The Rough Road

CHAPTER XXIV

The Dean of an English cathedral is a personage.

He has power. He can stand with folded arms at its door and forbid entrance to anyone, save, perhaps, the King in person. He can tell not only the Bishop of the Diocese, but the very Archbishop of the Province, to run away and play. Having power and using it benignly and graciously, he can exert its subtler form known as influence. In the course of his distinguished career he is bound to make many queer friends in high places.

“My dear Field-Marshal, could you do me a little favour…?”

“My dear Ambassador, my daughter, etc., etc…”

Deans, discreet, dignified gentlemen, who would not demand the impossible, can generally get what they ask for.

When Peggy returned to Durdlebury and put Doggie’s case before her father, and with unusual fervour roused him from his first stupefaction at the idea of her mad project, he said mildly:

“Let me understand clearly what you want to do. You want to go to Paris by yourself, discover a girl called Jeanne Bossière, concerning whose address you know nothing but two words – Port Royal – of course there is a Boulevard Port Royal somewhere south of the Luxembourg Gardens – ”

“Then we’ve found her,” cried Peggy. “We only want the number.”

“Please don’t interrupt,” said the Dean. “You confuse me, my dear. You want to find this girl and re-establish communication between her and Marmaduke, and – er – generally play Fairy Godmother.”

“If you like to put it that way,” said Peggy.

“Are you quite certain you would be acting wisely? From Marmaduke’s point of view – ”

“Don’t call him Marmaduke” – she bent forward and touched his knee caressingly – “Marmaduke could never have risked his life for a woman. It was Doggie who did it. She thinks of him as Doggie. Every one thinks of him now and loves him as Doggie. It was Oliver’s name for him, don’t you see? And he has stuck it out and made it a sort of title of honour and affection – and it was as Doggie that Oliver learned to love him, and in his last letter to Oliver he signed himself ‘Your devoted Doggie.’”

“My dear,” smiled the Dean, and quoted: “‘What’s in a name? A rose – ’”

“Would be unendurable if it were called a bug-squash. The poetry would be knocked out of it.”

The Dean said indulgently: “So the name Doggie connotes something poetic and romantic?”

“You ask the girl Jeanne.”

The Dean tapped the back of his daughter’s hand that rested on his knee.

“There’s no fool like an old fool, my dear. Do you know why?”

She shook her head.

“Because the old fool has learned to understand the young fool, whereas the young fool doesn’t understand anybody.”

She laughed and threw herself on her knees by his side.

“Daddy, you’re immense!”

He took the tribute complacently. “What was I saying before you interrupted me? Oh yes. About the wisdom of your proposed action. Are you sure they want each other?”

“As sure as I’m sitting here,” said Peggy.

“Then, my dear,” said he, “I’ll do what I can.”

Whether he wrote to Field-Marshals and Ambassadors or to lesser luminaries, Peggy did not know. The Dean observed an old-world punctilio about such matters. At the first reply or two to his letters he frowned; at the second or two he smiled in the way any elderly gentleman may smile when he finds himself recognized by high-and-mightiness as a person of importance.

“I think, my dear,” said he at last, “I’ve arranged everything for you.”

So it came to pass that while Doggie, with a shattered shoulder and a touched left lung, was being transported from a base hospital in France to a hospital in England, Peggy, armed with all kinds of passports and recommendations, and a very fixed, personal sanctified idea, was crossing the Channel on her way to Paris and Jeanne.

And, after all, it was no wild-goose chase, but a very simple matter. An urbane, elderly person at the British Embassy performed certain telephonic gymnastics. At the end:

“Merci, merci. Adieu!”

He turned to her.

“A representative from the Prefecture of Police will wait on you at your hotel at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”

The official called, took notes, and confidently assured her that he would obtain the address of Mademoiselle Jeanne Bossière within twelve hours.

“But how, monsieur, are you going to do it?” asked Peggy.

“Madame,” said he, “in spite of the war, the telegraphic, telephonic, and municipal systems of France work in perfect order – to say nothing of that of the police. Frélus, I think, is the name of the place she started from?”

At eight o’clock in the evening, after her lonely dinner in the great hotel, the polite official called again. She met him in the lounge.

“Madame,” said he, “I have the pleasure to inform you that Mademoiselle Jeanne Bossière, late of Frélus, is living in Paris at 743bis Boulevard Port Royal, and spends all her days at the succursale of the French Red Cross in the Rue Vaugirard.”

“Have you seen her and told her?”

“No, madame, that did not come within my instructions.”

“I am infinitely grateful to you,” said Peggy.

“Il n’y a pas de quoi, madame. I perform the tasks assigned to me and am only too happy, in this case, to have been successful.”

“But, monsieur,” said Peggy, feeling desperately lonely in Paris, and pathetically eager to talk to a human being, even in her rusty Vévey school French, “haven’t you wondered why I’ve been so anxious to find this young lady?”

“If we began to wonder,” he replied with a laugh, “at the things which happen during the war, we should be so bewildered that we shouldn’t be able to carry on our work. Madame,” said he, handing her his card, “if you should have further need of me in the matter, I am always at your service.”

He bowed profoundly and left her.

Peggy stayed at the Ritz because, long ago, when her parents had fetched her from Vévey and had given her the one wonderful fortnight in Paris she had ever known, they had chosen this dignified and not inexpensive hostelry. To her girlish mind it had breathed the last word of splendour, movement, gaiety – all that was connoted by the magical name of the City of Light. But now the glamour had departed. She wondered whether it had ever been. Oliver had laughed at her experiences. Sandwiched between dear old Uncle Edward and Aunt Sophia, what in the sacred name of France could she have seen of Paris? Wait till they could turn round. He would take her to Paris. She would have the unimagined time of her life. They dreamed dreams of the Rue de la Paix – he had five hundred pounds laid by, which he had ear-marked for an orgy of shopping in that Temptation Avenue of a thoroughfare; of Montmartre, the citadel of delectable wickedness and laughter; of funny little restaurants in dark streets where you are delighted to pay twenty francs for a mussel, so exquisitely is it cooked; of dainty and crazy theatres; of long drives, folded in each other’s arms, when moonlight touches dawn, through the wonders of the enchanted city.

Her brief dreams had eclipsed her girlish memories. Now the dreams had become blurred. She strove to bring them back till her soul ached, till she broke down into miserable weeping. She was alone in a strange, unedifying town; in a strange, vast, commonplace hotel. The cold, moonlit Place de la Vendôme, with its memorable column, just opposite her bedroom window, meant nothing to her. She had the desolating sense that nothing in the world would ever matter to her again – nothing as far as she, Peggy Manningtree, was concerned. Her life was over. Altruism alone gave sanction to continued existence. Hence her present adventure. Paris might have been Burslem for all the interest it afforded.

Jeanne worked from morning to night in the succursale of the Croix Rouge in the Rue Vaugirard. She had tried, after the establishment of her affairs, to enter, in no matter what capacity, a British base hospital. It would be a consolation for her surrender of Doggie to work for his wounded comrades. Besides, twice in her life she owed everything to the English, and the repayment of the debt was a matter of conscience. But she found that the gates of English hospitals were thronged with English girls; and she could not even speak the language. So, guided by the Paris friend with whom she lodged, she made her way to the Rue Vaugirard, where, in the packing-room, she had found hard unemotional employment. Yet the work had to be done: and it was done for France, which, after all, was dearer to her than England; and among her fellow-workers, women of all classes, she had pleasant companionship.

When, one day, the old concierge, bemedalled from the war of 1870, appeared to her in the packing-room, with the announcement that a dame anglaise desired to speak to her, she was at first bewildered. She knew no English ladies – had never met one in her life. It took a second or two for the thought to flash that the visit might concern Doggie. Then came conviction. In blue overall and cap, she followed the concierge to the ante-room, her heart beating. At the sight of the young Englishwoman in black, with a crape hat and little white band beneath the veil, it nearly stopped altogether.

Peggy advanced with outstretched hand.

“You are Mademoiselle Jeanne Bossière?”

“Yes, madame.”

“I am a cousin of Monsieur Trevor – ”

“Ah, madame” – Jeanne pointed to the mourning – “you do not come to tell me he is dead?”

Peggy smiled. “No. I hope not.”

“Ah!” Jeanne sighed in relief, “I thought – ”

“This is for my husband,” said Peggy quietly.

“Ah, madame! je demande bien pardon. J’ai dû vous faire de la peine. Je n’y pensais pas– ”

Jeanne was in great distress. Peggy smiled again. “Widows dress differently in England and France.” She looked around and her eyes fell upon a bench by the wall. “Could we sit down and have a little talk?”

“Pardon, madame, c’est que je suis un peu émue …” said Jeanne.

She led the way to the bench. They sat down together, and for a feminine second or two took stock of each other. Jeanne’s first rebellious instinct said: “I was right.” In her furs and her perfect millinery and perfect shoes and perfect black silk stockings that appeared below the short skirt, Peggy, blue-eyed, fine-featured, the fine product of many generations of scholarly English gentlefolk, seemed to incarnate her vague conjectures of the social atmosphere in which Doggie had his being. Her peasant blood impelled her to suspicion, to a half-grudging admiration, to self-protective jealousy. The Englishwoman’s ease of manner, in spite of her helter-skelter French, oppressed her with an angry sense of inferiority. She was also conscious of the blue overall and close-fitting cap. Yet the Englishwoman’s smile was kind and she had lost her husband… And Peggy, looking at this girl with the dark, tragic eyes and refined, pale face and graceful gestures, in the funny instinctive British way tried to place her socially. Was she a lady? It made such a difference. This was the girl for whom Doggie had performed his deed of knight-errantry; the girl whom she proposed to take back to Doggie. For the moment, discounting the uniform which might have hidden a midinette or a duchess, she had nothing but the face and the gestures and the beautifully modulated voice to go upon, and between the accent of the midinette and the duchess – both being equally charming to her English ear – Peggy could not discriminate. She had, however, beautiful, capable hands, and took care of her finger-nails.

Jeanne broke the tiny spell of embarrassed silence.

“I am at your disposal, madame.”

Peggy plunged at once into facts.

“It may seem strange, my coming to you; but the fact is that my cousin, Monsieur Trevor, is severely wounded…”

“Mon Dieu!” said Jeanne.

“And his friend, Mr. McPhail, who is also wounded, thinks that if you – well – ”

Her French failed her – to carry off a very delicate situation one must have command of language – she could only blurt out – “Il faut comprendre, mademoiselle. Il a fait beaucoup pour vous.”

She met Jeanne’s dark eyes. Jeanne said:

“Oui, madame, vous avez raison. Il a beaucoup fait pour moi.”

Peggy flushed at the unconscious correction – “beaucoup fait” for “fait beaucoup.”

“He has done not only much, but everything for me, madame,” Jeanne continued. “And you who have come from England expressly to tell me that he is wounded, what do you wish me to do?”

“Accompany me back to London. I had a telegram this morning to say that he had arrived at a hospital there.”

“Then you have not seen him?”

“Not yet.”

“Then how, madame, do you know that he desires my presence?”

Peggy glanced at the girl’s hands clasped on her lap, and saw that the knuckles were white.

“I am sure of it.”

“He would have written, madame. I only received one letter from him, and that was while I still lived at Frélus.”

“He wrote many letters and telegraphed to Frélus, and received no answers.”

“Madame,” cried Jeanne, “I implore you to believe what I say: but not one of those letters have ever reached me.”

“Not one?”

At first Peggy was incredulous. Phineas McPhail had told her of Doggie’s despair at the lack of response from Frélus; and, after all, Frélus had a properly constituted post office in working order, which might be expected to forward letters. She had therefore come prepared to reproach the girl. But …

“Je le jure, madame,” said Jeanne.

And Peggy believed her.

“But I wrote to Monsieur McPhail, giving him my address in Paris.”

“He lost the letter before he saw Doggie again” – the name slipped out – “and forgot the address.”

“But how did you find me?”

“I had a lot of difficulty. The British Embassy – 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 – Embassies 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 fiancés.”

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 class. 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 êtes 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 apprenticeship 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 passed 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 God to know of what. But neither of the two women heeded this multitude.

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 noble 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 petits héros 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 petits 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 glass 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.”