The sick-room was very hot, and Aunt Morin very querulous. Jeanne
opened a window, but Aunt Morin complained of currents of air. Did
Jeanne want to kill her? So Jeanne closed the window. The internal
malady from which Aunt Morin suffered, and from which it was unlikely
that she would recover, caused her considerable pain from time to
time; and on these occasions she grew fractious and hard to bear with.
The retired septuagenarian village doctor who had taken the modest
practice of his son, now far away with the Army, advised an operation.
But Aunt Morin, with her peasant's prejudice, declined flatly. She
knew what happened in those hospitals where they cut people up just
for the pleasure of looking at their insides. She was not going to let
a lot of butchers amuse themselves with her old carcass. _Oh non!_
When it pleased the _bon Dieu_ to take her, she was ready: the _bon
Dieu_ required no assistance from _ces messieurs_. And even if she had
consented, how to take her to Paris, and once there, how to get the
operation performed, with all the hospitals full and all the surgeons
at the Front? The old doctor shrugged his shoulders and kept life in
her as best he might.
To-day, in the close room, she told a long story of the doctor's
neglect. The medicine he gave her was water and nothing else--water
with nothing in it. And to ask people to pay for that! She would not
pay. What would Jeanne advise?
"_Oui, ma tante_," said Jeanne.
"_Oui, ma tante?_ But you are not listening to what I say. At the
least one can be polite."
"I am listening, _ma tante_."
"You should be grateful to those who lodge and nourish you."
"I am grateful, _ma tante_," said Jeanne patiently.
Aunt Morin complained of being robbed on all sides. The doctor,
Toinette, Jeanne, the English soldiers--the last the worst of all.
Besides not paying sufficiently for what they had, they were so
wasteful in the things they took for nothing. If they begged for a few
faggots to make a fire, they walked away with the whole woodstack. She
knew them. But all soldiers were the same. They thought that in time
of war civilians had no rights. One of these days she would get up and
come downstairs and see for herself the robbery that was going on.
The windows were tightly sealed. The sunlight hurting Aunt Morin's
eyes, the outside shutters were half closed. The room felt like a
stuffy, overheated, overcrowded sepulchre. An enormous oak press, part
of her Breton dowry, took up most of the side of one wall. This, and a
great handsome chest, a couple of tables, a stiff arm-chair, were all
too big for the moderately sized apartment. Coloured prints of sacred
subjects, tilted at violent angles, seemed eager to occupy as much
air-space as possible. And in the middle of the floor sprawled the
vast oaken bed, with its heavy green brocade curtains falling tentwise
from a great tarnished gilt crown in the ceiling.
Jeanne said nothing. What was the good? She shifted the invalid's hot
pillow and gave her a drink of tisane, moving about the
over-furnished, airless room in her calm and efficient way. Her face
showed no sign of trouble, but an iron band clamped her forehead above
her burning eyes. She could perform her nurse's duties, but it was
beyond her power to concentrate her mind on the sick woman's unending
litany of grievances. Far away beyond that darkened room, beyond that
fretful voice, she saw vividly a hot waste, hideous with holes and
rusted wire and shapes of horror; and in the middle of it lay huddled
up a little khaki-clad figure with the sun blazing fiercely in his
unblinking eyes. And his very body was beyond the reach of man, even
of the most lion-hearted.
"_Mais qu'as-tu, ma fille?_" asked Aunt Morin. "You do not speak. When
people are ill they need to be amused."
"I am sorry, _ma tante_, but I am not feeling very well to-day. It
will pass."
"I hope so. Young people have no business not to feel well. Otherwise
what is the good of youth?"
"It is true," Jeanne assented.
But what, she thought, was indeed the good of youth, in these terrible
days of war? Her own was but a panorama of death.... And now one more
figure, this time one of youth too, had joined it.
Toinette came in.
"Ma'amselle Jeanne, there are two English officers downstairs who wish
to speak to you."
"What do they want?" Jeanne asked wearily.
"They do not say. They just ask for Ma'amselle Bossiere."
"They never leave one in peace, _ces gens-la_," grumbled Aunt Morin.
"If they want more concessions in price, do not let them frighten you.
Go to Monsieur le Maire to have it arranged with justice. These people
would eat the skin off your back. Remember, Jeanne."
"_Bien, ma tante_," said Jeanne.
She went downstairs, conscious of gripping herself in order to discuss
with the officers whatever business of billeting was in hand. For she
had dealt with all such matters since her arrival in Frelus. She
reached the front door and saw a dusty car with a military chauffeur
at the wheel and two officers, standing on the pavement at the foot of
the steps. One she recognized as the commander of the company to which
her billeted men belonged. The other was a stranger, a lieutenant,
with a different badge on his cap. They were talking and laughing
together, like old friends newly met, which by one of the myriad
coincidences of the war was really the case. On the appearance of
Jeanne they drew themselves up and saluted politely.
"Mademoiselle Bossiere?"
"_Oui, monsieur._" Then, "Will you enter, messieurs?"
They entered the vestibule where the great cask gleamed in its
polished mahogany and brass. She bade them be seated.
"Mademoiselle, Captain Willoughby tells me that you had billeted here
last week a soldier by the name of Trevor," said the stranger, in
excellent French, taking out notebook and pencil.
Jeanne's lips grew white. She had not suspected their errand.
"_Oui, monsieur._"
"Did you have much talk with him?"
"Much, monsieur."
"Pardon my indiscretion, mademoiselle--it is military service, and I
am an Intelligence officer--but did you tell him about your private
affairs?"
"Very intimately," said Jeanne.
The Intelligence officer made a note or two and smiled pleasantly--but
Jeanne could have struck him for daring to smile. "You had every
reason for thinking him a man of honour?"
"What's the good of asking her that, Smithers?" Captain Willoughby
interrupted in English. "Haven't I given you my word? The man's a
mysterious little devil, but any fool can see that he's a gentleman."
"What do you say?" Jeanne asked tensely.
"_Je parle francais tres peu_," replied Captain Willoughby with an
air of regret.
Smithers explained. "Monsieur le Capitaine says that he guarantees the
honesty of the soldier, Trevor."
Jeanne flashed, rigid. "Who could doubt it, monsieur? He was a
gentleman, a _fils de famille_, of the English aristocracy."
"Excuse me for a moment," said Smithers.
He went out. Jeanne, uncomprehending, sat silent. Captain Willoughby,
cursing an idiot education, composed in his head a polite French
sentence concerning the weather, but before he had finished Smithers
reappeared with a strange twisted packet in his hand. He held it out
to Jeanne.
"Mademoiselle, do you recognize this?"
She looked at it dully for a moment; then suddenly sprang to her feet
and clenched her hands and stared open-mouthed. She nodded. She could
not speak. Her brain swam. They had come to her about Doggie, who was
dead, and they showed her Pere Grigou's packet. What was the
connection between the two?
Willoughby rose impulsively. "For God's sake, Smithers, let her down
easy. She'll be fainting all over the place in a minute."
"If this is your property, mademoiselle," said Smithers, laying the
packet on the chenille-covered table, "you have to thank your friend
Trevor for restoring it to you."
She put up both hands to her reeling head.
"But he is dead, monsieur!"
"Not a bit of it. He's just as much alive as you or I."
Jeanne swayed, tried to laugh, threw herself half on a chair, half
over the great cask, and broke down in a passion of tears.
The two men looked at each other uncomfortably.
"For exquisite tact," said Willoughby, "commend me to an Intelligence
officer."
"But how the deuce was I to know?" Smithers muttered with an injured
air. "My instructions were to find out the truth of a cock-and-bull
story--for that's what it seemed to come to. And a girl in
billets--well--how was I to know what she was like?"
"Anyhow, here we've got hysterics," said Willoughby.
"But who told her the fellow was dead?"
"Why, his pals. I thought so myself. When a man's missing where's one
to suppose him to be--having supper at the Savoy?"
"Well, I give women up," said Smithers. "I thought she'd be glad."
"I believe you're a married man?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well, I ain't," said Willoughby, and in a couple of strides he stood
close to Jeanne. He laid a gentle hand on her heaving shoulders.
"_Pas tue! Soolmong blesse_," he shouted.
She sprang, as it were, to attention, like a frightened recruit.
"He is wounded?"
"Not very seriously, mademoiselle." Smithers, casting an indignant
glance at his superior officer's complacent smile, reassumed mastery
of the situation. "A Boche sniper got him in the leg. It will put him
out of service for a month or two. But there is no danger."
"_Grace a Dieu!_" said Jeanne.
She leaned for a while against the cask, her hands behind her, looking
away from the two men. And the two young men stood, somewhat
embarrassed, looking away from her and from each other. At last she
said, with an obvious striving for the even note in her voice:
"I ask your pardon, messieurs, but sometimes sudden happiness is more
overwhelming than misfortune. I am now quite at your service."
"My God! she's a wonder," murmured Willoughby, who was fair,
unmarried, and impressionable. "Go on with your dirty work."
Smithers, conscious of linguistic superiority--in civil life he had
been concerned with the wine trade in Bordeaux--proceeded to carry out
his instructions. He turned over a leaf in his notebook and poised a
ready pencil.
"I must ask you, mademoiselle, some formal questions."
"Perfectly, monsieur," said Jeanne.
"Where was this packet when last you saw it?"
She made her statement, calmly.
"Can you tell me its contents?"
"Not all, monsieur. I, as a young girl, was not in the full confidence
of my parents. But I remember my uncle saying there were about twenty
thousand francs in notes, some gold--I know not how much--some
jewellery of my mother's--oh, a big handful!--rings--one a hoop of
emeralds and diamonds--a brooch with a black pearl belonging to my
great-grandmother----"
"It is enough, mademoiselle," said Smithers, jotting down notes.
"Anything else besides money and jewellery?"
"There were papers of my father, share certificates, bonds--_que
sais-je, moi_?"
Smithers opened the packet, which had already been examined.
"You're a witness, sir, to the identification of the property."
"No," said Willoughby, "I'm just a baby captain of infantry, and
wonder why the brainy Intelligence department doesn't hand the girl
her belongings and decently clear out."
"I've got to make my report, sir," said Smithers stiffly.
So the schedule was produced and the notes were solemnly counted,
twenty-one thousand five hundred francs, and the gold four hundred
francs, and the jewels were identified, and the bonds, of which Jeanne
knew nothing, were checked by a list in her father's handwriting, and
Jeanne signed a paper with Smithers's fountain-pen, and Willoughby
witnessed her signature, and thus she entered into possession of her
heritage.
The officers were about to depart, but Jeanne detained them.
"Messieurs, you must pardon me, but I am quite bewildered. As far as I
can understand, Monsieur Trevor rescued the packet from the well at my
uncle's farm of La Folette, and got wounded in doing so."
"That is quite so," said Smithers.
"But, monsieur, they tell me he was with a party in front of his
trench mending wire. How did he reach the well of La Folette? I don't
comprehend at all."
Smithers turned to Willoughby.
"Yes. How the dickens did he know the exact spot to go for?"
"We had taken over a new sector, and I was getting the topography
right with a map. Trevor was near by doing nothing, and as he's a man
of education, I asked him to help me. There was the site of the farm
marked by name, and the ruined well away over to the left in No Man's
Land. I remember the beggar calling out 'La Folette!' in a startled
voice, and when I asked him what was the matter, he said 'Nothing,
sir!'"
Smithers translated, and continued: "You see, mademoiselle, this is
what happened, as far as I am concerned. I belong to the Lancashire
Fusiliers. Our battalion is in the trenches farther up the line than
our friends. Well, just before dawn yesterday morning a man rolled
over the parapet into our trench, and promptly fainted. He had been
wounded in the leg, and was half dead from loss of blood. Under his
tunic was this package. We identified him and his regiment, and fixed
him up and took him to the dressing-station. But things looked very
suspicious. Here was a man who didn't belong to us with a little
fortune in loot on his person. As soon as he was fit to be
interrogated, the C.O. took him in hand. He told the C.O. about you
and your story. He regarded the nearness of the well as something to
do with Destiny, and resolved to get you back your property--if it was
still there. The opportunity occurred when the wiring party was
alarmed. He crept out to the ruins by the well, fished out the packet,
and a sniper got him. He managed to get back to our lines, having lost
his way a bit, and tumbled into our trench."
"But he was in danger of death all the time," said Jeanne, losing the
steadiness of her voice.
"He was. Every second. It was one of the most dare-devil,
scatter-brained things I've ever heard of. And I've heard of many,
mademoiselle. The only pity is that instead of being rewarded, he will
be punished."
"Punished?" cried Jeanne.
"Not very severely," laughed Smithers. "Captain Willoughby will see to
that. But reflect, mademoiselle. His military duty was to remain with
his comrades, not to go and risk his life to get your property.
Anyhow, it is clear that he was not out for loot.... Of course, they
sent me here as Intelligence officer, to get corroboration of his
story." He paused for a moment. Then he added: "Mademoiselle, I must
congratulate you on the restoration of your fortune and the possession
of a very brave friend."
For the first time the red spots burned on Jeanne's pale face.
"_Je vous remercie infiniment, monsieur._"
"_Il sera_ all right," said Willoughby.
The officers saluted and went their ways. Jeanne took up her packet
and mounted to her little room in a dream. Then she sat down on her
bed, the unopened packet by her side, and strove to realize it all.
But the only articulate thought came to her in the words which she
repeated over and over again:
"_Il a fait cela pour moi! Il a fait cela pour moi!_"
He had done that for her. It was incredible, fantastic, thrillingly
true, like the fairy-tales of her childhood. The little sensitive
English soldier, whom his comrades protected, whom she herself in a
feminine way longed to protect, had done this for her. In a shy,
almost reverent way, she opened out the waterproof covering, as though
to reassure herself of the reality of things. For the first time since
she left Cambrai a smile came into her eyes, together with grateful
tears.
"_Il a fait cela pour moi! Il a fait cela pour moi!_"
* * * * *
A while later she relieved Toinette's guard in the sick-room.
"_Eh bien?_ And the two officers?" queried Aunt Morin, after Toinette
had gone. "They have stayed a long time. What did they want?"
Jeanne was young. She had eaten the bread of dependence, which Aunt
Morin, by reason of racial instinct and the stress of sorrow and
infirmity, had contrived to render very bitter. She could not repress
an exultant note in her voice. Doggie, too, accounted for something;
for much.
"They came to bring good news, _ma tante_. The English have found all
the money and the jewels and the share certificates that Pere Grigou
hid in the well of La Folette."
"_Mon Dieu!_ It is true?"
"_Oui, ma tante._"
"And they have restored them to you?"
"Yes."
"It is extraordinary. It is truly extraordinary. At last these English
seem to be good for something. And they found that and gave it to you
without taking anything?"
"Without taking anything," said Jeanne.
Aunt Morin reflected for a few moments, then she stretched out a thin
hand.
"_Ma petite Jeanne cherie_, you are rich now."
"I don't know exactly," replied Jeanne, with a mingling of truth and
caution. "I have enough for the present."
"How did it all happen?"
"It was part of a military operation," said Jeanne.
Perhaps later she might tell Aunt Morin about Doggie. But now the
thing was too sacred. Aunt Morin would question, question maddeningly,
until the rainbow of her fairy-tale was unwoven. The salient fact of
the recovery of her fortune should be enough for Aunt Morin. It was.
The old woman of the pain-pinched features looked at her wistfully
from sunken grey eyes.
"And now that you are rich, my little Jeanne, you will not leave your
poor old aunt, who loves you so much, to die alone?"
"_Ah, mais non! mais non! mais non!_" cried Jeanne indignantly. "What
do you think I am made of?"
"Ah!" breathed Aunt Morin, comforted.
"Also," said Jeanne, in the matter-of-fact French way, "_Si tu veux_,
I will henceforward pay for my lodging and nourishment."
"You are very good, my little Jeanne," said Aunt Morin. "That will be
a great help, for, _vois-tu_, we are very poor."
"_Oui, ma tante._ It is the war."
"Ah, the war, the war; this awful war! One has nothing left."
Jeanne smiled. Aunt Morin had a very comfortably invested fortune
left, for the late Monsieur Morin, corn, hay and seed merchant, had
been a very astute person. It would make little difference to the
comfort of Aunt Morin, or to the prospects of Cousin Gaspard in
Madagascar, whether the present business of Veuve Morin et Fils went
on or not. Of this Aunt Morin, in lighter moods, had boasted many
times.
"Every one must do what they can," said Jeanne.
"Perfectly," said Aunt Morin. "You are a young girl who well
understands things. And now--it is not good for young people to stay
in a sick-room--one needs the fresh air. _Va te distraire, ma petite._
I am quite comfortable."
So Jeanne went out to distract a self already distraught with great
wonder, great pride and great fear.
He had done that for her. The wonder of it bewildered her, the pride
of it thrilled her. But he was wounded. Fear smothered her joy. They
had said there was no danger. But soldiers always made light of
wounds. It was their way in this horrible war, in the intimate midst
of which she had her being. If a man was not dead, he was alive, and
thereby accounted lucky. In their gay optimism they had given him a
month or two of absence from the regiment. But even in a month or
two--where would the regiment be? Far, far away from Frelus. Would
she ever see Doggie again?
To distract herself she went down the village street, bareheaded, and
up the lane that led to the little church. The church was empty, cool,
and smelt of the hill-side. Before the tinsel-crowned, mild-faced
image of the Virgin were spread the poor votive offerings of the
village. And Jeanne sank on her knees, and bowed her head, and,
without special prayer or formula of devotion, gave herself into the
hands of the Mother of Sorrows.
She walked back comforted, vaguely conscious of a strengthening of
soul. In the vast cataclysm of things her own hopes and fears and
destiny mattered very little. If she never saw Doggie again, if Doggie
recovered and returned to the war and was killed, her own grief
mattered very little. She was but a stray straw, and mattered very
little. But what mattered infinitely, what shone with an immortal
flame, though it were never so tiny, was the Wonderful Spiritual
Something that had guided Doggie through the jaws of death.
* * * * *
That evening she had a long talk in the kitchen with Phineas. The news
of Doggie's safety had been given out by Willoughby, without any
details. Mo Shendish had leaped about her like a fox-terrier, and she
had laughed, with difficulty restraining her tears. But to Phineas
alone she told her whole story. He listened in bewilderment. And the
greater the bewilderment, the worse his crude translations of English
into French. She wound up a long, eager speech by saying:
"He has done this for me. Why?"
"Love," replied Phineas bluntly.
"It is more than love," said Jeanne, thinking of the Wonderful
Spiritual Something.
"If you could understand English," said Phineas, "I would enter into
the metaphysics of the subject with pleasure, but in French it is
beyond me."
Jeanne smiled, and turned to the matter-of-fact.
"He will go to England now that he is wounded?"
"He's on the way now," said Phineas.
"Has he many friends there? I ask, because he talks so little of
himself. He is so modest."
"Oh, many friends. You see, mademoiselle," said Phineas, with a view
to setting her mind at rest, "Doggie's an important person in his part
of the country. He was brought up in luxury. I know, because I lived
with him as his tutor for seven years. His father and mother are dead,
and he could go on living in luxury now, if he liked."
"He is then, rich--Doggie?"
"He has a fine house of his own in the country, with many servants and
automobiles, and--wait"--he made a swift arithmetical calculation--"and
an income of eighty thousand francs a year."
"_Comment?_" cried Jeanne sharply, with a little frown.
Phineas McPhail was enjoying himself, basking in the sunshine of
Doggie's wealth. Also, when conversation in French resolved itself
into the statement of simple facts, he could get along famously. So
the temptation of the glib phrase outran his discretion.
"Doggie has a fortune of about two million francs."
"_Il doit faire un beau mariage_," said Jeanne, with stony calm.
Phineas suddenly became aware of pitfalls and summoned his craft and
astuteness and knowledge of affairs. He smiled, as he thought,
encouragingly.
"The only fine marriage is with the person one loves."
"Not always, monsieur," said Jeanne, who had watched the gathering of
the sagacities with her deep eyes. "In any case"--she rose and held
out her hand--"our friend will be well looked after in England."
"Like a prince," said Phineas.
He strode away greatly pleased with himself, and went and found Mo
Shendish.
"Man," said he, "have you ever reflected that the dispensing of
happiness is the cheapest form of human diversion?"
"What've you been doin' now?" asked Mo.
"I've just left a lassie tottering over with blissful dreams."
"Gorblime!" said Mo, "and to think that if I could sling the lingo, I
might've done the same!"
But Phineas had knocked all the dreams out of Jeanne. The British
happy-go-lucky ways of marriage are not those of the French
_bourgeoisie_, and Jeanne had no notion of British happy-go-lucky
ways. Phineas had knocked the dream out of Jeanne by kicking Doggie
out of her sphere. And there was a girl in England in Doggie's sphere
whom he was to marry. She knew it. A man does not gather his
sagacities in order to answer crookedly a direct challenge, unless
there is some necessity.
Well. She would never see Doggie again. He would pass out of her life.
His destiny called him, if he survived the slaughter of the war, to
the shadowy girl in England. Yet he had done _that_ for her. For no
other woman could he ever in this life do _that_ again. It was past
love. Her brain boggled at an elusive spiritual idea. She was very
young, flung cleanly trained from the convent into the war's terrific
tragedy, wherein maiden romantic fancies were scorched in the tender
bud. Only her honest traditions of marriage remained. Of love she knew
nothing. She leaped beyond it, seeking, seeking. She would never see
him again. There she met the Absolute. But he had done _that_ for
her--that which, she knew not why, but she knew--he would do for no
other woman. The Splendour of it would be her everlasting possession.
She undressed that night, proud, dry-eyed, heroical, and went to bed,
and listened to the rhythmic tramp of the sentry across the gateway
below her window, and suddenly a lump rose in her throat and she fell
to crying miserably.