‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué?’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué?’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué?’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,
Ma Doué?’
She could hear the soft Breton words quite clearly.
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Pour nous dire la Messe?’‘Quand la nuit sera bien tombéeJe tiendrai ma promesse.’‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Sans nappe de fine toile?’‘Notre Doux Seigneur poseraiSur un morceau de voile.’‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Sans chandelle et sans cierge?’‘Les astres seront allumésPar Madame la Vierge.’‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Sans orgue résonnante?’‘Jésus touchera le clavierDes vagues mugissantes.’‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Si l’Ennemi nous trouble?’‘Une seule fois je vous bénirai,Les Bleus bénirai double!’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Pour nous dire la Messe?’‘Quand la nuit sera bien tombéeJe tiendrai ma promesse.’‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Sans nappe de fine toile?’‘Notre Doux Seigneur poseraiSur un morceau de voile.’‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Sans chandelle et sans cierge?’‘Les astres seront allumésPar Madame la Vierge.’‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Sans orgue résonnante?’‘Jésus touchera le clavierDes vagues mugissantes.’‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Si l’Ennemi nous trouble?’‘Une seule fois je vous bénirai,Les Bleus bénirai double!’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Pour nous dire la Messe?’‘Quand la nuit sera bien tombéeJe tiendrai ma promesse.’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,
Pour nous dire la Messe?’
‘Quand la nuit sera bien tombée
Je tiendrai ma promesse.’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Sans nappe de fine toile?’‘Notre Doux Seigneur poseraiSur un morceau de voile.’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,
Ma Doué,
Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,
Sans nappe de fine toile?’
‘Notre Doux Seigneur poserai
Sur un morceau de voile.’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Sans chandelle et sans cierge?’‘Les astres seront allumésPar Madame la Vierge.’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,
Ma Doué,
Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,
Sans chandelle et sans cierge?’
‘Les astres seront allumés
Par Madame la Vierge.’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Sans orgue résonnante?’‘Jésus touchera le clavierDes vagues mugissantes.’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,
Ma Doué,
Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,
Sans orgue résonnante?’
‘Jésus touchera le clavier
Des vagues mugissantes.’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Ma Doué,Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,Si l’Ennemi nous trouble?’‘Une seule fois je vous bénirai,Les Bleus bénirai double!’
‘Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,
Ma Doué,
Mais comment ferez vous, l’Abbé,
Si l’Ennemi nous trouble?’
‘Une seule fois je vous bénirai,
Les Bleus bénirai double!’
Closing the study door behind her, Stephen thoughtfully climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
Withthe New Year came flowers from Valérie Seymour, and a little letter of New Year’s greeting. Then she paid a rather ceremonious call and was entertained by Puddle and Stephen. Before leaving she invited them both to luncheon, but Stephen refused on the plea of her work.
‘I’m hard at it again.’
At this Valérie smiled. ‘Very well then, à bientôt. You know where to find me, ring up when you’re free, which I hope will be soon.’ After which she took her departure.
But Stephen was not to see her again for a very considerable time, as it happened. Valérie was also a busy woman—there are other affairs beside the writing of novels.
Brockett was in London on account of his plays. He wrote seldom, though when he did so he was cordial, affectionate even; but now he was busy with success, and with gathering in the shekels. He had not lost interest in Stephen again, only just at the moment she did not fit in with his brilliant and affluent scheme of existence.
So once more she and Puddle settled down together to a life that was strangely devoid of people, a life of almost complete isolation, and Puddle could not make up her mind whether she felt relieved or regretful. For herself she cared nothing, her anxious thoughts were as always centred in Stephen. However, Stephen appeared quite contented—she was launched on her book and was pleased with her writing. Paris inspired her to do good work, and as recreation she now had her fencing—twice every week she now fenced with Buisson, that severe but incomparable master.
Buisson had been very rude at first: ‘Hideous, affreux, horriblement English!’ he had shouted, quite outraged by Stephen’s style. All the same he took a great interest in her. ‘You write books; what a pity! I could make you a fine fencer. You have the man’s muscles, and the long, graceful lunge when you do not remember that you are a Briton and become—what you say? ah, mais oui, self-conscious. I wish that I had find you out sooner—however, your muscles are young still, pliant.’ And one day he said: ‘Let me feel the muscles,’ then proceeded to pass his hand down her thighs and across her strong loins: ‘Tiens, tiens!’ he murmured.
After this he would sometimes look at her gravely with a puzzled expression; but she did not resent him, nor his rudeness, nor his technical interest in her muscles. Indeed, she liked the cross little man with his bristling black beard and his peppery temper, and when he remarked à propos of nothing: ‘We are all great imbeciles about nature. We make our own rules and call them la nature; we say she do this, she do that—imbeciles! She do what she please and then make the long nose.’ Stephen felt neither shy nor resentful.
These lessons were a great relaxation from work, and thanks to them her health grew much better. Her body, accustomed to severe exercise, had resented the sedentary life in London. Now, however, she began to take care of her health, walking for a couple of hours in the Bois every day, or exploring the tall, narrow streets that lay near her home in the Quarter. The sky would look bright at the end of such streets by contrast, as though it were seen through a tunnel. Sometimes she would stand gazing into the shops of the wider and more prosperous Rue des Saints Pères; the old furniture shops; the crucifix shop with its dozens of crucified Christs in the window—so many crucified ivory Christs! She would think that one must surely exist for every sin committed in Paris. Or perhaps she would make her way over the river, crossing by the Pont des Arts. And one morning, arrived at the Rue des Petits Champs, what must she suddenly do but discover the Passage Choiseul, by just stepping inside for shelter, because it had started raining.
Oh, the lure of the Passage Choiseul, the queer, rather gawky attraction of it. Surely the most hideous place in all Paris, with its roof of stark wooden ribs and glass panes—the roof that looks like the vertebral column of some prehistoric monster. The chocolate smell of the patisserie—the big one where people go who have money. The humbler, student smell of Lavrut, where one’s grey rubber bands are sold by the gramme and are known as: ‘Bracelets de caoutchouc.’ Where one buys première qualité blotting paper of a deep ruddy tint and the stiffness of cardboard, and thin but inspiring manuscript books bound in black, with mottled, shiny blue borders. Where pencils and pens are found in their legions, of all makes, all shapes, all colours, all prices; while outside on the trustful trays in the Passage, lives Gomme Onyx, masquerading as marble, and as likely to rub a hole in your paper. For those who prefer the reading of books to the writing of them, there is always Lemerre with his splendid display of yellow bindings. And for those undisturbed by imagination, the taxidermist’s shop is quite near the corner—they can stare at a sad and moth-eaten flamingo, two squirrels, three parrots and a dusty canary. Some are tempted by the cheap corduroy at the draper’s, where it stands in great rolls as though it were carpet. Some pass on to the little stamp merchant, while a few dauntless souls even enter the chemist’s—that shamelessly anatomical chemist’s, whose wares do not figure in school manuals on the practical uses of rubber.
And up and down this Passage Choiseul, pass innumerable idle or busy people, bringing in mud and rain in the winter, bringing in dust and heat in the summer, bringing in God knows how many thoughts, some part of which cannot escape with their owners. The very air of the Passage seems heavy with all these imprisoned thoughts.
Stephen’s thoughts got themselves entrapped with the others, but hers, at the moment, were those of a schoolgirl, for her eye had suddenly lit on Lavrut, drawn thereto by the trays of ornate india-rubber. And once inside, she could not resist the ‘Bracelets de caoutchouc,’ or the blotting paper as red as a rose, or the manuscript books with the mottled blue borders. Growing reckless, she gave an enormous order for the simple reason that these things looked different. In the end she actually carried away one of those inspiring manuscript books, and then got herself driven home by a taxi, in order the sooner to fill it.
Thatspring, in the foyer of the Comédie Francaise, Stephen stumbled across a link with the past in the person of a middle-aged woman. The woman was stout and wore pince-nez; her sparse brown hair was already greying; her face, which was long, had a double chin, and that face seemed vaguely familiar to Stephen. Then suddenly Stephen’s two hands were seized and held fast in those of the middle-aged woman, while a voice grown loud with delight and emotion was saying:
‘Mais oui, c’est ma petite Stévenne!’
Back came a picture of the schoolroom at Morton, with a battered red book on its ink-stained table—the Bibliothèque Rose—‘Les Petites Filles Modèles,’ ‘Les Bons Enfants,’ and Mademoiselle Duphot.
Stephen said: ‘To think—after all these years!’
‘Ah, quelle joie! Quelle joie!’ babbled Mademoiselle Duphot.
And now Stephen was being embraced on both cheeks, then held at arm’s length for a better inspection. ‘But how tall, how strong you are, ma petite Stévenne. You remember what I say, that we meet in Paris? I say when I go, “But you come to Paris when you grow up bigger, my poor little baby!” I keep looking and looking, but I knowed you at once. I say, “Oui certainement, that is ma petite Stévenne, no one ’ave such another face what I love, it could only belong to Stévenne,” I say. And now voilà! I am correct and I find you.’
Stephen released herself firmly but gently, replying in French to calm Mademoiselle, whose linguistic struggles increased every moment.
‘I’m living in Paris altogether,’ she told her; ‘you must come and see me—come to dinner to-morrow; 35, Rue Jacob.’ Then she introduced Puddle who had been an amused spectator.
The two ex-guardians of Stephen’s young mind shook hands with each other very politely, and they made such a strangely contrasted couple that Stephen must smile to see them together. The one was so small, so quiet and so English; the other so portly, so tearful, so French in her generous, if somewhat embarrassing emotion.
As Mademoiselle regained her composure, Stephen was able to observe her more closely, and she saw that her face was excessively childish—a fact which she, when a child, had not noticed. It was more the face of a foal than a horse—an innocent, new-born foal.
Mademoiselle said rather wistfully: ‘I will dine with much pleasure to-morrow evening, but when will you come and see me in my home? It is in the Avenue de la Grande Armée, a small apartment, very small but so pretty—it is pleasant to have one’s treasures around one. The bon Dieu has been very good to me, Stévenne, for my Aunt Clothilde left me a little money when she died; it has proved a great consolation.’
‘I’ll come very soon,’ promised Stephen.
Then Mademoiselle spoke at great length of her aunt, and of Maman who had also passed on into glory; Maman, who had had her chicken on Sunday right up to the very last moment, Dieu merci! Even when her teeth had grown loose in the gums, Maman had asked for her chicken on Sunday. But alas, the poor sister who once made little bags out of beads for the shops in the Rue de la Paix, and who had such a cruel and improvident husband—the poor sister had now become totally blind, and therefore dependent on Mademoiselle Duphot. So after all Mademoiselle Duphot still worked, giving lessons in French to the resident English; and sometimes she taught the American children who were visiting Paris with their parents. But then it was really far better to work; one might grow too fat if one remained idle.
She beamed at Stephen with her gentle brown eyes. ‘They are not as you were, ma chère petite Stévenne, not clever and full of intelligence, no; and at times I almost despair of their accent. However, I am not at all to be pitied, thanks to Aunt Clothilde and the good little saints who surely inspired her to leave me that money.’
When Stephen and Puddle returned to their stalls, Mademoiselle climbed to a humbler seat somewhere under the roof, and as she departed she waved her plump hand at Stephen.
Stephen said: ‘She’s so changed that I didn’t know her just at first, or else perhaps I’d forgotten. I felt terribly guilty, because after you came I don’t think I ever answered her letters. It’s thirteen years since she left. . . .’
Puddle nodded. ‘Yes, it’s thirteen years since I took her place and forced you to tidy that abominable schoolroom!’ And she laughed. ‘All the same, I like her,’ said Puddle.
Mademoiselle Duphotadmired the house in the Rue Jacob, and she ate very largely of the rich and excellent dinner. Quite regardless of her increasing proportions, she seemed drawn to all those things that were fattening.
‘I cannot resist,’ she remarked with a smile, as she reached for her fifth marron glacé.
They talked of Paris, of its beauty, its charm. Then Mademoiselle spoke yet again of her Maman and of Aunt Clothilde who had left them the money, and of Julie, her blind sister.
But after the meal she quite suddenly blushed. ‘Oh, Stévenne, I have never inquired for your parents! What must you think of such great impoliteness? I lose my head the moment I see you and grow selfish—I want you to know about me and my Maman; I babble about my affairs. What must you think of such great impoliteness? How is that kind and handsome Sir Philip? And your mother, my dear, how is Lady Anna?’
And now it was Stephen’s turn to grow red. ‘My father died. . . .’ She hesitated, then finished abruptly, ‘I don’t live with my mother any more, I don’t live at Morton.’
Mademoiselle gasped. ‘You no longer live . . .’ she began, then something in Stephen’s face warned her kind but bewildered guest not to question. ‘I am deeply grieved to hear of your father’s death, my dear,’ she said very gently.
Stephen answered: ‘Yes—I shall always miss him.’
There ensued a long, rather painful silence, during which Mademoiselle Duphot felt awkward. What had happened between the mother and daughter? It was all very strange, very disconcerting. And Stephen, why was she exiled from Morton? But Mademoiselle could not cope with these problems, she knew only that she wanted Stephen to be happy, and her kind brown eyes grew anxious, for she did not feel certain that Stephen was happy. Yet she dared not ask for an explanation, so instead she clumsily changed the subject.
‘When will you both come to tea with me, Stévenne?’
‘We’ll come to-morrow if you like.’ Stephen told her.
Mademoiselle Duphot left rather early; and all the way home to her apartment her mind felt exercised about Stephen.
She thought: ‘She was always a strange little child, but so dear. I remember her when she was little, riding her pony astride like a boy; and how proud he would seem, that handsome Sir Philip—they would look more like father and son, those two. And now—is she not still a little bit strange?’
But these thoughts led her nowhere, for Mademoiselle Duphot was quite unacquainted with the bypaths of nature. Her innocent mind was untutored and trustful; she believed in the legend of Adam and Eve, and no careless mistakes had been made in their garden!
The apartmentin the Avenue de la Grande Armée was as tidy as Valérie’s had been untidy. From the miniature kitchen to the miniature salon, everything shone as though recently polished, for here in spite of restricted finances, no dust was allowed to harbour.
Mademoiselle Duphot beamed on her guests as she herself opened the door to admit them. ‘For me this is very real joy,’ she declared. Then she introduced them to her sister Julie, whose eyes were hidden behind dark glasses.
The salon was literally stuffed with what Mademoiselle had described as her ‘treasures.’ On its tables were innumerable useless objects which appeared for the most part, to be mementoes. Coloured prints of Bouguereaus hung on the walls, while the chairs were upholstered in a species of velvet so hard as to be rather slippery to sit on, yet that when it was touched felt rough to the fingers. The woodwork of these inhospitable chairs had been coated with varnish until it looked sticky. Over the little inadequate fireplace smiled a portrait of Maman when she was quite young. Maman, dressed in tartan for some strange reason, but in tartan that had never hob-nobbed with the Highlands—a present this portrait had been from a cousin who had wished to become an artist.
Julie extended a white, groping hand. She was like her sister only very much thinner, and her face had the closed rather blank expression that is sometimes associated with blindness.
‘Which is Stévenne?’ she inquired in an anxious voice; ‘I have heard so much about Stévenne!’
Stephen said: ‘Here I am,’ and she grasped the hand, pitiful of this woman’s affliction.
But Julie smiled broadly. ‘Yes, I know it is you from the feel,’—she had started to stroke Stephen’s coat-sleeve—‘my eyes have gone into my fingers these days. It is strange, but I seem to see through my fingers.’ Then she turned and found Puddle whom she also stroked. ‘And now I know both of you,’ declared Julie.
The tea when it came was that straw-coloured liquid which may even now be met with in Paris.
‘English tea bought especially for you, my Stévenne,’ remarked Mademoiselle proudly. ‘We drink only coffee, but I said to my sister, Stévenne likes the good tea, and so, no doubt, does Mademoiselle Puddle. At four o’clock they will not want coffee—you observe how well I remember your England!’
However, the cakes proved worthy of France, and Mademoiselle ate them as though she enjoyed them. Julie ate very little and did not talk much. She just sat there and listened, quietly smiling; and while she listened she crocheted lace as though, as she said, she could see through her fingers. Then Mademoiselle Duphot explained how it was that those delicate hands had become so skilful, replacing the eyes which their ceaseless labour had robbed of the blessèd privilege of sight—explained so simply yet with such conviction, that Stephen must marvel to hear her.
‘It is all our little Thérèse,’ she told Stephen. ‘You have heard of her? No? Ah, but what a pity! Our Thérèse was a nun at the Carmel at Lisieux, and she said: “I will let fall a shower of roses when I die.” She died not so long ago, but already her Cause has been presented at Rome by the Very Reverend Father Rodrigo! That is very wonderful, is it not, Stévenne? But she does not wait to become a saint; ah, but no, she is young and therefore impatient. She cannot wait, she has started already to do miracles for all those who ask her. I asked that Julie should not be unhappy through the loss of her eyes—for when she is idle she is always unhappy—so our little Thérèse has put a pair of new eyes in her fingers.’
Julie nodded. ‘It is true,’ she said very gravely; ‘before that I was stupid because of my blindness. Everything felt very strange, and I stumbled about like an old blind horse. I was terribly stupid, far more so than many. Then one night Véronique asked Thérèse to help me, and the next day I could find my way round our room. From then on my fingers saw what they touched, and now I can even make lace quite well because of this sight in my fingers.’ Then turning to the smiling Mademoiselle Duphot: ‘But why do you not show her picture to Stévenne?’
So Mademoiselle Duphot went and fetched the small picture of Thérèse, which Stephen duly examined, and the face that she saw was ridiculously youthful—round with youth it still was, and yet very determined. Sœur Thérèse looked as though if she really intended to become a saint, the devil himself would be hard put to it to stop her. Then Puddle must also examine the picture, while Stephen was shown some relics, a piece of the habit and other things such as collect in the wake of sainthood.
When they left, Julie asked them to come again; she said: ‘Come often, it will give us such pleasure.’ Then she thrust on her guests twelve yards of coarse lace which neither of them liked to offer to pay for.
Mademoiselle murmured: ‘Our home is so humble for Stévenne; we have very little to offer.’ She was thinking of the house in the Rue Jacob, a grand house, and then too she remembered Morton.
But Julie, with the strange insight of the blind, or perhaps because of those eyes in her fingers, answered quickly: ‘She will not care, Véronique, I cannot feel that sort of pride in your Stévenne.’
Aftertheir first visit they went very often to Mademoiselle’s modest little apartment. Mademoiselle Duphot and her quiet blind sister were indeed their only friends now in Paris, for Brockett was in America on business, and Stephen had not rung up Valérie Seymour.
Sometimes when Stephen was busy with her work, Puddle would make her way there all alone. Then she and Mademoiselle would get talking about Stephen’s childhood, about her future, but guardedly, for Puddle must be careful to give nothing away to the kind, simple woman. As for Mademoiselle, she too must be careful to accept all and ask no questions. Yet in spite of the inevitable gaps and restraints, a real sympathy sprang up between them, for each sensed in the other a valuable ally who would fight a good fight on behalf of Stephen. And now Stephen would quite often send her car to take the blind Julie for a drive beyond Paris. Julie would sniff the air and tell Burton that through smelling their greenness she could see the trees; he would listen to her broken and halting English with a smile—they were a queer lot these French. Or perhaps he would drive the other Mademoiselle up to Montmartre for early Mass on a Sunday. She belonged to something to do with a heart; it all seemed rather uncanny to Burton. He thought of the Vicar who had played such fine cricket, and suddenly felt very homesick for Morton. Fruit would find its way to the little apartment, together with cakes and large marrons glacés. Then Mademoiselle Duphot would become frankly greedy, eating sweets in bed while she studied her booklets on the holy and very austere Thérèse, who had certainly not eaten marrons glacés.
Thus the spring, that gentle yet fateful spring of 1914, slipped into the summer. With the budding of flowers and the singing of birds it slipped quietly on towards great disaster; while Stephen, whose book was now nearing completion, worked harder than ever in Paris.
War.The incredible yet long predicted had come to pass. People woke in the mornings with a sense of disaster, but these were the old who, having known war, remembered. The young men of France, of Germany, of Russia, of the whole world, looked round them amazed and bewildered; yet with something that stung as it leapt in their veins, filling them with a strange excitement—the bitter and ruthless potion of war that spurred and lashed at their manhood.
They hurried through the streets of Paris, these young men; they collected in bars and cafés; they stood gaping at the ominous government placards summoning their youth and strength to the colours.
They talked fast, very fast, they gesticulated: ‘C’est la guerre! C’est la guerre!’ they kept repeating.
Then they answered each other: ‘Oui, c’est la guerre.’
And true to her traditions the beautiful city sought to hide stark ugliness under beauty, and she decked herself as though for a wedding; her flags streamed out on the breeze in their thousands. With the paraphernalia and pageantry of glory she sought to disguise the true meaning of war.
But where children had been playing a few days before, troops were now encamped along the Champs Elysées. Their horses nibbled the bark from the trees and pawed at the earth, making little hollows; they neighed to each other in the watches of the night, as though in some fearful anticipation. In bystreets the unreasoning spirit of war broke loose in angry and futile actions; shops were raided because of their German names and their wares hurled out to lie in the gutters. Around every street corner some imaginary spy must be lurking, until people tilted at shadows.
‘C’est la guerre,’ murmured women, thinking of their sons.
Then they answered each other: ‘Oui, c’est la guerre.’
Pierre said to Stephen: ‘They will not take me because of my heart!’ And his voice shook with anger, and the anger brought tears which actually splashed the jaunty stripes of his livery waistcoat.
Pauline said: ‘I gave my father to the sea and my eldest brother. I have still two young brothers, they alone are left and I give them to France. Bon Dieu! It is terrible being a woman, one gives all!’ But Stephen knew from her voice that Pauline felt proud of being a woman.
Adèle said: ‘Jean is certain to get promotion, he says so, he will not long remain a Poilu. When he comes back he may be a captain—that will be fine, I shall marry a captain! War, he says, is better than piano-tuning, though I tell him he has a fine ear for music. But Mademoiselle should just see him now in his uniform! We all think he looks splendid.’
Puddle said: ‘Of course England was bound to come in, and thank God we didn’t take too long about it!’
Stephen said: ‘All the young men from Morton will go—every decent man in the country will go.’ Then she put away her unfinished novel and sat staring dumbly at Puddle.
England, the land of bountiful pastures, of peace, of mothering hills, of home. England was fighting for her right to existence. Face to face with dreadful reality at last, England was pouring her men into battle, her army was even now marching across France. Tramp, tramp; tramp, tramp; the tread of England whose men would defend her right to existence.
Anna wrote from Morton. She wrote to Puddle, but now Stephen took those letters and read them. The agent had enlisted and so had the bailiff. Old Mr. Percival, agent in Sir Philip’s lifetime, had come back to help with Morton. Jim the groom, who had stayed on under the coachman after Raftery’s death, was now talking of going; he wanted to get into the cavalry, of course, and Anna was using her influence for him. Six of the gardeners had joined up already, but Hopkins was past the prescribed age limit; he must do his small bit by looking after his grape vines—the grapes would be sent to the wounded in London. There were now no men-servants left in the house, and the home farm was short of a couple of hands. Anna wrote that she was proud of her people, and intended to pay those who had enlisted half wages. They would fight for England, but she could not help feeling that in a way they would be fighting for Morton. She had offered Morton to the Red Cross at once, and they had promised to send her convalescent cases. It was rather isolated for a hospital, it seemed, but would be just the place for convalescents. The Vicar was going as an army chaplain; Violet’s husband, Alec, had joined the Flying Corps; Roger Antrim was somewhere in France already; Colonel Antrim had a job at the barracks in Worcester.
Came an angry scrawl from Jonathan Brockett, who had rushed back to England post-haste from the States: ‘Did you ever know anything quite sostupidas this war? It’s upset my apple-cart completely—can’t write jingo plays about St. George and the dragon, and I’m sick to death of “Business as usual!” Ain’t going to be no business, my dear, except killing, and blood always makes me feel faint.’ Then the postscript: ‘I’ve just been and gone and done it! Please send me tuck-boxes when I’m sitting in a trench; I like caramel creams and of course mixed biscuits.’ Yes, even Jonathan Brockett would go—it was fine in a way that he should have enlisted.
Morton was pouring out its young men, who in their turn might pour out their life-blood for Morton. The agent, the bailiff, in training already. Jim the groom, inarticulate, rather stupid, but wanting to join the cavalry—Jim who had been at Morton since boyhood. The gardeners, kindly men smelling of soil, men of peace with a peaceful occupation; six of these gardeners had gone already, together with a couple of lads from the home farm. There were no men servants left in the house. It seemed that the old traditions still held, the traditions of England, the traditions of Morton.
The Vicar would soon play a sterner game than cricket, while Alec must put away his law books and take unto himself a pair of wings—funny to associate wings with Alec. Colonel Antrim had hastily got into khaki and was cursing and swearing, no doubt, at the barracks. And Roger—Roger was somewhere in France already, justifying his manhood. Roger Antrim, who had been so intolerably proud of that manhood—well, now he would get a chance to prove it!
But Jonathan Brockett, with the soft white hands, and the foolish gestures, and the high little laugh—even he could justify his existence, for they had not refused him when he went to enlist. Stephen had never thought to feel envious of a man like Jonathan Brockett.
She sat smoking, with his letter spread out before her on the desk, his absurd yet courageous letter, and somehow it humbled her pride to the dust, for she could not so justify her existence. Every instinct handed down by the men of her race, every decent instinct of courage, now rose to mock her so that all that was male in her make-up seemed to grow more aggressive, aggressive perhaps as never before, because of this new frustration. She felt appalled at the realization of her own grotesqueness; she was nothing but a freak abandoned on a kind of no-man’s-land at this moment of splendid national endeavour. England was calling her men into battle, her women to the bedsides of the wounded and dying, and between these two chivalrous, surging forces she, Stephen, might well be crushed out of existence—of less use to her country, she was, than Brockett. She stared at her bony masculine hands, they had never been skilful when it came to illness; strong they might be, but rather inept; not hands wherewith to succour the wounded. No, assuredly her job, if job she could find, would not lie at the bedsides of the wounded. And yet, good God, one must do something!
Going to the door she called in the servants: ‘I’m leaving for England in a few days,’ she told them, ‘and while I’m away you’ll take care of this house. I have absolute confidence in you.’
Pierre said: ‘All things shall be done as you would wish, Mademoiselle.’ And she knew that it would be so.
That evening she told Puddle of her decision, and Puddle’s face brightened: ‘I’m so glad, my dear, when war comes one ought to stand by one’s country.’
‘I’m afraid they won’t want my sort . . .’ Stephen muttered.
Puddle put a firm little hand over hers: ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that, this war may give your sort of woman her chance. I think you may find that they’ll need you, Stephen.’
Therewere no farewells to be said in Paris except those to Buisson and Mademoiselle Duphot.
Mademoiselle Duphot shed a few tears: ‘I find you only to lose you, Stévenne. Ah, but how many friends will be parted, perhaps for ever, by this terrible war—and yet what else could we do? We are blameless!’
In Berlin people were also saying: ‘What else could we do? We are blameless!’
Julie’s hand lingered on Stephen’s arm: ‘You feel so strong,’ she said, sighing a little, ‘it is good to be strong and courageous these days, and to have one’s eyes—alas, I am quite useless.’
‘No one is useless who can pray, my sister,’ reproved Mademoiselle almost sternly.
And indeed there were many who thought as she did, the churches were crowded all over France. A great wave of piety swept through Paris, filling the dark confessional boxes, so that the priests had now some ado to cope with such shoals of penitent people—the more so as every priest fit to fight had been summoned to join the army. Up at Montmartre the church of the Sacré Cœur echoed and re-echoed with the prayers of the faithful, while those prayers that were whispered with tears in secret, hung like invisible clouds round its altars.
‘Save us, most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Have pity upon us, have pity upon France. Save us, oh, Heart of Jesus!’
So all day long must the priests sit and hear the time-honoured sins of body and spirit; a monotonous hearing because of its sameness, since nothing is really new under the sun, least of all our manner of sinning. Men who had not been to Mass for years, now began to remember their first Communion; thus it was that many a hardy blasphemer, grown suddenly tongue-tied and rather sheepish, clumped up to the altar in his new army boots, having made an embarrassed confession.
Young clericals changed into uniform and marched side by side with the roughest Poilus, to share in their hardships, their hopes, their terrors, their deeds of supremest valour. Old men bowed their heads and gave of the strength which no longer animated their bodies, gave of that strength through the bodies of their sons who would charge into battle shouting and singing. Women of all ages knelt down and prayed, since prayer has long been the refuge of women. ‘No one is useless who can pray, my sister.’ The women of France had spoken through the lips of the humble Mademoiselle Duphot.
Stephen and Puddle said good-bye to the sisters, then went on to Buisson’s Academy of Fencing, where they found him engaged upon greasing his foils.
He looked up, ‘Ah, it’s you. I must go on greasing. God knows when I shall use these again, to-morrow I join my regiment.’ But he wiped his hands on a stained overall and sat down, after clearing a chair for Puddle. ‘An ungentlemanly war it will be,’ he grumbled. ‘Will I lead my men with a sword? Ah, but no! I will lead my men with a dirty revolver in my hand. Parbleu! Such is modern warfare! A machine could do the whole cursèd thing better—we shall all be nothing but machines in this war. However, I pray that we may kill many Germans.’
Stephen lit a cigarette while the master glared, he was evidently in a very vile temper: ‘Go on, go on, smoke your heart to the devil, then come here and ask me to teach you fencing! You smoke in lighting one from the other, you remind me of your horrible Birmingham chimneys—but of course a woman exaggerates always,’ he concluded, with an evident wish to annoy her.
Then he made a few really enlightening remarks about Germans in general, their appearance, their morals, above all their personal habits—which remarks were more seemly in French than they would be in English. For, like Valérie Seymour, this man was filled with a loathing for the ugliness of his epoch, an ugliness to which he felt the Germans were just now doing their best to contribute. Buisson’s heart was not buried in Mitylene, but rather in the glories of a bygone Paris, where a gentleman lived by the skill of his rapier and the graceful courage that lay behind it.
‘In the old days we killed very beautifully,’ sighed Buisson, ‘now we merely slaughter or else do not kill at all, no matter how gross the insult.’
However, when they got up to go, he relented: ‘War is surely a very necessary evil, it thins down the imbecile populations who have murdered their most efficacious microbes. People will not die, very well, here comes war to mow them down in their tens of thousands. At least for those of us who survive, there will be more breathing space, thanks to the Germans—perhaps they too are a necessary evil.’
Arrived at the door Stephen turned to look back. Buisson was once more greasing his foils, and his fingers moved slowly yet with great precision—he might almost have been a beauty doctor engaged upon massaging ladies’ faces.
Preparations for departure did not take very long, and in less than a week’s time Stephen and Puddle had shaken hands with their Breton servants, and were driving at top speed en route for Havre, from whence they would cross to England.
Puddle’sprophecy proved to have been correct, work was very soon forthcoming for Stephen. She joined The London Ambulance Column, which was well under way by that autumn; and presently Puddle herself got a job in one of the Government departments. She and Stephen had taken a small service flat in Victoria, and here they would meet when released from their hours of duty. But Stephen was obsessed by her one idea, which was, willy-nilly, to get out to the front, and many and varied were the plans and discussions that were listened to by the sympathetic Puddle. An ambulance had managed to slip over to Belgium for a while and had done some very fine service. Stephen had hit on a similar idea, but in her case the influence required had been lacking. In vain did she offer to form a Unit at her own expense; the reply was polite but always the same, a monotonous reply: England did not send women to the front line trenches. She disliked the idea of joining the throng who tormented the patient passport officials with demands to be sent out to France at once, on no matter how insufficient a pretext. What was the use of her going to France unless she could find there the work that she wanted? She preferred to stick to her job in England.
And now quite often while she waited at the stations for the wounded, she would see unmistakable figures—unmistakable to her they would be at first sight, she would single them out of the crowd as by instinct. For as though gaining courage from the terror that is war, many a one who was even as Stephen, had crept out of her hole and come into the daylight, come into the daylight and faced her country: ‘Well, here I am, will you take me or leave me?’ And England had taken her, asking no questions—she was strong and efficient, she could fill a man’s place, she could organize too, given scope for her talent. England had said: ‘Thank you very much. You’re just what we happen to want . . . at the moment.’
So, side by side with more fortunate women, worked Miss Smith who had been breeding dogs in the country; or Miss Oliphant who had been breeding nothing since birth but a litter of hefty complexes; or Miss Tring who had lived with a very dear friend in the humbler purlieus of Chelsea. One great weakness they all had, it must be admitted, and this was for uniforms—yet why not? The good workman is worthy of his Sam Browne belt. And then too, their nerves were not at all weak, their pulses beat placidly through the worst air raids, for bombs do not trouble the nerves of the invert, but rather that terrible silent bombardment from the batteries of God’s good people.
Yet now even really nice women with hairpins often found their less orthodox sisters quite useful. It would be: ‘Miss Smith, do just start up my motor—the engine’s so cold I can’t get the thing going;’ or: ‘Miss Oliphant, do glance through these accounts, I’ve got such a rotten bad head for figures;’ or: ‘Miss Tring, may I borrow your British Warm? The office is simply arctic this morning!’
Not that those purely feminine women were less worthy of praise, perhaps they were more so, giving as they did of their best without stint—for they had no stigma to live down in the war, no need to defend their right to respect. They rallied to the call of their country superbly, and may it not be forgotten by England. But the others—since they too gave of their best, may they also not be forgotten. They might look a bit odd, indeed some of them did, and yet in the streets they were seldom stared at, though they strode a little, perhaps from shyness, or perhaps from a slightly self-conscious desire to show off, which is often the same thing as shyness. They were part of the universal convulsion and were being accepted as such, on their merits. And although their Sam Browne belts remained swordless, their hats and their caps without regimental badges, a battalion was formed in those terrible years that would never again be completely disbanded. War and death had given them a right to life, and life tasted sweet, very sweet to their palates. Later on would come bitterness, disillusion, but never again would such women submit to being driven back to their holes and corners. They had found themselves—thus the whirligig of war brings in its abrupt revenges.
Timepassed; the first year of hostilities became the second while Stephen still hoped, though no nearer to her ambition. Try as she might she could not get to the front; no work at the actual front seemed to be forthcoming for women.
Brockett wrote wonderfully cheerful letters. In every letter was a neat little list telling Stephen what he wished her to send him; but the sweets he loved were getting quite scarce, they were no longer always so easy to come by. And now he was asking for Houbigant soap to be included in his tuck-box.
‘Don’t let it get near the coffee fondants or it may make them taste like it smells,’ he cautioned, ‘and do try to send me two bottles of hair-wash, “Eau Athénienne,” I used to buy it at Truefitt’s.’ He was on a perfectly damnable front, they had sent him to Mesopotamia.
Violet Peacock, who was now a V.A.D. with a very imposing Red Cross on her apron, occasionally managed to catch Stephen at home, and then would come reams of tiresome gossip. Sometimes she would bring her over-fed children along, she was stuffing them up like capons. By fair means or foul Violet always managed to obtain illicit cream for her nursery—she was one of those mothers who reacted to the war by wishing to kill off the useless aged.
‘What’s the good of them? Eating up the food of the nation!’ she would say, ‘I’m going all out on the young, they’ll be needed to breed from.’ She was very extreme, her perspective had been upset by the air raids.
Raids frightened her as did the thought of starvation, and when frightened she was apt to grow rather sadistic, so that now she would want to rush off and inspect every ruin left by the German marauders. She had also been the first to applaud the dreadful descent of a burning Zeppelin.
She bored Stephen intensely with her ceaseless prattle about Alec, who was one of London’s defenders, about Roger, who had got the Military Cross and was just on the eve of becoming a major, about the wounded whose faces she sponged every morning, and who seemed so pathetically grateful.
From Morton came occasional letters for Puddle; they were more in the nature of reports now these letters. Anna had such and such a number of cases; the gardeners had been replaced by young women; Mr. Percival was proving very devoted, he and Anna were holding the estate well together; Williams had been seriously ill with pneumonia. Then a long list of humble names from the farms, from among Anna’s staff or from cottage homesteads, together with those from such houses as Morton—for the rich and the poor were in death united. Stephen would read that long list of names, so many of which she had known since her childhood, and would realize that the stark arm of war had struck deep at the quiet heart of the Midlands.