Told in a French Garden

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Told in a French Garden

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Title: Told in a French Garden August, 1914
Author: Mildred Aldrich
Release Date: March 16, 2006 [EBook #18004]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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TOLD IN A FRENCH GARDEN
AUGUST, 1914

BY Mildred Aldrich
Author of "A Hilltop on the Marne"

BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 1916
Copyright, 1916 BY MILDRED ALDRICH

TO
F. E. C.
a prince of comrades and a royal friend, whose quaint humor gladdened the days of my early struggle, and whose unfailing faith inspired me in later days to turn a smiling face to Fate

CONTENTS
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION
How We Came into the Garden
I THE YOUNGSTER'S STORY It Happened at Midnight--The Tale of a Bride's New Home
II THE TRAINED NURSE'S STORY The Son of Josephine--The Tale of a Foundling
III THE CRITIC'S STORY 'Twas in the Indian Summer--The Tale of an Actress
IV THE DOCTOR'S STORY As One Dreams--The Tale of an Adolescent
V THE SCULPTOR'S STORY Unto This End--The Tale of a Virgin
VI THE DIVORCéE'S STORY One Woman's Philosophy--The Tale of a Modern Wife
VII THE LAWYER'S STORY The Night Before the Wedding--The Tale of a Bride-Elect
VIII THE JOURNALIST'S STORY In a Railway Station--The Tale of a Dancer
IX THE VIOLINIST'S STORY The Soul of the Song--The Tale of a Fiancée
X EPILOGUE Adieu--How We Went Out of the Garden

TOLD IN A FRENCH GARDEN
INTRODUCTION
HOW WE CAME INTO THE GARDEN
It was by a strange irony of Fate that we found ourselves reunited for a summer's outing, in a French garden, in July, 1914.
With the exception of the Youngster, we had hardly met since the days of our youth.
We were a party of unattached people, six men, two women, your humble servant, and the Youngster, who was an outsider.
With the exception of the latter, we had all gone to school or college or dancing class together, and kept up a sort of superficial acquaintance ever since--that sort of relation in which people know something of one another's opinions and absolutely nothing of one another's real lives.
There was the Doctor, who had studied long in Germany, and become an authority on mental diseases, developed a distaste for therapeutics, and a passion for research and the laboratory. There was the Lawyer, who knew international law as he knew his Greek alphabet, and hated a court room. There was the Violinist, who was known the world over in musical sets,--everywhere, except in the concert room. There was the Journalist, who had travelled into almost as many queer places as Richard Burton, seen more wars, and followed more callings. There was the Sculptor, the fame of whose greater father had almost paralyzed a pair of good modeller's hands. There was the Critic, whose friends believed that in him the world had lost a great romancer, but whom a combination of hunger and laziness, and a proneness to think that nothing not genius was worth while, had condemned to be a mere breadwinner, but a breadwinner who squeezed a lot out of life, and who fervently believed that in his next incarnation he would really be "it." Then there was "Me," and of the other two women--one was a Trained Nurse, and the other a Divorcée, and--well, none of us really knew just what she had become, but we knew that she was very rich, and very handsome, and had a leaning toward some sort of new religion. As for the Youngster--he was the son of an old chum of the Doctor--his ward, in fact--and his hobby was flying.
Our reunion, after so many years, was a rather pretty story.
In the summer of 1913, the Doctor and the Divorcée, who had lost sight of one another for twenty years, met by chance in Paris. Her ex-husband had been a college friend of the Doctor. They saw a great deal of one another in the lazy way that people who really love France, and are done sightseeing, can do.
One day it occurred to them to take a day's trip into the country, as unattached people now and then can do. They might have gone out in a car--but they chose the railroad, with a walk at the end--on the principle that no one can know and love a country who does not press its earth beneath his feet,--the Doctor would probably have said, "lay his head upon its bosom." By an accident--they missed a train--they found themselves at sunset of a beautiful day in a small village, and with no