Molly Brown of Kentucky Page 6

  CHAPTER VI.

  AT THE TRICOTS'.

  It took one month and three days for Judy to get the above letter,but her mind was set somewhat at rest long before that time by theAmbassador himself, who had learned through his confrere in Berlin thatMr. and Mrs. Kean were safe and at large, although not allowed to leaveBerlin.

  The daughter was so accustomed to her parents being in dangerous placesthat she did not feel so concerned about them as an ordinary girl wouldhave felt for ordinary parents. Ever since she could remember, they hadbeen camping in out-of-the-way places and making hair-breadth escapesfrom mountain wild cats and native uprisings and what not. She could notbelieve the Germans, whom she had always thought of as rather bovine,could turn into raging lions so completely.

  "Bobby will light on his feet!" she kept saying to herself until itbecame almost like a prayer. "No one could hurt Mamma. She will beprotected just as children will be!" And then came terrible, exaggeratedaccounts of the murder in cold blood of little children, and then thegrim truth of the destruction of Louvain and Rheims, and anything seemedpossible.

  "A nation that could glory in the destruction of such beautiful thingsas these cathedrals will stop at nothing." But still she kept on saying:"Bobby will light on his feet! Bobby will light on his feet!" She nolonger trusted the Germans, but she had infinite faith in the sagacityand cleverness of her father. He always had got himself out of difficultand tight places and he always would.

  In the meantime, money was getting very low. Try as she would toeconomize, excitement made her hungry and she must eat and eat threetimes a day.

  "If I only had Molly Brown's skill and could cook for myself!" she wouldgroan as she tried to choke down the muddy concoction that she had justsucceeded in brewing and was endeavoring to persuade herself tasted alittle like coffee. She remembered with swimming eyes the beautifullittle repasts they had had in the Bents' studio during that memorablewinter.

  "Judy Kean, you big boob! I believe my soul you are going to bawl abouta small matter of food. If the destruction of Louvain did not make youweep, surely muddy coffee ought not to bring tears to your eyes, unlessmaybe they are tears of shame."

  The truth of the matter was, Judy was lonesome and idle. She could notmake up her mind to paint. Things were moving too fast and there was toomuch reality in the air. Art seemed unreal and unnecessary, somehow."Great things will be painted after the war but not now," she would say.She carried her camera with her wherever she went and snapped up groupsof women and children, soldiers kissing their old fathers, great ladiesstopping to converse with the gamin of the street; anything andeverything went into her camera. She spent more money on films than onfood, in spite of her healthy hunger.

  On that morning in September as she cleared away the scraps from hermeager breakfast, her eyes swimming from lonesomeness, appetiteunappeased and a kind of nameless longing, she almost determined tothrow herself on the mercy of the American Legation for funds to returnto New York. The Americans had cleared out of Paris until there werevery few left. Judy would occasionally see the familiar face of some artstudent she had known in the class, but those familiar faces grew lessand less frequent.

  "There's the Marquise! I can always go to her, but I know she is takenup with her grief over Philippe's going a soldiering," she thought asshe put her plate and cup back on the shelf where the Bents kept theirassortment of china.

  A knock at the door! Who could it be? No mail came to her and nofriends were left to come.

  "Mam'selle!" and bowing low before her was the lean old partner of St.Cloud, Pere Tricot. "Mam'selle, my good wife and I, as well as our poorlittle daughter-in-law, we all want you to come and make one of ourhumble menage."

  "Want me!" exclaimed Judy, her eyes shining.

  "Yes, Mam'selle," he said simply. "We have talked it over and we thinkyou are too young to be so much alone and then if--the--the--well, Ihave too much respect for Mam'selle to call their name,--if they do getin Paris, I can protect you with my own women. I am not so old that Icannot hit many a lick yet--indeed, I would enlist again if they wouldhave me; but my good wife says they may need me more here in Paris and Imust rest tranquilly here and do the work for France that I can best do.Will you come, Mam'selle?"

  "Come! Oh, Pere Tricot, I'll be too glad to come. When?"

  "Immediately!"

  Judy's valise was soon packed and the studio carefully locked, the keyhanded over to the concierge, and she was arm in arm with her oldfriend on her way to her new home in the little shop on the BoulevardeMontparnasse.

  Mere Tricot, who looked like a member of the Commune but acted like adear, kindly old Granny, took the girl to her bosom.

  "What did I tell you? I knew she would come," she cried to her husband,who had hurried into the shop to wait on a customer. It was adelicatessen shop and very appetizing did the food look to poor Judy,who felt as though she had never eaten in her life.

  "Tell me!" he exclaimed as he weighed out cooked spinach to a smallchild who wanted two sous' worth. "Tell me, indeed! You said Mam'sellewould not walk on the street with an old peasant in a faded blouse ifshe would come at all, and I--I said Mam'selle was what the Americanscall a good sport and would walk on the street with an old peasant, ifshe liked him, in any kind of clothes he happened to be in, rags even.Bah! You were wrong and I was right."

  The old Tricots were forever wrangling but it was always in asemi-humorous manner, and their great devotion to each other was alwaysapparent. Judy found it was better never to take sides with either oneas the moment she did both of them were against her.

  How homelike the little apartment was behind the shops! It consisted oftwo bed rooms, a living room which opened into the shop and a tiny tiledkitchen about the size of a kitchen on a dining car--so tiny that itseemed a miracle that all the food displayed so appetizingly in thewindows and glass cases of the shop should have been prepared there.

  "It is so good of you to have me and I want to come more than I can say,but you must let me board with you. I couldn't stay unless you do."

  "That is as you choose, Mam'selle," said the old woman. "We do not wantto make money on you, but you can pay for your keep if you want to."

  "All right, Mother, but I must help some, help in the shop or mind thebaby, clean up the apartment, anything! I can't cook a little bit, but Ican do other things."

  "No woman can cook," asserted old Tricot. "They lack the touch."

  "Ah! Braggart! If I lay thee out with this pastry board, I'll not lackthe touch," laughed the wife. She was making wonderful little tarts withcrimped edges to be filled with assortments of confiture.

  "Let me mind the shop, then. I know I can do that."

  "Well, that will not be bad," agreed old Tricot. "While Marie (thedaughter-in-law) washes the linen and you make the tarts, Mam'selle cankeep the shop, but no board must she pay. I'll be bound new customerswill flock to us to buy of the pretty face." Judy blushed with pleasureat the old peasant's compliment.

  "And thou, laggard and sloth! What will thou do while the women slave?"

  "I--Oh, I will go to the Tabac's to see what news there is, and laterto see if Jean is to the front."

  "Well, we cannot hear from Jean to-day and Paris can still stand withoutthy political opinion," but she laughed and shoved him from the shop, avery tender expression on her lined old face.

  "These men! They think themselves of much importance," she said as sheresumed her pastry making.

  Having tied a great linen apron around Judy's slender waist (muchslenderer in the last month from her economical living), and havinginstructed her in the prices of the cooked food displayed in the showcases, Mere Tricot turned over the shop to her care. The rosy baby waslying in a wooden cradle in the back of the little shop and thegrandmother was in plain view in the tiny kitchen to be seen beyond theliving room.

  "Well, I fancy I am almost domesticated," thought Judy. "What aninterior this would make--baby in foreground and old Mother Tricot onthrough with her roll
ing pin. Light fine! I've a great mind to paintwhile I am keeping shop, sketch, anyhow."

  She whipped out her sketch book and sketched in her motive with sure andclever strokes, but art is long and shops must be kept. Customers beganto pile in. The spinach was very popular and Judy became quite an adeptin dishing it out and weighing it. Potato salad was next in demand andcooked tongue and rosbif disappeared rapidly. Many soldiers lounged in,eating their sandwiches in the shop. Judy enjoyed her morning greatlybut she could not remember ever in her life having worked harder.

  When the tarts were finished and displayed temptingly in the window,swarms of children arrived. It seemed that Mere Tricot's tarts werefamous in the Quarter. More soldiers came, too. Among them was a facestrangely familiar to the amateur shop girl. Who could it be? It was theface of a typical Boulevardier: dissipated, ogling eyes; black moustacheand beard waxed until they looked like sharp spikes; a face not homelybut rather handsome, except for its expression of infinite conceit andimpertinence.

  "I have never seen him before, I fancy. It is just the type that isfamiliar to me," she thought. "_Mais quel type!_"

  Judy was looking very pretty, with her cheeks flushed from theexcitement of weighing out spinach and salad, making change where souswere thought of as though they were gold and following the patois of thepeasants that came to buy and the argot of the gamin. She had donned awhite cap of Marie's which was most becoming. Judy, always ready to acta part, with an instinctive dramatic spirit had entered into the role ofshop keeper with a vim that bade fair to make the Tricots' the mostpopular place on Boulevarde Montparnasse. Her French had fortunatelyimproved greatly since her arrival in Paris more than two years beforeand now she flattered herself that one could not tell she was notParisienne.

  The soldier with the ogling eyes and waxed moustache lingered in theshop when his companions had made their purchases and departed. Heinsisted upon knowing the price of every ware displayed. He asked her toname the various confitures in the tarts, which she did rather wearilyas his persistence was most annoying. She went through the test,however, with as good a grace as possible. Shop girls must not besqueamish, she realized.

  One particularly inviting gooseberry tart was left on the tray. Judy hadhad her eye on it from the first and trembled every time a purchasercame for tarts. She meant to ask Mere Tricot for it, if only no onebought it. And now this particularly objectionable customer with hisrolling black eyes and waxed moustache was asking her what kind it was!Why did he not buy what he wanted and leave?

  "_Eh? Qu'est-ce que c'est?_" he demanded with an amused leer as hepointed a much manicured forefinger at that particularly desirable tart.

  Judy was tired and the French for gooseberry left her as is the way withan acquired language. Instead of _groseille_ which was the word shewanted, she blurted out in plain English:

  "Gooseberry jam!"

  "Ah, I have bean pense so mooch. You may spick ze Eengleesh with me,Mees. Gueseberry jaam! Ha, ha! An' now, Mees, there iss wan question Ishould lak a demande of the so beootifool demoiselle: what iss the prizeof wan leetle kees made in a so lufly tart?" He leaned over the counter,his eyes rolling in a fine frenzy.

  Where was Mere Tricot now? What a fine time to brandish her pastryboard! Gone to the innermost recesses of the apartment with the rosybaby! Suddenly Judy remembered exactly where she had seen that sillyface before.

  "At Versailles, the day I got on the wrong train!" flashed through hermind. She remembered well the hateful creature who had sat on the benchby her and insulted her with his attentions. She remembered how she hadjumped up from the bench and hurried off, forgetting her package ofgingerbread, bought at St. Cloud, and how the would-be masher had runafter her with it, saying in his insinuating manner: "You have forgotyour _gouter, cherie_. Do you like puddeen very much, my dear?"

  It was certainly the same man. His soldier's uniform made him somewhatless of a dandy than his patent leather boots and lemon coloured gloveshad done on that occasion, but the dude was there in spite of the changeof clothes. On that day at Versailles she had seized the gingerbread andjammed it in her mouth, thereby disgusting the fastidious Frenchman. Shehad often told the story and her amused hearers had always declared thather presence of mind was much to be commended.

  The soldier leaned farther and farther over the counter still demanding:"A leetle kees made in so lufly a tart."

  Ha! An inspiration! Judy grasped the desired gooseberry tart and thrustthe whole thing into her mouth. There was no time to ask the leave ofMere Tricot.

  "_Ah quelle betise!_" exclaimed the dandy, and at the same moment he,too, remembered the young English demoiselle at Versailles. Hestraightened up and into his ogling eyes came a spark of shame. With asmile that changed his whole countenance he saluted Judy.

  "Pardon, Mademoiselle!"

  Judy's mouth was too full to attempt French but she managed to say inher mother tongue:

  "Why do you come in a respectable place like this and behave just likea Prussian?"

  "Prussian! Ah, Mademoiselle, excuse, excuse. I--the beauty of the_boutiquier_ made me forget _la Patrie_. I have been a roue, a fool. Iam henceforth a Frenchman. Mademoiselle iss wan noble ladee. She efenmar her so great beauty to protec her dignitee. I remember ze _paind'epice_ at Versailles and _la grande bouchee_. Mademoiselle has _le belesprit_, what you call Mericanhumor. _Au revoir, Mademoiselle_," andwith a very humble bow he departed, without buying anything at all.

  The Tricots laughed very heartily when Judy told them her experience.

  "I see you can take care of yourself," said Pere Tricot with a nod ofapproval. "If the Prussians come, they had better look out."

  "Do you forgive me for eating the last gooseberry tart?" she asked ofMere Tricot. "I was very glad of the excuse to get it before some onebought it from under my very nose."

  Mother Tricot not only forgave her but produced another one for her thatshe had kept back for the guest she seemed to delight to honour.

  "Our _boutiquier_ has sold out the shop," declared the old man. "I shallhave to go to market very early in the morning to get more provisionscooked."

  "Ah, another excuse for absenting thyself!"

  "Oh, please, may I go with you?" begged Judy.

  "It will mean very early rising, but I shall be so pleased," said thedelighted old man, and his wife smiled approval.

  It was arranged that Judy was to sleep on a couch in the living room.This suited her exactly, as she was able after the family had retired torise stealthily and open a window. The French peasant and even themiddle class Parisian is as afraid of air in a bedroom as we would beof a rattlesnake. They sleep as a rule in hermetically sealed chambersand there is a superstition even among the enlightened of that city thatnight air will give one some peculiar affection of the eyes. How theykeep as healthy as they do is a wonder to those brought up on fresh air.Judy had feared that her sleeping would have to be done in the great bedwith Marie and the baby and welcomed the proposition of the couch in theliving room with joy. There was a smell of delicatessen wares but it wasnot unpleasing to one who had been economizing in food for so many days.

  "I'd rather smell spinach than American Beauties," she said to herself,"and potato salad beats potpourri."

  Her couch was clean and the sheets smelled of lavender. Marie, thelittle daughter-in-law, had been a _blanchisseuse de fin_ before shebecame the bride of Jean Tricot. She still plied her trade on the familylinen and everything she touched was snow white and beautifully ironed.The clothes were carried by her to the public laundry; there she washedthem and then brought them home to iron.

  As Judy lay on the soft, clean couch, sniffing the mingled smells ofshop and kitchen and fresh sheets, she thanked her stars that she wasnot alone in the Bents' studio, wondering what she was to do aboutbreakfast and a little nervous at every sound heard during the night.

  Even the bravest feels a little squeamish when absolutely alone throughthe long night. Judy was brave, her father's own daughter, but thosenigh
ts alone in the studio in Rue Brea had got on her nerves. It wasjust so much harder because of the gay, jolly winter spent in the place.

  "I feel like one who treads alone Some banquet hall, deserted,"

  expressed her sentiments exactly. Once she dreamed that Molly Brown wasstanding over her with a cup of hot coffee, which was one of Molly'sways. She was always spoiling people and often would appear at thebed side with matutinal coffee. The dream came after a particularlylonesome evening. She thought that as Molly stood over her, her handshook and some of the coffee splashed on her face. She awoke with astart to find her face wet with hot tears.

  Here at the Tricots, life was quite different. Mere and Pere Tricot wereplaying a happy duet through the night with comfortable snores. Mariecould be heard cooing to her baby as she nursed it and the baby makinginarticulate gurgles of joy at being nourished. The feeling of havinghuman beings near by was most soothing. Judy did not mind the snores,but rejoiced in them. Even when the baby cried, as it did once in thenight, she smiled happily.

  "I am one of a family!" she exclaimed.