Mais voilà! on one’s eighteenth birthday one is not going to think of troubles until the very last minute when it is actually on the doorstep. And the day had been entirely glorious. Not a cloud: the sky of such a vivid blue that the forget-me-nots that grew in such profusion beside the stream looked pale and colourless beneath it. The crimson peonies behind the house were in full bloom, and the buds of the climbing rose on the point of bursting.
And now dinner was over. Louise was busy in the kitchen washing up the plates and dishes, and Fleurette was carefully putting away the beautiful silver forks and spoons which had been brought out for the occasion. She was putting them away in the fine leather case with the molleton lining, which set off the glistening silver to perfection, and little Fleurette felt happy and very contented. She worked away in silence because Bibi had leaned his darling old head against the back of his chair, and closed his eyes. Fleurette thought that he had dropped to sleep.
He looked thin and pale, the poor dear, and there were lines of anxiety and discontent around his thin lips: his hair too had of late been plentifully sprinkled with gray. Oh! how Fleurette longed to have him here at Lou Mas. Always and always. It was the only home she had ever known; dear, beautiful, fragrant Lou Mas. Here she would tend him and care for him until all those lines of care upon his face had vanished. And what more likely to bring a smile to his lips than dear old Lou Mas with its whitewashed walls and red-tiled roofs, with its green shutters and little mill stream beside which, for nine months in the year, flowers grew in such profusion; violets, forget-me-nots, and lilies of the valley in the spring, and meadowsweet throughout the summer until an early frost cut them down?
As for this room, Fleurette knew that there could not be in the whole of France, anything more beautiful or more cosy. There was the beautiful walnut sideboard, polished until it shone like a mirror, there were the chairs covered in crimson rep, rather faded it is true, but none the worse for that, and there was Bibi’s special armchair adorned with that strip of tapestry which Fleurette had worked in cross-stitch, expressly for his birthday the year of her first communion. Never had there been such chairs anywhere. And that beautiful paper on the walls, the red and yellow roses that looked as if you could pick them off their lovely chocolate-coloured ground, and the chandelier with the crystal drops, and the blue vases with the gold handles that adorned the mantelpiece, not to mention the print curtains and the pink and blue check cloth upon the table. Oh, Fleurette loved all these things, they had been the playthings of her childhood and now they were her pride. If only Bibi would smile again, she felt that the whole world would be like heaven.
And then all at once everything went wrong. Fleurette had got her beautiful new shawl out of its wrappings and draped it round her shoulders and rubbed her cheek against it. Then she had said quite innocently: “It is so lovely, Bibi, and the wool is so soft and fine. I am sure that it came from England.” And it was from that moment that everything went wrong. To begin with, and quite by accident, of course, Bibi broke the stem of the glass out of which he had been drinking, and a quantity of very precious wine was spilt over the beautiful tablecloth.
Whereupon, unaccountably, because of course the table cloth could be washed, Bibi pushed his plate aside quite roughly and suddenly looked ten years older; so wan and pale and shrivelled and old. Fleurette longed to put her arms round him—as she used to do in the happy olden days—and ask him to tell her what was amiss. She was grown up now—eighteen years old today—quite old enough to understand. And if Bibi loved her as she thought he did, he would be comforted.
But there it was! There was something in the expression on Bibi’s face that checked Fleurette’s impulse. She went on quietly—very quietly, like a little mouse—with her work, and for a while there was silence in the cosy room with the beautiful roses on the wall that looked as if you could pick them off their chocolate ground: a silence that was unaccountably full of sadness.
IV
Bibi was the first to hear the sound of footsteps coming up to the door. He gave a start, just as if he were waking from a dream.
“It’s M’sieu’ Colombe,” Fleurette said.
At once Bibi reproved her, a thing he hardly ever did: “Citizen Colombe,” he said sternly.
Fleurette shrugged her plump shoulders: “Ah well—!” she exclaimed.
“You must learn, Fleurette,” Bibi insisted still with unwonted severity. “You are old enough to learn.”
She said nothing more; only kissed the top of his head, the smooth brown hair, of late so plentifully tinged with grey, and promised that she would learn. She stood by the sideboard intent on putting the silver away, with her back turned to Bibi so that he should not see the soft tone of pink that had crept into her cheeks, as soon as she had perceived that two pairs of feet were treading the path outside the door.
Now there was a vigorous knock against the door, and a cheery, raucous voice called out loudly: “May one enter?”
Fleurette ran to the door and opened it.
“But certainly, certainly,” she said, and then added, seemingly very astonished: “Ah! and M’sieu’ Amédé too?” From which the casual observer would perhaps infer that the pink colour in her cheeks had been due to the arrival of M’sieu’ Colombe, the épicier of the Rue Haute, rather than to that
