I did remember. (Do I ever forget anything she says about Jim?)
"They were to be a surprise for him when he came to see us," his mother went on, tears misting the blueness of her eyes. "Not furniture, you know, but just the little things he loved best in his rooms: some he had when he was a child, and others when he was growing up—and the picture your brother painted. When we heard—the news—and knew we shouldn't see our boy again in this world, I couldn't bear to open the boxes—though I was longing to cry over his dear treasures. They've been stored at the Ritz ever since. But the first thing I asked Father to do when we decided the other day to live in Jim's château, after all—was to wire for the boxes to be sent there. I didn't suppose they'd arrive so soon—in war time. Dear me, I can hardly wait to start, now! I feel as strong as a girl."
To prove this—or because she was restless—she begged to be taken out in a cab to see the town, especially the cathedral, which Brian had told her was the largest in Europe except St. Peter's in Rome, St. Sophia in Constantinople, and something in Cologne which she didn't want to remember! Julian O'Farrell and his sister must go with us, of course. It wouldn't be kind to leave them to do their sightseeing alone. Besides, Julian was so good-natured, and said such funny things it would be pleasant to have his society.
This arrangement made it difficult for me to glue myself to Mother Beckett's side. Now and then she insisted upon getting out of the cab to try her strength, and Dierdre would obediently have taken her in tow, in order to hand me over to "Jule," if I hadn't been mulishly obstinate. I quite enjoyed manœuvring to use my dear little invalid as a sort of standing barrage against enemy attacks, and even though Brian and I were parted for the first time since his blindness, I felt almost absurdly cheerful. It was so good to know that Mother Beckett was out of danger, and that it was I who had helped to drag her out! Besides, after all the stricken towns that have saddened our eyes, it was enlivening to be in one (as Mother Beckett said at Compiègne) with "whole houses." In contrast, good St. Firmin's ancient city looks almost as gay as Paris. Our hotel with its pleasant garden and the fine shops—(where it seems you can still buy every fascinating thing from newest jewellery and oldest curiosities, to Amiens' special "roc" chocolates)—the long, arboured boulevards, the cobbled streets, the quaint blue and pink houses of the suburbs, and the poplar-lined walk by the Somme, all, all have the friendliest air! Despite the crowds of soldiers in khaki and horizon blue who fill the streets and cafés, the place seems outside war. Even the stacked sandbags walling the west front and the side portals of the grandest cathedral in France suggest comfortable security rather than fear. The jackdaws and pigeons that used to be at home in the carvings, camp contentedly among the bags, or walk in the neglected grass where sleep the dead of long ago. I didn't want to remember just then, or let any one else remember, that twenty miles away were the trenches and thousands of the dead of to-day!
Never can Amiens have been such a kaleidoscope of colourful animation since Henri II of France and Edward VI of England signed the treaty of peace here, with trains of diplomatists and soldiers of church and state and dignified rejoicings!
It wasn't until we were inside the cathedral that I forgot my manœuverings. The soft, rich light gave such a bizarre effect to the sandbags protecting the famous choir carvings, that I was all eyes for a moment: and during that moment Julian must have signed to his sister to decoy Mother Beckett away from me. When I hauled my soul down from the soaring arches as one strikes a flag, there was Puck at my side and there were Mother Beckett and Dierdre disappearing behind sandbag-hillocks, in the direction of the celebrated Cherub.
"I suppose you want me jolly well to understand," said Puck, smiling, "that even if your brother Brian and my sister Dare are fools over each other, you won't be fooled into forgiving a poor, broken-voiced Pierrot?"
"I've nothing to forgive you for, personally," I said. "Only——"
"Only, you don't want to be friends?"
"No, I don't want to be friends," I echoed. "Why can't you be content with being treated decently before people, instead of following me about, trying always to bring upon yourself——"