Annette laughed, too. “How long ago that seems, and what children we were.”
“Three years is a long, long time. A month is a long time and you will be away for that long. I wonder what will happen before you get back?”
“Let us hope the war will end,” returned Annette, shaking out her sewing as she rose to put it away.
Gaspard arrived the next day and with him a young officer who was to be best man. His cousin had tried to get hold of Victor, but finding this an impossibility had pressed this comrade into service. Lucie looked speculatively at the young man, whose name was Adolph Favre, but made up her mind before very long that he was not the hero of her dreams, well meaning and courteous though he was, and quite inclined to pay especial compliments to her.
Because of the short notice everything was in a great flurry, of course. Madame Guerin was everywhere, directing, scolding, arranging. Madame Le Brun was divided between encouraging a headache and a desire to see all that was going on. Mons. Le Brun frowned one minute and smiled the next. He was fond of his little granddaughter and this marrying her to a soldier in war time involved some anxiety as to her future. He and Lucie had long talks whenever they found a chance, which was not often. Paulette, summoned from the fields with Odette, was turned into the kitchen to give her very capable assistance in the preparation of the feast. Michel was kept running errands here, there, everywhere, while Jules with the charrette was jogging into the village nearly every hour.
At last Annette in her grandmother’s ivory satin wedding gown was ready. Lucie in a simple white voilé attended her. The roses Annette carried were from the garden of Coin-du-Pres. The little bride looked very young and innocent. There was not a large wedding party but the small church was filled with the villagers, scarce a young man, but many old ones, were there, the doctor chief among them. Every one tried to be merry at the wedding breakfast but somehow merriment did not sit well; the times were too uncertain, so they finally lapsed into quiet talk, Gaspard and his friends ready to tell of thrilling adventures, which kept the others spellbound until the hour of departure was at hand.
It was Lucie and Odette who divested Annette of her bridal robes and got her into the simple traveling dress which she was to wear. Annette cried a little as she said good-by, but went off quite proud of her soldier husband, and of being called Madame.
Lucie begged to go into the kitchen to help Paulette and Odette to clear up. “It will be less lonely there,” she argued, so Madame Guerin gave permission, and in the drying of fine glass and china, the counting of silver, she passed away the first hours, chattering away to Odette about the events of the day. “She looked very sweet, didn’t she, Odette?” she began. “But so young, like a little girl. Gaspard appeared so much older. I hope he is not too old.”
Paulette laughed. “How old might this antiquity be?” she asked.
“He is three years older than Victor and Victor was eighteen just after the war began. That is three years ago or nearly so, therefore Victor is twenty-one and Gaspard twenty-four, six years older than Annette. In another year he will be twenty-five, which is far from young.”