Part 21 (1/2)
Her home had always been the _havre de grace_, known and venerated by them all; a meeting place for reconciliation between persons whose self-control had escaped them; the shelter for prodigal and repentant sons who awaited the forgiveness of their justly wrathful sires; the comforting haven that seemed to a.s.suage the pangs of departure and bereavement. But above all it was the one spot for properly celebrating family anniversaries, announcing engagements, and spending joyous vacations.
The war had been the cause of a great deal of hard work in this respect.
”Why, I receive more letters than a State functionary,” Aunt Rose informed me when I came upon her early the next morning, already installed behind her huge flat-topped desk, her tortoise-sh.e.l.l spectacles tipped down towards the end of her very prominent nose.
”For nearly four years I've been writing on the average of twenty letters a day and I never seem to catch up with my correspondence.
Why, I need a secretary just to sort out and cla.s.sify it. You haven't an idea the different places that I hear from. See, here are your letters from the United States. Leon is in the Indo-Chinese Bank in Oceania. Albert is mobilised at Laos, Quentin in Morocco. Jean-Paul and Marcel are fighting at Saloniki; Emilien in Italy. Marie is Superior in a convent at Madrid; Madeline, Sister of Charity at Cairo.
You see I've a world-wide correspondence.
”Look,” she continued, opening a deep drawer in one side of her desk, ”here are the letters from my _poilus_ and, of course, these are only the answered ones. The dear boys just love to write and not one of them misses a week without doing so. I'm going to keep them all.
Their children may love to have them some day.”
Then she opened a smaller drawer, and my eye fell upon a dozen or fifteen packages, all different in size and each one enveloped in white tissue paper, carefully tied about with grey silk ribbon.
”These were written by our dear departed,” she said simply.
In an instant they pa.s.sed before my eyes, those ”dear departed.” Big, tall William, so gay and so childish, he who used to play the ogre or the horse, or anything one wished: a person so absolutely indispensable to their games that all the little folk used to gather beneath his window early in the morning, crying in chorus: ”Uncle William! Uncle William! do wake up and come down and play!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: FLOCKING TO READ THE COMING COMMUNIQUe IN A LITTLE FRENCH CITY]
Jean-Francois, the engineer; Philippe, the architect; Honore, whom we dubbed ”Deshonore,” because he used always to return empty-handed when we went hunting together. Gone, gone forever!
Aunt Rose picked up one of the smaller packages.
”These were from little Jacques.” And two bright tears trembled on her lashes.
”You remember him, of course, my dear. He was an orphan, he never knew his mother. I always supposed that is what made him so distant and reserved. Jean, his guardian, who is very severe, used to treat him as he did his own children--scolding him often about his indolence, his lack of application to his studies.
”I used to have him here with me during his vacations. He loved this old house--and I knew it. Sometimes when you would all start out for some excursion I'd see him coming back towards the gate:
”'You're not going with them then, Jacques?'
”'No, thank you, Aunt Rose, it's so nice in your drawing-room.'
”When he was just a little baby I often wanted to take him onto my lap and laugh and play with him. But he was so cold and distant! A funny little mite, even with boys of his own age. n.o.body seemed to understand him exactly; certain people even thought that his was a surly nature.
”He spent his last furlough here, and I found quite a change in him.
He was more robust and tanned. A splendid looking fellow, and I was so proud of him.
”'Aunt Rose,' he asked even before we embraced, 'is there any one else stopping with you?'
”'Why no, child, and I'm afraid you'll find the house very empty. If only I'd known you were coming I most certainly should have invited your cousins.'
”'Oh, I'm so glad you didn't! I much prefer being alone with you.'
”He came and went in the house, but never could be persuaded to go outside the yard. I should have loved to have taken him with me and shown his War Cross to some of my old friends. But he wouldn't hear of it.
”'Pooh!' he would laugh when I would suggest such a thing. 'If ever they come near me I'll tell them I've got ”trench pest”--and then you'll see them clear out.'