Wanderfoot (The Dream Ship)
"You know I would n't hurt my little cubby-cub for a million pounds."
"Would you for a million millions?"
"Never!"
"For a ship as big as the _Tu-te-onic_?" Bran adored ships, and could
imagine most crimes being committed to acquire one.
"Never, never, _jamais_!"
"Not if some one came and asked you to give me just a _teeny weeny_
hurt?"
"If some one came to me and said, 'I 'll give you the whole sea full of
ships with all the beautiful things in the world in them, if you just
crush your little Bran's finger till he howls,' I would say, 'You get
out of here, Beel, or I keel you.'"
Bran gave a joyful prance at the familiar quotation from Stephen Crane's
story of Mexico Bill, long since transformed by Val into an exciting
game, in which he performed the ro1e of Bill, and she and Haidee were
two Mexican braves in sombreros and draped blankets. He was just about
to propose a full-dress rehearsal of this drama when Val, reading the
inspiration in his eye and feeling quite unfit for any such diversion,
headed his mind off in another direction.
"If any one came and offered _you_ a million pounds to hurt your mammie,
would you do it?"
"No," said Bran, adding darkly, "_but I'd ask him where he lived._"
"And then?" Val smiled into his hair. There was a pause; at last in a
soft whisper spoke Bran the brigand:
"I 'd take a sword and go and pierce him in the night and get his
million pounds for you." He embraced her ardently. It was
characteristic of her that she did not rebuke him for the lawlessness of
his plan. She thoroughly understood the spirit that could rob, pillage,
and even do murder for the sake of a loved one.
They began to laugh and play. Val suddenly fell in love with her plan
to have her hair cut off. She arranged a red handkerchief on her head,
turban-fashion, to see how she would look. Eventually she decided to
wear a fez and return to her habit of cigarette smoking to match her new
appearance. Haidee declared that she too would love a fez, so Val sat
down and wrote to the Army and Navy Stores for two, on the condition
that Haidee went to the village at once to tell the barber to come
immediately after lunch. Now that she had decided to have her hair cut
the thing could not be done soon enough to please her.
Regretfully Haidee changed her bathing-dress for her navy-blue skirt and
scarlet sweater, also a floppy hat of brown _suede_ for which Val had
paid a pound in Jersey at a time when they were very hard up indeed,
just because it suited Haidee's peculiar style of cowboy beauty.
Looking like a handsome conspirator, she sallied forth down the road
that led to the village, for Villa Duval lay a good half-mile from
Mascaret, with nothing between but the blacksmith's shop, a hotel, and a
couple of fishermen's cottages.
The blacksmith's wife's brother, known to all the world, including
Haidee and Bran, as "_mon oncle_" was whitewashing the outside of the
blacksmith's cottage against the day when the rose-tree trained over the
door would burst into leaf and large pink roses. A little farther on,
in front of the hotel, two men were scattering red brick dust over the
long flower beds on the sloping lawns, preparatory to planting out the
letters "Grand Hotel de la Mer" in blue and white lobelias, thus
combining patriotism with an excellent advertisement of the hotel. When
the May excursion boat moored alongside the _digue_, the first thing to
greet the eyes of the passengers would be the blue and white lettering
on the brick-red beds.
These signs and symbols of approaching summer cheered the heart of
Haidee, and she hummed a little song to herself, as she went light-foot
along the curving picturesque terrace that led to the village.
Already she seemed to smell upon the air the luscious heavy scent of
travellers' joy that would presently hang in waxen bunches from the high
walls of La Terrasse and Villa Albert. These were the only two villas
on the Terrace, and they pertained variously to a Paris specialist in
madness, and the controller-general of a great French bank. Between the
two villas lay a large and valuable plot of ground, overgrown and
tangled up with creepers, brambles, cabbage stalks, rose bushes, and
seeding onions, set in the midst of which was a dilapidated one-room
hut. The hut was the fly in the ointment of the specialist in lunacy
and the controller-general. They could do nothing to remove this
picturesque slum from their gates, for old _veuve_ Michel, who lived
there and drank two bottles of cognac a day and sang gay ribald songs by
night, owned the land by right of some old French statute, and no one
could turn her out for as long as she lived. Haidee and Bran considered
_veuve_ Michel a very charming person indeed. She was fat and merry and
gentle, called them her nice little hens and gave them apples and pears
(for she also owned an orchard up the cliff) all through the winter when
there was no fruit to be got any nearer than Cherbourg. Naturally they
liked and appreciated the old woman. Haidee had a good mind to go in
and pay her a visit, but she decided it was better not, as old _veuve_
would just be sleeping off her morning bottle of cognac preparatory to
starting on the afternoon one; also Haidee remembered that she was
hungry, and had better hurry back and help get lunch. Still she could
not help stopping once or twice to examine for signs of little pink tips
the lower branches of the tamarisk-trees which grew on one side of the
Terrace--on the other side was the grey stone river wall with the tide
lapping blue against it.
Haidee loved tamarisks with a joy that she was sure was unholy because
they looked so wicked and painted somehow when they were all dressed out
in their pink feathers. She fancied that Jezebel must have had a bunch
of them stuck like an aigrette in her beautifully _coiffee_ hair, and
the same pink tint on her cheeks when she looked out of the window for
the last time. Anyway why were tamarisks the only trees to be found
growing in the ruins of Babylon? And why had she read somewhere, that
in the days of ancient Rome tamarisks were bound around the heads of
criminals? It was a nuisance to have to forsake these interesting
meditations to enter the little soap-scented shop of the village barber,
but she stayed no longer than to bid him come to the Villa at three
o'clock to cut off Madame's hair. Next she called at Lemonier's to
command a sack of coal, and noted that Lemonier had evidently been drunk
again, for Madame had a black eye. It was funny to think that such a
jolly big red man should be so cruel! Haidee meditated on this subject
on the return journey, also on the horrible price of coal--sixty-five
francs a ton and it disappeared like lightning. No one seemed to know
why "Carr-_diff_," as they called it, should be so dear. Hortense,
closely questioned on the subject by Val anxious for information, said
that it must be because the people in England hated the French and were
still angry that Normandy did not belong to them.
"Well, have n't you got any coal mines in your own blessed country?"
asked Haidee.
"_Certainement!_" Hortense had replied indignantly. "We have
Newcas-sel!"
----
The barber arrived at three o'clock, and Val sat trembling before her
dressing-table. She had arranged two mirrors so that she could view the
whole proceeding, but as soon as the barber commenced she closed her
eyes tight. Bran and Haidee stationed themselves at either side of the
table to see fair play.
The barber was frankly amazed at the decision of Madame to cut off her
feathery hair. Even at the last moment he asked--holding it up in his
hands and shaking it out in sprays:
"Does Madame realise what a change it will make in her appearance?
Would it not be better if Madame had it merely cut short, leaving about
two inches all round _a la Jeanne d'Arc_, so--?" He stuck his little
pudgy fingers out below her ears to show the desirable length.
"No, no, no!" cried Val, without opening her eyes. "Does he think I
want to look like a pony with my mane hogged! Cut it off close, it
_must_ grow long and thick as it used to do. Tell him, Haidee."
Haidee told him as much as it was good for him to know--no mention of
ponies.
"_Bon!_" said Monsieur le Barbier agreeably, but he looked doubtful,
thinking to himself that hair seldom grew much after the age of thirty,
and the lady looked well that. When one side was gone Val opened her
eyes and gave a deep cry. If it could have been replaced then, she would
have abandoned her idea and made the best of what she had. As it was
she closed her eyes again, but during the rest of the operation great
tears rolled down her face upon her tightly clasped hands. And when all
was over the children were swept from the room and she locked herself in
with her heart's bitterness. Even Bran was not permitted to comfort
her.
It is true that nothing makes a greater difference to the appearance of
a woman than to cut off her hair. The tale of every sin she has
committed and every sorrow she has suffered seems to be written bare and
unsheltered upon her face for all the world to read. What subtle
alleviation there is in a frame of hair round the face of a sinner it is
hard to say: but it is a problem whether Mary Magdalene, with all her
shining story of repentance would have appealed to the love and chivalry
of the world in quite the same way if she had been handed down through
the ages without her wondrous hair.
When Valentine Valdana looked in the glass at her pale, oval face with
no darkness above it to soften the fine lines of her temples, faintly
hollowed cheeks, and sombre eyes whose defect appeared to have become
suddenly accentuated, she longed in shame and dismay for a mask. It
seemed to her that she had indecently exposed her sorrows to the world;
that exile, misery, and all the failures of her life were plainly
written for even the most unintelligent eye to read. A curious sense
too of having done something disloyal to others in revealing her
unhappiness crept into her mind for an instant, but she made haste to
dismiss it, and would not even specify the vague "others" to herself.
None knew better than she the power of a beloved hand to strike deepest,
to hollow out cheeks, sharpen temples, and put shadows into eyes: but
she would never have admitted it. Hers was no accusing heart. She
blamed nobody but herself for her failures--not even the Fate that had
bestowed on her that double nature of artist and lover which rarely if
ever makes for happiness. She only felt the despair of the convict and
almost wished herself one, so that she might hide in a cell. At length
she sought her gay scarf of asphodel-blue and arranged it over her head
like a nun's veil. It was thus that she presented herself to the
children in the kindly dusk. Supper already stood upon the table.
Haidee displayed unusual tact, but Bran was full of curiosity.
"Are you always going to wear that wale tied on you?" he inquired.
"Until my hair grows long again," said poor Val, biting her lip
painfully.
"Sleep in it too?" Val nodded, and Haidee made haste to help Bran to
_pommes frites_ which he loved.
Next morning, Bran waking up and throwing out an arm for his matutinal
hug, encountered something strange to his touch: something round, bumpy,
and slightly scrubby, very different to the soft nest he was used to
dabble his hand in as soon as he woke. The blue scarf had slipped down
while Val slept and her shorn head lay cruelly outlined upon the pillow.
Bran knelt up and considered her in consternation mingled with pity,
then finding himself in the attitude of prayer, mechanically crossed