Wanted, an English Girl

by Moore, Dorothea

  If she had not known both the Grand-Duchess and her friend Mademoiselle de Monti to be out she would probably have taken a cab and gone straight to the Palace; but the thought of Mademoiselle Pipignon undiluted was too much for her courage; and besides, she had an idea that, until all this really serious business was attended to, a schoolgirl would be dreadfully in the way. She could not help wishing very much that she knew someone else in Chardille, for she certainly could not carry that hold-all much further, and she did very badly want some luncheon.

  She looked round her slowly, hoping for an inspiration, and one came. The narrow street where she had taken refuge showed a distant view of flying buttress and carved niche above it—it gave on to the cathedral then.

  Gill thought of Gabrielle de Monti’s story about the people taking refuge in the old cathedral when the town was sacked during the Thirty Years’ War. Surely there would be no objection to a very tired girl taking refuge there to-day, until such time as the Grand-Duchess might be reasonably supposed to have come in from her drive, and Mademoiselle de Monti to have received Gill’s message, and to be at leisure to see her.

  She dragged up her hold-all, after first fastening the straps properly, and set off bravely up the street. Her spirit was good enough, but the hold-all seemed to have grown unaccountably heavier, and poor Gill found herself wishing more than once with all her heart that she had left more of her luggage behind, despite Aunt Edith.

  The leather handles cut her fingers, the weight seemed as though it were going to pull her shoulders out of joint, and the blood sang in her ears with the strain.

  If only some nice strong boy, whom she could ask to help, would come along the street. But no boy came, and Gillian was obliged to put her luggage down so often to give herself a minute’s rest, that she began to think the buttress and the carved saint in the niche would never come any nearer to her than they were at first.

  She was resting for about the sixth time, and trying to summon her resolution to pull up her burden again and struggle on for a few steps further, when a hesitating but very sweet voice said in French:

  “Pardon, but can I not be of assistance to Mademoiselle?”

  It was a young girl who spoke, a young girl whose face struck Gill as having a certain look of familiarity, though she could not remember having met any one of that delicate Dresden-china type of loveliness before.

  The girl wore a full dark blue skirt, a white blouse with short full sleeves, a white apron embroidered with light blue thread, and a big crimped cap, from beneath which her fair hair curled with the easy fascination of a child’s. The blue on her apron exactly matched the limpid forget-me-not blue of her eyes as she turned them on Gillian, repeating her request:

  “Can I not be of assistance to Mademoiselle?’

  “It’s very kind of you,” Gill said, rather doubtfully. (Was it possible to tip a girl with so dainty and refined an appearance as this, and if not, ought one to let her take the trouble?)

  But the girl had already taken the hold-all from her tired grip, and if she were no bigger and stronger than Gill herself—Gill doubted if she were as big or as strong—at least she had not been dragging it up and down staircases and along streets already till she was thoroughly tired out.

  “Just a few steps then, if you’ll be so awfully nice,” she conceded gratefully. “My hands are rather sore by now.”

  “Mademoiselle will have it conveyed—where?” asked the girl.

  “I’m going to the cathedral, but of course you mustn’t go as far as that; it is probably right out of your way.”

  “But no, I live by the cathedral,” the girl explained, and set out briskly.

  “Do you? Rather jolly—nice, I should think,” Gill said. “Whereabouts are you?”

  It was only with a view to making conversation, for she was too tired and headachy by now to care very much for anything except rest. But the girl’s words roused her to a sudden wideawake interest that made her quite forget her aching arms for the moment.

  “I live at No. 3, La Petite Rue des Carillons, Mademoiselle.”

  “Do you? ” cried Gill. “How … how … of course, you must be Tienette then, and I know your sister Marie.”

  Directly Gill said it she realised how indiscreet she had been. Tienette had only to send a message to Marie that the Baron’s prisoner was going to rest in the cathedral, and she was done for. How could she have said anything so silly? Of course her knowledge of Marie would at once tell Marie’s sister where she lived and who she was. Poor Gill saw the rest in the cathedral rapidly receding, and more dismal tramping through the streets, dragging that dreadful hold-all, in its place.

  Tienette looked at her with sympathy in her soft eyes. “Mademoiselle is terribly fatigued. Will she not come into our house and rest herself, and drink perhaps a little coffee?”

  “Thank you very much, but I can’t,” Gill said, and then she suddenly stopped short. After all, why should she not trust Tienette? She was not a German girl, and if Gill made a clean breast of it and asked her word for silence—

  “I could come if you won’t let anyone know I am here,” she shot out. “I am an English girl, and I have run away from the Baroness von Traume’s, where your sister Marie is, and I don’t want the Baron or the Baroness …”

  Tienette interrupted, with a little exclamation of joy.

  “Mademoiselle is the English young lady of whom Marie spoke but yesterday? Then is hers the double welcome, and no fear that tongues shall talk.”

  “Well, that’s very good of you,” Gill said gratefully. “I will come in and rest a bit at your place then, and thank you.”

  She insisted on helping with the hold-all after that, and the two girls trudged along together, passing under the carved niche where the grey stone figure of St. Estelle of Insterburg, holding in one hand the fiery crown with which she had been done to death, looked down serenely and hopefully upon them, as though bidding Gill to be of a good courage.

  La Petite Rue des Carillons was far narrower than the street where Tienette and Gill had met; Gill thought she had never met one so narrow before.

  It was just a thread of a street, running alongside the great cathedral on the one hand, and on the other, bordered by immensely tall old houses. It stood in shadow always, but it was a stately, splendid shadow, that had in it nothing of gloom, though Gill thought that she herself would have preferred the sun.

  Tienette stopped before one of the very shakiest and oldest-looking of the houses, and, pushing open the black oak door, that seemed as though it might have stood a siege, held it for Gill and shyly invited her to go in.

  Gill obeyed, and found herself looking at a scene which reminded her of a Rembrandt picture, in its wonderful depth of colouring.

  The great kitchen of Tienette’s home must have been dark at all times; just now, coming from the brilliant August sunshine outside, it was very dark indeed. The walls were wainscoted; the great rafters of the roof, black with age, came low above Gill’s head, and seemed to be a kind of store-place for various and miscellaneous articles—weapons exceedingly out of date, antlers, and the glow of polished copper vessels—were cheek by jowl with smoked hams and a string or so of sausages.

  There was an immense old fire-place, half a room in itself, with a small fire almost lost in the cavernous depths, and a black pot hanging over it, which was being stirred by a magnificent-looking elderly man, with the same clear blue eyes as Tienette, set in a face burnt nearly to the colour of mahogany.

  A small, thin-faced boy, whittling away most cleverly with a knife, was sitting at his feet—there was a baby, rosy and gurgling, in a great, carved, wooden cradle rather like an ark.

  The man spoke at once, and in a pleased voice. “Is that my little Tienette?”

  Tienette’s answer was in such rapid patois-French that Gill could hardly follow it. But she caught her own name, and gathered that Marie’s pretty sister was explaining that she would honour them by resting there.


  Tienette’s father got up instantly and bowed as though the dusty, tired-out schoolgirl were a princess.

  “Mademoiselle is very welcome,” he said, with a grand simplicity and courtesy that delighted Gillian and made her feel more at home this very first minute in the queer dark old house in La Petite Rue des Carillons than she had managed to be in some forty-four hours’ acquaintanceship with that other house in the splendid Rue St. Denise.

  She liked the look of the dark old room almost as much as she liked its owner, and would have quite enjoyed the adventure of visiting an Insterburger home if she had not been so dreadfully tired and hungry.

  Tienette seemed to see how it was with her directly. She put down the hold-all in a dim corner of the great room, and drew forward the carved elbow chair in which her father had been sitting.

  “Mademoiselle will rest and dine? Then she will not be so fatigued.”

  Gillian was past remonstrating—the sense of relief in just being able to sit still and do nothing was so great. Besides, her head was throbbing a good deal now that she had time to know it.

  “If it isn’t giving a great deal of trouble,” she said, trying to smile.

  The little thin boy laid down his carving, and, kneeling upright before the fire, began to stir the black pot. The tall, stately father went out into the sunny street, which looked such a dazzle from the darkness of the house; Tienette, with quiet, unobtrusive movements, lifted a lace pillow crowded with bobbins from a high stool; covered the stool with a spotless tray-cloth, laid on it a plate, bowl and spoon, the last highly glazed brown earthenware, and set the stool in front of Gillian.

  The effort made her pant a little, and the soft colour in her face deepened; Gillian remembered how Marie had spoken of her sister’s delicacy, and felt horribly ashamed of her own selfishness.

  “Tienette, please don’t!” she begged, jumping up hastily. “Let me have something to eat when you all have your dinner; don’t take all this trouble for me, please!”

  But Tienette insisted, in her pretty eager way, that the English girl should sit down again; there was nothing more to be done except to pour the soup into the bowl and cut a slice of bread for Mademoiselle, she said; for themselves they dined late to-day, as one was coming to the meal whose work was not yet finished, but Mademoiselle must eat now.

  Gill was too much in need of food to resist, and let Tienette tilt the great pot to pour some thick soup of a most appetising smell into the bowl, which was held just below it by the little brother. She then set it, together with a great slice of home-made bread, before the guest, on the impromptu dinner-table.

  “And when she has eaten, Mademoiselle will drink coffee, will she not? then she will rest.”

  “When will you have your dinner, Tienette?” Gill inquired, when she had eaten a few spoonfuls of the delicious soup, and was beginning to feel a good deal more herself again. “And is it another brother who is kept so late with his work?”

  “No, Mademoiselle, he is not a brother,” Tienette said. Her head was bent over the tall, brown, earthenware coffee-pot, but Gill saw that her colour had deepened.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you with questions,” she said with compunction, but Tienette had already lifted her pretty head again. “It is that Bèrnard and I are betrothed, Mademoiselle,” she told the visitor.

  “I’m awfully glad,” Gill said heartily. “I hope I shall see him. What does he do, if you don’t mind telling me?”

  The small brother had left the fire to his sister and her coffee-pot, and returned to his carving. Gill noticed that he was making tiny animals, such as are put into cheap Noah’s Arks.

  “Bèrnard works in the shop of a German,” he said solemnly. “Bèrnard detests Germans.” He held up the little animal—a pig—that he was carving, with an impish grin.

  “Bèrnard says that the German soldiers are in heart like to this small beast, and he is very cross when they come here and talk to Tienette.”

  “You say too much, Toté, my angel,” Tienette told him, with a little pretence of anger. “These matters do not interest the English Mademoiselle. Show her instead your carvings, and the little model ass that won you the Grand-Duchess’ toy-prize.”

  Toté scrambled up from his stool and ran to one of the tall cupboards against the wall. From a shelf only just in his reach he brought down a tray covered with little wooden animals of various kinds. He set this tray upon the floor by Gillian, and picked from it one animal which he polished with care on his blue blouse before presenting it shyly to the young lady.

  Gill gave a cry of admiration. “You didn’t carve this yourself, did you?”

  Toté nodded his little, round, dark head emphatically.

  “Yes, Mademoiselle, it is all his own work,” Tienette said proudly. “He had a fall last winter on the ice, poor lamb—there were German officers skating, and they do not heed if there are children in their way—and he has not walked well since to go to school with the others. He was for ever playing with a knife and wood, and good Père André gave him lessons, and now he makes oh, so many toys, which go to Mademoiselle’s beautiful rich country.”

  “And I am paid much money for it,” the atom assured Gillian gravely. “And figure to yourself, Mademoiselle, that I may keep one pfennig out of every mark I earn, for my very own.”

  “Toté is a good boy who gives all the rest to me to put in the grey stocking for warm winter clothes and firing,” Tienette said, smiling at him.

  Gill wondered how old this redoubtable Toté might be, who appeared to take his place as a wage-earner in the family as a matter quite of course. He did not look as though he could be over seven, but he was so small and pale that she did not like to ask for fear he should turn out to be much older than she had expected. She admired the little animal he had picked out for her, instead; it really was a wonderful work of art—a donkey, standing only about three inches high, but carved with the most perfect attention to detail, and with a sense of humour that delighted her.

  It was evident that Toté had conceived his donkey in a rebellious mood, for the front feet were planted firmly forward, the whole body expressed obstinacy, and the mouth was just sufficiently open for you to almost hear the remonstrating bray. The painting was as beautifully executed as the carving; the wicked look in the donkey’s eyes giving the finishing touch to its perfection.

  “Toté, it’s lovely,” Gill said, full of admiration. “I should be frightfully proud if I could do anything like that. Is this going off to London? Do tell me what shops you send your toys to, and I shall see if I can’t buy some next Christmas.”

  “It is not such toys as these, which have much work in them and must be more expensive, for which there is the sale,” Tienette explained. “Toté made this for the Children’s Exhibition, for which each year our little Grand-Duchess gives a prize. The toys for which there is the sale in England are made, Mademoiselle must understand, at so much a hundred—the little animals for the Noah’s Arks which cost sixpence—ninepence—a shilling in your English money and your England—the wooden tea-things, the little farm-yards—the monkeys on a stick to amuse the very small ones—Toté can make them all.”

  “In England I am afraid people of your age would not be able to do much except break them,” Gillian told the child.

  “I am nine, Mademoiselle,” Toté said, drawing himself up to his full height. “I should say I shall be nine on the feast of the blessed St. Bartholèmi. At nine many children of Insterburg are makers of toys, and it makes the Germans very angry that they are so, Bèrnard says,” he added, looking up at Gill with wide-open, puzzled, brown eyes. “Mademoiselle, in your country do you wish it only that the Germans should sell to you?”

  “I shouldn’t think so; is that what Bèrnard says?” Gill asked, a good deal amused by the small boy, who took his business so very seriously, and then there was an interruption in the shape of Tienette’s delicious coffee, and Toté gathered up his toys and put them carefully away
.

  Gillian’s head was a great deal better for the food and coffee, but, though she felt more equal to dragging her hold-all about with her than she had done when Tienette came to her rescue, she thought on the whole that she had better take advantage of the girl’s offer to remain in this haven for a little longer. She could not bother Mademoiselle de Monti with her own unimportant affairs now, when everybody in the Palace must be taken up with the news which she had ’phoned. Gillian thought that later perhaps, when the German plans had been frustrated, she might venture to the Palace and ask to see her friend for five minutes.

  Of course there was no special reason why she should not go straight to the station, now that she had put her information into the effective charge of Monsieur Anverra, and decidedly taken her leave of the Von Traumes. She had her return ticket and enough money for the journey, and she certainly was not afraid to travel across quiet, peaceful Belgium by herself. But somehow Gill felt that she could not leave Chardille without seeing Mademoiselle de Monti again, and perhaps, if it wasn’t being too presuming, leaving a respectful message of farewell to the Grand-Duchess. Gill could not help entertaining, at the very back of her mind, a faint hope, which she did not dare put into words, that Mademoiselle de Monti, who understood so much, would understand that being allowed to send a properly respectful message wasn’t at all the same thing as seeing a person whom you helplessly adored.

  With that hope even faintly in her mind, it is doubtful if Gill would have gone straight to the station, even if the Baron Von Traume had been engaged in searching the Rue des Carillons itself for his runaway guest.

  As there was so much time to be disposed of, and she was tired after the short night, the pain and the excitement, she thankfully accepted Tienette’s further suggestion that “Mademoiselle should rest upon her bed,” and allowed herself passively to be conducted to another long, low room opening out from the great kitchen. The family only lived on the ground floor, Tienette explained; the upper floors being owned by other families like themselves in some way connected with the cathedral.