Chapter XIV

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

　　For four days the gray car did not come again. Supplies appeared inanother gray car, driven by a surly Fleming. The waking hours were full,as usual. Sara Lee grew a little thin, and seemed to be alwayslistening. But there was no Henri, and something that was vivid andjoyous seemed to have gone out of the little house.

　　Even Marie no longer sang as she swept or washed the kettles, and SaraLee, making up the records to send home, put little spirit into theletter that went with them.

　　On the second day she wrote to Harvey.

　　"I am sorry that you feel as you do," she wrote, perhaps unconsciouslyusing Henri's last words to her. "I have not meant to be cruel. Andif you were here you would realize that whether others could have donewhat I am doing or not—and of course many could—it is worth doing.I hear that other women are establishing houses like this, but theBritish and the French will not allow women so near the lines. The mencome in at night from the trenches so tired, so hungry and so cold.Some of them are wounded too. I dress the little wounds. I do givethem something, Harvey dear—if it is only a reminder that there arehomes in the world, and everything is not mud and waiting and killing."

　　She told him that his picture was on her mantel, but she did not saythat a corner of her room had been blown away or that the mantel wasbut a plank from a destroyed house. And she sent a great deal of love,but she did not say that she no longer wore his ring on her finger.And, of course, she was coming back to him if he still wanted her.

　　More than Henri's absence was troubling Sara Lee those days. Indeed sheherself laid all her anxiety to one thing, a serious one at that. Withall the marvels of Henri's buying, and Jean's, her money was not holdingout. The scope of the little house had grown with its fame. Now andthen there were unexpected calls, too—Marie's mother, starving inHavre; sickness and death in the little town at the crossroads: a dozensmall emergencies, but adding to the demands on her slender income. Shehad, as a matter of fact, already begun to draw on her private capital.

　　And during the days when no gray car appeared she faced the situation,took stock, as it were, and grew heavy-eyed and wistful.

　　On the fifth day the gray car came again, but Jean drove it alone. Hedisclaimed any need for sympathy over his wound, and with René's aidcarried in the supplies.

　　There was the business of checking them off, and the further businessof Sara Lee's paying for them in gold. She sat at the table, Jeanacross, and struggled with centimes and francs and louis d'or, anengrossed frown between her eyebrows.

　　Jean, sitting across, thought her rather changed. She smiled very seldom,and her eyes were perhaps more steady. It was a young girl he and Henrihad brought out to the little house. It was a very serious and ratheranxious young woman who sat across from him and piled up the money hehad brought back into little stacks.

　　"Jean," she said finally, "I am not going to be able to do it."

　　"To do what?"

　　"To continue—here."

　　"No?"

　　"You see I had a little money of my own, and twenty pounds I got inLondon. You and—and Henri have done miracles for me. But soon Ishall have used all my own money, except enough to take me back. Andnow I shall have to start on my English notes. After that—"

　　"You are too good to the men. These cigarettes, now—you could dowithout them."

　　"But they are very cheap, and they mean so much, Jean."

　　She sat still, her hands before her on the table. From the kitchen camethe bubbling of the eternal soup. Suddenly a tear rolled slowly downher cheek. She had a hatred of crying in public, but Jean apparentlydid not notice.

　　"The trouble, mademoiselle, is that you are trying to feed and comforttoo many."

　　"Jean," she said suddenly, "where is Henri?"

　　"In England, I think."

　　The only clear thought in Sara Lee's mind was that Henri was not inFrance, and that he had gone without telling her. She had hurt himhorribly. She knew that. He might never come back to the little houseof mercy. There was, in Henri, for all his joyousness, an implacablestrain. And she had attacked his honor. What possible right had sheto do that?

　　The memory of all his thoughtful kindness came back, and it was a paleand distracted Sara Lee who looked across the table at Jean.

　　"Did he tell you anything?"

　　"Nothing, mademoiselle."

　　"He is very angry with me, Jean."

　　"But surely no, mademoiselle. With you? It is impossible."

　　But though they said nothing more, Jean considered the matter deeply.He understood now, for instance, a certain strangeness in Henri's mannerbefore his departure. They had quarreled, these two. Perhaps it was aswell, though Jean was by now a convert to Sara Lee. But he looked out,those days, on but half a world, did Jean. So he saw only the womanhunger in Henri, and nothing deeper. And in Sara Lee a woman, andnothing more.

　　And—being Jean he shrugged his shoulders.

　　They fell to discussing ways and means. The chocolate could be cut out,but not the cigarettes. Sara Lee, arguing vehemently for them andtrying to forget other things, remembered suddenly how Uncle James hadhated cigarettes, and that Harvey himself disapproved of them. SomehowHarvey seemed, those days, to present a constant figure of disapproval.He gave her no moral support.

　　At Jean's suggestion she added to her report of so many men fed withsoup, so much tobacco, sort not specified, so many small woundsdressed—a request that if possible her allowance be increased. She didit nervously, but when the letter had gone she felt a great relief. Sheenclosed a snapshot of the little house.

　　Jean, as it happens, had lied about Henri. Not once, but several times.He had told Marie, for instance, that Henri was in England, and lateron he told René. Then, having done his errand, he drove six miles backalong the main road to Dunkirk and picked up Henri, who was sitting onthe bank of a canal watching an ammunition train go by.

　　Jean backed into a lane and turned the car round. After that Henri gotin and they went rapidly back toward the Front. It was a differentHenri, however, who left the car a mile from the crossroads—a Henri inthe uniform of a French private soldier, one of those odd andimpracticable uniforms of France during the first year, baggy dark bluetrousers, stiff cap, and the long-tailed coat, its skirts turned backand faced. Round his neck he wore a knitted scarf, which covered hischin, and, true to the instinct of the French peasant in a wintercampaign, he wore innumerable undergarments, the red of a jersey showingthrough rents in his coat.

　　Gone were Henri's long clean lines, his small waist and broad shoulders,the swing of his walk. Instead, he walked with the bent-kneed swing ofthe French infantryman, that tireless but awkward marching step whichrenders the French Army so mobile.

　　He carried all the impedimenta of a man going into the trenches, anextra jar of water, a flat loaf of bread strapped to his haversack, andan intrenching tool jingling at his belt.

　　Even Jean smiled as he watched him moving along toward the crowdedcrossroads—smiled and then sighed. For Jean had lost everything inthe war. His wife had died of a German bullet long months before, andwith her had gone a child much prayed for and soon to come. But Henrihad brought back to Jean something to live for—or to die for, as mighthappen.

　　Henri walked along gayly. He hailed other French soldiers. He joined ahandful and stood talking to them. But he reached the crossroads beforethe ammunition train.

　　The crossroads was crowded, as usual—many soldiers, at rest, waitingfor the word to fall in, a battery held up by the breaking of a wheel.A temporary forge had been set up, and soldiers in leather aprons wereworking over the fire. A handful of peasants watched, their dull eyesfollowing every gesture. And one of them was a man Henri sought.

　　Henri sat down on the ground and lighted a cigarette. The ammunitiontrain rolled in and halted, and the man Henri watched turned hisattention to the train. He had been dull and quiet at the forge, butnow he became smiling, a good fellow. He found a man he knew among thedrivers and offered him a cigarette. He also produced and presented anentire box of matches. Matches were very dear, and hardly to be boughtat any price.

　　Henri watched grimly and hummed a little song:

　　"Trou la la, çà ne va guère;

　　Trou la la, çà ne va pas."