Her home had always been the _havre de grace_, known and venerated by them all; a meeting place for reconciliation between persons whose self-control had escaped them; the shelter for prodigal and repentant sons who awaited the forgiveness of their justly wrathful sires; the comforting haven that seemed to a.s.suage the pangs of departure and bereavement. But above all it was the one spot for properly celebrating family anniversaries, announcing engagements, and spending joyous vacations.

The war had been the cause of a great deal of hard work in this respect.

"Why, I receive more letters than a State functionary," Aunt Rose informed me when I came upon her early the next morning, already installed behind her huge flat-topped desk, her tortoise-sh.e.l.l spectacles tipped down towards the end of her very prominent nose.

"For nearly four years I've been writing on the average of twenty letters a day and I never seem to catch up with my correspondence.

Why, I need a secretary just to sort out and cla.s.sify it. You haven't an idea the different places that I hear from. See, here are your letters from the United States. Leon is in the Indo-Chinese Bank in Oceania. Albert is mobilised at Laos, Quentin in Morocco. Jean-Paul and Marcel are fighting at Saloniki; Emilien in Italy. Marie is Superior in a convent at Madrid; Madeline, Sister of Charity at Cairo.

You see I've a world-wide correspondence.

"Look," she continued, opening a deep drawer in one side of her desk, "here are the letters from my _poilus_ and, of course, these are only the answered ones. The dear boys just love to write and not one of them misses a week without doing so. I'm going to keep them all.

Their children may love to have them some day."

Then she opened a smaller drawer, and my eye fell upon a dozen or fifteen packages, all different in size and each one enveloped in white tissue paper, carefully tied about with grey silk ribbon.

"These were written by our dear departed," she said simply.

In an instant they pa.s.sed before my eyes, those "dear departed." Big, tall William, so gay and so childish, he who used to play the ogre or the horse, or anything one wished: a person so absolutely indispensable to their games that all the little folk used to gather beneath his window early in the morning, crying in chorus: "Uncle William! Uncle William! do wake up and come down and play!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLOCKING TO READ THE COMING COMMUNIQUe IN A LITTLE FRENCH CITY]

Jean-Francois, the engineer; Philippe, the architect; Honore, whom we dubbed "Deshonore," because he used always to return empty-handed when we went hunting together. Gone, gone forever!

Aunt Rose picked up one of the smaller packages.

"These were from little Jacques." And two bright tears trembled on her lashes.

"You remember him, of course, my dear. He was an orphan, he never knew his mother. I always supposed that is what made him so distant and reserved. Jean, his guardian, who is very severe, used to treat him as he did his own children--scolding him often about his indolence, his lack of application to his studies.

"I used to have him here with me during his vacations. He loved this old house--and I knew it. Sometimes when you would all start out for some excursion I'd see him coming back towards the gate:

"'You're not going with them then, Jacques?'

"'No, thank you, Aunt Rose, it's so nice in your drawing-room.'

"When he was just a little baby I often wanted to take him onto my lap and laugh and play with him. But he was so cold and distant! A funny little mite, even with boys of his own age. n.o.body seemed to understand him exactly; certain people even thought that his was a surly nature.

"He spent his last furlough here, and I found quite a change in him.

He was more robust and tanned. A splendid looking fellow, and I was so proud of him.

"'Aunt Rose,' he asked even before we embraced, 'is there any one else stopping with you?'

"'Why no, child, and I'm afraid you'll find the house very empty. If only I'd known you were coming I most certainly should have invited your cousins.'

"'Oh, I'm so glad you didn't! I much prefer being alone with you.'

"He came and went in the house, but never could be persuaded to go outside the yard. I should have loved to have taken him with me and shown his War Cross to some of my old friends. But he wouldn't hear of it.

"'Pooh!' he would laugh when I would suggest such a thing. 'If ever they come near me I'll tell them I've got "trench pest"--and then you'll see them clear out.'

"He went down in the kitchen and I'd hear him pottering around. I never knew him so gay and happy.

"'Tante Rose, I'm going to sing you "La Madelon" and the "Refrain de la Mitraille." It was Planchet, the tinsmith, who composed it!'

"He'd sit for hours in that big blue armchair, blinking at the fire, and then suddenly he'd come to earth and explain:

"'Aunt Rose, what a pleasure to be here.'

"When finally he had to go back, he caught me and whispered in my ear, as I kissed him:

"'Next time, Tante, you promise me not to invite any one, won't you?'

"Poor child, he will never come back, and his friend Planchet, the tinsmith, saw him fall with a bullet through his heart. It was he who wrote me the sad news.

"Well, my dear, what mystery the soul hides within itself! In one of the cupboards of the room he occupied I found two note books and a diary filled with verses he had never shown to any one, never admitted having written. How little we guessed what he was about when we scolded him for his indolence and inattention. If you only knew what accents, what harmonious phrases he found to depict the shades of our trees, the rippling of the river, the perfume of the flowers and his love for us all.

"There is a whole chapter devoted to the old homestead. He seemed to feel everything, divine everything, explain everything. None of us understood him. There is no use pretending we did. Not one among us would ever have guessed that so splendid and delicate a master of the pen lived and moved amongst us."

Aunt Rose looked straight out onto the sun-lit court, the great tears trickling down her cheeks.

For a long time neither of us spoke.

Like its mistress, Aunt Rose's home lives to serve the war. The culinary realm is always busily engaged preparing _pates_ and _galantines_, _rillettes_ and sausages. "For our boys," is the answer almost before the question is put. "They're so glad to get home-made dainties, and are always clamouring for more--no matter how much you send!

"Since they must eat preserved food, we might as well send them something we make ourselves, then we're sure it's the best. Why, I'd be ashamed to go out and buy something and send it off without knowing who had handled it." This was the cook's idea of patriotism, which I shared most heartily, having at one time had nothing but "bully beef"

and dried beans as constant diet for nearly a fortnight.

The coachman and inside man sealed the crocks and tins, prepared and forwarded the packages.

"Oh, there's one for everybody! Even the boys of the city who haven't got a family to look after them. They must be mighty glad Madame's alive. We put in one or two post cards, views of the town. That cheers them up and makes them feel they're not forgotten here in R----."

One afternoon on descending into the kitchen we beheld two st.u.r.dy looking fellows seated at table and eating with ravenous appet.i.te. One was an artilleryman who had but a single arm, the other a _cha.s.seur_, whose much bandaged leg was reposing upon a stool.

"They are wounded men on convalescent leave," explained Armandine.

"The poor fellows need a little humouring so that they'll build up the quicker, and an extra meal surely can't hurt!"

This was certainly the opinion of the two invalids who had just disposed of a most generous bacon omelet, and were about to dig into a jar of _pate_.

Armandine and Nicholas watched them eat with evident admiration, fairly drinking up their words when between mouthsful they would stop for breath and deign to speak. Their rustic eloquence was like magic balm poured onto a constantly burning, ulcerated sore.

"Your son? Why, of course, he'll turn up!" the artilleryman a.s.sured them.

"But he hasn't written a line!"

"That's nothing. Now just suppose that correspondence is forbidden in his sector for the time being."

"I know, but it's three months since we heard from him. We've written everywhere, to all the authorities, and never get any returns--except now and then a card saying that they're giving the matter their attention. That's an awfully bad sign, isn't it?"

"Not at all, not at all," chimed in the _cha.s.seur_. "Why, some of the missing have been found in other regiments, or even in the depots, and n.o.body knows how they got there.