CHAPTER XVI
A CHANGE OF PLANS
Count de la Grange was in the yard with his trap and a peasant's cart for the baggage soon after dawn. He was fretting a little lest his passengers should be late, but relieved to find that the General was absent.
"There will be a crush. All the village knows. Everybody is trying to get away," he said.
Jacqueline had coffee ready and insisted that they must take it before they started. Madame Ribot wore a veil and had too much powder on her face; but nothing was lacking in hers or the Count's manners. Not until he had helped her into the trap, and they were well started on the way, did it occur to any one to ask where Helen was.
"She is walking to the station," said Madame Ribot, with ready ease, "as she wanted to see some one in the village."
"It is the last train," said the Count, "but I told the station master not to say so to the public or the station might be mobbed. I have the tickets. Though I've been up all night I feel quite fresh."
"I knew that I could depend upon you, even if the General did not come," Madame Ribot assured him.
"I wonder where the General is?" remarked the Count, confidentially flicking the venerable horse with the whip and holding the reins in the manner of one driving a four-in-hand.
"He had other business, I was told," said Madame Ribot casually.
At that moment, indeed, the General was concerned with whether it was better to put a basket of carrier pigeons under his bed or in a closet off the kitchen, and this old soldier of France was little concerned with any rivalry with the Count or with Madame Ribot's affairs. He had forgotten their existence.
It was well that the Count had the tickets or he could hardly have got past the crowd of old men and women and children and their belongings in every kind of portmanteau or knotted in handkerchiefs, towels and sheets, and well that he had influence with the station master which took the party onto the platform before the others. Places were found in the train for Madame Ribot and Henriette to sit down, while the Count and Phil stood, with bundles and children around their legs.
"But Helen has not come!" exclaimed Phil.
"Nor will she!" said Madame Ribot, weary and irritated. She had not risen before nine for many years and loathed travelling even in a first-class compartment alone, to say nothing of the present disgustingly crowded conditions. "Her walking to the station was a ruse. She is going to remain at Mervaux to look after our things."
"Alone, with the Germans coming?" Phil demanded. He also showed signs of irritation to match hers.
"She begged to," Madame Ribot explained. "Some one ought to stay, and she said it would give her subjects for her drawings."
"A fine courage, but——"
Already the station master was ringing his bell. Phil dragged his bag from under the seat and sprang out onto the platform.
"I'll bring her by the next train!" he called.
"There will be no next train!" put in the Count.
"At any rate, she must not be left alone to receive the German army!"
"Perhaps she doesn't want you!" put in Henriette, rising and leaning out of the window in protest. "I wouldn't. It's Helen's own idea and I know Helen. Come to Paris with us!"
"No, I'm going to Mervaux to see the Germans!" Phil replied promptly.
Henriette gave her mother a swift glance, then one at Phil.
"If Helen, why not I?" she exclaimed.
"But——" gasped Madame Ribot. She half rose, put out her hand to arrest Henriette who had taken up her own bag, but was jerked back to her seat by the motion of the starting train.
"To Mervaux, now we've seen you safe on your way!" said Henriette. "It's what I wanted to do all the time."
She passed her bag to Phil and held out her hand to him as he ran beside the train. He caught her literally in his arms as she whirled around when she alighted, and she was smiling up into his eyes with adventure's call in her own after she was firm on her feet, her face close to his.
"Thank you, cousin! Well done!" she murmured.
Madame Ribot had collapsed, her head bent, her hands drooped in her lap.
"We are off! You need have no worries now, Madame," said the Count. "No army can travel as fast as a railroad train."
But she did not hear him and was all unconscious of her surroundings. Just one thing was clear in her mind: the look that Henriette had given Phil when she made her decision. The mother and probably she alone, though a thousand people had looked on, would have recognised its meaning. The thing had come and in the way she had dreaded. She who had relived her youth in her daughter had seen the last chapter of her own story reflected in the feature which she had most dreaded. She had flirted with many men without more than a flutter of the heart and so had Henriette. Then she had fallen in love suddenly, without reason, and in headstrong insistence had married, to repent afterward.
One cause alone had sent Henriette back to Mervaux: the man who was returning there in order that Helen should not be alone. After all the chances she had had and played with, Henriette, too, had acted without reason when the impulse came. Helen was to blame. It was partly jealousy with Henriette, as it had been with Madame Ribot; the desire for conquest baffled by some humbler person. Her daughter was "running after" this cousin from America who had nothing to offer except America; but so had she herself run after a man who, at least, was not poor.
Back with Phil in face of all the proprieties which Madame Ribot held in such esteem in her later years! All her hopes and plans ruined! It was wicked, ungrateful, shameful—and due to the damnable war. But she had done her best for Henriette. Why worry? She had to live. She had had no sleep. She was in a wretched state and she must look a hundred years old. Worry made wrinkles. Her conscience was clear and—yes, she had to live. Experience was the only teacher. Henriette would have to repent at leisure as she herself had done.
"You arranged it all wonderfully," she said, as she looked up with one of her choice smiles to the Count.
"Madame, the object of my service made it a delight," said the Count.
He tried to arrange the baggage to give her feet more freedom and at the same time to keep from twitching from twinges of gout. He felt twice as old as Madame Ribot.
Back in his little house the General, who had decided to keep the pigeons under his bed, felt as young as he had at Gravelotte. Such is the way of war.