That evening Jacobs took his leave, and she charged him for exactly what he had had. He departed into the darkness, to catch the newly established train service over the hastily repaired line, the veterans wheeling his valise and their own packs on a salved Lewis-gun hand cart.
* * * *
With the departure of that party the British Army in Flanders finally left the Spanish Farm, after four years. The longed-for golden reign of Peace was re-established. And anything less golden cannot be imagined. Madeleine lost no time in getting into touch with the evacuated neighbors now returning to their farms. They were nearly all women, and though they were willing enough to work, they had neither the dexterity nor the resources of the British Army. Madeleine wished indeed, before many weeks were over, that the War had lasted longer. There was the big kitchen window, not to mention sundry other panes broken by carelessness, or by concussion of bombing and shelling, to be re-glazed. There were leaks in the roof to mend, there was the shot tower to rebuild—unless indeed she built some other stowage room for all the things it used to hold—sacks, “fertilizer,” tools, roots, grain, hops, spare cart covers, timber. There were nineteen gates missing, endless lengths of hedge and ditch practically to be made over again. The hurdles were all gone, and worst of all, the great fifteen-feet hop-poles and stout wire. As was usual throughout French Flanders, the British Army had burned every piece of wood upon the farm. Madeleine did not blame them. A French or any other army would have done the same. There was, however, one good job that the War had done: the tall elms round the pasture had been completely barked by the numerous mounted units that had succeeded each other. They would die, and the proprietor (the Baron, to wit) would do well to sell them at once, while the price was so high. The ground would be disencumbered, more grass would grow and the great roots would no longer suck up all the manure one put down. The only loser would be the Baron. It was his affair.
* * * *
For already Peace had brought that endless attempt to go one better than one’s neighbor, which, for four years, had been hidden under the more immediate necessity to go one better than the Bosche. Thus Madeleine, perceiving that whatever the eventual scheme of compensation, she must pay, in the first instance, nearly all the loss occasioned, began actually to grudge the English their demobilization. Had they (and their dumps of material) remained in the neighborhood, she would have got them to do plumbing and glazing, ditching and joinery, and to give her good telephone wire, aeroplane canvas, oil, paint and nails. Instead of which, every day that she went as far as the Lille road, she saw trainloads of useful English, singing and cheering on their way to Dunkirk, where they were being demobbed by thousands a day. So she grew bitter, and having no one else to blame (for who could blame old Jerome, wandering helpless like a worn-out horse) she began to blame the English for going away. Madame la Baronne had returned to the château. Placide was once more functioning, and the Baron was only seen at the farm on his walks, as before the offensive of 1918. So that there was absolutely no one but the English to blame for having departed so inopportunely. There was nothing exceptional in Madeleine’s case. It was, indeed, the common feeling in all those French and Flemish farms on the border of what had been the trenches (the frontiers of civilization) and was now the Devastated Area (something no one wanted, and everybody was tired of hearing about). This being so, the Government, depending upon votes, saw that something must be done to retain those sources of its power and emoluments, less they be filched by Bolsheviks, Germans, Socialists or other enemies—in fact by persons who might come to wield the power, and enjoy the resulting advantages, which every government looks upon as the permanent reward of the endless corruption by which it has maintained itself in power.
Thus, about this time, Madeleine began to hear of things called “Reparations,” that the Germans were going to be made to pay. She was invited to inscribe at the Mairie the list of damage done by the War to the farm. She went to see Monsieur Blanquart, and furnished him with a list that totaled 131,415 francs 41 centimes (the total market value of the farm in 1914 being about 120,000 francs). Monsieur Blanquart inscribed the lot. He did more. Like every one else, he felt that he had had an atrocious time for many years, and that nothing was too good for him. Keeping in close touch with his daughter Cécile, at Amiens, he had been quite sharp enough to see how things were shaping. He had hung in the windows of his little parlor, and all round the mayoral office at the Estaminet de la Mairie, in place of the patriotic appeals by M. Deschanel to fortitude and patience, in place of lists of conscripts, and of ever-mounting food prices, little cards inscribed “Blanquart, financial agent”; “Blanquart, bonds, shares, assurances.” He unfolded golden schemes to Madeleine, who listened with her special “stupid peasant” expression that she kept for the occasions when she was thinking hard. Her list of war damages was based not so much on facts and figures as on her one idea of any monetary transaction—namely, to ask twice as much as a thing is worth, in the certainty that you will be beaten down by at least a quarter. She was no more deceived by the talk in the papers than by Blanquart’s “financial operations.” She knew how difficult it was for her to part with money or money’s worth, and judged the Germans, and Blanquart’s stocks and shares, by her own standards. Pay! Not likely, Germans or Royal Dutch, not if they could help it. But standing hatless and vacant-faced before Blanquart, she was working out in her mind one of her slowly conceived plans, so much less simple than one would have supposed from her appearance. She had enough cash in the iron box to buy two horses and get along until harvest.
“Look here, Monsieur Blanquart, I’ll take 50,000 francs’ worth of your bonds, and pay you when I get my ‘Reparations.’”
But Blanquart had not lived in the village all those years for nothing. “You comprehend,” he replied, “your reparations are subject to discussion!”
“No doubt; but I suppose one will pay us something!”
“Undoubtedly, but how much?—That’s the point!”