It was impossible that Ursula’s leave should go by uneventfully. What
happened to her seems to me quite beautiful, very strange, and rather
mad. It could not have happened except during the war, and to Ursula.
She told me all about it in detail, and I shall try to recall everything
and to describe those days without the slightest change. I wish I could
recover Ursula’s very words.
She was visiting in a small harbor town that was forever filled with
wind, a great wind that undid Ursula’s hair, and that sometimes sent her
flying into the arms of passers-by.
The family was charming. Ursula consumed great quantities of lamb,
boiled cabbage, boiled potatoes, excellent meat pies, and rose-colored
trembling gelatin. For two days she wandered around the port and the
beach, amusing herself watching the boats, and thinking of Down Street
as seldom as possible.
The port was a wonder to behold, and for childlike Ursula it was
paradise. Bearded sailors, crates being unloaded, monkeys that the
sailors were bringing home leaping about the gangways, people speaking
in all sorts of languages, shops where one could buy the loudest Chinese
silks and little rows of ivory elephants, trunk to tail, one behind the
other on an ivory bridge. Ursula would have loved to buy herself a red
and black kimono or an elephant or a monkey. But as she didn’t have
enough money, she contented herself with looking at these treasures.
In the evenings, the entire family took French lessons from her. The
father repeated, “_La porte est ouverte. La demoiselle est jolie._” The
mother, with great difficulty, managed to read a Free French newspaper,
and the children had Ursula do their French exercises for them.
At night she slept with the three girls, and the mother came to hear
them say their prayers and to kiss them all good night.
All the aunts, uncles, and cousins came to see the French girl, and to
ask her if she liked England and if it were true that the French ate
frogs.
Ursula acquired all the latest news about Princess Elizabeth, which the
family read in the _Tatler_, and together with the three young daughters
she knitted small squares of multicolored wool, to be assembled into
blankets for soldiers.
The three girls had three boy friends, all freckled and timid, who
appeared on Saturday afternoon to take them to the movies with their
mother’s permission. Once one of the boys had even kissed the eldest
daughter, who was fifteen, very swiftly on the edge of her lips as a
sign of engagement, and had bought her a brooch in one of the harbor
shops.
On the third day, Ursula, in uniform, was walking along the jetty when a
voice asked her in French:
“Aren’t you French, mademoiselle?”
She turned, and as there was a sudden heavy gust of wind against her,
she almost fell into the arms of a French naval officer. He began to
laugh. He seemed to be about thirty-five. He had regular white teeth,
thick lips, and brown eyes. Ursula found him big and handsome and nice.
They walked along the port talking. He was attached to a French vessel,
a warship that had been there three months for repairs. He had not seen
a Frenchwoman for months and months. He had just returned from the
Orient and had been in China, in Haiti, and in America.
They talked a great deal, each delighted to find a compatriot. He took
her along the pier to show her his ship, and he told her the names of
all the ships, and he took her to tea in a curious little establishment
that had all sorts of weird souvenirs hanging from the ceiling.
During the entire year that she had passed in worshiping Claude, Ursula
had never gone out with a man, except Michel. She avoided men,
considering herself definitely outside the normal, like Petit and Ann.
But now with Philippe, everything was so simple, so amusing. He didn’t
frighten her, as all the other men did. There was a comradeship about
him, almost as though he were a big brother, and he was so huge next to
tiny Ursula that she felt sure that he would treat her as a child, and
this was reassuring to her.
Seated there in the strange café, Philippe told her about his voyages,
and to Ursula they all sounded marvelous and strange. He declared that
the life of a sailor was the most beautiful of all and that his only
bride would always be the sea. This expression pleased Ursula greatly.
She listened to his tales of China, where he had smoked opium and made
love to Chinese women, and of America, where he had actually eaten meals
in pharmacies, and of Haiti, where one covers oneself with flowers.
Suddenly he asked her to excuse him for a moment, went out, and
presently returned to tell her that he had requested the commander of
his ship to invite the little French soldier girl to lunch the next
day—to lunch aboard ship, at the officers’ mess. There would be a
special feast in her honor.
Ursula blushed with joy. She accepted, but confessed that she was a
little worried because of the English family. What would they say? Would
they be shocked at her going out with a stranger? Would they understand
that in this exile every Frenchman was a brother? Philippe suggested
telling them that he was her cousin, or indeed her brother. Ursula
thought “brother” would make a more correct impression, and so they made
an appointment for lunch the next day.
* * * * *
The good folk were delighted when she told of her amazing encounter.
They found the coincidence quite within the normal range of fortunes of
war—especially for the French, an exciting sort of people. What luck to
have met her brother in this out-of-the-way port! Sometimes there were
good things, even in war.