“You will not require it this afternoon?” she asked.
“No fear. You won’t either. Them mule-whacking coons is white.”
She understood.
“Some men who seem whitest are blacker than any negro,” she remarked. “Eh, bien! I thank you, Keed, mon ami, for your complaisance. You are very amiable to submit to the whim of a silly girl who suddenly becomes afraid of her own shadow.”
Glenn grinned and glanced significantly at the cross dangling from her bosom:
“Sure,” he said, “your government decorates cowards. That’s why it gave you the Legion.”
She blushed but looked up at him seriously:
“Keed, if I flew a little toy balloon in the air, where would the west wind carry it?”
“Into the Boche trenches,” he replied, much interested in the idea. “If you’ve got one, we’ll paint ‘To hell with Willie’ on it and set it afloat! But we’ll have to get permission from the gendarmes first.”
She said, smiling:
“I’m sorry, but I haven’t any toy balloons.”
She picked up her basket with its new load of soiled linen, swung it gracefully to her head, ignoring his offered assistance, gave him a beguiling glance, and went away along the sheep-path.
Once more she followed the deep-trodden and ancient trail through copse and pasture and over the stream down into the meadow, where the west wind furrowed the wild-flowers and the early afternoon sun fell hot.
She set her clothes to soak, laid paddle and soap beside them, then, straightening up, remained erect on her knees, her intent gaze fixed on the distant clump of aspens, delicate as mist above the hazel copse on the little hill beyond.
It was a whole hour before her eyes caught the high glimmer of a tiny balloon. Only for a moment was it visible at that distance, then it became merged in the dazzling blue above the woods.
She waited. At last she concluded that there were to be no more balloons. Then a sudden fear assailed her lest she had waited too long to investigate; and she sprang to her feet, hurried over the single plank used as a footbridge, and sped down through the alders.
Here and there a pheasant ran headlong across her path; a rabbit or two scuttled through the ferns. Nearing the hazel copse she slackened speed and advanced with caution, scanning the thicket ahead.
Suddenly, on the ground in front of her, she caught sight of a small iron cylinder. Evidently it had rolled down there from the slope above.
Very gingerly she approached and picked it up. It was not very heavy, not too big for her skirt pocket.
As she slipped it into the pocket of her blue woolen peasant-skirt, her quick eye caught a movement among the hazel bushes on the hillside to her right. She sank to the ground and lay huddled there.
CHAPTER XXV
KAMERAD
Down the slope, through the thicket, came a man. She could see his legs only. He wore dust-coloured breeches and tan puttees, like Sticky Smith’s and Kid Glenn’s, only he wore no big, clanking Mexican spurs.
The man passed in front of her, his burly body barely visible through the leaves, but not his features.
She rose, turned, ran over the moss, hurried through the ferns of the warren, retracing her steps, and arrived breathless at the lavoir. And scarcely had she dropped to her knees and seized soap and paddle, than a squat, bronzed, powerfully built young man appeared on the opposite bank of the stream, stepping briskly out of the bushes.
He did not notice her at first. He looked about for a place to jump, found one, leaped safely across, and came on at a swinging stride across the meadow.
The girl, bending above the water, suddenly struck sharply with her paddle.
Instantly the man halted in his tracks, knee deep in clover.
Maryette, apparently unconscious of his presence, continued to soap and scrub and slap her wash, singing in her clear, untrained voice of a child the chansonette she had made that morning. But out of the corner of her eyes she kept him in view — saw him come sauntering forward as though reassured, became aware that he had approached very near, was standing behind her.
Turning presently, where she knelt, to pick up another soiled garment, she suddenly encountered his dark gaze; and her start and slight exclamation were entirely genuine.
“Mon Dieu!” she said, with offended emphasis, “one does not approach people that way, without a word!”
“Did I frighten mademoiselle?” he asked, in recognizable French, but with an accent unpleasantly familiar to her. “If I did, I am very sorry and I offer mademoiselle a thousand excuses and apologies.”
The girl, kneeling there in the clover, flashed a smile at him over her shoulder. The quick colour reddened his face and powerful neck. The girl had been right; her smile had been an answer that he was not going to ignore.
“What a pretty spot for a lavoir,” he said, stepping to the edge of the pool; “and what a pretty girl to adorn it!”
Maryette tossed her head:
“Be pleased to pass your way, monsieur. Do you not perceive that I am busy?”
“It is not impossible to exchange a polite word or two when people are busy, is it, mademoiselle?” he asked, laughing and showing a white and perfect set of teeth under a short, dark mustache.
She continued to wring out her wash; but there was now a slight smile on her lips.
“May I not say who I am?” he asked persuasively. “May I not venture to speak?”
“Mon dieu, monsieur, there is liberty of speech for all in France. That blackbird might be glad to know your name if you choose to tell him.”
“But I ask your permission to speak to you!” There seemed to be no sense of humour in this young man.
She laughed:
“I am not curious to hear who you are!... But if it affords you any relief to explain to the west wind what your name may be—” She ended with a disdainful shrug. After a moment she lifted her pretty eyes to his — lovely, provocative, tormenting eyes. But they were studying the stranger closely.
He was a powerfully built, dark-skinned young man in the familiar khaki of the American muleteers, wearing their insignia, their cap, their holster and belt, and an extra pouch or wallet, loaded evidently with something heavy.
She said, coolly:
“You must be one of the new Yankee muleteers who came with that beautiful new herd of mules.”
He laughed:
“Yes, I’m an American muleteer. My name is Charles Braun. I came over in the last transport.”
“You know Steek?”
“Who?”
“Steek! Monsieur Steekee Smeete?”
“Sticky Smith?”
“Mais oui?”
“I’ve met him,” he replied curtly.
“And Monsieur Keed Glenn?”
“I’ve met Kid Glenn, too. Why?”
“They are friends of mine — very intimate friends. Of course,” she added, nose up-tilted, “if they are not also your friends, any acquaintance with me will be very difficult for you, Monsieur Braun.”
He laughed easily and seated himself on the grass beside her; and, as he sat down, a metallic clinking sounded in his wallet.
“Tenez,” she remarked, “you carry old iron and bottles about with you, I notice.”
“Snaffles, curbs and stirrup irons,” he replied carelessly. And in the girl’s heart there leaped the swift, fierce flame of certainty in suspicion.
“Why do you bring all that ironmongery down here?” she inquired, with frankly childish curiosity, leisurely wringing out her linen.
“A mule got away from the corral. I’ve been wandering around in the bushes trying to find him,” he explained, so naturally and in such a friendly voice that she raised her eyes to look again at this young gallant who lingered here at the lavoir for the sake of her beaux yeux.
Could this dark-eyed, smiling youth be a Hun spy? His smooth, boyish features, his crisp short hair and tiny mustache shading lips a trifle too red and overfull did not displease
her. In his way he was handsome.
His voice, too, was attractive, gaily persuasive, but it was his pronunciation of the letters c and d which had instantly set her on her guard.
Seated on the bank near her, his roving eyes full of bold curiosity bent on her from time to time, his idle fingers plaiting a little wreath out of long-stemmed clover and boutons d’or, he appeared merely an intrusive, irresponsible young fellow willing to amuse himself with a few moments’ rustic courtship here before he continued on his way.
“You are exceedingly pretty,” he said. “Will you tell me your name in exchange for mine?”
“Maryette Courtray.”
“Oh,” he exclaimed in quick recognition; “you are bell-mistress in Sainte Lesse, then! You are the celebrated carillonnette! I have heard about you. I suspected that you might be the little mistress of Sainte Lesse bells, because you wear the Legion—” He nodded his handsome head toward the decoration on her blouse.
“And to think,” he added effusively, “that it is just a mere slip of a girl who was decorated for bravery by France!”
She smiled at him with all the beguilingly bête innocence of the young when flattered:
“You are too amiable, monsieur. I really do not understand why they gave me the Legion. To encourage all French children, perhaps — because I really am a dreadful coward.” She tapped the holster on her thigh and gazed at him quite guilelessly out of wide and trustful eyes. “You see? I dare not even come here to wash my clothes unless I carry this — in case some Boche comes prowling.”
“Whose pistol is it?” he asked.
“The weapon belongs to Monsieur Steek. When I come to wash here I borrow it.”
“Are you the sweetheart of Monsieur Steek?” he inquired, mimicking her pronunciation of “Stick,” and at the same time fixing his dark eyes boldly and expressively on hers.
“Does a young girl of my age have sweethearts?” she demanded scornfully.
“If she hasn’t had one, it’s time,” he returned, staring hard at her with a persistent and fixed smile that had become almost offensive.
“Oh, la!” she exclaimed with a shrug of her youthful shoulders. “Perhaps you think I have time for such foolishness — what with housework to do and washing, and caring for my father, and my duties in the belfry every day!”
“Youth passes swiftly, belle Maryette.”
“Imitate him, beau monsieur, and swiftly pass your way!”
“L’amour est doux, petite Marie!”
“Je m’en moque!”
He rose, smiling confidently, dropped on his knees beside her, and rolled back his cuffs.
“Come,” he said, “I’ll help you wash. We two should finish quickly.”
“I am in no haste.”
“But it will give you an hour’s leisure, belle Maryette.”
“Why should I wish for leisure, beau monsieur?”
“I shall try to instruct you why, when we have our hour together.”
“Do you mean to pay court to me?”
“I am doing that now. My ardent courtship will already be accomplished, so that we need not waste our hour together!” He began to laugh and wring out the linen.
“Monsieur,” she expostulated smilingly, “your apropos disturbs me. Have you the assurance to believe that you already appeal to my heart?”
“Have I not appealed to it a little, Maryette?”
The girl averted her head coquettishly. For a few minutes they scrubbed away there together, side by side on their knees above the rim of the pool. Then, without warning, his hot, red lips burned her neck. Her swift recoil was also a shudder; her face flushed.
“Don’t do that!” she said sharply, straightening up in the grass where she was kneeling.
“You are so adorable!” he pleaded in a low, tense voice.
There was a long silence. She had moved aside and away from him on her knees; her head remained turned, too, and her features were set as though carven out of rosy marble.
She was summoning every atom of resolution, every particle of courage to do what she must do. Every fibre in her revolted with the effort; but she steeled herself, and at last the forced smile was stamped on her lips, and she dared turn her head and meet his burning gaze.
“You frighten me,” she said — and her unsteady voice was convincing. “A young girl is not courted so abruptly.”
“Forgive me,” he murmured. “I could not help myself — your neck is so fragrant, so childlike — —”
“Then you should treat me as you would a child!” she retorted pettishly. “Amuse me, if you aspire to any comradeship with me. Your behaviour does not amuse me at all.”
“We shall become comrades,” he said confidently, “and you shall be sufficiently amused.”
“It requires time for two people to become comrades.”
“Will you give me an hour this evening?”
“What? A rendezvous?” she exclaimed, laughing.
“Yes.”
“You mean somewhere alone with you?”
“Will you, Maryette?”
“But why? I am not yet old enough for such foolishness. It would not amuse me at all to be alone with you for an hour.” She pouted and shrugged and absently plucked a hollow stem from the sedge.
“It would amuse me much more to sit here and blow bubbles,” she added, clearing the stem with a quick breath and soaping the end of it.
Then, with tormenting malice, she let her eyes rest sideways on him while she plunged the hollow stem into the water, withdrew it, dripping, and deliberately blew an enormous golden bubble from the end.
“Look!” she cried, detaching the bubble, apparently enchanted to see it float upward. “Is it not beautiful, my fairy balloon?”
On her knees there beside the basin she blew bubble after bubble, detaching each with a slight movement of her wrist, and laughing delightedly to see them mount into the sunshine.
“You are a child,” he said, worrying his red underlip with his teeth. “You’re a baby, after all.”
She said:
“Very well, then, children require toys to amuse them, not sighs and kisses and bold, brown eyes to frighten and perplex them. Have you any toys to amuse me if I give you an hour with me?”
“Maryette, I can easily teach you — —”
“No! Will you bring me a toy to amuse me? — a clay pipe to blow bubbles? I adore bubbles.”
“If I promise to amuse you, will you give me an hour?” he asked.
“How can I?” she demanded with sudden caprice. “I have my wash to finish; then I have to see that my father has his soup; then I must attend to customers at the inn, go up to the belfry, oil the machinery, play the carillon later, wind the drum for the night — —”
“I shall come to you in the tower after the angelus,” he said eagerly.
“I shall be too busy — —”
“After the carillon, then! Promise, Maryette!”
“And sit up there alone with you in the dark for an hour? Ma foi! How amusing!” She laughed in pretty derision. “I shall not even be able to blow bubbles!”
Watching her pouting face intently, he said:
“Suppose I bring some toy balloons for you to fly from the clock tower? Would that amuse you — you beautiful, perverse child?”
“Little toy balloons!” she echoed, enchanted. “What pleasure to set them afloat from the belfry! Do you really promise to bring me some little toy balloons to fly?”
“Yes. But you must promise not to speak about it to anybody.”
“Why?”
“Because the gendarmes wouldn’t let us fly any balloons.”
“You mean that they might think me a spy?” she inquired naïvely.
“Or me,” he rejoined with a light laugh. “So we shall have to be very discreet and go cautiously about our sport. And it ought to be great fun, Maryette, to sail balloons out over the German trenches. We’ll tie a message to every one! Shall we, little comrade?”
She clapped her hands.
“That will enrage the Boches!” she cried, “You won’t forget to bring the balloons?”
“After the carillon,” he nodded, staring at her intently.
“Half past ten,” she said; “not one minute earlier. I cannot be disturbed when playing. Do you understand? Do you promise?”
“Yes,” he said, “I promise not to bother you before half past ten.”
“Very well. Now let me do my washing here in peace.”
She was still scrubbing her linen when he went reluctantly away across the meadow toward Sainte Lesse. And when she finally stood up, swung the basket to her head, and left the meadow, the sun hung low behind Sainte Lesse Wood and a rose and violet glow possessed the world.
At the White Doe Inn she flew feverishly about her duties, aiding the ancient peasant woman with the simple preparations for dinner, giving her father his soup and helping him to bed, swallowing a mouthful herself as she hastened to finish her household tasks.
Kid Glenn came in as usual for an aperitif while she was gathering up her wooden gloves.
“Did a mule stray today from your corral?” she asked, filling his glass for him.
“No,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Dead certain. Why?”
“Do you know one of the new muleteers named Braun?”
“I know him by sight.”
“Keed!” she said, going up to him and placing both hands on his broad shoulders; “I play the carillon after the angelus. Bring Steek to the bell-tower half an hour after you hear the carillon end. You will hear it end; you will hear the quarter hour strike presently. Half an hour later, after the third quarter hour strikes, you shall arrive. Bring pistols. Do you promise?”
“Sure! What’s the row, Maryette?”
“I don’t know yet. I think we shall find a spy in the tower.”
“Where?”
“In the belfry, parbleu! And you and Steek shall come up the stairs and you shall wait in the dark, there where the keyboard is, and where you see all the wires leading upward. You shall listen attentively, and I will be on the landing above, among my bells. And when you hear me cry out to you, then you shall come running with pistols!”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 856