Somebody's Luggage

“But, pardon!” said Madame Bonclet, angling for a clew, “one cannot light a little girl, or send her to be repaired?”

“The little girl – at the house of the barber.”

“Ah-h-h!” cried Madame Bouclet, suddenly catching the idea with her delicate little line and rod. “Little Bebelle? Yes, yes, yes! And her friend the Corporal? Yes, yes, yes, yes! So genteel of him, – is it not?”

“He is not – ?”

“Not at all; not at all! He is not one of her relations. Not at all!”

“Why, then, he – ”

“Perfectly!” cried Madame Bouclet, “you are right, monsieur. It is so genteel of him. The less relation, the more genteel. As you say.”

“Is she – ?”

“The child of the barber?” Madame Bouclet whisked up her skilful little line and rod again. “Not at all, not at all! She is the child of – in a word, of no one.”

“The wife of the barber, then – ?”

“Indubitably. As you say. The wife of the barber receives a small stipend to take care of her. So much by the month. Eh, then! It is without doubt very little, for we are all poor here.”

“You are not poor, madame.”

“As to my lodgers,” replied Madame Bouclet, with a smiling and a gracious bend of her head, “no. As to all things else, so-so.”

“You flatter me, madame.”

“Monsieur, it is you who flatter me in living here.”

Certain fishy gasps on Mr. The Englishman’s part, denoting that he was about to resume his subject under difficulties, Madame Bouclet observed him closely, and whisked up her delicate line and rod again with triumphant success.

“O no, monsieur, certainly not. The wife of the barber is not cruel to the poor child, but she is careless. Her health is delicate, and she sits all day, looking out at window. Consequently, when the Corporal first came, the poor little Bebelle was much neglected.”

“It is a curious – ” began Mr. The Englishman.

“Name? That Bebelle? Again you are right, monsieur. But it is a playful name for Gabrielle.”

“And so the child is a mere fancy of the Corporal’s?” said Mr. The Englishman, in a gruffly disparaging tone of voice.

“Eh, well!” returned Madame Bouclet, with a pleading shrug: “one must love something. Human nature is weak.”

(“Devilish weak,” muttered the Englishman, in his own language.)

“And the Corporal,” pursued Madame Bouclet, “being billeted at the barber’s, – where he will probably remain a long time, for he is attached to the General, – and finding the poor unowned child in need of being loved, and finding himself in need of loving, – why, there you have it all, you see!”

Mr. The Englishman accepted this interpretation of the matter with an indifferent grace, and observed to himself, in an injured manner, when he was again alone: “I shouldn’t mind it so much, if these people were not such a” – National Participled – “sentimental people!”

There was a Cemetery outside the town, and it happened ill for the reputation of the Vaubanois, in this sentimental connection, that he took a walk there that same afternoon. To be sure there were some wonderful things in it (from the Englishman’s point of view), and of a certainty in all Britain you would have found nothing like it. Not to mention the fanciful flourishes of hearts and crosses in wood and iron, that were planted all over the place, making it look very like a Firework-ground, where a most splendid pyrotechnic display might be expected after dark, there were so many wreaths upon the graves, embroidered, as it might be, “To my mother,” “To my daughter,” “To my father,” “To my brother,” “To my sister,” “To my friend,” and those many wreaths were in so many stages of elaboration and decay, from the wreath of yesterday, all fresh colour and bright beads, to the wreath of last year, a poor mouldering wisp of straw! There were so many little gardens and grottos made upon graves, in so many tastes, with plants and shells and plaster figures and porcelain pitchers, and so many odds and ends! There were so many tributes of remembrance hanging up, not to be discriminated by the closest inspection from little round waiters, whereon were depicted in glowing lines either a lady or a gentleman with a white pocket-handkerchief out of all proportion, leaning, in a state of the most faultless mourning and most profound affliction, on the most architectural and gorgeous urn! There were so many surviving wives who had put their names on the tombs of their deceased husbands, with a blank for the date of their own departure from this weary world; and there were so many surviving husbands who had rendered the same homage to their deceased wives; and out of the number there must have been so many who had long ago married again! In fine, there was so much in the place that would have seemed more frippery to a stranger, save for the consideration that the lightest paper flower that lay upon the poorest heap of earth was never touched by a rude hand, but perished there, a sacred thing!

“Nothing of the solemnity of Death here,” Mr. The Englishman had been going to say, when this last consideration touched him with a mild appeal, and on the whole he walked out without saying it. “But these people are,” he insisted, by way of compensation, when he was well outside the gate, “they are so” – Participled – “sentimental!”

His way back lay by the military gymnasium-ground. And there he passed the Corporal glibly instructing young soldiers how to swing themselves over rapid and deep watercourses on their way to Glory, by means of a rope, and himself deftly plunging off a platform, and flying a hundred feet or two, as an encouragement to them to begin. And there he also passed, perched on a crowning eminence (probably the Corporal’s careful hands), the small Bebelle, with her round eyes wide open, surveying the proceeding like a wondering sort of blue and white bird.

“If that child was to die,” this was his reflection as he turned his back and went his way, – “and it would almost serve the fellow right for making such a fool of himself, – I suppose we should have him sticking up a wreath and a waiter in that fantastic burying-ground.”

Nevertheless, after another early morning or two of looking out of window, he strolled down into the Place, when the Corporal and Bebelle were walking there, and touching his hat to the Corporal (an immense achievement), wished him Good-day.

“Good-day, monsieur.”

“This is a rather pretty child you have here,” said Mr. The Englishman, taking her chin in his hand, and looking down into her astonished blue eyes.

“Monsieur, she is a very pretty child,” returned the Corporal, with a stress on his polite correction of the phrase.

“And good?” said the Englishman.

“And very good. Poor little thing!”

“Hah!” The Englishman stooped down and patted her cheek, not without awkwardness, as if he were going too far in his conciliation. “And what is this medal round your neck, my little one?”

Bebelle having no other reply on her lips than her chubby right fist, the Corporal offered his services as interpreter.

“Monsieur demands, what is this, Bebelle?”

“It is the Holy Virgin,” said Bebelle.

“And who gave it you?” asked the Englishman.

“Théophile.”

“And who is Théophile?”

Bebelle broke into a laugh, laughed merrily and heartily, clapped her chubby hands, and beat her little feet on the stone pavement of the Place.

“He doesn’t know Théophile! Why, he doesn’t know any one! He doesn’t know anything!” Then, sensible of a small solecism in her manners, Bebelle twisted her right hand in a leg of the Corporal’s Bloomer trousers, and, laying her cheek against the place, kissed it.

“Monsieur Théophile, I believe?” said the Englishman to the Corporal.

“It is I, monsieur.”

“Permit me.” Mr. The Englishman shook him heartily by the hand and turned away. But he took it mighty ill that old Monsieur Mutuel in his patch of sunlight, upon whom he came as he turned, should pull off his cap to him with a look of pleased approval. And he muttered, in his own tongue, as he returned the salutation, “Well, walnut-shell! And what business is it of yours?”

Mr. The Englishman went on for many weeks passing but disturbed evenings and worse nights, and constantly experiencing that those aforesaid windows in the houses of Memory and Mercy rattled after dark, and that he had very imperfectly nailed them up. Likewise, he went on for many weeks daily improving the acquaintance of the Corporal and Bebelle. That is to say, he took Bebelle by the chin, and the Corporal by the hand, and offered Bebelle sous and the Corporal cigars, and even got the length of changing pipes with the Corporal and kissing Bebelle. But he did it all in a shamefaced way, and always took it extremely ill that Monsieur Mutuel in his patch of sunlight should note what he did. Whenever that seemed to be the case, he always growled in his own tongue, “There you are again, walnut-shell! What business is it of yours?”

In a word, it had become the occupation of Mr. The Englishman’s life to look after the Corporal and little Bebelle, and to resent old Monsieur Mutuel’s looking after him. An occupation only varied by a fire in the town one windy night, and much passing of water-buckets from hand to hand (in which the Englishman rendered good service), and much beating of drums, – when all of a sudden the Corporal disappeared.

Next, all of a sudden, Bebelle disappeared.

She had been visible a few days later than the Corporal, – sadly deteriorated as to washing and brushing, – but she had not spoken when addressed by Mr. The Englishman, and had looked scared and had run away. And now it would seem that she had run away for good. And there lay the Great Place under the windows, bare and barren.