The Happy Foreigner Part 17

"Tiens!"

They obviously did not believe her, and turned to other subjects. But the Bearskin began to move uncomfortably on the step of the car, and, bending forward to attract their attention, he burst out:

"But, don't you know, mademoiselle is not paid!"

The others reconsidered her.

"How do you live then, mademoiselle? You have means of your own? You do not buy your clothes yourself? Your Government gives you those, and that fine leather coat?"

"I bought it myself," said f.a.n.n.y, and caused a sensation.

Immediately they put out their delicate hands, and fingers that loved to appraise, to feel the leather on the lapel.

"How soft! We have no leather now like that in France! How much did that cost? No, let me guess! You never paid a sou less than--Well, how much?"

The Bearskin, who had sat beside her all the morning, and had now turned her into an object of interest, took a pride in f.a.n.n.y.

"The English upbringing is very interesting," he said, pus.h.i.+ng back his cap and letting out the flame of his hair. "The young ladies become very serious. I have been in England. I have been in Balham."

But though, owing to the leather coat, the others seemed to consider that they had an heiress amongst them, they would not let the big Bearskin be her _impresario_ or their instructor.

"Divorce is very easy in England," said the thin man solemnly, and turned his shoulder slightly on the Bearskin, as though he blamed him for his stay in Balham.

When the lunch was over and the last fragment of _pate_ drawn off the last knife upon the crust of bread that remained, f.a.n.n.y's restless hopes turned towards packing up; but she counted without the white wine and the national repose after the midday meal. They washed their cups with care under the outlet tap of the radiator, and, wiping them dry to the last corner, sat back under the hedge to drink slowly.

All this time a peculiar quality had been drawing across the sun. It grew redder and duller, till, blus.h.i.+ng, it died out, and f.a.n.n.y saw that the morning frost had disappeared. Out to the left a mauve bank of cloud moved up across the sky like the smoke from a t.i.tanic bonfire, and, with the first drift of moisture towards them, the four s.h.i.+vered and rose simultaneously to pack the things and put them in the car.

As f.a.n.n.y stooped to wind up the handle the first snowflake, soft and wet and heavy, melted on her ear.

"It won't lie," said the Bearskin. "Shall we draw up the hood?"

They drew it up, but the thin man, huddling himself in the corner of the back seat, insisted on "side-curtains as well."

"Then I'm sorry. Will you get out? They are under the seat."

"Oh, never mind, my dear fellow," said Blackberry-Eyes.

"No, no. One ought to keep the warmth of food within one."

And the other got out, and stood s.h.i.+vering while the Bearskin and f.a.n.n.y pulled rugs and baskets and cus.h.i.+ons out into the road that they might lift the back seat and find the curtains.

"Oh, how torn!" exclaimed the thin man bitterly, as he saw her drape the car with leather curtains whose windows of mica had long since been cracked and torn away. The snow was hissing on the radiator and melting on the road, and there seemed no wind left anywhere to drive the weight of the mauve cloud further across the sky. It hung solid and low above them, so that between the surface of the earth and the floor of the sky there was only a foggy tunnel in which the road could be seen a few yards ahead.

As they drove forward the windscreen became filmed with melting snow.

f.a.n.n.y unscrewed it and tilted it open, and the Bearskin fumbled unhappily at his collar to close every c.h.i.n.k and cranny in his mossy hide.

They were climbing higher and higher across an endless plateau, and at last a voice called from the back, "We must look at the map." It was a voice of doubt and distrust that any road could be right road which held so much discomfort.

f.a.n.n.y stopped and pulled her map from behind her back, where she was keeping it dry. "It's all right," she showed them, leaning over the back and holding the map towards them. Then she discovered that the back seat was empty, and her clients were huddled among the petrol tins and rugs upon the floor.

"You must be miserable! It's so much colder in the back. See, here's the big road that we must avoid, going off into Luxembourg, and here's ours, running downhill in another mile."

They believed her, being too cramped and miserable to take more than a querulous interest. In another half-hour the snow ceased, and as they glided down the long hill on the other side of the plateau in a bed of fresh, unruffled wool, the sun struck out with a suddenness that seemed to tear the sky in two, and turned the blue snow into a sheet of light which stretched far below them into a country of pine woods and pits of shadow. Down, down they ran, till just below lay a village--if village it was when only a house or two were gathered together for company in the forest.

The snow seemed to have lain here for days, for the car slipped and skidded at the steep entrance, where the boys of the village had made slides for their toboggans. A hundred feet from the first house a triumphal arch was built of pine and laurel across the road. On it was written in white letters "Soyez le Bienvenu." All the white poor houses glittered in the snow with flags.

A stream crossed the village street, and a file of geese on its narrow bridge brought her to a standstill.

"What are the flags for?" she asked of an old man, pressing back into a safety alcove in the stone wall of the bridge.

"We expect Petain here to-day. He is coming to Thionville."

"But Thionville is forty miles away--"

"Still, he might pa.s.s here--"

Running on and on through forest and hilly country, they left the snow behind them, and slipped down into greener valleys, till at last they came upon a single American sentry, and over his head was chalked upon a board: "This is Germany."

They pulled up. Germany it might be--but the road to Treves? He did not know; he knew nothing, except that with his left foot he stood in Germany, and with his right in France.

CHAPTER VIII

GERMANY

Over the side of the next mountain all Hans Andersen was stretched before them--tracts of _little_ country, little wooden houses with pointed roofs, little hills covered with squares of different coloured woods, and a blue river at the bottom of the valley, white with geese upon its banks. They held their open mouths insultedly in the air as the motor pa.s.sed. The narrow road became like marble, and the car hissed like a gla.s.s ball rolled on a stone step. On every little hill stood a castle made of brown chocolate, very small, but complete with turrets.

Young horses with fat stomachs and arched necks bolted sideways off the road in fear, followed by gaily painted lattice-work carts, and plunged far into the gra.s.sland at the side. Old women with coloured hoods swore at them, and pulled the reins. Many pointed hills were grey with vine-sticks, and on the crest of each of these stood a small chapel as if to bless the wine. The countryside was wet and fresh--white, hardly yellow--with the winter sun; moss by the roadside still dripped from the night, and small bare orchard trees stood in brilliant gra.s.s.

"Look! How the gra.s.s grows in Germany!"

"Ah, it doesn't grow like that in the valley of the Meuse--"

Every cottage in every village was different; many wore hats instead of roofs, wooden things like steeples, with deep eaves and carved fringes, in which were shadowy windows like old eyes. Some were pink and some were yellow.

Soon they left the woods and came out upon an open plateau surrounded by wavy hills with castles on them. In the middle of the plateau was a Zeppelin shed which looked like the work of bigger men than the crawling peasants in the roads. One side of the shed was open, and the strange predatory bird within, insensible to the peering eye of an enemy, seemed lost in thought in this green valley. The camp of huts beside it was deserted, and there seemed to exist no hand to close the house door.

They rose again on to a hillside, and on every horizon shone a far blue forest faint like sea or cloud.

Nearer Treves the villages were filled with Americans--Americans mending the already perfect roads, and playing with the children.

"This is a topsy-turvy country, as it would be in Hans Andersen,"

thought f.a.n.n.y. "I thought the Germans had to mend the broken roads in France!"

They stayed that night in the Porta-Nigra hotel, which had been turned into an Allied hostel. The mess downstairs was chiefly filled with American officers, though a few Frenchmen sat together in one corner.

The food was American--corn cakes, syrup, and white, flaky bread.

"Well, what bread! It's like cake!"