Chapter 2

The "Princess's" eyes rekindled. "Yes, and then save up again to buy the loser a wig."

"_Parfaitement_" said Madame Depine. They had slid out of pretending that they had large sums immediately available. Certain sums still existed in vague stockings for dowries or presents, but these, of course, could not be touched. For practical purposes it was understood that neither had the advantage of the other, and that the few francs a month by which Madame Depine's income exceeded Madame Valiere's were neutralised by the superior rent she paid for her comparative immunity from steam-trams. The accumulation of fifty francs apiece was thus a limitless perspective.

They discussed their budget. It was really almost impossible to cut down anything. By incredible economies they saw their way to saving a franc a week each. But fifty weeks! A whole year, allowing for sickness and other breakdowns! Who can do penance for a whole year? They thought of moving to an even cheaper hotel; but then in the course of years Madame Valiere had fallen three weeks behind with the rent, and Madame Depine a fortnight, and these arrears would have to be paid up. The first council ended in despair. But in the silence of the night Madame Depine had another inspiration. If one suppressed the lottery for a season!

On the average each speculated a full franc a week, with scarcely a gleam of encouragement. Two francs a week each--already the year becomes six months! For six months one can hold out. Hardships shared are halved, too. It will seem scarce three months. Ah, how good are the blessed saints!

But over the morning coffee Madame Valiere objected that they might win the whole hundred francs in a week!

It was true; it was heartbreaking.

Madame Depine made a reckless reference to her brooch, but the Princess had a gesture of horror. "And wear your heart on your shawl when your friends come?" she exclaimed poetically. "Sooner my watch shall go, since that at least is hidden in my bosom!"

"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated Madame Depine. "But if you sold the other things hidden in your bosom!"

"How do you mean?"

"The Royal Secrets."

The "Princess" blushed. "What are you thinking of?"

"The journalist below us tells me that gossip about the great sells like Easter buns."

"He is truly below us," said Madame Valiere, witheringly. "What! sell one's memories! No, no; it would not be _convenable_. There are even people living--"

"But nobody would know," urged Madame Depine.

"One must carry the head high, even if it is not grey."

It was almost a quarrel. Far below the steam-tram was puffing past. At the window across the street a woman was beating her carpet with swift, spasmodic thwacks, as one who knew the legal time was nearly up. In the tragic silence which followed Madame Valiere's rebuke, these sounds acquired a curious intensity.

"I prefer to sacrifice the lottery rather than honour," she added, in more conciliatory accents.

IX

The long quasi-Lenten weeks went by, and unflinchingly the two old ladies pursued their pious quest of the grey wig. Butter had vanished from their bread, and beans from their coffee. Their morning brew was confected of charred crusts, and as they sipped it solemnly they exchanged the reflection that it was quite equal to the coffee at the _cremerie_. Positively one was safer drinking one's own messes. Figs, no longer posing as a pastime of the palate, were accepted seriously as _pieces de resistance_. The Spring was still cold, yet fires could be left to die after breakfast. The chill had been taken off, and by mid-day the sun was in its full power. Each sustained the other by a desperate cheerfulness. When they took their morning walk in the Luxembourg Gardens--what time the blue-aproned Jacques was polishing their waxed floors with his legs for broom-handles--they went into ecstasies over everything, drawing each other's attention to the sky, the trees, the water. And, indeed, of a sunshiny morning it was heartening to sit by the pond and watch the wavering sheet of beaten gold water, reflecting all shades of green in a restless shimmer against the shadowed grass around. Madame Valiere always had a bit of dry bread to feed the pigeons withal--it gave a cheerful sense of superfluity, and her manner of sprinkling the crumbs revived Madame Depine's faded images of a Princess scattering New Year largess.

But beneath all these pretences of content lay a hollow sense of desolation. It was not the want of butter nor the diminished meat; it was the total removal from life of that intangible splendour of hope produced by the lottery ticket. Ah! every day was drawn blank now. This gloom, this gnawing emptiness at the heart, was worse than either had foreseen or now confessed. Malicious Fate, too, they felt, would even crown with the _grand prix_ the number they would have chosen. But for the prospective draw for the Wig--which reintroduced the aleatory--life would scarcely have been bearable.

Madame Depine's sister-in-law's visit by the June excursion train was a not unexpected catastrophe. It only lasted a day, but it put back the Grey Wig by a week, for Madame Choucrou had to be fed at Duval's, and Madame Valiere magnanimously insisted on being of the party: whether to run parallel with her friend, or to carry off the brown wig, she alone knew. Fortunately, Madame Choucrou was both short-sighted and colour-blind. On the other hand, she liked a _petit verre_ with her coffee, and both at a separate restaurant. But never had Madame Valiere appeared to Madame Depine's eyes more like the "Princess," more gay and polished and debonair, than at this little round table on the sunlit Boulevard. Little trills of laughter came from the half-toothless gums; long gloved fingers toyed with the liqueur glass or drew out the old-fashioned watch to see that Madame Choucrou did not miss her train; she spent her sou royally on a hawked journal. When they had seen Madame Choucrou off, she proposed to dock meat entirely for a fortnight so as to regain the week. Madame Depine accepted in the same heroic spirit, and even suggested the elimination of the figs: one could lunch quite well on bread and milk, now the sunshine was here. But Madame Valiere only agreed to a week's trial of this, for she had a sweet tooth among the few in her gums.

The very next morning, as they walked in the Luxembourg Gardens, Madame Depine's foot kicked against something. She stooped and saw a shining glory--a five-franc piece!

"What is it?" said Madame Valiere.

"Nothing," said Madame Depine, covering the coin with her foot. "My bootlace." And she bent down--to pick up the coin, to fumble at her bootlace, and to cover her furious blush. It was not that she wished to keep the godsend to herself,--one saw on the instant that _le bon Dieu_ was paying for Madame Choucrou,--it was an instantaneous dread of the "Princess's" quixotic code of honour. La Valiere was capable of flying in the face of Providence, of taking the windfall to a _bureau de police_. As if the inspector wouldn't stick to it himself! A purse--yes. But a five-franc piece, one of a flock of sheep!

The treasure-trove was added to the heap of which her stocking was guardian, and thus honestly divided. The trouble, however, was that, as she dared not inform the "Princess," she could not decently back out of the meatless fortnight. Providence, as it turned out, was making them gain a week. As to the figs, however, she confessed on the third day that she hungered sore for them, and Madame Valiere readily agreed to make this concession to her weakness.

X

This little episode coloured for Madame Depine the whole dreary period that remained. Life was never again so depressingly definite; though curiously enough the "Princess" mistook for gloom her steady earthward glance, as they sauntered about the sweltering city. With anxious solicitude Madame Valiere would direct her attention to sunsets, to clouds, to the rising moon; but heaven had ceased to have attraction, except as a place from which five-francs fell, and as soon as the "Princess's" eye was off her, her own sought the ground again. But this imaginary need of cheering up Madame Depine kept Madame Valiere herself from collapsing. At last, when the first red leaves began to litter the Gardens and cover up possible coins, the francs in the stocking approached their century.

What a happy time was that! The privations were become second nature; the weather was still fine. The morning Gardens were a glow of pink and purple and dripping diamonds, and on some of the trees was the delicate green of a second blossoming, like hope in the heart of age. They could scarcely refrain from betraying their exultation to the Hotel des Tourterelles, from which they had concealed their sufferings. But the polyglot population seething round its malodorous stairs and tortuous corridors remained ignorant that anything was passing in the life of these faded old creatures, and even on the day of drawing lots for the Wig the exuberant hotel retained its imperturbable activity.

Not that they really drew lots. That was a figure of speech, difficult to translate into facts. They preferred to spin a coin. Madame Depine was to toss, the "Princess" to cry _pile ou face_. From the stocking Madame Depine drew, naturally enough, the solitary five-franc piece. It whirled in the air; the "Princess" cried _face_. The puff-puff of the steam-tram sounded like the panting of anxious Fate. The great coin fell, rolled, balanced itself between two destinies, then subsided, _pile_ upwards. The poor "Princess's" face grew even longer; but for the life of her Madame Depine could not make her own face other than a round red glow, like the sun in a fog. In fact, she looked so young at this supreme moment that the brown wig quite became her.

"I congratulate you," said Madame Valiere, after the steam-tram had become a far-away rumble.

"Before next summer we shall have yours too," the winner reminded her consolingly.

XI

They had not waited till the hundred francs were actually in the stocking. The last few would accumulate while the wig was making. As they sat at their joyous breakfast the next morning, ere starting for the hairdresser's, the casement open to the October sunshine, Jacques brought up a letter for Madame Valiere--an infrequent incident. Both old women paled with instinctive distrust of life. And as the "Princess" read her letter, all the sympathetic happiness died out of her face.

"What is the matter, then?" breathed Madame Depine.

The "Princess" recovered herself. "Nothing, nothing. Only my nephew who is marrying."

"Soon?"

"The middle of next month."

"Then you will need to give presents!"

"One gives a watch, a bagatelle, and then--there is time. It is nothing. How good the coffee is this morning!"

They had not changed the name of the brew: it is not only in religious evolutions that old names are a comfort.

They walked to the hairdresser's in silence. The triumphal procession had become almost a dead march. Only once was the silence broken.

"I suppose they have invited you down for the wedding?" said Madame Depine.

"Yes," said Madame Valiere.

They walked on.

The _coiffeur_ was at his door, sunning his aproned stomach, and twisting his moustache as if it were a customer's. Emotion overcame Madame Depine at the sight of him. She pushed Madame Valiere into the tobacconist's instead.

"I have need of a stamp," she explained, and demanded one for five centimes. She leaned over the counter babbling aimlessly to the proprietor, postponing the great moment. Madame Valiere lost the clue to her movements, felt her suddenly as a stranger. But finally Madame Depine drew herself together and led the way into the _coiffeurs_. The proprietor, who had reentered his parlour, reemerged gloomily.

Madame Valiere took the word. "We are thinking of ordering a wig."

"Cash in advance, of course," said the _coiffeur_.

"_Comment!_" cried Madame Valiere, indignantly. "You do not trust my friend!"

"Madame Valiere has moved in the best society," added Madame Depine.

"But you cannot expect me to do two hundred francs of work and then be left planted with the wigs!"

"But who said two hundred francs?" cried Madame Depine. "It is only one wig that we demand--to-day at least."

He shrugged his shoulders. "A hundred francs, then."

"And why should we trust you with one hundred francs?" asked Madame Depine. "You might botch the work."

"Or fly to Italy," added the "Princess."

In the end it was agreed he should have fifty down and fifty on delivery.

"Measure us, while we are here," said Madame Depine. "I will bring you the fifty francs immediately."

"Very well," he murmured. "Which of you?"

But Madame Valiere was already affectionately untying Madame Depine's bonnet-strings. "It is for my friend," she cried. "And let it be as _chic_ and _convenable_ as possible!"

He bowed. "An artist remains always an artist."

Madame Depine removed her wig and exposed her poor old scalp, with its thin, forlorn wisps and patches of grey hair, grotesque, almost indecent, in its nudity. But the _coiffeur_ measured it in sublime seriousness, putting his tape this way and that way, while Madame Valiere's eyes danced in sympathetic excitement.

"You may as well measure my friend too," remarked Madame Depine, as she reassumed her glossy brown wig (which seemed propriety itself compared with the bald cranium).

"What an idea!" ejaculated Madame Valiere. "To what end?"

"Since you are here," returned Madame Depine, indifferently. "You may as well leave your measurements. Then when you decide yourself--Is it not so, monsieur?"

The _coiffeur_, like a good man of business, eagerly endorsed the suggestion. "Perfectly, madame."

"But if one's head should change!" said Madame Valiere, trembling with excitement at the vivid imminence of the visioned wig.

"_Souvent femme varie_, madame," said the _coiffeur_. "But it is the inside, not the outside of the head."

"But you said one is not the dome of the Invalides," Madame Valiere reminded him.

"He spoke of our old blocks," Madame Depine intervened hastily. "At our age one changes no more."

Thus persuaded, the "Princess" in her turn denuded herself of her wealth of wig, and Madame Depine watched with unsmiling satisfaction the stretchings of tape across the ungainly cranium.

"_C'est bien_," she said. "I return with your fifty francs on the instant."

And having seen her "Princess" safely ensconced in the attic, she rifled the stocking, and returned to the _coiffeur_.

When she emerged from the shop, the vindictive endurance had vanished from her face, and in its place reigned an angelic exaltation.

XII

Eleven days later Madame Valiere and Madame Depine set out on the great expedition to the hairdresser's to try on the Wig. The "Princess's" excitement was no less tense than the fortunate winner's. Neither had slept a wink the night before, but the November morning was keen and bright, and supplied an excellent tonic. They conversed with animation on the English in Egypt, and Madame Depine recalled the gallant death of her son, the _chasseur_.

The _coiffeur_ saluted them amiably. Yes, mesdames, it was a beautiful morning. The wig was quite ready. Behold it there--on its block.

Madame Valiere's eyes turned thither, then grew clouded, and returned to Madame Depine's head and thence back to the Grey Wig.

"It is not this one?" she said dubiously.

"_Mais, oui_." Madame Depine was nodding, a great smile transfiguring the emaciated orb of her face. The artist's eyes twinkled.

"But this will not fit you," Madame Valiere gasped.

"It is a little error, I know," replied Madame Depine.

"But it is a great error," cried Madame Valiere, aghast. And her angry gaze transfixed the _coiffeur_.

"It is not his fault--I ought not to have let him measure you."

"Ha! Did I not tell you so?" Triumph softened her anger. "He has mixed up the two measurements!"

"Yes. I suspected as much when I went in to inquire the other day; but I was afraid to tell you, lest it shouldn't even fit _you_."

"Fit _me_!" breathed Madame Valiere.

"But whom else?" replied Madame Depine, impatiently, as she whipped off the "Princess's" wig. "If only it fits you, one can pardon him. Let us see. Stand still, _ma chere_," and with shaking hands she seized the grey wig.

"But--but--" The "Princess" was gasping, coughing, her ridiculous scalp bare.

"But stand still, then! What is the matter? Are you a little infant? Ah! that is better. Look at yourself, then, in the mirror. But it is perfect!" "A true Princess," she muttered beatifically to herself. "Ah, how she will show up the fruit-vendor's daughter!"

As the "Princess" gazed at the majestic figure in the mirror, crowned with the dignity of age, two great tears trickled down her pendulous cheeks.

"I shall be able to go to the wedding," she murmured chokingly.

"The wedding!" Madame Depine opened her eyes. "What wedding?"

"My nephew's, of course!"

"Your nephew is marrying? I congratulate you. But why did you not tell me?"

"I did mention it. That day I had a letter!"

"Ah! I seem to remember. I had not thought of it." Then briskly: "Well, that makes all for the best again. Ah! I was right not to scold _monsieur le coiffeur_ too much, was I not?"

"You are very good to be so patient," said Madame Valiere, with a sob in her voice.

Madame Depine shot her a dignified glance. "We will discuss our affairs at home. Here it only remains to say whether you are satisfied with the fit."

Madame Valiere patted the wig, as much in approbation as in adjustment. "But it fits me to a miracle!"

"Then we will pay our friend, and wish him _le bon jour_." She produced the fifty francs--two gold pieces, well sounding, for which she had exchanged her silver and copper, and two five-franc pieces. "And _voila_," she added, putting down a franc for _pourboire_, "we are very content with the artist."

The "Princess" stared at her, with a new admiration.

"_Merci bien_," said the _coiffeur_, fervently, as he counted the cash. "Would that all customers' heads lent themselves so easily to artistic treatment!"

"And when will my friend's wig be ready?" said the "Princess."

"Madame Valiere! What are you saying there? Monsieur will set to work when I bring him the fifty francs."

"_Mais non_, madame. I commence immediately. In a week it shall be ready, and you shall only pay on delivery."

"You are very good. But I shall not need it yet--not till the winter--when the snows come," said Madame Depine, vaguely. "_Bon jour_, monsieur;" and, thrusting the old wig on the new block, and both under her shawl, she dragged the "Princess" out of the shop. Then, looking back through the door, "Do not lose the measurement, monsieur," she cried. "One of these days!"

XIII

The grey wig soon showed its dark side. Its possession, indeed, enabled Madame Valiere to loiter on the more lighted stairs, or dawdle in the hall with Madame la Proprietaire; but Madame Depine was not only debarred from these dignified domestic attitudes, but found a new awkwardness in bearing Madame Valiere company in their walks abroad. Instead of keeping each other in countenance--_duoe contra mundum_--they might now have served as an advertisement for the _coiffeur_ and the _convenable_. Before the grey wig--after the grey wig.

Wherefore Madame Depine was not so very sorry when, after a few weeks of this discomforting contrast, the hour drew near of the "Princess's" departure for the family wedding; especially as she was only losing her for two days. She had insisted, of course, that the savings for the second wig were not to commence till the return, so that Madame Valiere might carry with her a present worthy of her position and her port. They had anxious consultations over this present. Madame Depine was for a cheap but showy article from the Bon Marche; but Madame Valiere reminded her that the price-lists of this enterprising firm knocked at the doors of Tonnerre. Something distinguished (in silver) was her own idea. Madame Depine frequently wept during these discussions, reminded of her own wedding. Oh, the roundabouts at Robinson, and that delicious wedding-lunch up the tree! One was gay then, my dear.

At last they purchased a tiny metal Louis Quinze timepiece for eleven francs seventy-five centimes, congratulating themselves on the surplus of twenty-five centimes from their three weeks' savings. Madame Valiere packed it with her impedimenta into the carpet-bag lent her by Madame la Proprietaire. She was going by a night train from the Gare de Lyon, and sternly refused to let Madame Depine see her off.

"And how would you go back--an old woman, alone in these dark November nights, with the papers all full of crimes of violence? It is not _convenable_, either."

Madame Depine yielded to the latter consideration; but as Madame Valiere, carrying the bulging carpet-bag, was crying "_La porte, s'il vous plait_" to the _concierge_, she heard Madame Depine come tearing and puffing after her like the steam-tram, and, looking back, saw her breathlessly brandishing her gold brooch. "_Tiens!_" she panted, fastening the "Princess's" cloak with it. "That will give thee an air."

"But--it is too valuable. Thou must not." They had never "thou'd" each other before, and this enhanced the tremulousness of the moment.

"I do not give it thee," Madame Depine laughed through her tears. "_Au revoir, mon amie_."

"_Adieu, ma cherie!_ I will tell my dear ones of my Paris comrade." And for the first time their lips met, and the brown wig brushed the grey.

XIV

Madame Depine had two drearier days than she had foreseen. She kept to her own room, creeping out only at night, when, like all cats, all wigs are grey. After an eternity of loneliness the third day dawned, and she went by pre-arrangement to meet the morning train. Ah, how gaily gleamed the kiosks on the boulevards through the grey mist! What jolly red faces glowed under the cabmen's white hats! How blithely the birds sang in the bird-shops!

The train was late. Her spirits fell as she stood impatiently at the barrier, shivering in her thin clothes, and morbidly conscious of all those eyes on her wig. At length the train glided in unconcernedly, and shot out a medley of passengers. Her poor old eyes strained towards them. They surged through the gate in animated masses, but Madame Valiere's form did not disentangle itself from them, though every instant she expected it to jump at her eyes. Her heart contracted painfully--there was no "Princess." She rushed round to another exit, then outside, to the gates at the end of the drive; she peered into every cab even, as it rumbled past. What had happened? She trudged home as hastily as her legs could bear her. No, Madame Valiere had not arrived.

"They have persuaded her to stay another day," said Madame la Proprietaire. "She will come by the evening train, or she will write."

Madame Depine passed the evening at the Gare de Lyon, and came home heavy of heart and weary of foot. The "Princess" might still arrive at midnight, though, and Madame Depine lay down dressed in her bed, waiting for the familiar step in the corridor. About three o'clock she fell into a heavy doze, and woke in broad day. She jumped to her feet, her overwrought brain still heavy with the vapours of sleep, and threw open her door.

"Ah! she has already taken in her boots," she thought confusedly. "I shall be late for coffee." She gave her perfunctory knock, and turned the door-handle. But the door would not budge.

"Jacques! Jacques!" she cried, with a clammy fear at her heart. The _garcon_, who was pottering about with pails, opened the door with his key. An emptiness struck cold from the neat bed, the bare walls, the parted wardrobe-curtains that revealed nothing. She fled down the stairs, into the bureau.

"Madame Valiere is not returned?" she cried.

Madame la Proprietaire shook her head.