The Rough Road Part 36

"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 pet.i.te._ 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 suns.h.i.+ne 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 la.s.sie 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 pa.s.s 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.

CHAPTER XVII

"How are you feeling, Trevor?"

"Nicely, thank you, Sister."

"Glad to be in Blighty again?"

Doggie smiled.

"Good old Blighty!"

"Leg hurting you?"

"A bit, Sister," he replied with a little grimace.

"It's bound to be stiff after the long journey, but we'll soon fix it up for you."

"I'm sure you will," he said politely.

The nurse moved on. Doggie drew the cool clean sheet around his shoulders and gave himself up to the luxury of bed--real bed. The morning sunlight poured through the open windows, attended by a delicious odour which after a while he recognized as the scent of the sea. Where he was he had no notion. He had absorbed so much of Tommy's philosophy as not to care. He had arrived with a convoy the night before, after much travel in ambulances by land and sea. If he had been a walking case, he might have taken more interest in things; but the sniper's bullet in his thigh had touched the bone, and in spite of being carried most tenderly about like a baby, he had suffered great pain and longed for nothing and thought of nothing but a permanent resting-place. Now, apparently, he had found one, and looking about him he felt peculiarly content. He seemed to have seen no cleaner, whiter, brighter place in the world than this airy ward, swept by the sea-breeze. He counted seven beds besides his own. On a table running down the ward stood a vase of sweet-peas and a bowl of roses. He thought there was never in the world so clean and cool a figure as the grey-clad nurse in her spotless white ap.r.o.n, cuffs and cap.