THE WAYS OF GIRLS
"Il n'est pas de rose assez tendre
Sur la palette du printemps,
Madame, pour oser pretendre
Lutter contre vos dix-sept ans."
GAUTIER.
"Did you see the people from Villa Shai-poo?" asked Haidee, as they
walked home.
"No, which were they?" Val was away in a land of her own peopling and
her eyes were vague.
"An awfully distinguished old man, with a little white goatee and nice
American-looking boots; and two boys...." She stopped abruptly. Val's
attention was attracted.
"What kind of boys?"
"Oh, well! I didn't notice them much. You know all French boys look as
if they wear stays. I dare say these are n't so bad though. Hortense
says the eldest is in a regiment _tres chic_. The other one failed for
the navy last year." Her manner was meant to suggest pointed
indifference.
"They must be more than boys."
"The one with the greeny-blue eyes is twenty-four and the one with dark
blue ones is nineteen and a half," responded Haidee. Val smiled at this
artless testimony of her "indifference."
They were passing Shai-poo at the moment; a big, square, roomy-looking
house, with those solid grey walls that stand for centuries and are so
typical of Normandy, surrounded by a spacious garden full of the charm
of careless grace--groups of trees, flowering grasses, little forests of
tall bamboos, beds of brilliant flowers that looked as if they had
sprung up by happy accident, winding paths, and a tea-house in the form
of a Chinese pagoda. A great mainmast rooted from the bowels of a
French war-ship of old type was erected in a clear open space that lay
almost like a deck around it. From its top lazily floated a silk flag
embroidered with the Chinese Royal arms.
"Their grandfather the Admiral must have arrived," said Haidee
excitedly. "They only put up that flag for him--it is the one he took
in the battle of Shai-poo. That is the mast of his old ship."
"Goodness, Haidee! what a lot you know about them! Who is the man with
the goatee and the American boots then?"
"Oh, that's the father of Sacha, the one in the army. The other boy,
Rupert, is a cousin and an orphan."
"Oh!" Val pondered these things in her heart. It was plain that Haidee
was growing up, and beginning to take an interest in other things than
hens and rabbits! Evidently too she had been listening to Hortense's
gossip. Val felt guilty somehow, and wished wistfully that poor Haidee
could have the society and companionship of a girl of her own age and
world.
When they got home they found that John the Baptist had left some
letters. One of them was from Harriott Kesteven, asking if Val would
mind very much if she came to Mascaret for the summer months, bringing
her girl Kitty. It seemed almost like an answer to Val's wish for
society for Haidee.
Her only doubt was as to Westenra. Would this, even though he never
knew or cared, be treachery to him--a last fire made of the blackened
embers of a burnt boat?
It could scarcely be that after all! He had been at great pains these
last few years to show her by his silence and coldness how little her
doings mattered to him. Apparently on his return to America after the
fatal visit to Jersey he had flung himself into work with the result
that sometimes occurs in the lives of men; a temple of public success
had begun to raise its walls above the grave of his private sorrows.
International journals frequently mentioned his name in connection with
some wonderful operation performed at his now famous nursing home.
Under the aegis of the skilful Miss Holland the house in 68th Street had
become something very like a gold mine, as the size of the quarterly
cheques (which Val never used) gave proof. Of more importance was the
fact that he had advanced with great strides in his scientific work, and
the results of his experimental investigations in diabetes were the talk
of medical Europe. There were rumours of his nomination for the next
Nobel.
Small wonder if in this furious concentration on work and the fame it
brought him, personal emotion as far as Val was concerned should be
crushed out of his life like a useless, hurtful thing. That at last was
the impression she gained from his letters to Haidee, conned and brooded
over in the silence of the night when the children slept. True, love
for Haidee and his son breathed from every line, but there was never a
word in the cold courteous messages to Val that she could lay upon her
heart to heal its aching wound. Time and distance had widened the
breach between them until now it was a gaping ravine over which the
correspondence with Haidee formed the last frail bridge. He had never
put foot in Europe since the visit to Jersey, but taken all his
vacations in different parts of America. Sometimes he wrote vaguely of
coming over to see them all, but Val felt herself left outside his world
now, and doubted that he seriously considered making a movement that
would bring him back into hers. It seemed almost ironical to be
wondering whether she would have his approval or not in allowing
Harriott Kesteven to come to Mascaret. It was so patent that he had
long since taken advantage of the circumstance that freed his life from
hers.
She decided in the end that with a clear conscience she might wire to
London the word "come."
"Of course I know there is a hotel in the place, Val," Mrs. Kesteven had
written, "but we'd much rather come and picnic and be insane with you on
the Dutch-treat plan, each paying our own share. Do let us."
And Val, though she knew her friend had two thousand a year, and was
used to every comfort of modern civilisation, felt no hesitation about
bidding her welcome. Harriott Kesteven was a woman after her own heart;
one who could make herself just as much at home in the little wooden
cabins of Villa Duval as in her luxurious London flat; who would rather
tramp the desert with the friend of her heart than be borne in the
silken litters of a stranger's caravan.
To herself Val could not disguise what a joy it would be to see Harriott
again; to show her Bran--the one tangible treasure snatched from the
grudging hand of Fate; to open her heart a little to eyes that were
lovingly tolerant, and would smile rather than condemn. Friendship
should be always such a joy: clear water in sight of a thirsty soul--a
tree under which to rest after long travel!
Harriott having speedily wired back that she and her girl were starting
at once, via Southampton and Jersey, preparations for their advent set
in at Villa Duval. They were not very complicated preparations,
however, merely a matter of clearing out the two spare cabins, and
storing the boxes and baggage in one of _pere_ Duval's lofts. Then a
great gathering of wild flowers to stand in jam jars all over the house
and a hunting expedition to the village for a _bonne-a-tout-faire_. A
middle-aged stony-faced shrew bearing the poetical name of Azalie was
captured, and a bargain struck with her to come in from seven in the
morning till seven in the evening, for the sum of ten francs fifty a
week, bread, coffee, and cider thrown in. Hortense was to act as her
_aide-de-camp_.
Then on one afternoon the band of three went across to the _digue_ not
more than five hundred yards from their door, to meet the steamer from
Jersey. It was the first boat of the year, and its arrival quite the
event of the season, so all the world of Mascaret was leaning on the
ropes put up by the Customs' officers to prevent passengers escaping
before declaring themselves innocent of contraband. Val, with her
_chi-chi_ tied across her forehead, her face swathed in veils, stood
biting her lips and trembling with emotion, nervous as a bird at the
thought of seeing her friend again. She wondered fearfully if Harriott
would find her greatly changed. Haidee, full of curiosity, was scowling
under her brigand hat ready to get out all her porcupine-prickles if she
did not like the other girl on sight. Bran pranced with excitement at
the thought of seeing a big ship once more. Near by were standing the
two young men from the Villa Shai-poo, and from behind her veils Val
took stock of them and found them goodly to look upon. She liked their
loose blue flannel suits, so different from the usual tight correct
clothes worn by young Frenchmen at the seaside. She liked their clear
skins and eyes too, and their sleek black heads. In fact, they were not
very French-looking at all, but much more like Irish boys. The younger
one especially, with his misty violet eyes and rather dreamy face, might
easily have been mistaken for a west-of-Ireland lad. The elder and
handsomer of the two possessed already the Frenchman's hardy eye for a
woman, and Val intercepted several appraising glances cast in the
direction of Haidee. The younger fellow contented himself with smiling
at Bran, who smiled back in friendly fashion.
"I like that boy," he confided to Val, "he's got a hole 'n his chin and
his hair is jet black." Bran decided all his likes and dislikes by
colour and smell. His favourite colours were yellow, red, green, and
wet-black. This last was very different to ordinary black, which was
the colour of toothache. Little rheumatic pains which he sometimes got
in his knees were grey. The worst pain you could get was a purply-red
one which came when you were sad and gave you the stomach-ache. He had
once solemnly stated that the only colour he hated was yellowy-pink, but
as he always called yellow pink and pink yellow no one had been able to
solve the riddle of this hated colour.
Long before the boat came alongside Val recognised Harriott by the
condition of her hat. Mrs. Kesteven's hats invariably looked as though
some one had been taking a siesta on them, but the moment she got close
enough for her little soft, stern face to be seen no one thought of her
hat any more. It was the same with her clothes. She always had an
extraordinary stock of last year's gowns to "finish up," but under the
thrall of her charming manners no one ever noticed that her skirt was
wider than was fashionable and her sleeves the wrong shape. It would
have been difficult to compute how many new spring gowns she had
contributed that year to youthful poor relations, but she herself was
"finishing up" a faded purple linen of weird cut, while the hat of
battered violets on her head was certainly not in its first season. But
all the glow of friendship and true affection was in her sunny eyes.
She flew from the deck of the wheezy old steamer, and in spite of the
Customs' officers' efforts to head her off, embraced Val over the ropes.
Behind her came Kitty, very fair, pretty, and beautifully dressed.
Haidee shot a scowl at her.
"A Smarty-Arty!" was her inward comment, though she was slightly
overawed by Kitty's clothes.
"She 's taller than me, but her feet are bigger," thought Kitty.
"And this is my Brannikin, Harry."
"What a duck! ... give me a kiss, Bran."
But Bran retreated behind his mother's skirts murmuring:
"The cat says bow-wow-wow."
"Don't be silly, my Wing. Come on--and say how do you do. This is
Kitty."
"_Je sais bien_," said Bran, and handed Kitty a hardy smile. Bran knew
all things well--at least that was his favourite response to all
remarks. When Val first took him to Notre Dame and they knelt together
in the light of the wonderful rose-window, she whispered in his ear:
"Brannie, you are in the most beautiful church in the world."
"_Je sais bien_," he had answered blandly.
They all proceeded to Villa Duval, followed by the speculative glances
of the crowd and the grocer's handcart carrying Harriott's luggage.
Kitty and Haidee, subtly aware of the admiring eyes of the two young
Frenchmen, assumed a demure air mingled with light and not too
annihilating scorn.
Harriott expressed herself charmed with Villa Duval and all that therein
was, from the rose-tree on the balustrade that bore both pink and white
roses as a tribute to _pere_ Duval's skill in grafting, to the meat-safe
suspended by a chain from the dining-room floor to the cellar below.
After inspecting the cabins, peeping out of the windows, and hearkening
to the man-eater in the kitchen, she said:
"You don't know how lucky you are, Val, living in peace and simplicity
like this. You ought to be a very happy woman."
"So I am--happy as a tomtit on a pump-handle," said Val, smiling gaily,
but Harriott, who had the seeing eye, saw the heart-hunger behind the
smile, and knew that happiness had eluded her friend once more.
"I 've no right to grumble, Harry. I 've got what I wanted--a son. You
know I always felt my life would not be complete without a son--and he
is the son of a real man. But, if one had forty sons, there would still
always be that little round hole in one's heart which no child can ever
quite fill--you know, Harriott."
Yes, Harriott knew. Not for nothing had her beautiful hair turned
snow-white at thirty. She, too, had a void in her big, warm heart which
neither Kitty nor the dozen impecunious youthful relations to whom she
played godmother had been able to fill.
Haidee and Kitty soon became thick as thieves, and, like thieves,
distrusted each other thoroughly. Blondes and brunettes nearly always
do. Pretending to be quite unimpressed by each other's looks secretly
each admired the other's type exceedingly, and in little ways, which
they supposed no one noticed, tried to copy each other's good points in
dress and style. It was funny to see Haidee, whose hair had always been
a shameful sort of mane flying to the winds, now brush it out sleek and
straight under a red ribbon (in opposition to Kitty's blue one) bound _a
la Grec_ above her brow, while Kitty could not rest until she had
discarded her stockings and bought herself a pair of canvas sandals at
Lemonier's. She was, to her annoyance, however, no more able to imitate
the tan which covered Haidee, than the latter could acquire the milky
whiteness of Kitty's complexion. They set each other off well--Haidee
with her tall dark beauty, Kitty fair and fluffy as a Persian kitten. It
was small wonder that wherever they went attention was focused upon
them. The two French boys were always hovering in the vicinity, whether
on the beach when the party went to bathe, on the _digue_ to watch the
Jersey boat arrive--now one of the daily interests--or out walking on
the cliff. Often, as they sauntered in the lanes, the girls ahead,
Harry and Val loitering and gossiping behind, the sound of bicycles
would be heard and the two boys would whirr past, sending swift, hardy
glances at the girls, making the occasion an excuse for apologetically
lifting their caps.
"I 'm afraid it's neither you behind your blue veil, nor I with 'nearly
fifty' scrawled across my features, who is causing such commotion in
those two male bosoms," chuckled Harriott to Val.
"It gives one a little shock to feel so out of it!" said Val, laughing a
little. "When men's eyes slip past to the girl behind, one begins to
realise that one cannot stay in the great game for ever."
"For ever--no," said Harry; "but _you 're_ not out of it yet, my
dear--you 've only taken the blue veil for a while."
"Oh, Harry, I was out of it the moment Bran came. I got my prize,
little as I deserved it, and retired from the arena. Even if I had n't
loved my man I could never have continued to amuse myself that way once
I had a son."
"That doesn't make the least difference to your attracting power, my
dear. You are one of those women who will always have for men the same
kind of pull as the moon for the sea."
Val laughed a little mournfully as she reflected that her moonlight
quality had not the power to pull just the one man she wanted across the
sea to her.
----
On the third day after the Kestevens' arrival the Frenchmen achieved
acquaintance with Bran on the beach. He came back to his party
announcing that "Sacha" and "Rupert" had asked him if he would like to
go out sailing with them.
"Come for a walk in their boat they said," he said, grinning gaily at
their literal English. "And they asked if my sisters like going out for
walks in a boat, too?"
Kitty and Haidee exchanged rapid eye-signals, then looked away at the
sea. Harriott frowned.
"Why don't the idiotic creatures come and call on us like honest men, or
send their women folk?"
"He's got no women folk but his sister, and she hasn't come from Paris
yet," burst from Haidee suddenly.
"Whose sister?"
"Sacha's."
"She 's expected on Thursday," supplemented Kitty. A minute later the
two discovered urgent business elsewhere--perhaps for fear of being
questioned as to the source of their information.
Val and Harriott gazed at each other stupefied.
"Goodness! they know all about these French fellows. What are we to
do?"
"Take no notice, Harry. Let them have their little excitement, dear
things. A woman's life is so short. Bran said to me as we lay in bed
this morning, 'Mammie, in 120 months, I 'll be fifteen; how old will you
be?' And, my dear, I calculated and found it would bring me up to
forty-two--and another 120 months to fifty-two, and then another, and
life will be done! Have you ever thought of it, dear: that our lives
are just a series of months in batches of 120?"
"You need not talk yet," sighed Harriott. "It's the last few batches
that are so short. The years fly like greased lightning after forty."
"And the early ones seem so long and weary--until the first love
adventure looms in sight. Ah! those first little adventures, how lovely
they are! To realise that we are desirable ... that some one wants us
... finds us pretty and charming ... to feel the little wings of
womanhood sprouting on our shoulder-blades! Oh, Harry, we mustn't
grudge the enchantment of it to our girls! Don't you remember how
delightful it was? Was anything that came after half so wonderful?"
"I know," said Harriott, the gentle light of reminiscence in her eye.
"But this is a different matter, my dear. These are _Frenchmen_."
"But they are really very Irish-looking," laughed Val, who not being
English never could understand the curious aversion that sits deep in
almost every Englishwoman's heart for the male species across the
Channel. "And those two kids are as happy and excited as larks in the
wind. I 'm sure that kind of thing should never be suppressed, Harry."
"I dare say you are right, dear. Only we must make fun of them
sometimes so that there shall be no danger of their taking it seriously.
I think I 'd rather have Kitty take the veil than take a Frenchman."
That same evening as they all sat playing Bridge in the little wooden
dining-room of Villa Duval, a whirr of bicycle wheels was heard without.
Then a silence and the sound of some one walking softly over the glass
and broken china with which the other side of the road was freely
decorated. Under the table Haidee handed Kitty a hack on the shins, but
their faces remained bland, their interest in the game unabated. It was
a black night and to look out of the window availed nothing. A few
moments later came the sound of bicycles in retreat. At bedtime the two
girls stayed whispering and speculating long in Kitty's room, which
overlooked the road, but the mystery of the bicycles was
unexplained--until the next morning. Bran, standing on Val's bed, as
was his pleasant custom when dressing, suddenly shouted--and a shout in
Villa Duval could be heard through every room in the house.
"_What's that red thing in my 'Jules Duval'?_"
The _Jules Duval_, as has been explained, was _pere_ Duval's old fishing
boat, which had been fixed-up and painted to be the special joy and
plaything of Bran. He adored boats and everything to do with the sea,
and spent all his days in the _Jules_ going imaginary voyages.
"There 's something red fastened to the mast," he shrieked excitedly,
and upstairs two necks were craned to cracking point from Kitty's
bedroom window. Insufficiently clothed as he was Bran tore out to the
boat, and came back bearing in triumph an enormous cabbage rose--full
blown, and rather tired from being up all night. Both girls put out
their hands for it. Bran looked at them in surprise.
"Why, it was in _my_ boat! Perhaps an angel put it there for me..."
The girls turned away in wrath. Later they were each seen to go
separately to the _Jules_ and give a sort of casual glance into the
bottom of it. It was possible, of course, that Bran might have
overlooked something!
"Only one rose! How clever of those young scamps!" chuckled Val, and
Harriott with joyful malice pinned the flopping rose to the breast of
Bran's red sweater, where it drooped its life away.
The girls were constrained with each other all day. The tide was low
and there was no excuse to go to the beach. Perhaps that was why the
two took books and sat in the _Jules_ all the morning pretending to
read, but with a keen lookout on the road and all stray cyclists. Bran,
greatly delighted to have passengers, took them several voyages to New
York and back. Harry and Val, professing to be busy inside the Villa,
cast many an intrigued glance from the windows. Nothing happened.
Next morning a basket of figs was found in the boat--beautiful,
luscious, purple figs. Now the only fig-trees in Mascaret grew in the
garden of the Admiral of Shai-poo!
Val and Harriott went to early Mass, and returning ran into the two
heroes coming up from the river. They had been for an early morning
sail, and wore a pleasantly disreputable air in their blue fisherman
jerseys and turned-up coat collars. They cast sheepish glances at the
two ladies, and the younger had the grace to blush.
"They really are nice-looking boys," Harriott admitted, but at the
breakfast table a few minutes later she expressed herself differently.
"We met those two Romeos from the Villa Shai-poo as we were coming from
Mass," she announced. "Seedy-looking fellows. One of them looked as if
a tub might do him good."
The girls bristled like Irish terriers.
"Which one?" they demanded in one breath.
"The one with the drunken blue eyes," said Val, aware that this was
sheer malice.
"Oh, that's Rupert!" Relief burst from Haidee. But Kitty's appetite was
gone. She assumed a dark and menacing expression of countenance that
her mother declared reminded her of Mendelssohn's _Spring Song_.
"It makes me want to prance and leap like Cissie Loftus imitating Maude
Allen when I see you look like that, Kit," she said. But Kit remained
cross as a cat and would not smile.
"And where did these figs come from?" asked Val in amaze.
"They are Bran's," quoth Haidee demurely. "An angel left them in the
_Jules_ for him."
It may have been religious fervour which then seized the girls or it may
merely have been a fervour for going in the direction of Mascaret, at
any rate they patronised both High Mass and Vespers and seemed to be
discontented that there were no further services to attend.
In the evening, as it was Sunday, there were letters to write instead of
the usual game of Bridge. Every one appeared to be deeply occupied, but
a listening look was so apparent on two faces that Harriott could not
resist a mischievous remark to Val.
"I wonder if the cabbages have come yet?" As if by some magical
arrangement with fate there came on the instant the usual whirring sound
followed by the crackling underfoot of broken crockery which had strayed
from the garbage hole.
"What's that?" cried Bran nervously from his bed in the next room.
"Hush, my Wing! I expect it's only a basket of eggs arriving in the
_Jules_," soothed his mother.
"Soon we shall not have to go to market, Val," remarked Harriott; "all
that we need will be found in the boat. I wonder if it's a Customs'
officer or a gendarme who is so kind?"
"I think a delicate attention on our part would be to tie a return
bouquet on to the mainmast," said Val thoughtfully. "Should we go out
and gather some, Harry--just to show that we enjoyed the figs?"
"Oh, no! Val," burst out Haidee, "you 'll spoil everything."
"Spoil?" said Val with wondering eyes. "_Everything_? Surely a little
gratitude...? Old _pere_ Duval has some nice sunflowers."
But the girls had burst from the room in a rage. Val and Harriott,
exploding with laughter, went for a walk down the _digue_ in the mild
darkness.
"Poor kids!" said Harriott. "Perhaps we really ought not to torment
them so much."
"My dear, it is the proudest moment of their lives," laughed Val.
"Their first conquest! At such times mothers are always looked upon as
sort of ogresses anyway--we may as well be amused ogresses."
They had an adventure all to themselves that night. A little party of
people passed them talking French, and bound like themselves for a
stroll to the end of the breakwater. There were two ladies and two men,
and in the latter Val felt certain she recognised the boys from
Shai-poo. Behind them, at a little distance, smoking a deliciously
fragrant cigar and humming cheerfully after the manner of a Frenchman
who has just enjoyed a good dinner, strolled a third man, evidently
belonging to the party, for he called out an occasional remark to the
others. All disappeared into the blackness at the far end of the pier,
where a lamp and storm-bell were built into a little chapel-shaped
shelter. Val and Harriott, deciding not to walk farther, seated
themselves by dint of a certain amount of physical exertion upon the
high wall which runs beside the _digue_, their legs dangling, the sea
below, the cool black night all round them. By and by the French party
returned in the order of their going, the last man still lagging behind.
He had perhaps lingered longer than the others to watch the seas dashing
against the bulky end of the pier, for the advance party passed some
five minutes before his cheerful humming was heard. As he came along a
pale streak of gold from the far lighthouse swept over him, revealing
him an elderly, distinguished man of the _Legion d'honneur_ type. Val
immediately recognised in him the man whom Haidee had pointed out as
General Lorrain, the father of Sacha: he of the American boots and
pointed goatee.
"Ah! Le phare est tres chic ce soir!" He called out suddenly. He had
seen them in the same sweeping line of light, but it never occurred to
them that he mistook them for the ladies of his party until he came up
and gave Harriott an affectionate squeeze on her ankle, repeating his
remark:
"_N'est ce pas_, Comtesse--it gives a very _chic_ illumination to-night,
the lighthouse?"
Mrs. Kesteven gave a very _chic_ gasp, and almost leaped from the wall
into the sea below. And Val, realising what had happened, hastily
leaned forward and in her bad French, always ten times worse when she
was excited, cried:
"_Mais--vous faisez une erreur, monsieur._"
The poor man, horrified as Mrs. Kesteven herself, blurted out a throaty:
"_Parr-don! Je vous demands parr-don, mesdames,_" and fled.
Val said her French did it--that wonderful phrase "_faisez une erreur_,"
quite unknown to the French grammar. But Harriott declared her
suspicion that the quality of her woollen stockings was the cause of the
poor man's panic.
"I imagine the French Comtesse whom that pinch was meant for is not much
addicted to Jaeger and flannel lingerie," she said with a grim glint of
humour in her eye. "Anyway it is a lesson to us not to sit out alone on
dark nights."
Next morning there was a basket of grapes in the boat.
"This is really beginning to go a little too far," declared Val.
"Either some one is robbing the Admiral's garden and wants to drag us
into the affair as accomplices, or else there is an impression abroad
that we are in need of food and clothing."
She and Harriott gravely discussed the point as to whether it would be
better to put up a public notice by the wayside, or call in the
gendarmes.
"Oh, mother!" cried Kitty in a voice of mingled consternation and
impatience, and wriggled Mrs. Kesteven into her bedroom where she could
harangue her without ribald interruption from Val. The minute Haidee got
Val alone she said furiously:
"Oh, Val, you are a silly ass! You know quite well it 's _them_!"
"_Them?_"
"Those Lorrain boys. Do leave off rotting."
"Rotting?"
"Och! _you!_" cried Haidee in a black rage, and flung out of the room.