Part 19

We had some little difficulty reassuring her, but when her prodigal grandson sat up and asked for bread and jam, she forgot her anxiety and began scolding him for daring to give her such a fright, and us so much trouble.

* * * *

Towards the end of the third week in August the mobilization was considered finished and the Eastern Railroad opened again to the public; its time tables of course being limited and subject to instant change, the company refusing to be responsible for delays. To us at the chateau this meant very little, save that we would receive our mail and the daily papers more frequently. However, several friends who fancied I was unsafe alone and so far from the capital, kindly ventured to start to Villiers to try to persuade me to come up to town. It took them seven hours to reach Meaux (thirty miles from Paris); they were obliged to sleep there because it was because it was announced that their train went no further--and worse than all, they were eighteen hours getting home.

"Wheren't people furious?" I questioned, when afterwards they told me of their adventure.

"Not in the slightest. Everyone bore it patiently as part of his tribute to his country. 'The army first' was their motto."

The first batch of mail brought me any number of stale letters, which had arrived and been held in Paris over three weeks. Invitations to a house party in Belgium and things of that kind that seemed so strangely out of place now. The two most important documents, however, came, one from my cousin, Marie Huard (Superior at the Convent of the Infant Jesus at Madrid) and the other from Elizabeth Gauthier.

My cousin had taken upon herself to locate and communicate with every member of the Huard family called to arms (and they are numerous, when one considers that H. has no less than twelve married uncles!) and she enclosed me a sort of map, or family tree, indicating the names, ages, regiments, etc., of some fifty cousins, begging me to write and encourage them from time to time.

Elizabeth Gauthier's letter bore a black border--and I trembled as I opened it. She was in Paris alone, and mourning the loss of her eldest brother, killed at the battle of Mulhouse, the ninth of August. Her solitude preyed upon her, and she announced her departure for her sister's chateau in Burgundy.

That was the first real sadness that the war had brought me so far. It quite upset me, for Jean Bernard was not only a delightful friend, but one of the most promising engineers of the younger generation in France. Both family, friends and country might well deplore such a loss.

Even the making and hoisting of a huge Red Cross flag over the chateau failed to arouse my enthusiasm all that day. The blow was too cruel and had stimulated fears which heretofore had lain dormant within me.

The next day, however, I was not permitted to brood over my grief, for Yvonne (she of the poultry farm) fell ill with a severe attack of sciatica, which kept her in her bed, every movement producing a scream of agony.

Of course Madame Guix was there to lend a hand, but that hardly altered the situation, so I was obliged to ask the boys to give another "pull" and try to be equal to the work. Lleon accepted with such alacrity that for the first time it dawned on me that perhaps he had a soft spot in his heart for my pretty little goose girl, and this unsuspected romance, interwoven with the joys and anxieties of the moment, seemed all the more charming.

To cap the climax of misfortune, old Cesar had run a nail into his hoof and Madame Guix spent most of her time between injections of oxygen on the first floor, and iodine and flaxseed poultices in the stables. This of course meant that all errands outside the village must be made on bicycle, and George was "mustered into service." Towards noon on the 27th he made his first return trip from Charly, bringing the mail and the papers, and a very excited countenance.

"Madame, I've seen one!" he shouted, as I appeared in the doorway.

"Seen what?"

"Un casque a' point!"

"A what!"

"Yes--a pointed helmet. I was standing by the post office in Charly when a long line of motors passed by on the road to Paris. I recognized the Belgium uniform, and one of the soldiers leaned out and held up a German helmet! What a trophy!"

"The Belgians! What on earth are they doing down here?" thought I. And George guessed my question.

"Oh," he continued, "you see their regiment was cut in two by the Germans at Charleville and those who escaped managed to get motors and are on their way home--by a round-about route to Antrwerp via Havre. The hotel keeper said so. She offered some wine to one motor full that stopped."

If that were true it was an amazing bit of news! Then things were not going as well as the now very reticent papers led one to suppose. But it all seemed so very distant that I refused to worry.

However, I was about to seek out Madame Guix and tell her what George had reported when an amusing sight caught my eye.

From her open window, towards which she had asked that we push her bed, Yvonne amused herself by calling her ducklings.

"Bour-ree--bour-ree!"

Then from the farmyard a good two hundred yards distant, would rise the reply, "Quack! Quack! Quack!"

Big and small recognized the call of their little mistress and hastened to respond.

"Bouree-bour-ree-bouree!" called Yvonne again and again.

Evidently the ducks decided to hold a consultation and send delegates to see what on earth prevented their friend from caring for them in person since they could hear her voice. For as I looked across the lawn towards the door, imagine my surprise on catching sight of some thirty or forty Rouenese ducks of all sizes waddling up the steps and into the vestibule.