CHAPTER XVGASPARD
IT was after Madame Guerin and Jean had gone that Gaspard arrived. A tall, bronzed young man he was, graver than Victor, very gentle, very quiet. Lucie found him polite, but it was very evident that he preferred Annette to her. The two spent much time together and Lucie felt rather lonely. Without Madame Guerin’s brisk presence the house appeared very still. Upon leaving, madame had asked Paulette to have an eye to matters domestic, not trusting entirely to the judgment of the two young maids.
The first report of Victor informed them that he was hanging between life and death, barely holding his own, yet this much was more than had been anticipated and every one was more hopeful. Pom Pom, too, had come through his ordeal satisfactorily, and while the doctor could not, yet, give much encouragement he did not discourage.
For some reason Odette placed the two in the same balance. “If one recovers the other will,” she declared to Lucie.
“Why do you say that?” Lucie asked. “How do you know, Odette?”
“I do not know it; I only feel it. Something tells me so.”
“I wish the something would tell you that they are sure to get well,” responded Lucie.
Since coming to the country and spending so much time out-of-doors Odette had grown taller and stronger. She was naturally pale but plentiful food had given her a healthier look, and the haunting look of despair was gradually leaving her eyes. She was industrious to the last degree, and was popular with those working both indoors and out. Paulette was devoted to her, and once had said to Lucie: “She is such a child as I should wish my little Rose Marie to have been if she had lived, my Rose Marie who died when she was but three years old.” And Lucie considered that the greatest compliment that Odette could have received. The little peasant, however, showed her pride by never seeking Lucie, but was always delighted if Lucie sought her, as she did on those days when Gaspard seemed to monopolize Annette. The latter now was seldom ready to study in the morning. She would sit with her sewing in the living-room, Madame Le Brun a watchful chaperon, while Gaspard told of his experiences in the war.
Sometimes Lucie would listen for a while,but there was never as much laughter as during the hour when Lucie stumbling over her Latin nouns and Mons. Le Brun struggling with the English pronunciation, made merry. Monsieur always considered it a great joke to call Lucie “Mees,” and to act the part of a little boy, so if neither one made much progress at least they heartened one another and made this morning hour a pleasant one.
It was one day when talking to Odette that Lucie made a discovery. Michel had just brought the daily report from the good old doctor. The boy never failed to do this errand which he voluntarily took upon himself. Pom Pom was better, a mere trifle better. It might not be permanent. Another day would show, perhaps.
“That is good to hear,” cried Lucie, her face beaming, as Odette gave her the news just learned from Michel. “Now we shall see, Odette, if you are a true prophetess, when the next news comes from Victor. If he is also better I shall think that something which tells you things has spoken the truth. I wish you did not work in the fields till so late, Odette.”
“But it is right that I should.”
“I suppose so, but it leaves me without a companion much of the time. When Gaspard goes I suppose I shall see something of Annette again. Of course it is her duty to entertainhim, for Madame Le Brun cannot take responsibilities, and in Madame Guerin’s absence Annette is really thechatelaine.”
“There is Mons. Le Brun.”
“Yes, to be sure, but those two cannot spend all the time together. I think Gaspard really prefers the others, when it comes to that. It seems rather peculiar, too.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Annette is a dear girl, and I like to be with her myself because I, too, am a girl, but Gaspard is a grown-up man. He is three years older than Victor.”
“And you think grown-up men do not care for the society of young ladies? I never heard that before.” There was a little mocking look in Odette’s eyes.
“Young ladies, yes, but Annette is not a young lady.”
“I think you told me she is sixteen.”
“You are sixteen but you are not a young lady.”
“In two years she will be a young lady; she will be of marriageable age. She is not too young to be fiancée.”
Lucie looked at Odette, for a moment taken aback. “Do you really think they are fianced? I never in the world thought of that. I mean to ask her. No, on second thoughts I would rather ask Mons. Le Brun. I can be more confidential with him these days than with Annette.I think if it is so that she should have told me, old friends as we are.”
“It may not be arranged; it may be only going to be.”
Lucie drew a long sigh. “When my friends begin to grow up like this I feel very queer and out of place. It makes me want my mother.”
“It does make one feel that way,” returned Odette.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know; I only judge so.”
“One of those times when something tells you,” said Lucie, laughing. “Well, Odette, don’t you grow up and leave me.”
“I shall always wish to be near you whether I am grown up or not,” returned Odette diplomatically.
“Well, I am going to hunt up Grandfather Le Brun. I know I can get him to tell me anything.Au revoir, Odette.”
“You will tell me what you learn?”
“If I may,” Lucie answered back and then ran on to the house, to find Mons. Le Brun smoking under the trees.
“Vell, Mees,” he greeted her, “’ow do you do?”
“Very well, sir.”
“Ver-r-ee vell, seer,” he tried to repeat.
“Very well, not ‘very vell,’ and you don’t say ‘seer,’ you say ‘sir.’”
“‘Bien.’ I say ‘Ver-ree ou-ell, sur.’ Correct, no?”
“Much better, very much better. Monsieur, I want you to tell me something. How do people act when they are in love?”
“Mon Dieu!She wishes to conjugate the verbamo. It is so long, mademoiselle, since I played the young lover I should scarcely know. I love; you love; he loves; that is how it goes. But why do you ask? Are you perhaps falling in love, with the doctor is it? There is no one else but Gaspard, and Gaspard—”
“Exactly; it is Gaspard whom I mean.”
“But, my child—” The old man became so agitated that he dropped his stick, which Lucie hastened to pick up. “Gaspard—your parents; you are so young, moreover Gaspard—” He paused helplessly.
Lucie burst into a peal of laughter. “You didn’t suppose I was talking about Gaspard and myself?” She laughed again.
He shrugged his shoulders. “They are impossible, these females. One cannot tell what they mean. You ask me about love. You mention Gaspard. What am I to think?”
“Dear monsieur, forgive me. It is all my fault. Come let us sit down under our own tree of the morning study and I will explain. I perceive that this Gaspard prefers Annette’s society to yours or mine, and I begin to wonder.I forget that Annette will so soon be grown up; when I do realize I see that it is quite possible that they should be fianced, but Annette who has always confided in me suddenly tells me nothing, so I come to you.”
“You admit it would be a very good arrangement. Annette will have a respectabledot; Gaspard will inherit this place. We are old, my wife and I. We wish to see Annette well settled. I tell you this in confidence, because of my old friendship for your grandfather and of your friendship for Annette. Nothing can be positively settled until Madame Guerin returns, but then—we know her wishes upon this subject and so you may guess how it will turn out.”
Lucie lost no time in telling Odette what she had found out. “You are the wisest creature, Odette,” she said. “I should never in the world have thought of this by myself. I don’t see how you know so much. I am with Annette much more than you and yet I didn’t suspect.”
Odette smiled a little demure smile. She was much more sedate in these days than she had been in the city. Probably she worked off her surplus energy in the fields. “One sees some things, hears some things, guesses the rest,” she replied.
“Well, your eyes must be sharper than mine. I confess I go about dreaming sometimes, andthat I suppose you do not. I look about at things, you at people.”
“And things too.”
That night as Lucie was making ready for bed she heard Annette stirring in the next room. The night was calm and bright. The nightingales were singing their hearts out. All sorts of sweet odors were borne in through the windows; the scent of lilac blooms, of apple blossoms, of young green leaves, of newly worked earth. Lucie tapped at Annette’s door and at the invitation to enter she went in. Annette, in her dressing gown, was kneeling by the open window. Lucie knelt beside her. Neither girl spoke for a time, then Lucie murmured: “How unspeakably peaceful and lovely. Does it seem possible that not so many miles away there are terrible things going on?”
“That is what troubles one,” returned Annette. “In a few days there will be another for us to be anxious about.”
“You mean Gaspard? I know. Your grandfather told me. Do you then care so much for him, Annette?”
“He is my cousin.”
“Of course; I know that, but do you like thinking of him as your fiancé?”
“Oh, yes, much better than of one I did not know. He is good and kind.”
“But are you really in love with him?”
“Of course I shall be when he is my husband. It would be quite out of place to say so now.”
“Then I know you are not. I shall never, never consent to marry any one that I do not truly love. My mother chose my father and he chose her. They were madly in love.”
“That happens, of course it happens, but quite the same one’s family make the selection first.”
“It did not happen so in the case of my parents. My mother was traveling in France. She met my father at the house of a friend, and at once they wished to meet again, and so they did, many times. Then my father went over to America and asked her parents, and they were married.”
“That is not the way of my parents. It was all arranged before they met at all. I think I am very fortunate that it is Gaspard who is selected for me by my grandparents. I like him and he likes me.”
To Lucie’s mind this was a very mild way of putting it. Her imagination rioted in more romantic paths.
“Figure to yourself,” Annette went on, “how it would be if your parents were to come to you and say: ‘We have chosen a fiancé for you, an estimable young man’; suppose we say it is Victor; I mention him because he is one you know very well; would you be so foolishas to declare that you would not marry him just because you were not wildly in love with him, a young man of good character, similar tastes, in your own station in life and good prospects? No, no, Lucie, it is because you are so young and inexperienced that you think so. You will change your mind when you are older.”
“When I am as old as my very experienced and mature friend Annette,” returned Lucie, laughing. “Well, Annette, if you are satisfied that is all I am concerned with. I was afraid maybe you were not and that made me unhappy. I do hope Gaspard is good enough for you.”
Annette turned around in surprise. “Good enough? Of course he is,” she exclaimed. “But, Lucie, do not take everything for granted; there can be no actual betrothal until Aunt Clothilde returns. She is coming soon, we hope, and then Gaspard’s leave expires, and he goes back.”
The thought which was in Lucie’s heart she did not express. Suppose Gaspard should fall in the war, what then? She gave Annette a good-night kiss and went back to her room.
A few days later Madame Guerin returned. Jules went to meet her in the old cabriolet, but it was not Jules who came back with her in it. He walked instead. Lucie, Annette and Gaspard walked down between the rows of appletrees to meet the returned madame. “But that is not Jules with her,” said Annette suddenly.
Lucie turned her eyes from the drifting blossoms, gave one quick exclamation and darted forward, all her heart in her cry of: “Papa! Papa!”
The gig stopped. Lucie clambered in to cover her father’s face with kisses, and to murmur little ecstatic words of endearment. Then she climbed out again, running alongside till the old vehicle reached the house. In her joy of the moment she even forgot to ask about Victor, and it was not till Gaspard made the inquiry that she learned how he was.
“He is slowly improving,” madame told them. “They do not know yet how much he may be disfigured or whether he will ever regain the use of his right arm. It is a long slow road he must go, if indeed he recovers, yet there is hope and that is more than at first was given. That I should live to see him lying there like that! I could do no good, they told me. It is all a matter of time and of skilled attention from the doctors. If there is any complication, any change for the worse, they will notify me.”
“But papa was as badly wounded, weren’t you, papa?” Lucie spoke up. “And you see he is quite well again. I know Victor will be, too.”
“It is cheering to have you say so,” respondedmadame, nodding to her, and continuing her way toward the house, the others following with her various bags and bundles, Lucie hanging on her father’s arm and bringing up the rear.
Mons. Le Brun came to the door and looked out to see what was causing all the talk and excitement. He stopped short, looked puzzled, then hurried forward with both hands outstretched. “Marcel, my dear Marcel,” he cried. “This is a surprise and a great joy.” Then he embraced him, kissed him on each cheek, and began talking and questioning at such a rate that Lucie had no chance at all.
She took this opportunity to run around to tell Paulette and Odette the news, creating quite the sensation she desired. “Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Paulette. “It is your father, Mons. Marcel? How is this? Does he look well? Does he remain long?”
“Come and see for yourself,” Lucie urged. They started out toward the front of the house but met Mons. Du Bois halfway, for he had missed Lucie and had come in search of her.
“Running away so soon from your father, my daughter?” he said.
“Oh, no, papa, but Mons. Le Brun was so busy talking, so I came to bring Paulette.”
“Our good friend Paulette, our good friend.” Mons Du. Bois took both her brown, work-hardened hands and held them for a moment.“How can I thank you, Paulette, for all you have done for this dear daughter?”
“I, monsieur? It is nothing I have done, nothing to speak of. I would be criminal to have done less, and what has she not been to me? I could not have borne it all if it had not been for her.”
“Odette, too. You must see Odette, papa, my friend of whom I have written you,” Lucie chimed in.
So Odette was brought out to be made known to her Lucie’s father, and to greet him somewhat shyly, but with a little dignity of her own. Then Lucie bore her father off for a long, long talk.
For some moments they sat looking in each other’s faces for the changes the year had wrought. The happy, childlike look had gone from Lucie’s eyes. There was a more wistful expression around her mouth, and her face in repose looked very sad. She was not the merry child of the last year’s spring. In her father’s eyes was that far-seeing, rapt expression she had once noticed in Victor’s. It was as if he had seen visions, unearthly things. He looked older, sterner. There were hard, set lines around his mouth.
The change in him gave Lucie a strange, contracted feeling about her throat. She wound her arms around his neck and clung to him veryclosely while he held her tight. “It seemed as if I should never, never see you again,” she murmured. “It has been a whole year, a whole year, papa, since those happy days in our own home. You have heard nothing more?”
“Nothing.”
“But you think she is alive, that we shall see her again?”
“I could not endure it if I believed otherwise.”
“They do send them back sometimes, don’t they? those who have been taken into Germany.”
“Sometimes, yes, when they are no longer of use.” He spoke in a bitter tone. Lucie sighed and hid her face again on her father’s breast to hide the gathering tears.
“I tried to be brave, papa,” she said brokenly. “I still try, but sometimes it is very hard.”
“Do I not know that, dear daughter?”
“But soldiers are always brave.”
“They try to be; they always are outwardly, but there are times when the spirit faints.”
“I am glad you tell me that, for there are days when my spirit goes down, down into the very depths, yet I am much better off than so many many others, than Odette, for instance. She has lost both her parents. You think there is no doubt she is in Germany?” She went back to the subject of her mother, of whom she rarely spoke to any one.
“It is possible that she is in some one of the captured towns.”
“Would that be better?”
“It might be; it might not. It all depends upon the officers in charge. I think it is more probable that she is in Germany, for we believe that her message came through some escaped prisoner who did not come my way and so posted the message.”
“It was a great comfort.”
“The greatest in the world.”
Then they fell to talking of other things, of the dear grandfather, of Victor, of Pom Pom, till Michel came by where they were sitting, on his way from the doctor’s. He waved his cap when he saw Lucie. “He is better, mademoiselle, and unless he takes a bad turn the doctor thinks there is a good chance for him.”
“Thank you, Michel, that is good news you bring to-day,” Lucie answered cheerily. “Such a good doctor, so kind, so devoted. His only son has gone to the service and he has taken up the practice again. He had retired, you see, for he is quite an old man. The people adore him, for he is just as attentive to the poorest as to the richest. He came all the way out here to see Pom Pom, and is watching and nursing him as if he were his dearest friend.”
“There is much goodness in the world,” her father returned thoughtfully, “but sometimes ittakes great afflictions to make one realize it. You are contented here, little one?”
“As much as I could be while things are as they are, and much more so than in Paris. Of course I long for the day to come when we can go back to our own home. Paulette is always talking about it. Will the war last so very much longer? Can we go as soon as the Germans have left our town?”
“I am afraid those are questions it would take a wiser one than I to answer.”
“But you would like me to stay here till it is safe to go back, and you will come when you can to see me? It is farther away than Paris, you know.”
“It does not appear that there is a better place for you, here among friends, and I feel satisfied while you have Paulette, she is such a good devoted soul.”
“She is all that, and Odette, too. Then I am satisfied if you are.”
Many other long talks did the two have during Mons. Du Bois’s period of leave, and more than one thing was settled during his stay, among them the affair between Gaspard and Annette. The two soldiers went off together and life settled back into its former routine atCoin-du-Pres.