Part 21 (1/2)

”No one--no one at all?” asked Marise, and then with a gasp, ”Not even Papa?”

At this Jeanne's eyes leaped up to a hotter flame of intensity.

”No! no! no!” they cried to Marise. ”No!”

Marise thought she understood, and hanging her head she said in a low shamed voice, ”Oh, no, of course, I see.”

With the words and the acceptance of their meaning which Jeanne's pa.s.sionate eyes thrust upon her, Marise sank for many years into another plane of feeling and saw all the world in another perspective, very ugly and grim. That was the way Jeanne saw things. With all her immature personality, with the pitiably insufficient weapons of a little girl, Marise had fought not to accept Jeanne's way of seeing things. That had been the real cause of their quarrels. But now the weapons were struck from her hands. Jeanne had been right all the time it seemed. That was the way things really were. Now she knew. With a long breath she admitted her defeat.

”No, _specially_ not Papa,” she whispered.

II

It was four o'clock that afternoon. They had had something to eat, talking quietly about indifferent things, and they had found Papa's address in Bordeaux and sent a telegram to him, before Marise thought to ask, ”But, Mademoiselle, how is it you can be out of your cla.s.s-room to-day?” She had often known the teacher to drag herself to work when she was scarcely able to stand, and knew how the stern discipline of her profession frowned on an absence from duty.

”Oh, I arranged this morning to have a subst.i.tute come. I heard--I heard your maman was not well, and I knew your papa was not here, and I wasn't sure that any of your maman's friends might be able to come to look out for you.”

As a matter of fact, Marise never saw one of her mother's callers again.

That evening, Anna brought up a blue telegram from Papa, which since it had been sent in English, as Papa always insisted on doing, was perfectly unintelligible, reading:

”Com inga nmorninjtrain ta kigo adca rof Maman.”

Papa.

Marise who had with Maman puzzled over many other similar telegrams from Papa, made out ”morning-train” and that was enough.

The doctor had sent in a nursing sister to take care of Jeanne during the night, and Isabelle had gone off to a tenement near the Porte d'Espagne where some relations of hers lived and had brought back an old cousin to help her with the work and marketing and to sleep with her in the other apartment.

Mlle. Hasparren slept in the folding-bed beside Marise's so that every time Marise, with a great scared start, realized anew that what had happened was not a bad dream, she felt the other's hand reaching for hers in the dark, and holding firm. She said very little and Marise was glad of that, but the clasp of her muscular musician's hand pulled Marise out of the black pit many times that night.

Later on Marise fell into a real sleep, deep and unbroken, and when she woke up, much later than usual, to find Mlle. Hasparren all dressed, the folding-bed put away, the window open and the suns.h.i.+ne coming in, she found that she seemed to have grown stronger since yesterday, that the black pit was not so fathomless. She felt infinitely older and as though she would never laugh again. She lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling, thinking fixedly about what had happened, and found that she could endure it now without crying out or bursting into tears as she had done yesterday. She could stand up under her burden, because there was no other way. But she felt her shoulders bowed and aching with the weight.

Mlle. Hasparren heard her stir in bed, and sensed the awakened quality of the movement. She came to look anxiously down at her. Marise looked back and remembering that, so far as she knew, Mlle. Hasparren knew nothing beyond the surface of the happenings of yesterday and so might expect her to be able to smile, she produced a faint smile.

”I overslept,” she said, in order to say something. ”Has somebody brought your breakfast?”

”No, I waited for you,” answered Mlle. Hasparren. ”I'll ring for Isabelle now.”

When Isabelle came, very self-important at taking Jeanne's place, she reported that the Sister said Jeanne had pa.s.sed a very good night and was perfectly comfortable, with no complications. ”She says Jeanne may get all over it and be as good as ever. All old people have these seizures, she says,” chattered Isabelle, setting down the tray and pouring out Marise's cafe-au-lait. She was full of her new dignity, and bustled off to give orders to her a.s.sistant, leaving Marise and Mlle.

Hasparren to eat their breakfast. Mlle. Hasparren did not seem to feel like talking much, and neither did Marise. She was trying to think what it was she was to tell Papa. She must remember now just what it was that everybody was to be told.

An hour later, as they went down the hall, on their way to the station to meet the morning train, they saw the salon as usual at that hour, the chairs pushed about, the rugs hanging over the window-sills, the fresh, clean, new morning sun streaming in through the wide-open windows on the familiar spectacle of Isabelle on her knees, a brush-broom in her hand reaching under the piano for dust. The alcove curtains were drawn back, the cheerful suns.h.i.+ne poured in, glittering on the dark polished wood of the desk, on the yellow-covered books, on the pretty little inlaid chair which stood beside the desk.

Was it only yesterday that Jeanne had flung her into that chair? She stood in the door, as she put on her hat, looking steadily at the alcove. No, that had been somebody else ... a little girl, a lucky, lucky little girl, who had no idea what things were like.

”Come, dear,” said Mlle. Hasparren, looking at her watch.

It had been agreed since there were so few trains in and out of Bayonne and since as yet no news had been sent to Jeanne's family, that if Marise's father did come on the train from the north, Mlle. Hasparren would board it as he left it, and go on down to Mida.s.soa to tell the Amigorenas about their mother's illness. ”But do tell them, Mademoiselle,” Marise said over and over, anxiously, ”that we will take care of Jeanne, that we will do everything for her that anybody could, that they needn't worry. I know Papa will see that she's taken care of.