Artists -- Fiction; British -- France -- Paris -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Betty has never before made a railway journey alone. This gives one a
forlorn feeling. Suppose she has to pay excess on her luggage, or to
wrangle about contraband? She has heard all about the Octroi. Is
lavender water smuggling? And what can they do to you for it? Vernon
would know all these things. And if he were going into the country he
would be wearing that almost-white rough suit of his and the Panama
hat. A rose--Madame Abel de Chatenay--would go well with that coat.
Why didn't brides consult their bridegrooms before they bought their
trousseaux? You should get your gowns to rhyme with your husband's
suits. A dream of a dress that would be, with all the shades of Madame
Abel cunningly blended. A honeymoon lasts at least a month. The roses
would all be out at Long Barton by the time they walked up that
moss-grown drive, and stood at the Rectory door, and she murmured in
the ear of the Reverend Cecil: "Aren't you sorry you--"
Dismissed. And perforce, for the station was reached.
Betty, even in the brown hat, attracted the most attractive of the
porters--also, of course, the most attractable. He thought he spoke
English, and though this was not so, yet the friendly blink of his
Breton-blue eyes and his encouraging smile gave to his:
"Bourron? Mais oui--dix heures vingt. Par ici, Meess. Je m'occuperai
de vous. Et des bagages aussi--all right," quite the ring of one's
mother tongue.
He made everything easy for Betty, found her a carriage without
company ("I can cry here if I like," said the Betty that Betty liked
least), arranged her small packages neatly in the rack, took her 50
centime piece as though it had been a priceless personal souvenir, and
ran half the length of the platform to get a rose from another
porter's button-hole. He handed it to her through the carriage window.
"_Pour égayer le voyage de Meess_. All right!" he smiled, and was
gone.
She settled herself in the far corner, and took off her hat. The
carriage was hot as any kitchen. With her teeth she drew the cork of
the lavender water bottle, and with her handkerchief dabbed the
perfume on forehead and ears.
"Ah, Mademoiselle--_De grace_!"--the voice came through the open
window beside her. A train full of young soldiers was beside her
train, and in the window opposite hers three boys' faces crowded to
look at her. Three hands held out three handkerchiefs--not very white
certainly, but--
Betty smiling reached out the bottle and poured lavender water on each
outheld handkerchief.
"_Ah, le bon souvenir_!" said one.
"We shall think of the beauty of an angel of Mademoiselle every time
we smell the perfume so delicious," said the second.
"And longer than that--oh, longer than that by all a life!" cried the
third.
The train started. The honest, smiling boy faces disappeared.
Instinctively she put her head out of the window to look back at them.
All three threw kisses at her.
"I ought to be offended," said Betty, and instantly kissed her hand in
return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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