Again the girls walked more quietly along the path under the trees than in the open country. They were thinking perhaps of different things, while their eyes were absorbed in the loveliness about them. For after months of nursing, sometimes amid horrors and suffering one could not afterwards discuss, it was healing to both soul and body to inhale the sweetness of the earth and air.
Southern France was unlike the land lying to the north and close to the Belgian frontier, where the Red Cross girls had for some months past been nursing the British soldiers. That was an orchard and a vineyard country, this a land of forest and of golden grain fields. Many of the trees were pine and cedar, yet there were occasional maples and elms, and here and there a chestnut.
A small branch of scarlet and yellow leaves dropped near Eugenia’s feet. It was a far call to her New England home, yet somehow the color and the atmosphere of the woods awakened home memories. Unconsciously Eugenia stopped and thrust the bunch of leaves inside her belt. Against the blue of her costume they shone like flame, making her eyes and hair show darker by contrast and bringing a brighter tone to her clear but pale skin.
Noticing the attractive effect of the careless decoration, the three other girls were far too wise to mention the fact to Eugenia, or assuredly the leaves would again have been trampled under foot.
However, they had other interests more engrossing to absorb them.
Barbara and Nona led a short detour for a sight of the old hut that had interested them on their previous walk. But Mildred and Eugenia were both a little scornful of the story that this was a hermit’s hut, uninhabited for a number of years. This afternoon it was so self-evident that some one was now living in it that Eugenia hurried the others away. No one could be seen at the moment, but there was a pile of fresh ashes in front of the house, a stack of freshly gathered wood and chips by the tumbled-down door, and a scarlet cap caught in the top of a tall bush.
Moreover, because it was growing late and their invitation was for five o’clock, Eugenia could not be persuaded to linger by the tiny lake which Nona had christened by the poetic title of the “Pool of Melisande.” The pool one might visit on another afternoon, but perhaps there might never come a like opportunity from the Countess.
Indeed, as the four girls finally approached the ancient stone house never would they have confessed to one another how nervous they were feeling over the next hour. Nona Davis was perhaps least self-conscious. Life in the southern part of the United States among a few conservative old families is not unlike that of the almost forgotten nobility of old France.
The path to the Chateau d’Amélie, whose title came down from the first countess of the name, was as overgrown with weeds as any deserted farmhouse. Yet who would look down at their feet when trees more than a hundred years old stood guard along the avenue leading to the ancient portico? And in crossing a rickety bridge could one think of the loose planks, knowing that the muddy water that flowed under it was once the moat that surrounded the feudal palace?
Nevertheless, Barbara had to stifle a laugh when at length François opened the iron-bound wooden door admitting them to the chateau. For instead of his peasant’s blouse and peaked cap, this afternoon François wore a livery which must have been handed down to him by a majordomo at least twice his size. His small, bent-over form was almost lost in the large trousers, while the tails of the long coat with its tarnished gold lace hung down past his knees.