And on this particular morning the Widow Jequier was 'invisible' in
her garden clothes as Gygi, the gendarme, came down the street to ring
the _midi_ bell. Her mind was black with anxiety. She was not thinking
of the troop that came to _dejeuner_, their principal meal of the day,
paying a franc for it, but rather of the violent scenes with unpaid
tradesmen that had filled the morning-tradesmen who were friends as
well (which made it doubly awkward) and often dropped in socially for
an evening's music and conversation. Her pain darkened the sunshine,
and she found relief in the garden which was her passion. For in three
weeks the interest on the mortgages was due, and she had nothing saved
to meet it. The official notice had come that morning from the Bank.
Her mind was black with confused pictures of bulbs, departed
_pensionnaires_, hostile bankers, and--the ghastly _charite de la
Commune_ which awaited her. Yet her husband, before he went into the
wine-business so disastrously, had been pasteur here. He had preached
from this very church whose bells now rang out the mid-day hour. The
spirit of her daughter, she firmly believed, still haunted the garden,
the narrow passages, and the dilapidated little salon where the ivy
trailed along the ceiling.
Twelve o'clock, striking from the church-tower clock, and the voice of
her sister from the kitchen window, then brought the Widow Jequier
down the garden in a flying rush.
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