She was feeling the long strain, however much she concealed it with silent composure. And, as with all women in her particular “irregular” position, she had begun to hug the golden illusion that goes with it, and makes it for some so possible to bear. She had lost Georges; he was gone from her side, in spite of her, pulled away by something he held dearer. He had not come back, not written. She could not, dare not if she could, go or write to him. But she still believed, as all such women do, “Oh, if I could only see him!” She still nourished that pathetic faith, still believed that if only she could stand face to face with him, things would be again as they had been. There was, however, that terrible danger haunting the attempt to get face to face with him. He might think or feel she was following him. That, she knew, would be fatal. In Sir Montague, therefore, she saw a heaven-sent angel. Too old, too cranky, too well known (as she had soon discovered) to be the object of scandal regarding her, he would take her under his wing and she would be at the Horse Show, to be seen. Georges, if he were there, would see her. That was the safest. Once he saw her she had perfect confidence in herself. She would know instinctively, would not look, not she. But she would will it, and he would have to come. She recognized clearly enough now, how simply, passively, unconsciously she had made their first hour alone together, when she had given herself, in the shelter at the Kruysabel. She had only to do it again. This also comforted her, for she was not original. She accepted Sir Montague’s invitation graciously, and took care to look her best on the day.
* * * *
The day came, and she was ready. Radiant with health, wishing to be dressed in her own way, in a mixture of country primness and the English style she secretly admired (coat and skirt and all-weather hat), she had compromised at the skirt of her pigeon-gray saxony costume, a cream-colored blouse that left her elbows and neck bare, with nothing on her head but her own crisp dark hair. Thus adorned, she esteemed herself as nearly a lady (i.e. a person who does no work) as she had any need to be, while not too far removed from the mistress of the “Lion of Flanders.”
Before Sir Montague came to fetch her, as she was perfecting her arrangements at her restaurant, Lieutenant Skene appeared with a gunner officer she did not like, who was obviously joking about her. She greeted her friend kindly, in English, and ignored the other. She was flattered to see that the lieutenant was evidently taking her part, trying to make the other behave, looking very sheepish and funny as he clumsily concealed his obvious feeling for her. They reserved a table and went away. Sir Montague was punctual and she stepped up into the gig with the ease of one who has always had to use her limbs. She was elated. Men looked after her. The sun shone. In the queer gauche Flemish springtime, buds and shoots hung stiffly in the still air like heraldic emblems. A band was playing, people were moving about. Everything whipped her excitement. They drove on to Verbaere’s big pasture, behind the mill, and put the gig with the other vehicles, all parked and stewarded as on an English race-course. Sir Montague had a way of arching his elbow, twirling his whip, and fetching a great circle before he brought his conveyance to a standstill that caused, she noticed, much laughter, and the beginnings of a cheer.
He handed her into a rough enclosure, where English nurses in gray and red and white coifs, Canadian nurses in blue and scarlet, Australian sisters in gray-brown, fine big girls in their mannish hats, mixed with a sprinkling of the wives of local maires and notaries, small French officialdom and business circles. Some of these ignored Madeleine, perhaps did not know her, but the brewer’s wife from the next village, invited by the A.S.C. colonel billeted on her, gave a cheery “Good day, Madeleine,” that would have put anyone at ease. But Madeleine was already at her ease. She saw she was getting more attention than any other woman on the ground. She had dressed just right, awakened none of the submerged sensibilities of those queer English. That and a glance at the lovely horses, shining, prancing, bobbing head and floating tail—for she loved fine animals—was all she cared to notice before she settled herself, eyes straight to the front, and put out all her feelers for the one purpose for which she had come. Poor Madeleine, no one had bothered to tell her that there were already over fifty English divisions in France, and among the men before her she stood one chance in seventeen of finding Georges. They passed about her, Easthamptons, Lincolns, Norfolks, A.S.C., R.A.M.C., R.A.F., gunners, Engineers, French Mission in blue and strawberry, wonderful staff people, in khaki and leather so perfect that it outshone all the bright colors of the French. She took it all in, tried to sort it out, mused over it, especially the name “Lincoln,” which, like all French people, she was incapable of pronouncing. She could form no idea of which group was the likeliest to be Georges’, glanced over the face and figures of the French Mission officers. More than any close examination, her instinct told her, Georges was not there. A sort of numbness came over her, she felt it almost like a physical sensation. It seemed to be in her legs. She fought against it, would not give in to it. Then, all of a sudden, too suddenly for her strong, resolute, unimaginative nature, she did give in.
The corps officials had hardly begun judging the riding-horses when she slipped from her place, round behind the stand, out between the wagon-teams, waiting their turn, with cunning drivers of all arms surreptitiously dabbing metal and leather with handkerchiefs, looking stolidly over the exhibits they belonged to, speaking gently to them in low voices. She found a well-known gap in the hedge and got through into the back lane that ran towards Verbaere’s mill. Up this, picking her way in the mud to save her best boots, she came into the village by the yard of the “Lion of Flanders.” The numbness was gone from her legs. Instead, her pulse beat in her temples so loud that she hardly heard the band playing “Watch your Step,” and the cheering as the riding-horses, classed by the judges, filed round the ring, and out.
* * * *
She let herself into the “Lion of Flanders” by the back door, which she shut with a clang. She looked magnificent and just a bit desperate, so that, of her waiting-women, one said to another, “She’s in fine fettle this morning, our young patronne!” But she was not the woman to do the more ordinary desperate things. No—yes. A stitch of her close-sewn self-control had parted. She was not going to stand it. Her mental attitude contained nothing of an English suffragette’s logical, theoretical stand upon “rights.” Her pride was hurt. Georges was Georges, dearer than life, but there now glimmered behind him something dearer than that—her dignity, what was due to her—Herself, of course, in reality.
She swept a glance round the neat, well-laid tables, sniffed the redolent preparation of the kitchen. She—dragged about behind a man’s shadow that ever eluded her! Of course, her feeling was incoherent, ill-defined, just a sense of resentment against something she did not trouble to identify, but it was there. Reckless, she went down the stone steps into the cellar. Among the casks of weak beer and carefully “lengthened” wine she had taken over from Podevin, was a bottle marked “Chambertin,” which she recognized as an oversight. It was good stuff. She had hidden it with the English Expeditionary Force canteen whisky and the rum she had got out of Sir Montague. Now her thought was, “They shan’t have it, those English!” She took it up, glanced at the coating of the bottle neck, and mounted the stairs with it.
“Berthe,” she cried—she had borrowed the girl from the farm for the day—“four glasses and some bread!”