The Happy Foreigner Part 24

It was time to go, following all the other birds of pa.s.sage that war had dragged through the town of Metz--time to make way for the toiling civilian with his impedimenta of civilisation.

In the morning when she opened her eyes the room was darker than usual, and the opening of the window but the merest square of light. Snow was built up round the frame in thick rolls four inches high.

She dressed hurriedly and rolled up the sleeping-sack with her few last things inside it. Out in the street the snow was dry and thick and beautifully untrodden. The garage gates looked strange, with a thick white banner blown down each side of the pillars. She looked inside the garage shed. Yes, all the cars had gone--hers stood alone, the suitcases inside, tyres pumped stiff and solid, the hood well buckled back.

"Mademoiselle hasn't gone with the convoy?" said the _marechal des logis_, aghast.

"Oh, I'm separate," she laughed.

"But the convoy is gone."

"I know it. But I'm not with them. It's an order. I'm going alone."

"_Bien_. But do you know the route?"

"I'm not going by it."

He laughed, suddenly giving up all attempt at responsibility, and bent to catch her starting handle.

"Oh, don't worry."

"Yes, it's your last day, I may as well help you to go away."

The engine started easily and she drove out of the garage into the yard, the wheels flying helplessly in the snow, and flinging up dry puffs like flour. "Haven't you chains?" said the _marechal des logis_. But she smiled and nodded and could not wait. "Good-bye--good-bye to all the garage," she nodded and waved. The sun broke out from behind a cloud, her bra.s.s and gla.s.s caught fire and twinkled gaily, the snow sparkled, the gate-posts shone at her. She left the garage without a regret in her heart, with not a thought in her head, save that in a minute she would be safe, no accident could stop her, she would be abroad upon the magic, the unbelievable journey.

They were in a small circular room, shaped like an English oasthouse, its roof running upwards in a funnel to meet the sky. At the apex was a round porthole of thick gla.s.s to let in the light, but as this was supporting several feet of snow the lighting of the room was effected only by a large oil-lamp which stood on the blackened table in the centre. An old woman came forward into the light of the lamp. Her eyes were fine and black--her mouth was toothless and folded away for ever, lost in a crevice under her nose. When she smiled the oak-apples of her cheeks rose up and cut the black eyes into hoops.

"We are on a long journey, madame, to Chantilly. We are cold; can we have coffee?"

She drew out chairs and bade them sit, then placed two tall gla.s.ses of coffee in the ring of light from the lamp, sugar melting in a sandy heap at the bottom of each.

"What an odd shape your house is!" said Julien, looking round him.

"It's very old, like me. And the light is poor. You have to know it to get used to it," she replied.

"You've only that one window?" He stared up the funnel to where he could see the grey underside of the cone of snow.

"But I can make that one better than it is; and then the lady can see herself in this little gla.s.s!" The old woman moved to the side of the wall where a rope hung down. "_Elle a raison_; since she has a gentleman with her! I was the same--and even not so long ago!"

She put up her thin arm and gave the rope a long pull. She must have been strong, for the skylight and all its burden opened on a hinge, and the snow could be seen sliding from it, could be heard in a heavy body rumbling on the roof. She closed the skylight, and now a wan light filtered down the funnel and turned their faces green. It was like life at the bottom of a well, and they felt as though the level of the earth was far above their heads, and its weighty walls pressing against their sides.

"But why is it built this way?"

"Many houses are," said the old woman with a shrug. "It's old, older than my mother." She sat down beside them. "Soldiers have been drunk in here many times in the war," she said. "And in the old war, too. But I never saw one like you." She pinched f.a.n.n.y's sleeve. "Fine stuff," she said. "The Americans are rich!"

"I'm not American."

"Rich they are. But I don't care for them. They have no real feeling for a woman. You are not stupid, _ma belle_, to get a Frenchman for a lover."

"Don't make him vain."

"It is the truth. He knows it very well. Why should he be vain? An American loves a pretty face; but a Frenchman loves what is a woman."

She rose and lifted the lamp, and let its ray search out a corner of the room wherein the great bed stood, wooden and square, its posts black with age, its bedding puffed about it and crowned with a scarlet eiderdown as solid and deep as the bed itself.

"A fine bed; an old bed; it is possible that you will not believe me, but I shared that bed with a bishop not two years ago."

f.a.n.n.y's eyes were riveted on the bed.

Julien laughed. "In the worst sense, mother?"

"In the best, my son," bragged the old woman, sliding a skinny finger to the tip of her nose. "You don't believe me?"

Coming nearer, she stood with the lamp held in her two hands resting on the table, so that she towered over them in fluttering shawl and shadow.

"He arrived in the village one night in a great storm. It was past the New Year and soldiers had been coming through the street all day to go up to the lines beyond Pont-a-Moussons. I've had them sleeping in here on the floor in rows, clearing away the table and lying from wall to wall so thick that I had to step on them when I crossed the room with my lamp. But that night there were none; they were all pa.s.sing through up to the front lines, and though the other end of the village was full, no one knocked here. There was snow as there is to-day, but not lying still on the ground. It was rus.h.i.+ng through the air and choking people and lying heavy on everything that moved outside. That gla.s.s of mine up there was too heavy for me to move so I let it be. A knock came at the door in the middle of the night, and when I got up to unbar the door there was a soldier on the doorstep. I said: 'Are you going to wake me up every night to fill the room with men?' And he said: 'Not to-night, mother, only one. Pa.s.s in, monsieur.'

"It was a bishop, as I told you. _Un eveque_. A great big man with a red face s.h.i.+ning with the snow. If he had not been white with snow he would have been as black as a rook. He stamped on the cobbles by the door and the snow went down off him in heaps, and there he was in his beautiful long clothes, and I said to myself: 'Whatever shall I do with him? Not the floor for such a man!' So there we were, I in my red shawl that hangs on the hook there, and he in his long clothes like a black baby in arms, and his big man's face staring at me over the top.

"'I can't put you anywhere but in my bed,' I told him. I told him like that, quickly, that he might know. And he answered like a gentleman, the Lord save his soul: 'Madame, what lady could do more!'

"'But there's only one bed' I told him (I told him to make it clear), 'and I'm not young enough to sleep on the floor.' Not that I'm an old woman. And he answered like a gentleman, the Lord save him...."

"I will tell _you_ the end," said the old woman, drawing near to Julien as he took some money from his pocket to pay for the coffee.

Two hours later they drew up at a _cafe_ in the main square at Ligny.

Within was a gentle murmur of voices, a smell of soup and baking bread; warm steam, the glow of oil lamps and reddened faces.

Sitting at a small table, with a white cloth, among the half-dozen American soldiers who, having long finished their lunch, were playing cards and dominoes, they ordered bread-soup, an omelette, white wine, brille cheese and their own ration of bully beef which they had brought in tins to be fried with onions.

A woman appeared from the door of the kitchen, carrying their bowl of bread-soup. Across the plains of her great chest shone a white satin waistcoat fastened with blue gla.s.s studs, and above her handsome face rose a crown of well-brushed hair dyed in two shades of scarlet. A little maid followed, and they covered the table with dishes, knives and forks, bread and wine. The woman beamed upon f.a.n.n.y and Julien, and laying her hand upon f.a.n.n.y's shoulder begged them not to eat till she had fetched them a gla.s.s of her own wine.

"You bet it's good, ma'am," advised a big American sergeant at a table near them. "You take it."

She brought them a wine which shone like dark amber in a couple of gla.s.ses, and stood over them listening with pleasure to their appreciation while each slight movement of her shoulders sent ripples and rivers of heaving light over the waistcoat of satin.

The b.u.t.ter round the omelette was bubbling in the dish, the brille had had its red rind removed and replaced by fried breadcrumbs, the white wine was light and sweet, and with the coffee afterwards they were given as much sugar as they wished.

"I have seen her before somewhere," said Julien, as the scarlet head receded among the shadows of the back room. "I wonder where?"

"One wouldn't forget her."

"No. It might have been in Paris; it might have been anywhere."

The little maid was at his elbow. "Madame would be glad if you would come to her store and make your choice of a cigar, monsieur."