The Rough Road Part 56

"I had a lot of difficulty. The British Emba.s.sy--the Prefecture of Police----"

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Jeanne again. "Did you do all that for me?"

"For my cousin."

"You called him Doggie. That is how I know him and think of him."

"All right," smiled Peggy. "For Doggie then."

Jeanne's brain for a moment or two was in a whirl--Emba.s.sies and Prefectures of Police!

"Madame, to do this, you must love him very much."

"I loved him so much--I hope you will understand me--my French I know is terrible--but I loved him so much that until he came home wounded we were _fiances_."

Jeanne drew a short breath. "I felt it, madame. An English gentleman of great estate would naturally marry an English lady of his own social cla.s.s. That is why, madame, I acted as I have done."

Then something of what Jeanne really was became obvious to Peggy. Lady or no lady, in the conventional British sense, Jeanne appealed to her, in her quiet dignity and restraint, as a type of Frenchwoman whom she had never met before. She suddenly conceived an enormous respect for Jeanne. Also for Phineas McPhail, whose eulogistic character sketch she had accepted with feminine reservations subconsciously derisive.

"My dear," she said. "_Vous etes digne de toute dame anglaise!_"--which wasn't an elegant way of putting it in the French tongue---but Jeanne, with her odd smile of the lips, showed that she understood her meaning; she had served her apprentices.h.i.+p in the interpretation of Anglo-Gallic. "But I want to tell you. Doggie and I were engaged. A family matter. Then, when he came home wounded--you know how--I found that I loved some one--_aimais d'amour_, as you say--and he found the same. I loved the man whom I married. He loved you. He confessed it. We parted more affectionate friends than we had ever been. I married. He searched for you. My husband has been killed.

Doggie, although wounded, is alive. That is why I am here."

They were sitting in a corner of the ante-room, and before them pa.s.sed a continuous stream of the busy life of the war, civilians, officers, badged workers, elderly orderlies in pathetic bits of uniform that might have dated from 1870, wheeling packages in and out, groups talking of the business of the organization, here and there a blue-vested young lieutenant and a blue-overalled packer, talking--it did not need G.o.d to know of what. But neither of the two women heeded this mult.i.tude.

Jeanne said: "Madame, I am profoundly moved by what you have told me.

If I show little emotion, it is because I have suffered greatly from the war. One learns self-restraint, madame, or one goes mad. But as you have spoken to me in your n.o.ble English frankness--I have only to confess that I love Doggie with all my heart, with all my soul----"

With her two clenched hands she smote her breast--and Peggy noted it was the first gesture that she had made. "I feel the infinite need, madame--you will understand me--to care for him, to protect him----"

Peggy raised a beautifully gloved hand.

"Protect him?" she interrupted. "Why, hasn't he shown himself to be a hero?"

Jeanne leant forward and grasped the protesting hand by the wrist; and there was a wonderful light behind her eyes and a curious vibration in her voice.

"It is only _les pet.i.ts heros tout faits_--the little ready-made heroes--ready made by the _bon Dieu_--who have no need of a woman's protection. But it is a different thing with the great heroes who have made themselves without the aid of a _bon Dieu_, from little dogs of no account (_des pet.i.ts chiens de rien du tout_) to what Doggie is at the moment. The woman then takes her place. She fixes things for ever.

She alone can understand."

Peggy gasped as at a new Revelation. The terms in which this French girl expressed herself were far beyond the bounds of her philosophy.

The varying aspects in which Doggie had presented himself to her, in the past few months, had been bewildering. Now she saw him, in a fresh light, though as in a gla.s.s darkly, as reflected by Jeanne. Still, she protested again, in order to see more clearly.

"But what would you protect him from?"

"From want of faith in himself; from want of faith in his destiny, madame. Once he told me he had come to France to fight for his soul.

It is necessary that he should be victorious. It is necessary that the woman who loves him should make him victorious."

Peggy put out her hand and touched Jeanne's wrist.

"I'm glad I didn't marry Doggie, mademoiselle," she said simply. "I couldn't have done that." She paused. "Well?" she resumed. "Will you now come with me to London?"

A faint smile crept into Jeanne's eyes.

"_Mais oui, madame._"

Doggie lay in the long, pleasant ward of the great London hospital, the upper left side of his body a ma.s.s of bandaged pain. Neck and shoulder, front and back and arm, had been shattered and torn by high explosive sh.e.l.l. The top of his lung had been grazed. Only the remorseless pressure at the base hospital had justified the sending of him, after a week, to England. Youth and the splendid const.i.tution which Dr. Murdoch had proclaimed in the far-off days of the war's beginning, and the toughening training of the war itself, carried him through. No more fighting for Doggie this side of the grave. But the grave was as far distant as it is from any young man in his twenties who avoids abnormal peril.

Till to-day he had not been allowed to see visitors, or to receive letters. They told him that the Dean of Durdlebury had called; had brought flowers and fruit and had left a card "From your Aunt, Peggy and myself." But to-day he felt wonderfully strong, in spite of the unrelenting pain, and the nurse had said: "I shouldn't wonder if you had some visitors this afternoon." Peggy, of course. He followed the hands of his wrist-watch until they marked the visiting hour. And sure enough, a minute afterwards, amid the stream of men and women--chiefly women--of all grades and kinds, he caught sight of Peggy's face smiling beneath her widow's hat. She had a great bunch of violets in her bodice.

"My dear old Doggie!" She bent down and kissed him. "Those rotten people wouldn't let me come before."

"I know," said Doggie. He pointed to his shoulder. "I'm afraid I'm in a h.e.l.l of a mess. It's lovely to see you."

She unpinned the violets and thrust them towards his face.

"From home. I've brought 'em for you."

"My G.o.d!" said Doggie, burying his nose in the huge bunch. "I never knew violets could smell like this." He laid them down with a sigh.

"How's everybody?"

"Quite fit."

There was a span of silence. Then he stretched out his hand and she gave him hers and he gripped it tight.

"Poor old Peggy dear!"

"Oh, that's all right," she said bravely. "I know you care, dear Doggie. That's enough. I've just got to stick it like the rest." She withdrew her hand after a little squeeze. "Bless you. Don't worry about me. I'm contemptibly healthy. But you----?"

"Getting on splendidly. I say, Peggy, what kind of people are the Pullingers who have taken Denby Hall?"

"They're all right, I believe. He's something in the Government--Controller of Feeding-bottles--I don't know. But, oh, Doggie, what an a.s.s you were to sell the place up!"

"I wasn't."

"You were."

Doggie laughed. "If you've come here to argue with me, I shall cry, and then you'll be turned out neck and crop."

Peggy looked at him shrewdly. "You seem to be going pretty strong."

"Never stronger in my life," lied Doggie.

"Would you like to see somebody you are very fond of?"

"Somebody I'm fond of? Uncle Edward?"

"No, no." She waved the Very Reverend the Dean to the empyrean.