Chapter 5

Sweetheart sat under the lilac blossoms pouring out tea for Clifford, Elliott, and Rowden. She was gracious to Clifford, gentle to Elliott, and she took Rowden under her wing in the sweetest way possible, to which Clifford stated his objections.

“Mr. Rowden is younger than you are,” she said gravely. “Monsieur Clifford, I do not wish you to torment him.”

“Rowden’s no baby; he’s as old as Jack is, and Jack doesn’t murder music.”

“I am glad to see you acknowledge Jack’s superiority in all matters,” said Sweetheart with a dangerous smile.

“I don’t,” cried Clifford laughing; “and I don’t see what you find to care about in a man who clips his hair like a gendarme and paints everything purple.”

“Everything is purple--if Jack paints it so,” said Sweetheart, smiling at her reflected face in the water. She stood at the rim of the little stone fountain with her hands clasped behind her back. Elliott and Clifford were poking about in the water plants to dislodge the solitary goldfish, while Rowden gathered dewy clusters of lilacs as an offering.

“There he goes!” said Elliott.

“Poor fellow, living there all alone!” said Sweetheart. “Jack must leave word with Joseph to get him a little lady fish to pay his court to.”

“Better put in another gentleman fish, then, if you’re following Nature,” said Clifford, with an attempt at cynicism which drew the merriest laugh from Sweetheart.

“Oh, how funny is Monsieur Clifford when he wants to be like Frenchmen!” she murmured.

“Jack,” said Elliott, as I came from the studio and picked up a cup of tea grown cold, “Clifford’s doing the world-worn disenchanted roué.”

“And--and I fear he will next make love to me!” cried Sweetheart.

“You’d better look out, Jack,” said Clifford darkly, and pretended to sulk until Sweetheart sent him off to buy the bonbons she would need for the train.

“They’re packed,” I said, “every trunk of them!”

Sweetheart was enchanted. “All my new gowns, and the shoes from Rix’s--O Jack, you didn’t forget the shoes--and the bath robes--and--”

“All packed,” I said, swallowing the tea with a wry face.

“Oh,” she cried reproachfully, “don’t drink that! Here, I will have some hot tea in a moment,” and she ran over and perched on the arm of the garden bench while I lighted the alcohol lamp and then a cigarette.

Rowden came up with his offering of lilacs, and she decorated each of us with a spray.

It was growing late. The long shadows fell across the gravel walks and flecked the white walls of the sculptor’s studio opposite.

“It’s the nine-o’clock train, isn’t it?” said Elliott.

“We will meet you at the station at eight-thirty,” added Rowden.

“You don’t mind, do you, our dining alone?” said Sweetheart shyly; “it’s our last day--Jack’s and mine--in the old studio.”

“Not the last, I hope,” said Elliott sincerely.

We all sat silent for a moment.

“O Paris, Paris--how I fear it!” murmured Sweetheart to me; and in the same breath, “No, no, we must love it, you and I.”

Then Elliott said aloud, “I suppose you have no idea when you will return?”

“No,” I replied, thinking of the magic second that had become a year.

And so we dined alone, Sweetheart and I, in the old studio.

At half-past eight o’clock the cab stood at the gate with all our traps piled on top, and Joseph and his wife and the two brats were crying, “Au revoir, madame! au revoir, monsieur! We will keep the studio well dusted. Bon voyage! bon voyage!” and all of a sudden my arm was caught by Sweetheart’s little gloved hand, and she drew me back through the long ivy-covered alley to the garden where the studio stood, its doorway closed and silent, the hollow windows black and grim. Truly the light had passed away with the passing of Sweetheart. Her hand slipped from my arm, and she went and knelt down at the threshold and kissed it.

“I first knew happiness when I first crossed it,” she said; “it breaks my heart to leave it. Only that magic second! but it seems years that we have lived here.”

“It was you who brought happiness to it,” I said.

“Good-bye! good-bye, dear, dear, old studio!” she cried. “Oh, if Jack is always the same to me as he has been here--if he will be faithful and true in that new home!”

The new home was to be in a strange land. Sweetheart was a little frightened, but was dying to go there. Sweetheart had never seen the golden gorse ablaze on the moors of Morbihan.

I went inside the brass railing and waited my turn to buy the tickets. When it came, I took two first class to Quimperlé, for it was to be an all-night ride, and there was no sleeping car. Clifford had taken charge of the baggage, and I went with him to have it registered, leaving Sweetheart with Elliott and Rowden. All the traps were there--the big trunks, the big valises, my sketching kit, the zitherine in a leather case, two handbags, a bundle of umbrellas and canes, and a huge package of canvases. The toilet case and the rugs and waterproofs we took with us into the compartment.

The compartment was empty. Sweetheart nestled into one corner, and when I had placed our traps in the racks overhead I sat down opposite, while Clifford handed in our sandwiches, a bottle of red wine, and Sweetheart’s box of bonbons.

We didn’t say much; most had been said before starting. Clifford was more affected than he cared to show--I know by the way he grasped my hand. They are dear fellows, every one. We did not realize that we were actually going--going, perhaps, forever. She laughed, and chatted, and made fun of Clifford, and teased Rowden, aided and abetted by Elliott, until the starting gong clanged and a warning whistle sounded along the gaslit platform.

“Jack,” cried Clifford, leaning in the window, “God bless you! God bless you both!”

Elliott touched her hand and wrung mine, and Rowden risked his neck to give us both one last cordial grasp.

“Count on me--on us,” cried Clifford, speaking in English, “if you are--troubled!”

By what, my poor Clifford? Can you, with all your gay courage, turn back the hands of the dials? Can you, with all your warm devotion, add one second to the magic second and make it two? The shadows we cast are white.

The train stole out into the night, and I saw them grouped on the platform, silhouettes in the glare of the yellow signals. I drew in my head and shut the window. Sweetheart’s face had grown very serious, but now she smiled across from her corner.

“Aren’t you coming over by me, Jack?”

We must have been moving very swiftly, for the car rocked and trembled, and it was probably that which awoke me. I looked across at Sweetheart. She was lying on her side, one cheek resting on her gloved hand, her travelling cap pushed back, her eyes shut. I smoothed away the curly strands of hair which straggled across her cheeks, and tucked another rug well about her feet. Her feet were small as a child’s. I speak as if she were not a child. She was eighteen then.

The next time I awoke we lay in a long gaslit station. Some soldiers were disembarking from the forward carriages, and a gendarme stalked up and down the platform.

I looked sleepily about for the name of the station. It was painted in blue over the buffet--”Petit St. Yves.” “Is it possible we are in Brittany?” I thought. Then the voices of the station hands, who were hoisting a small boat upon the forward carriage, settled my doubts. “Allons! tire hardiment, Jean Louis! mets le cannotte deboutte.”

“Arrête toi Yves! doucement! doucement! Sacrée garce!”

Somewhere in the darkness a mellow bell tolled. I settled back to slumber, my eyes on Sweetheart.

She slept.

I awoke in a flood of brightest sunshine. From our window I could look into the centre of a most enchanting little town, all built of white limestone and granite. The June sunshine slanted on thatched roof and painted gable, and fairly blazed on the little river slipping by under the stone bridge in the square.

The streets and the square were alive with rosy-faced women in white head-dresses. Everywhere the constant motion of blue skirts and spotless coiffes, the twinkle of varnished socks, the clump! clump! of sabots.

Like a black shadow a priest stole across the square. Above him the cross on the church glowed like a live cinder, flashing its reflection along the purple-slated roof from the eaves of which a cloud of ash-gray pigeons drifted into the gutter below. I turned from the window to encounter Sweetheart’s eyes. Her lips moved a little, her long lashes heavy with slumber drooped lower, then with a little sigh she sat bolt upright. When I laughed, as I always did, she smiled, a little confused, a little ashamed, murmuring: “Bonjour, mon chéri! Quelle heure est-il?” That was always the way Sweetheart awoke.

“O dear, I am so rumpled!” she said. “Jack, get me the satchel this minute, and don’t look at me until I ask you to.”

I unlocked the satchel, and then turning to the window again threw it wide open. Oh, how sweet came the morning air from the meadows! Some young fellows below on the bank of the stream were poking long cane fishing-rods under the arches of the bridge.

“Sweetheart,” I said over my shoulder, “I believe there are trout in this stream.”

“Mr. Elliott says that whenever you see a puddle you always say that,” she replied.

“What does he know about it?” I answered, for I am touchy on the subject; “he doesn’t know a catfish from a--a dogfish.”

“Neither do I, Jack dear, but I’m going to learn. Don’t be cross.”

She had finished her toilet and came over to the window, leaning out over my shoulder.

“Where are we?” she cried in startled wonder at the little white town and the acres of swaying clover. “Oh, Jack, is--is this the country?”

A man in uniform passing under our window looked up surprised.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded; then, seeing Sweetheart, he took off his gold-laced cap, and added, with a bow: “This carriage goes no farther, monsieur--madame--”

“Merci!” exclaimed Sweetheart, “we wish to go to Quimperlé!”

“And we have tickets for Quimperlé,” I insisted.

“But,” smiled the official, “this is Quimperlé.”

It was true. There was the name written over the end of the station; and, looking ahead, I saw that our car had been detached and was standing in stately seclusion under the freight shed. How long it had been standing so Heaven alone knows; but they evidently had neglected to call us, and there we were inhabiting a detached carriage in the heart of Quimperlé. I managed to get a couple of porters, and presently we found all our traps piled up on the platform, and a lumbering vehicle with a Breton driver waiting to convey us to the hotel.

“Which,” said I to the docile Breton, “is the best hotel in Quimperlé?”

“The Hôtel Lion d’Or,” he replied.

“How do you know?” I demanded.

“Because,” said he mildly, “it is the only hotel in Quimperlé.”

Sweetheart observed that this ought to be convincing, even to me, and she tormented me all the way to the square, where I got even by pretending to be horrified at her dishevelled condition incident to a night’s railway ride in a stuffy compartment.

“Don’t, Jack! people will look at us.”

“Let ‘em.”

“Oh, this is cruel! Oh, I’ll pay you for this!”

And they did look at us--or rather at her; for from the time Sweetheart and I had cast our lots together, I noticed that I seemed to escape the observation of passers-by. When I lived alone in Paris I attracted a fair share of observation from the world as it wagged on its Parisian way. It was pleasant to meet a pretty girl’s eyes now and then in the throng which flowed through the park and boulevard. I really never flattered myself that it was because of my personal beauty; but in Paris, any young fellow who is dressed in the manner of Albion, hatted and gloved in the same style, is not entirely a cipher. But now it was not the same, by a long shot.

Sweetheart’s beauty simply put me in my place as an unnoticed but perhaps correct supplement to her.

She knew she was a beauty, and was delighted when she looked into her mirror. Nothing escaped her. The soft hair threaded with sunshine, which, when loosened, curled to her knees; the clear white forehead and straight brows; the nose delicate and a trifle upturned; the scarlet lips and fine cut chin--she knew the value of each of these. She was pleased with the soft, full curve of her throat, the little ears, and the colour which came and went in her cheeks.

But her eyes were the first thing one noticed. They were the most beautiful gray eyes that ever opened under silken lashes. She approved of my telling her this, which duty I fulfilled daily. Perhaps it may be superfluous to say that we were very much in love. Did I say were?

I think that, as I am chanting the graces of Sweetheart, it might not be amiss to say that she is just an inch shorter than I am, and that no Parisienne carried a pretty gown with more perfection than she did. I have seen gowns that looked like the devil on the manikin, but when Sweetheart wore them they were the astonishment and admiration of myself. And I do know when a woman is well dressed, though I am an art critic.