He beckoned us outside the cottage to tell us in a tragic whisper that he had good reason to believe that “all, all the family of my wife,” her father, mother, and the invalid sister, had been murdered by the Germans; and their farm burned.
“How can I tell her, and she as she is? It will kill her too! And she keeps asking me and asking me! I shall have to tell her!”
The tears rolled down his cheeks. Yet he was a hard man; it galled him to the quick to be employed as a common labourer and receive only seventeen shillings a week.
They had been given a gardener’s house: the most charming, quaint abode. It had an enormous kitchen, with a raftered ceiling, and one long window running the whole length of the room, opening delightfully on the orchard. The walls were all snowy white. He might have made himself very happy in such surroundings for the months of exile, with the consciousness of friends about him, the knowledge of safety and care for the wife in her coming trial, and the splendid healthy air for the children. But Deens was not satisfied.
“I had just passed my examinations, _n’est-ce pas?_ monsieur, madame, and had received my advancement, and we had just got into the little house I had built with my savings. Now it is burnt--burnt to the ground. And these wages, for a man like me, mademoiselle, it is something I cannot bring myself to. _Je ne puis pas m’y faire, savez vous._”
“But Madame Deens is so well here, and we will look after her,” said Mademoiselle.
“Ah, but I could earn more money elsewhere! I might have something to bring back to my own country.”
Of course he has had his way. A bustling lady got him into a motor factory, and he dragged his weeping but resistless spouse to a townlet, where they are lodged in one room; where the only person we could think of to interest in their favour was the old parish priest, who turned out to be queer in his head, but where Deens is in receipt of thirty-two shillings a week. We are sure that what can be saved is being saved for the _retour au pays_, and meanwhile the poor little woman’s hour of trouble is approaching, and she must get through it as best she can, unbefriended. We feel anxious.
Before she left, with many tears, she gave the Signorina, who had sympathized with her, the only gift she could contrive out of her destitution. It was the youngest child’s little pair of wooden shoes!