Tatterdemalion | Page 3

the wards was warned by his comrades that
the English angel with the grey hair was to be taken without a smile,
exactly as if she were his grandmother.
In the walk to the hospital Augustine would accompany her, carrying
the bag and perhaps a large peasant's umbrella to cover them both, for
the winter was hard and snowy and carriages cost money, which must
now be kept entirely for the almost daily replenishment of the bag and
other calls of war. The girl, to her chagrin, was always left in a safe
place, for it would never do to take her in and put fancies into her head,
and perhaps excite the dear soldiers with a view of anything so taking.

And when the visit was over they would set forth home, walking very
slowly in the high, narrow streets, Augustine pouting a little and
shooting swift glances at anything in uniform, and Madame making
firm her lips against a fatigue which sometimes almost overcame her
before she could get home and up the stairs. And the parrot would greet
them indiscreetly with new phrases " Keep smiling! " and " Kiss
Augustine! " which he sometimes varied with "Kiss a poll, Poll! " or "
Scratch Augustine!" to Madame' s regret. Tea would revive her
somewhat, and then she would knit, for as time went on and the war
seemed to get farther and farther from that end which, in common with
so many, she had expected before now, it seemed dreadful not to be
always doing something to help the poor dear soldiers; and for dinner,
to Augustine's horror, she now had nothing but a little soup, or an egg
beaten up with milk and brandy. It saved such a lot of time and expense
she was sure people ate too much; and afterward she would read the
Daily Mail, often putting it down to sigh, and press her lips together,
and think, " One must look on the bright side of things," and wonder a
little where it was. And Augustine, finishing her work in the tiny
kitchen, would sigh too, and think of red trousers and peaked caps, not
yet out of date in that southern region, and of her own heart saying "
Kiss Augustine! '" and she would peer out between the shutters at the
stars sparkling over the Camargue, or look down where the ground fell
away beyond an old, old wall, and nobody walked in the winter night;
and muse on her nineteenth birthday coming, and sigh with the thought
that she would be old before any one had loved her; and of how
Madame was looking " tres fatiguee."
Indeed, Madame was not merely looking "tres fatiguee " in these days.
The world's vitality and her own were at sad January ebb. But to think
of oneself was quite impossible, of course; it would be all right
presently, and one must not fuss, or mention in one's letters to the dear
children that one felt at all poorly. As for a doctor that would be sinful
waste, and besides, what use were they except to tell you what you
knew? And she was terribly vexed when Augustine found her in a faint
one morning, and she found Augustine in tears, with her hair all over
her face. She rated the girl soundly but feebly for making such a fuss
over " a little thing like that," and with extremely trembling fingers

pushed the brown hair back and told her to wash her face, while the
parrot said reflectively, " Scratch a poll Hullo!" The girl, who had seen
her own grandmother die not long before, and remembered how
"fatiguee " she had been during her last days, was really frightened.
Coming back after she had washed her face, she found her mistress
writing on a number of little envelopes the same words: " En bonne
Amitie." She looked up at the girl standing so ominously idle, and said:
"Take this hundred-franc note, Augustine, and go and get it changed
into single francs the ironmonger will do it if you say it's for me. I am
going to take a rest. I shan't buy anything for the bag for a whole week.
I shall just take francs instead."
"Oh, Madame! You must not go out: vous etes trop fatiguee."
"Nonsense! How do you suppose our dear little Queen in England
would get on with all she has to do, if she were to give in like that? We
must none of us give up in these days. Help me to put on my things; I
am going to church, and then I shall take a long rest before we go to the
hospital."
"Oh, Madame! Must you go to church? It is not