Blanche Edith Baughan

“ Philippe watched the three of them thoughtfully, as they crossed the paddock and entered Métrailleur’s back-door; he sat thinking for a minute or two longer, and then he too left the velvety paddock, and went back down the street. Like the poor old Nanette, he also was late for dinner; and Mrs. Brown, although she would not dare to scold, he knew would have upon her face that aggrieved, martyr-like expression that he found always so peculiarly irritating. As for the dinner, the dinner could go to the dog—the only creature it was fit for. ”

“ It was, if monsieur pleased, she answered meekly, “Nanette.” Nanette! It sounded so like “Ninon” that Philippe’s face grew white again. Nanette was much concerned.
“It is very easy to see,” she observed, “that monsieur has indeed been ill. Monsieur requires attention, above all, he should have nourishing food. A good soup, now, with cabbage in it, a cutlet, a tender poulet with salad, a flask of white wine, and a good little cup of coffee to bury it all—black, with cognac.” ”

“ And for the right one, for that far-away lost country, of his childhood, of his early strength, of his first and only love, a desperate longing fed by all these strangely reawakened memories and associations grew and grew, until it overwhelmed him: until there was no more room in his mind for anything but remembrance, no more room in his heart for anything but regret. It was the true, the terrible nostalgia. He wanted his country, his own familiar country, as a little child wants its mother, as a sick child cannot do without her ”

“ Métrailleur and the terrible Susy; he could escape from Mrs. Brown. Nanette could make him omelettes, like his mother’s; he could eat them out of doors, within the leafy ash-tree arbour, as they used to eat at Home. . . Ah, Home! Home was gone, vanished, dead—surviving only in his brain—and in hers. . . . Well, one must just make the best of where one was; there would be something to make the best of, now. Why, she could make him coffee! Swiss coffee to mingle with New Zealand milk. ”

“ With her starchy pinafore-frills, her perked-up hair-ribbon, her lifted eyebrows and sharp little nose, she somehow presented the effect of having been sharpened into a point all over. “Why, here you are, all the time! an’ I’ve been hunting an’ hunting for you, gran’ma,” she proclaimed indignantly. “You’re just to come right straight home this very minnut—mumma says so. Here’s mumma coming now, her own self,” she ended, with a pout; and in fact a very stout woman, with a large, florid, good-natured, but rather stupid face, was to be seen just entering the paddock-gate. ”

“ Joe, he’s a-give her that black cow, an’ she will milk her midday, as well as mornin’ an’ evenin’—an’ it does keep the dinner about so,” added Mrs. Métrailleur, between gasps, and rather apologetically, to Philippe, of whom, like almost everybody else in Pakarae, including even the acute little Susy, she stood somewhat in awe.
“It is the custom, where she comes from,” Philippe answered stiffly. He did not like to see the bewildered, helpless expression now stultifying Nanette’s kindly face; she looked nearly as dull as Mrs. Métrailleur herself. ”

“ Upon the mountains on the other side the harbour there was still some snow—stainless as the snows of old, above Barue: and the harbour itself, so shut in by these spring-green paddocks, so satin-smooth to-day, did not look any more like the salt and separating sea, it looked precisely like the little lake of Mec; the jetty, too, though he had never noticed it before, was the wooden twin of that one to which old Mathieu’s boat had been wont to bring an occasional tourist in search of his father’s beautiful wood-carvings, his boiserie. . . ”

“ Ah, but then, the coffee must be made, not murdered! It was no use buying any to take home to Mrs. Brown.
There were two men busy by the fence of old Bossu’s house as he came past. They were putting up a sign—“To Let,” it said, quite plainly. Young Bossu did not mean to pull the old place down just yet, then—Ah! . . . Philippe stood suddenly stock-still, staring at the green shutters but not seeing them at all, in the full radiance of the idea that, ever since Mrs. Métrailleur’s remarks, had been slowly dawning on his mind. He, Philippe, was not poor; the old house was not large ”

“ You won’t come in an’ have a bite with her, Mr. Philippe, I s’pose? I’d make you a real good cup o’ tea. . . . Well, you must drop in some other time, then, an’ have a chat with gran’ma. We’d be pleased to see you any time, I’m sure. Joseph, he was sayin’ on’y at breakfast what a lot he thought o’ you. Come on, gran’ma. Bless you, she don’t take in more than half a word at a time o’ what I say! Goodbye, Mr. Philippe. ”

“ Métrailleur, mildly interested. “It’s a pity you don’t want no housekeeper, Mr. Philippe—not but what I know Mrs. Brown does for you, an’ she’s as good as the next two, as they say. On’y you’d understand the old lady’s ways, an’ her lingo, an’ they’re both beyond me, I’m sure. Been sick quite a long time, ain’t you? You must mind an’ take good care o’ yourself now—look as if you could do with a real good old feedin’ up, so you do—an’ that reminds me, gran’ma, your dinner will be all dried ”

“ Old Bossu, last but one of all those thirty-five shipmates who had come out to Pakarae from Havre upon La Belle Etoile, fifty-one years ago. Fifty-one years is a long time. They had built, those early settlers, that curving street of quaint, two-storeyed, gabled houses so much prettier than New Zealand houses are wont to be ”