhead, and thirty-six from London.
Having walked pretty fast for six English miles together, and being now only five miles from Henley, I came to a rising ground where there just happened to be a milestone, near which I sat down, to enjoy one of the most delightful prospects, the contemplation of which I recommend to everyone who may ever happen to come to this spot. Close before me rose a soft hill, full of green cornfields, fenced with quick-hedges, and the top of it was encircled with a wood. ”

“ As somebody says, truth never goes without a scratched face.
But, like all men hated by the many, Henley inspired devotion in the few who, in his case, were not only devoted themselves but eager to make their friends devoted too. When he got back to London one of his Young Men, whom I do not see why I should not call Charles Whibley, insisted that J. and I must meet Henley first in the right way, that all our future relations with him depended upon it, and that this right way would be for him to ask Henley and ourselves, and nobody else, to dinner in his rooms. ”

“ There is perhaps no season of the year in the South of England so pleasing to the eye or more genial to the corporeal faculties than that of early autumn, especially that part of Devonshire which we have selected for the opening and closing scene of our story. Vellenaux, with its varied and picturesque styles of architecture, embosomed, as it were, in rich woodlands, with a perfect amphitheatre of hills on three sides, and ever and anon the soft breezes of the ocean sweeping over the downs, and through the beech woods on the other. ”

“ Finally, Nivelle set himself to win a little sympathy, or at any rate pity, for his client. He depicted this woman as a frail thing, of noble birth, beautiful and sensitive by nature, a butt for several months past to calumnies prompted by hate, to the rough treatment and insults of archers, drunken soldiers, and coarse jailors; she had also been deprived of spiritual consolation, and even on Whitsunday had been refused permission to hear mass. Undoubtedly Nivelle largely contributed to that revulsion of feeling in favour of the marchioness which was so strongly marked during the last days. ”

“ Henley had not realized until now what a deep and overpowering dependence had suddenly developed in him toward these people. They seemed to hold the key to another world in a more practical and tangible way than he had ever deemed it possible for any mortal-appearing man to do. Even to be shut out from the wonderful city of Levachan would be an overwhelming loss, and how could he ever hope to see it again without their aid? ”

“ Willard stood in silence for some moments after Nelly had finished her story; then he lifted her upon his arm, and said:
"You are a good kind girl, little Nelly, and I thank you. Do you know that a man values his life more than anything else he possesses, and that you have saved mine? Now, Nelly, ask me for something you would like to have for yourself. No matter what it is, you shall have it. Remember, I am a very rich man." ”

“ Commerce was dead. From Rennes in the east to Hennebon in the west, and from Dinan in the north to Nantes in the south, there was no spot where a man’s life or a woman’s honor was safe. Such was the land, full of darkness and blood, the saddest, blackest spot in Christendom, into which Knolles and his men were now advancing.
But there was no sadness in the young heart of Nigel, as he rode by the side of Knolles at the head of a clump of spears, nor did it seem to him that Fate had led him into an unduly arduous path. ”

“ The pilgrim who rambles as far as Wootton-Wawen will surely stroll onward to Henley-in-Arden. The whole of that region was originally covered by the Forest of Arden [42] —the woods that Shakespeare had in mind when he was writing As You Like It, a comedy whereof the atmosphere, foliage, flowers, scenery, and spirit are purely those of his native Warwickshire. Henley, if the observer may judge by the numerous inns that fringe its long, straggling, picturesque street, must once have been a favourite halting-place for the coaches that plied between London and Birmingham. ”

“ Henley standing by the roadside listening to the retreating wheels of the coach. The forest was dense, and the moonlight, struggling through the tree-tops, fell upon the ground in patches, adding to the obscurity. Henley seated himself upon a fallen tree, to await the arrival of the cart. Although quite as courageous as the average of men, he could not help a slight feeling of apprehension concerning the outcome of his enterprise. Of course, he knew nothing about these people; but the girl was prepossessing and refined to an unusual degree. ”

“ Rarely a week passed that James G. Legge was not with us, then deep in his work at the Home Office but full of joy in everything that was most joyful in the Nineties—its fights, its books, its prints, its posters. And I might name many besides, some forgotten, some dead, some seen no [Pg 160] more by me, life being often more cruel than death in the separations and divisions it makes. But two voices above the others are almost as persistent in my ears as Henley's—the voices of Bob Stevenson and Henry Harland. ”

“ On the 10th of November, 1813, 90,000 men descended to the fight, and, rushing simultaneously from various points on the entrenched and strongly fortified lines of the enemy, commenced the battle of Nivelle ”

“ Sir Gerald's widow, to whom Sir Denis always referred as the Dowager, who had taken an unasked-for interest in the motherless child from her birth, had found the ideal school for Nelly—a school where the daughters of the aristocracy were kept in a conventual seclusion while they learnt as little as might be of the simpler virtues, but a deal of the way to step in and out of a carriage, to comport themselves with dignity, to bear themselves in the presence of their sovereign, and so on. ”

“ When Henley founded his weekly newspaper, first The Scots, afterwards The National Observer, this young man wrote articles and reviews notorious for savage wit; and years afterwards when The National Observer was dead, Henley dying, and our cavern of outlaws empty, I met him in Paris very sad and I think very poor. “Nobody will employ me now,” he said. “Your master is gone,” I answered, “and you are like the spear in an old Irish story that had to be kept dipped in poppy-juice that it might not go about killing people on its own account.” ”

“ There is no bell-master in our department; and only one bell-mistress.... To find anyone else to play the Nivelle carillon one would have to pierce the barbarians' lines and search [pg 198] the ruins of Flanders for a Beiaardier—a Klokkenist, as they call a carillonneur in the low countries.... But the Mayor asked it, and our wounded are waiting. You understand, mon ami Djack, I had to come."
He nodded.
She added, naïvely:
"God watches over our trenches. We shall be quite safe in Nivelle."
A dull boom shook the sunlit air. Even in the cart they could feel the vibration. ”

“ Next we came to Henfield, a quiet and picturesque village. After Henfield we got into a sequestered land beyond railways and on to some pleasant by-roads and narrow lanes where in sunny nooks hosts of wild flowers flourished, and the hedges delighted in tangled disorder. We were again in a land of sleepy farmsteads of the old Sussex type, farmsteads of time-toned walls, weather-tinted tiling, long, low, lichen-laden roofs, and great chimney-stacks—always a great and shapely chimney-stack of much the same pattern, but of a very good and pleasing pattern. ”

“ Nelly Grey was a little English girl who had never been in England. She was born in China, and went with her father and mother to live in the British Legation compound in Peking when she was only three years old. A compound is a kind of big courtyard, with other courts and houses inside. Nelly's was a large one, and very open. It had several houses in it: not like we [Pg 2] have in England, but only one storey high, and with deep, shady verandahs round them. There were also a little church, some tennis-courts, and several small buildings for the Chinese servants at the back. ”

“ People of such relatively different planes of life can know each other--or do know each other--only on one plane. Henley is a typical young man, fast, I dare say, and liberal. Perhaps, then, there had been a liaison. When I saw this possibility I had my motives--all of them--jealousy, hate and possibly attempted extortion as well.
"What was more possible than Mr. Henley and Miss Regnier had been acquainted? All liaisons are secret ones. Suppose she had been cast off because of the engagement to a young woman of Henley's own level? Suppose she had confided in the valet here? ”

“ Taking his hinge, he stirred up the mass; some shreds of cloth, which fell to pieces on being touched, and beneath them some human bones. This was all, but it was enough; and overwhelmed with horror, Henley rushed out of the room, bounding through the aperture he had made in the wall, and up the rickety stairs into his own bed chamber. He carefully closed the scuttle, heaped some firewood upon it, shut the closet door and fastened it securely from without. He then built up a roaring fire, lit another candle, and sat meditating over what he had seen until the dawn of day. ”

“ Apart from the condition of the country and the poverty of the people a drive through the long glen of Glenade on a pleasant day is delightful. The hills swell into every shape, the houses—if they were only good houses—nestle in such romantic nooks, and the eternal mountains rising up to the clouds bound the glen on each side. ”

“ Anybody who thinks otherwise is a traitor who betrays his country by the poison of pessimism. Nivelle will deal the death—blow.” So spoke an officer of the Chasseurs Alpins, and a friend in the infantry of the line, over a cup of coffee in an estaminet crammed with other French soldiers who were on their way to the Champagne front.
Nivelle did not launch his offensive until April 16th, seven days after the British had captured the heights of Vimy and gone far to the east of Arras. Hindenburg was ready. ”

“ Nelly stops his further speech, and putting her arm about the woman's neck, whispers to her. The young gardener turns his back upon the women, and the labourer sits on a chair, with his eyes to the ground. For a minute or so the men do not stir from the positions they have assumed; then, as though moved by a common thought, they step softly from the cottage, and stand in silence outside for many minutes, until the wife comes to the door, and beckons them in. Nelly is on her knees by the cradle. ”

“ There is not a monument now standing whole in any part of Europe, that I would not sooner see than those old stumps of pillars, those bas-reliefs, all black with time, which can only be admired by dint of erudition. A pleasure which must be bought with so much study, does not appear to me very lively in itself—to be charmed with the sights of Paris, nobody need grow pale over books." Lord Nelville made no reply.—The Count interrogated him afresh, as to the impression that Rome produced on him. ”

“ But let us talk of something else," answered Frances.
"No, no, let us talk about you," insisted Nelly, whose curiosity was equalled only by her good nature.
"Not another word," returned Frances. "Don't you want to go to the barge for a ride on the river?" And Nelly eagerly assented.
When they were seated in the barge, Nelly's waterman asked her where he should take them, and she proposed going to the Bridge, leaving the barge at the Bridge stairs, and walking up Gracious Street to the Old Swan Tavern for dinner. Frances liked the plan and accepted Nelly's invitation to dinner—and to trouble. ”