The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes Part 5

"Your nephew is marrying? I congratulate you. But why did you not tell me?"

"I did mention it. That day I had a letter!"

"Ah! I seem to remember. I had not thought of it." Then briskly: "Well, that makes all for the best again. Ah! I was right not to scold _monsieur le coiffeur_ too much, was I not?"

"You are very good to be so patient," said Madame Valiere, with a sob in her voice.

Madame Depine shot her a dignified glance. "We will discuss our affairs at home. Here it only remains to say whether you are satisfied with the fit."

Madame Valiere patted the wig, as much in approbation as in adjustment. "But it fits me to a miracle!"

"Then we will pay our friend, and wish him _le bon jour_." She produced the fifty francs--two gold pieces, well sounding, for which she had exchanged her silver and copper, and two five-franc pieces.

"And _voila_," she added, putting down a franc for _pourboire_, "we are very content with the artist."

The "Princess" stared at her, with a new admiration.

"_Merci bien_," said the _coiffeur_, fervently, as he counted the cash. "Would that all customers' heads lent themselves so easily to artistic treatment!"

"And when will my friend's wig be ready?" said the "Princess."

"Madame Valiere! What are you saying there? Monsieur will set to work when I bring him the fifty francs."

"_Mais non_, madame. I commence immediately. In a week it shall be ready, and you shall only pay on delivery."

"You are very good. But I shall not need it yet--not till the winter--when the snows come," said Madame Depine, vaguely. "_Bon jour_, monsieur;" and, thrusting the old wig on the new block, and both under her shawl, she dragged the "Princess" out of the shop.

Then, looking back through the door, "Do not lose the measurement, monsieur," she cried. "One of these days!"

XIII

The grey wig soon showed its dark side. Its possession, indeed, enabled Madame Valiere to loiter on the more lighted stairs, or dawdle in the hall with Madame la Proprietaire; but Madame Depine was not only debarred from these dignified domestic att.i.tudes, but found a new awkwardness in bearing Madame Valiere company in their walks abroad. Instead of keeping each other in countenance--_duoe contra mundum_--they might now have served as an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the _coiffeur_ and the _convenable_. Before the grey wig--after the grey wig.

Wherefore Madame Depine was not so very sorry when, after a few weeks of this discomforting contrast, the hour drew near of the "Princess's"

departure for the family wedding; especially as she was only losing her for two days. She had insisted, of course, that the savings for the second wig were not to commence till the return, so that Madame Valiere might carry with her a present worthy of her position and her port. They had anxious consultations over this present. Madame Depine was for a cheap but showy article from the Bon Marche; but Madame Valiere reminded her that the price-lists of this enterprising firm knocked at the doors of Tonnerre. Something distinguished (in silver) was her own idea. Madame Depine frequently wept during these discussions, reminded of her own wedding. Oh, the roundabouts at Robinson, and that delicious wedding-lunch up the tree! One was gay then, my dear.

At last they purchased a tiny metal Louis Quinze timepiece for eleven francs seventy-five centimes, congratulating themselves on the surplus of twenty-five centimes from their three weeks' savings. Madame Valiere packed it with her impedimenta into the carpet-bag lent her by Madame la Proprietaire. She was going by a night train from the Gare de Lyon, and sternly refused to let Madame Depine see her off.

"And how would you go back--an old woman, alone in these dark November nights, with the papers all full of crimes of violence? It is not _convenable_, either."

Madame Depine yielded to the latter consideration; but as Madame Valiere, carrying the bulging carpet-bag, was crying "_La porte, s'il vous plait_" to the _concierge_, she heard Madame Depine come tearing and puffing after her like the steam-tram, and, looking back, saw her breathlessly brandishing her gold brooch. "_Tiens!_" she panted, fastening the "Princess's" cloak with it. "That will give thee an air."

"But--it is too valuable. Thou must not." They had never "thou'd" each other before, and this enhanced the tremulousness of the moment.

"I do not give it thee," Madame Depine laughed through her tears. "_Au revoir, mon amie_."

"_Adieu, ma cherie!_ I will tell my dear ones of my Paris comrade."

And for the first time their lips met, and the brown wig brushed the grey.

XIV

Madame Depine had two drearier days than she had foreseen. She kept to her own room, creeping out only at night, when, like all cats, all wigs are grey. After an eternity of loneliness the third day dawned, and she went by pre-arrangement to meet the morning train. Ah, how gaily gleamed the kiosks on the boulevards through the grey mist! What jolly red faces glowed under the cabmen's white hats! How blithely the birds sang in the bird-shops!

The train was late. Her spirits fell as she stood impatiently at the barrier, shivering in her thin clothes, and morbidly conscious of all those eyes on her wig. At length the train glided in unconcernedly, and shot out a medley of pa.s.sengers. Her poor old eyes strained towards them. They surged through the gate in animated ma.s.ses, but Madame Valiere's form did not disentangle itself from them, though every instant she expected it to jump at her eyes. Her heart contracted painfully--there was no "Princess." She rushed round to another exit, then outside, to the gates at the end of the drive; she peered into every cab even, as it rumbled past. What had happened? She trudged home as hastily as her legs could bear her. No, Madame Valiere had not arrived.

"They have persuaded her to stay another day," said Madame la Proprietaire. "She will come by the evening train, or she will write."

Madame Depine pa.s.sed the evening at the Gare de Lyon, and came home heavy of heart and weary of foot. The "Princess" might still arrive at midnight, though, and Madame Depine lay down dressed in her bed, waiting for the familiar step in the corridor. About three o'clock she fell into a heavy doze, and woke in broad day. She jumped to her feet, her overwrought brain still heavy with the vapours of sleep, and threw open her door.

"Ah! she has already taken in her boots," she thought confusedly. "I shall be late for coffee." She gave her perfunctory knock, and turned the door-handle. But the door would not budge.

"Jacques! Jacques!" she cried, with a clammy fear at her heart. The _garcon_, who was pottering about with pails, opened the door with his key. An emptiness struck cold from the neat bed, the bare walls, the parted wardrobe-curtains that revealed nothing. She fled down the stairs, into the bureau.

"Madame Valiere is not returned?" she cried.

Madame la Proprietaire shook her head.

"And she has not written?"

"No letter in her writing has come--for anybody."

"_O mon Dieu!_ She has been murdered. She _would_ go alone by night."

"She owes me three weeks' rent," grimly returned Madame la Proprietaire.

"What do you insinuate?" Madame Depine's eyes flared.

Madame la Proprietaire shrugged her shoulders. "I am not at my first communion. I have grown grey in the service of lodgers. And this is how they reward me." She called Jacques, who had followed uneasily in Madame Depine's wake. "Is there anything in the room?"

"Empty as an egg-sh.e.l.l, madame."

"Not even the miniature of her sister?"

"Not even the miniature of her sister."

"Of her sister?" repeated Madame Depine.

"Yes; did I never tell you of her? A handsome creature, but she threw her bonnet over the mills."

"But I thought that was the Princess."

"The Princess, too. Her bonnet will also be found lying there."