Chateau and Country Life in France | Page 7

always

curiously lonely--we rarely met anything or anyone, occasionally a
group of wood-cutters or boys exercising dogs and horses from the
hunting-stables of Villers-Cotterets. At long intervals we would come
to a keeper's lodge, standing quite alone in the middle of the forest,
generally near a carrefour where several roads met. There was always a
small clearing--garden and kennels, and a perfectly comfortable house,
but it must be a lonely life for the women when their husbands are off
all day on their rounds. I asked one of them once, a pretty, smiling
young woman who always came out when the carriage passed, with
three or four children hanging to her skirts, if she was never afraid,
being alone with small children and no possibility of help, if any
drunkards or evilly disposed men came along. She said no--that tramps
and vagabonds never came into the heart of the forest, and always kept
clear of the keeper's house, as they never knew where he and his gun
might be. She said she had had one awful night with a sick child. She
was alone in the house with two other small children, almost babies,
while her husband had to walk several miles to get a doctor. The long
wait was terrible. I got to know all the keepers' wives on our side of the
forest quite well, and it was always a great interest to them when we
passed on horseback, so few women rode in that part of France in those
days.
Sometimes, when we were in the heart of the forest, a stag with
wide-spreading antlers would bound across the road; sometimes a
pretty roebuck would come to the edge of the wood and gallop quickly
back as we got near.
We had a nice couple at the lodge, an old cavalry soldier who had been
for years coachman at the château and who had married a
Scotchwoman, nurse of one of the children. It was curious to see the
tall, gaunt figure of the Scotchwoman, always dressed in a short linsey
skirt, loose jacket, and white cap, in the midst of the chattering,
excitable women of the village. She looked so unlike them. Our peasant
women wear, too, a short; thick skirt, loose jacket, and worsted or knit
stockings, but they all wear sabots and on their heads a turban made of
bright-coloured cotton; the older women, of course--the girls wear
nothing on their heads. They become bent and wrinkled very soon--old

women before their time--having worked always in the fields and
carried heavy burdens on their backs. The Scotchwoman kept much to
herself and rarely left the park. But all the women came to her with
their troubles. Nearly always the same story--the men spending their
earnings on drink and the poor mothers toiling and striving from dawn
till dark to give the little ones enough to eat. She was a strict Protestant,
very taciturn and reserved, quite the type of the old Calvinist race who
fought so hard against the "Scarlet Woman" when the beautiful and
unhappy Mary Stuart was reigning in Scotland and trying to rule her
wild subjects. I often went to see her and she would tell me of her first
days at the château, where everything was so different from what she
was accustomed to.
She didn't tell me what Mme. A. did--that she was a very handsome girl
and all the men of the establishment fell in love with her. There were
dramas of jealousy when she finally decided to marry the coachman.
Our chef had learned how to make various English cakes in London,
and whenever he made buns or a plum-pudding we used to take some
to her. She was a great reader, and we always kept the Times for her,
and she and I sympathised with each other--two Anglo-Saxons married
in France.
Some of the traditions of the château were quite charming. I was sitting
in the lodge one day talking to Mme. Antoine, when the baker appeared
with what seemed to me an extraordinary provision of bread. I said,
"Does he leave the bread for the whole village with you?" "It is not for
me, madame, it is for the traînards (tramps) who pass on the road," and
she explained that all the châteaux gave a piece of bread and two sous
to any wayfarer who asked for food. She cut the bread into good thick
slices, and showed me a wooden bowl on the chimney, filled with
two-sous pieces. While I was there two men appeared at the big gates,
which were always open in the day. They were strong young fellows
carrying their bundles, and a sort of pitchfork slung over their shoulders.
They looked weary and footsore, their shoes worn in holes. They asked
for