Part 37

"'Oh, I'm so glad you didn't! I much prefer being alone with you.'

"He came and went in the house, but never could be persuaded to go outside the yard. I should have loved to have taken him with me and shown his War Cross to some of my old friends. But he wouldn't hear of it.

"'Pooh!' he would laugh when I would suggest such a thing. 'If ever they come near me I'll tell them I've got "trench pest"--and then you'll see them clear out.'

"He went down in the kitchen and I'd hear him pottering around. I never knew him so gay and happy.

"'Tante Rose, I'm going to sing you "La Madelon" and the "Refrain de la Mitraille." It was Planchet, the tinsmith, who composed it!'

"He'd sit for hours in that big blue armchair, blinking at the fire, and then suddenly he'd come to earth and explain:

"'Aunt Rose, what a pleasure to be here.'

"When finally he had to go back, he caught me and whispered in my ear, as I kissed him:

"'Next time, Tante, you promise me not to invite any one, won't you?'

"Poor child, he will never come back, and his friend Planchet, the tinsmith, saw him fall with a bullet through his heart. It was he who wrote me the sad news.

"Well, my dear, what mystery the soul hides within itself! In one of the cupboards of the room he occupied I found two note books and a diary filled with verses he had never shown to any one, never admitted having written. How little we guessed what he was about when we scolded him for his indolence and inattention. If you only knew what accents, what harmonious phrases he found to depict the shades of our trees, the rippling of the river, the perfume of the flowers and his love for us all.

"There is a whole chapter devoted to the old homestead. He seemed to feel everything, divine everything, explain everything. None of us understood him. There is no use pretending we did. Not one among us would ever have guessed that so splendid and delicate a master of the pen lived and moved amongst us."

Aunt Rose looked straight out onto the sun-lit court, the great tears trickling down her cheeks.

For a long time neither of us spoke.

Like its mistress, Aunt Rose's home lives to serve the war. The culinary realm is always busily engaged preparing pates and galantines, rillettes and sausages. "For our boys," is the answer almost before the question is put. "They're so glad to get home-made dainties, and are always clamouring for more--no matter how much you send!

"Since they must eat preserved food, we might as well send them something we make ourselves, then we're sure it's the best. Why, I'd be ashamed to go out and buy something and send it off without knowing who had handled it." This was the cook's idea of patriotism, which I shared most heartily, having at one time had nothing but "bully beef" and dried beans as constant diet for nearly a fortnight.

The coachman and inside man sealed the crocks and tins, prepared and forwarded the packages.

"Oh, there's one for everybody! Even the boys of the city who haven't got a family to look after them. They must be mighty glad Madame's alive. We put in one or two post cards, views of the town. That cheers them up and makes them feel they're not forgotten here in R----."

One afternoon on descending into the kitchen we beheld two sturdy looking fellows seated at table and eating with ravenous appetite. One was an artilleryman who had but a single arm, the other a chasseur, whose much bandaged leg was reposing upon a stool.

"They are wounded men on convalescent leave," explained Armandine. "The poor fellows need a little humouring so that they'll build up the quicker, and an extra meal surely can't hurt!"

This was certainly the opinion of the two invalids who had just disposed of a most generous bacon omelet, and were about to dig into a jar of pate.

Armandine and Nicholas watched them eat with evident admiration, fairly drinking up their words when between mouthsful they would stop for breath and deign to speak. Their rustic eloquence was like magic balm poured onto a constantly burning, ulcerated sore.

"Your son? Why, of course, he'll turn up!" the artilleryman assured them.

"But he hasn't written a line!"

"That's nothing. Now just suppose that correspondence is forbidden in his sector for the time being."

"I know, but it's three months since we heard from him. We've written everywhere, to all the authorities, and never get any returns--except now and then a card saying that they're giving the matter their attention. That's an awfully bad sign, isn't it?"

"Not at all, not at all," chimed in the chasseur. "Why, some of the missing have been found in other regiments, or even in the depots, and nobody knows how they got there.

"Three months? Why, that's not long. After the battle of the Marne my poor old mother had them say Heaven knows how many masses for the repose of my soul; for four months and three days she never heard a thing of me, and I'd written her regularly every week.