The Happy Foreigner Part 40

The first train had crawled over the new bridge, and stood whistling its triumph in the station.

As spring became more than a bright light over the mountains so the town in the hollow blossomed and functioned. The gate bells rang, the electric light ceased to glow in the daytime, great cranes came up on the trains and fished in the river for the wallowing bridges. Workmen arrived in the streets. In the early summer mornings tapping could be heard all about the town. Civilians in new black suits, civilians more or less damaged, limping or one-eyed, did things that made them happy with a hammer and a nail. They whistled as they tapped, nailed up shutters that had hung for four years by one hinge, climbed about the roofs and fixed a tile or two where a hundred were needed, brought little ladders on borrowed wheelbarrows and set them against the house-wall. In the house opposite, in the Rue de Cleves, a man was using his old blue puttees to nail up his fruit-trees.

All the men worked in new Sunday clothes; they had, as yet, nothing old to work in. Every day brought more of them to the town, lorries and horse carts set them down by the "Silver Lion," and they walked along the street carrying black bags and rolls of carpet, boxes of tools, and sometimes a well-oiled carbine.

"Yes, we must go home," said the Englishwomen. "It's time to leave the town."

The "Civils" seemed to drive them out. They knew they were birds of pa.s.sage as they walked in the sun in their khaki coats.

The "Civils" were blind to them, never looked at them, hurried on, longing to grasp the symbolic hammer, to dust, sweep out the German rags and rubbish, nail talc over the gaping windows, set their homes going, start their factories in the surrounding mountains, people the houses so long the mere shelter for pa.s.sing troops, light the civilian life of the town, and set it burning after the ashes and dust of war.

There were days when every owner, black-trousered and in his shirt- sleeves, seemed to be burning the contents of his house in a bonfire in the gutter. Poor men burned things that seemed useful to the casual eye --mattresses, bolsters, all soiled, soiled again and polluted by four years of soldiery.

Idling over the fire in the evening, f.a.n.n.y's eye was caught by a stain upon her armchair. It was sticky; it might well be champagne--the champagne which stuck even now to the bottoms of the gla.s.ses downstairs.

"I wonder if they will burn the chair--when _they_ come back." Some one must come back, some day, even if Philippe's mother never came. She seemed to see the figure of the Turkish officer seated in her chair, just as the _concierge_ had described him, stout, fezzed, resting his legs before her fire--or of the German, stretched back in the chair in the evening reading the copy of the _Westfalisches Volksblatt_ she had found stuffed down in the corner of the seat.

How, how did that splash of wax come to be so high up on the face of the mirror? Had someone, some predecessor, thrown a candle in a temper? It puzzled her in the morning as she lay in bed.

On the polished wooden foot of the bed was burnt the outline of a face with a funny nose. A child's drawing. That was Philippe's. The nurse had cried at him in a rage, perhaps, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the hot poker with which he drew--and that had made the long rushing burn that flew angrily across the wood from the base of the face's chin. "Oh, you've made it worse!" Philippe must have gibed.

("B"--who wrote "B" on the wall? The Bulgarian--)

She fell asleep.

The first bird, waking early, threw the image of the world across her lonely sleep. He squeaked alone, minute after minute, from his tree outside the window, thrusting forests, swamps, meadows, mountains in among her dreams. Then a fellow joined him, and soon all the birds were shouting from their trees. Slowly the room lightened till on the mantelpiece the buds of the apple blossom shone, till upon the wall the dark patch became an oil painting, till the painting showed its features --a castle, a river and a hill.

In the night the last yellow down had fallen from the palm upon the floor.

The common voice of the tin clock struck seven. And with it came women's voices--women's voices on the landing outside the door--the voice of the _concierge_ and another's.'

Some instinct, some strange warning, sent the sleeper on the bed flying from it, dazed as she was. s.n.a.t.c.hing at the initialled cup of gold veining she thrust it behind the curtain on the window sill. An act of panic merely, for a second glance round the room convinced her that there was too much to be hidden, if hidden anything should be. With a leap she was back in bed, and drew the bedclothes up to her neck.

Then came the knock at the door.

"I am in bed," she called.

"Nevertheless, can I come in?" asked the _concierge_.

"You may come in."

The young woman came in and closed the door after her. She approached the bed and whispered--then glancing round the room with a shrug she picked up a dressing-gown and held it that f.a.n.n.y might slip her arms into it.

"But what a time to come!"

"She has travelled all night. She is unfit to move."

"Must I see her now? I am hardly awake."

"I cannot keep her any longer. She was for coming straight here when the train came in at five. I have kept her at coffee at my house. _Tant pis!_ You have a right to be here!"

The _concierge_ drew the curtain a little wider and the cup was exposed.

She thrust it back into the shadow; the door opened and Philippe's mother walked in. She was very tall, in black, and a deep veil hung before her face.

"_Bonjour_, madame," she said, and her veiled face dipped in a faint salute.

"Will you sit down?"

She took no notice of this, but leaning a little on a stick she carried, said, "I understand that it is right that I should find my house occupied. They told me it would be by an officer. Such occupation I believe ceases on the return of the owner."

"Yes, madame."

"I am the owner of this house."

"Yes."

"May I ask of what nationality you are?"

The _concierge_ standing behind her, shrugged her shoulders impatiently, as if she would say, "I have explained, and explained again!"

"I am English, madame."

The lady seemed to sink into a stupor, and bending her head in silence stared at the floor. f.a.n.n.y, sitting upright in bed, waited for her to speak. The _>concierge_, her face still as an image, waited too.

Philippe's mother began to sway upon her stick.

"Do please sit down," said f.a.n.n.y, breaking the silence at last.

"When will you go?" demanded the old lady, suddenly.

"Go?"

"Who gave you that lamp? That is mine." She pointed to a gla.s.s lamp which stood upon the table.

"It is all yours," said f.a.n.n.y, humbly.

"Mademoiselle borrowed it," said the voice of the _concierge_. "I lent it to her."

"Why are my things lent when I am absent? My armchair--dirty, soiled, torn! Paul's picture--there is a hole in the corner. Who made that hole in the corner?"

"I didn't," said f.a.n.n.y feebly, wishing that she were dressed and upon her feet.

"Madame, a Turkish officer made the hole. I spoke to him about it; he said it was the German colonel who was here before him. But I am sure it was the Turk."

"A Turk!" said Philippe's mother in bewilderment. "So you have allowed a Turk to come in here!"

"Madame does not understand."