An empty room? Empty indeed now, a thousand times emptier now that Pierrette was dead.
If she could only pray!
Would that serene daughter of hers be able to pray if she found herself alone like this under the trees that looked not a day older than when forty years ago she had walked beneath their boughs with Mac? Would not Muriel suffer a dismay? Would not she doubt the value of her prayers?
There would be no communication with the spirit of Pierrette. There would be no deep-voiced miaows scrawled by la planchette, not with the help of all the auto-suggestion in her being. She was irrevocably vanished, as irrevocably as a flower.
The little cat was not. Her grace and beauty were lost; her lithe and shapely form was destroyed. Her memory would endure for a little while until her friend died; and when she died there would never have been a cat called Pierrette. She would be less than one of the crushed shells among these myriads of crushed shells that were strewn upon the walks of Kensington Gardens. How heedless was the laughter of the children all around her, and yet there were few of those children who would not themselves know sorrow before they were old. Would they hear then the echo of their youth's heedless laughter?
When Mary came back to the house in Paris she found a letter waiting for her.
92 Carminia Road,
Balham, S.W.,
December 26, 1920.Dear Madam,
This is to inform you that last week Mrs. Alison, your daughter-in-law, died of the influenza very suddenly the week before Xmas. As I understood from her who was her sister that you were anxious to have the care of her little girl, and as me and my husband cannot undertake the responsibility we are taking the liberty of asking if you would kindly accept delivery of the little girl as per this letter. My sister, Mrs. Alison, kept your address in her writing materials and I have taken the liberty to write to you direct hoping I may be pardoned for the intrusion. She is a very nice well-behaved little girl and my husband and me are very sorry to part with her which we wouldn't want to do if we hadn't six of our own which makes it a bit difficult in a small house and not being very rich people. The little girl could be dispatched to Paris to suit your convenience if you would kindly remit cost of sending her as per your instructions which we duly await.
And I am,
Yours truly,
Emily Bocock.
(Mrs. Alfred Bocock.)
"Célestine! Célestine!"