Molly Brown of Kentucky Part 9

"Mother, I must write to Judy now that I have some kind of address. Must I tell her?"

"Yes, my dear, tell her all we know, but tell her of our conviction that all is well. I will write to her myself, on second thought."

John and Paul both spent every night at Chatsworth now, although it meant very early rising for both of them and often a midnight arrival or departure for Dr. John, whose practice was growing but seemed to be restricted to persons who persisted in being taken very ill in the night.

"It is because so many of them are charity patients or semi-charity and they always want to get all they can," he would declare. "Of course, a doctor's night rates are higher than day rates, and when they are getting something for nothing, if they call me up at two a. m. they are getting more for nothing than they would be if they had their toe aches in the day time."

Ten days had pa.s.sed since the half-drowned sailors had been picked up by the English fis.h.i.+ng smack, and still no message from Kent.

Mrs. Brown wrote and dispatched her letter to Judy Kean. It was a hard letter to write, much harder than it would have been had there been an engagement between the two. The good lady felt that Judy was almost like a daughter and still it required something more than existed to address her as one. She must convey to Judy the news that Kent was s.h.i.+pwrecked, and still she wanted to put in the girl's heart the faith she had in his safety.

"Poor Judy! If she is alone in Paris, think what it will mean for this news to reach her!" Molly agonized to herself. "She may and may not care for Kent enough to marry him, but she certainly is devoted to him as a friend. She will feel it just so much more keenly because he was on his way to her."

Molly could not sleep in her great anxiety, and her faith and the certainty of Kent's safety left her. "I must keep up for Mildred's sake," she would cry as she tried to choke down food. Her every endeavor was to hide this loss of faith from her mother, whose belief in her son's being alive and well never seemed to falter.

Daily letters from Edwin were Molly's one comfort. He was back in the grind of lectures at Wellington and was missing sorely his wife and child.

"Molly darling, you mustn't wait any longer in Kentucky," her mother said at breakfast one morning. Molly was trying to dispose of a gla.s.s of milk and a soft boiled egg, although her throat seemed to close at the thought of food.

"But, Mother, I wouldn't leave you for anything in the world," she declared, making a successful gulp which got rid of the milk, at least.

"Your husband needs you, child, and I know it would be best for you.

There is no use in waiting."

Molly looked up, startled. Had her mother, too, lost heart? Her face had grown thinner in those days of waiting and her hair was quite grey, in fact, silvery about the temples; but her eyes still held the light of faith and high resolve.

"She still has faith! And you, Molly Brown Green! Oh, ye of little faith! What right have you to be a clog and burden? Take another gla.s.s of milk this minute and keep up your health and your baby's health."

This to herself, and aloud: "Why, Mumsy, I want to stay right here.

Little Mildred is thriving and Edwin is doing very well at Wellington.

Every one is asking him out to dine, now that he is untrammelled with a wife. He reports a big gain in attendance on last semestre and is as cheerful as can be. Caroline, please bring me another gla.s.s of milk, and I think I'll get you to soft boil another egg for me!"

CHAPTER VIII.

DES HALLES.

Mere Tricot called Judy just at dawn. The kindly old grenadier stood over her, and this was no dream--she held a real cup of coffee.

"The good man is ready. I hate to wake you, but if you want to go to market with him, it is time."

"Oh, yes! It won't take me a minute."

Judy gulped the coffee and dived into her clothes. There seemed to be no question of baths with the good Tricots, and Judy made a mental note that she would go every day to the Bents' studio for her cold plunge. A bathroom is the exception and not the rule in the poorer cla.s.s of apartments in Paris. In New York, any apartment worthy of the name boasts a bathroom, but not so in the French city.

Pere Tricot was waiting for her with his little green push cart to bring home the purchases to be made in market. He was dressed in a stiff, clean, blue blouse and his kindly, lank old face was freshly shaven.

"Ah, Mam'selle! So you will go with the old man?"

"Go with you! Of course I will! I love the early morning, and the market will be beautiful."

The streets were very quiet and misty. Paris never gets up very early, and as the cold weather comes, she lies abed later and later. The Gardens of the Luxembourg were showing signs of frost, or was it heavy dew? The leaves had begun to drop and some of them had turned.

There was a delightful nip in the air and as Judy and the old man trudged along, the girl felt really happy, happier than she had for many a day. "It must be having a home that is doing it," she thought. "Maybe I am a domestic person, after all.

"Pere Tricot, don't you love your home?"

"My home! You don't think that that shop in Boulevard Montparna.s.se is my home, eh?"

"But where is your home then?"

"Ah, in Normandy, near Roche Craie! That is where I was born and hope to die. We are saving for our old age now and will go back home some day, the good wife and I. Jean and Marie can run the shop, that is, if----"

Judy knew he meant if Jean came through the war alive.

"The city is not for me, but it seemed best to bring Jean here when he was little. There seemed no chance to do more than exist in the country, and here we have prospered."

"I have visited at Roche Craie. I think it is beautiful country. No wonder you want to go back. The d'Ochtes were my friends there."

"The Marquis d'Ochte! Oh, Mam'selle, and to think of your being their guest and then mine!" Judy could have bitten out her tongue for saying she had visited those great folk. She could see now that the dear old man had lost his ease in her presence. "They are the greatest landowners of the whole department."

"Yes, but they are quite simple and very kind. I got to know them through some friends of mine who were related to the Marquise. She, you know, was an American."

"Yes, and a kind, great lady she is. Why, it was only day before yesterday she was in our shop. She makes a rule to get what she can from us for her household. She has a chef who can make every known sauce, but he cannot make a tart like my good wife's. We furnish all the tarts of the d'Ochtes when they are in Paris. Madame, the Marquise, is also pleased to say that my _pouree d'epinard_ is smoother and better than Gaston's, and only yesterday she bought a tray of it for their _dejeuner a la fourchette_. Her son Philippe is flying. The Marquis, too, is with his regiment."

"How I wish I could have seen her!"

"Ah, then, Mam'selle would not be ashamed for the Marquise to see her waiting in the shop of poor Tricot?"

"Ashamed! Why, Pere Tricot, what do you take me for? I am only too glad to help some and to feel that I can do something besides look on," and Judy, who had been walking on the sidewalk while her companion pushed his _pet.i.te voiture_ along the street, stepped down into the gutter and with her hand on the shaft went the rest of the way, helping to push the cart.

As they approached the market, they were joined by more and more pedestrians, many of them with little carts, similar to Pere Tricot's and many of them with huge baskets. War seemed to be forgotten for the time being, so bent were all of them on the business of feeding and being fed.

"One must eat!" declared a pleasant fat woman in a high stiff white cap.

"If Paris is to be entered to-morrow by the Prussians, I say we must be fed and full. There is no more pleasure in dying for your country empty than full."

"Listen to the voice of the Halles, Mam'selle. Can't you hear it roaring? Ah! and there is the bell of St. Eustache."

The peal of bells rose above the hum of the market.

"St. Eustache! Can't we go into the church a little while first?"

And so, hand in hand with the old Normandy peasant, Judy Kean walked into the great old church, and together they knelt on the flagged floor and prayed. Judy never did anything by halves, not even praying. When she prayed, she did it with a fervor and earnestness St. Anthony himself would have envied. When they rose from their knees, they both looked happier. Old Tricot had prayed for his boy, so soon to be in the trenches, and Judy offered an impa.s.sioned pet.i.tion for the safety of her beloved parents.

When they emerged from the church, the sun was up and the market was almost like a carnival, except for the fact that the color was subdued somewhat by the mourning that many of the women wore.