The student-gardener could do no more work for the present. He lay propped up in bed, pasty, scarlet lipped, and he seemed bald and lidless, so colourless were hair and eye-lashes.
"Can I do anything for you, Karl?" asked Maryette, coming in for a moment as usual in the intervals of her many duties.
"The ink, if you would be so condescending—and a pen," he said, watching her out of hollow, sallow eyes of watery blue.
She fetched both from the café.
She came again in another hour, knocking at his door, but he said rather sharply that he wished to sleep.
Scarcely noticing the querulous tone, she departed. She had much to do besides her duties in the belfry. Her father was an invalid[pg 282] who required constant care; there was only one servant, an old peasant woman who cooked. The Government required her father to keep open the White Doe Tavern, and there was always a little business from the scanty garrison of Sainte Lesse, always a few meals to get, a few drinks to serve, and nobody now to do it except herself.
Then, in the belfry she had duties other than playing, than practice. Always at night the clock-drum was to be wound.
She had no assistant. The town maintained none, and her salary as Mistress of the Bells of Sainte Lesse did not permit her to engage anybody to help her.
So she oiled and wound all the machinery herself, adjusted and cared for the clock, swept the keyboard clean, inspected and looked after the wires leading to the tiers of bells overhead.