Part 4 (1/2)
”Ripping!”
They broke out laughing at this, and the best feature of her laughter was the persistent radiance in her eyes. A pa.s.sing labourer who noted the pair silhouetted against the skyline thought:
”Life is sweet to them--youth and good looks.”
She returned to the subject of walks.
”Before we consider the one in the Berks.h.i.+res,” she said, ”you're not returning to America without coming to France to see us, are you?”
He had carefully allotted every day of his time abroad, which did not include any visit to Mervaux. But when the allotment was made he had not met the seventeenth cousins.
”You can be properly at home and watch Helen draw or me paint,” she went on. ”Helen musses about with charcoals and I with oils. You will see what life is like in the French country. Mother will write inviting you. Will you come?”
Her glance was cousinly and insistent. The glance did it. He decided that he would cut out Vienna and go to Mervaux for the second week in August of that year, 1914.
CHAPTER IV
TOO MUCH ANCESTOR
”Helen's temper again!” exclaimed Mrs. Sanford to her husband, after Helen's outburst.
”Sometimes I do not wonder that Helen has a temper,” said the vicar.
”But when a girl is as plain as she is, really it is the one thing she should avoid,” persisted his wife.
”Yes, I suppose it is bad policy, when Henriette has all the good looks and the money,” he replied.
Helen had now turned toward them and Phil and Henriette were going through the gateway. Mrs. Sanford drew a deep breath as one will who is about to undertake a duty and means to approach it softly.
”Did you give up your idea of becoming a nurse, Helen?” she asked casually.
It drew another flash from Helen's eyes, accompanied by a shudder of repugnance.
”I couldn't. I don't like the horror of it--seeing people cut up and everything! I knew I ought to and mother thinks I ought to; but I've delayed because I---- Oh, I know what you're thinking!” She stopped and shook several rebellious strands of hair free with a sudden movement of her head.
Gentle Mrs. Sanford let her hands drop into her lap, lowering her head in the relief of one who has tried and failed.
”Sorry!” Helen's att.i.tude had quite changed. She kissed her aunt on the cheek. ”I have an awful temper, haven't I?” Her change of mood had been reflected by her irregular features with singular expressiveness. ”I was going to arrange the flowers for the table for our seventeenth cousin and also--do you think cook would let me?--try my hand at the American shortcake thing. I learned how to cook from Jacqueline. I'd rather be a cook than a nurse, if worse comes to worse. Cooks get very good pay.”
”Helen! Shocking!” exclaimed Mrs. Sanford. Many gentlewomen were nurses. ”You'll have to bargain with cook about the shortcake,” she added.
”Didn't his mother make it back in Ma.s.sachusetts? Why not Helen of Mervaux, if not Helen of Troy, in Hamps.h.i.+re? Cry Harry, England and St. George! In the name of _Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, allons_!”
She was off to the kitchen, whose monarch said, in language of her own, that the way to eat strawberries was with their stems on and dipping them in sugar, or else as jam. In either case they had no relation to cake, and she was not taking cooking lessons from foreign countries.
”In other words, 'it's not done,' oh, England!” said Helen.
”Whatever you mean by that,” began cook.
”It should be on British coats-of-arms instead of _Dieu et mon Droit_,”