“No—what?”
“Oh—I daren’t tell you!”
Madeleine did not press her. There is only one thing said by girls who cannot mind their own business—having, indeed, no business to mind. Madeleine had never spread nor listened with interest to rumors about other girls, simply because she minded her own business, having always had business to mind. But she knew well enough what the village gossip of Hondebecq was, and had found out that an office in a provincial town is only a village without elbow-room. She pondered a little over the matter, which grew increasingly serious as she did so. She did not bother greatly as to the source of any rumor about her. Spite on the part of “Papa,” love of scandal in the heart of the pork butcher’s wife of her lodging—mere empty interest on the part of some person or persons who had seen her with Skene or with “Papa,” it might be! The point that disturbed her was the possible effect on her freedom of action. It might make it more difficult for her to profit by the next opportunity of seeing Skene-Georges—for the two were slowly merging into one at the back of her mind. This roused her. She began to think seriously, but in her slow way.
* * * *
Then came a letter from home—from Marie.
She read it several times, by candle-light, lying on her back in her narrow iron bed, one hand holding the pages of British Expeditionary Force canteen block note-paper, which Marie used because it cost nothing, covered with Marie’s sloping convent-school writing—the other hand below her head, on which a handkerchief protected the long plaits of her hair, that she had never bobbed at the command of fashion. Gradually she mastered it. Marie was no correspondent; none of the sort that she belonged to, cultivated letter-writing or exceeded what was strictly necessary. The motive of the letter was baldly stated: “Father demands to know how goes his daughter.” There followed a brief résumé of village news. Victor Dequidt was reported missing. Other persons had been married. There had been more bombing near St. Omer. There was no news of brother Marcel; they feared the worst. Then followed the words: “Father has seen Monsieur le Baron lately. He was furious. It seems that his son Georges has left the French Mission, where he was in safety, and has gone to make his training for an aviator in Paris. Madame is desolated”; and then commonplaces to the end. “His son Georges” was a way of speaking Marie had picked up from living in the Lys valley, in the influence of Lille. It was not how they spoke in Hondebecq. This displeased Madeleine an instant. Then the real meaning of the letter dawned on her. Her father had shown by his conduct on the day of their visit to the hospital how thoroughly he understood what was between Georges and herself. He had made Marie write—Marie who knew and suspected nothing. Madeleine—the youngest, the one who had lived longest with him, who had replaced her mother in the house—responded to the old man’s partiality for her. Unspoken, never visible, there was a stronger link between them than existed with the others of the family. She thought of him with affection. Her mind moved on. She could see the Baron, stumping up and down the earth roads, with “Merde!” and “Name of a name!” at every step; and the dining-room at the château, into which she had been allowed to peep, when running errands from the farm. She could hear Placide’s nasal chant announcing dinner: “Madame la Baronne is served!” and the Baron, still “Merde”-ing and “Name of a name”-ing, and the Baronne’s tearful but dignified “Voyons, Charles!” Paris, Georges was in Paris! Although affectionate in her way, she hardly paused to think of her brother Marcel, giving no sign from his German prison.
* * * *
Then she had one of her intuitions. The very thing. She would teach the gossips of Amiens to tell tales about her—and give them something to tell of, all in one blow. The very economy of the idea appealed to her. There were always vacancies in the big Ministries in Paris, she had heard “Papa” say. “Papa!” she almost laughed. He would have his Festivity, after all. He should be made to work it. The idea was so new and beautiful that it actually kept her awake for half an hour after she had blown out her candle—a rare thing for a girl of her habits and physique.
The first person who was astonished at the turn of affairs was “Papa.” He became aware, as he snuffed with rage and ill-health at his desk behind the screen by the stove, of kind looks and lingerings. His resentment and small suspicions soon melted. He ventured half-apologetic remarks, was not rebuffed. Nor did she hurry away with the other girls, as she had done all the week since his last propositions. Eventually he timidly complained that he had not had his little Festivity, that his birthday had passed unhonored.
Madeleine felt something, almost compunction, but her Fixed Idea soon resumed its empire over her mind. She listened to him.