The Red Cross Barge

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

'Then I will not trouble to get up. I am very well where I am. It is very comfortable here.'

Prince Egon spoke pettishly. He had looked forward to an amusing flirtation with the Mamselle with whose manifold perfections old Jacob sometimes entertained him.

The hours of the morning dragged wearily on. To the Herr Doktor it seemed as if there had never been such a long, such an utterly lacking-in-flavour, day as was this day. For the first time he talked to the convalescent Frenchmen at some length of themselves. Not one of them had been a soldier at the time the war broke out on that fateful 1st of August, and yet it surprised him, and in a sense moved him, to see that every one of them wished to go back and fight. Not one of them seemed conscious that he was now a prisoner, and that, unless peace was made at once, he would soon be in Germany....

2

At twelve o'clock the Herr Doktor walked up to the Tournebride. He had thought it possible that he might meet Mademoiselle Rouannès in the town—but it was in vain that he lingered on the way, and glanced up each steep byway, and quiet, shady street.

While he was eating an excellent déjeuner at a table spread under the trees in the courtyard of the inn, he cleverly led Madame Blanc on to the subject of Dr. Rouannès. She, too, seemed quite another woman now that the Tournebride was her own again. To-day she was eager for a gossip.

Yes, 'ce bon docteur' was certainly seriously ill. He had looked so well, so vigorous, when he had started, a month ago, for the Frontier. It was there that a shell had exploded in the room where he was actually performing a small operation on a man wounded during the dash into Alsace. As he had been struck in the left leg, it was impossible for him to go on with his work, and he had managed to get home. At first it had been said that he would soon be all right again. But now it was rumoured that he was dying! If that were indeed true, Dr. Rouannès would be a great loss to Valoise, for he was an excellent doctor, much beloved in the town. His daughter was thought rather proud—very good to 'les pauvres,' but unwilling to frequent the more well-to-do townsfolk. This, no doubt, because her mother was 'une noble.' Madame Blanc smiled as she did not often smile now, as she recalled the marriage of Dr. Rouannès. He had refused such excellent 'occasions'—such rich marriages when he was young and good-looking! Then, when he was forty-six years of age, and a confirmed bachelor, he had suddenly married Mademoiselle Jeanne de Blignière, the younger of the two daughters of the Count de Blignière, a poor, proud old gentleman whom he, the doctor, had attended, out of charity no doubt. Curious to relate, this 'mariage étrange' had been a very happy one, and this though Madame Rouannès was very, very quiet, gentle, and pious too, in fact rather like 'une bonne Sœur.' She had been ill two years, and Dr. Rouannès had brought many physicians from Paris to see her. It was said that the chemist's bill alone had been a thousand francs! But the poor lady had died all the same, and she, Madame Blanc, would never forget Monsieur le Médecin's tragic, stricken face at the funeral.

It had been thought that he would surely marry again. But no, he had not done so. At first Madame Rouannès' sister had come to take care of the motherless little girl, but Mademoiselle de Blignière had never liked her brother-in-law, so she soon went back to Paris. Then for some time Mademoiselle Jeanne had had 'une anglaise.' It was only last winter, while visiting her aunt in Paris, that she had learnt the Red Cross work.

At last the Herr Doktor finished his delicious déjeuner under the yellowing chestnut trees in the great courtyard which now looked so peaceful and so solitary, and he wondered, a little ashamed of the materialism of the unspoken question, if Mademoiselle Rouannès knew anything of the practical side of French cookery. And after he had had his cup of coffee and smoked his pipe, he took his diary out of his pocket. He had not opened the book for nearly a week.

Quickly he turned over the blank pages—and then a sudden wave of emotion swept over him. To-day was the 2nd of September—Sedan Day! And he had not remembered it! He thought of last year's Sedan Day, spent with some dear old friends of his childhood, and his heart became irradiated with a peculiar, tender radiance. Beautiful, culture-filled Weimar! How he longed to show his dear homeland to his 'Geliebte'! Then a less noble feeling, one of fierce exultation filled him. He visioned the great hosts of the Fatherland, his brothers all, pressing forward through this splendid, opulent land of France. Those great hosts must now be close to the gates of Paris—nay, they were perchance in Paris already, celebrating the great anniversary while preparing to play the rôle of magnanimous conquerors....