received instructions from the Abbe, in due course took the same step. The two old ladies were very devout. They went to Mass every morning and to High Mass on Sundays. Otherwise they seldom went out. When they did it was to pay a ceremonious call on some old lady who had had a bereavement in the family or one of whose grandchildren was become engaged. They read their papers, and their magazine, did a great deal of sewing for charitable purposes, played dominoes and listened to the radio that Julia had given them. Though the Abbe and the Commandant had dined with them every Thursday for many years they were always in a flutter when Thursday came. The Commandant, with the sailor's downrightness that they expected of him, did not hesitate to say so if something was not cooked to his liking, and even the Abbe, though a saint, had his likes and dislikes. For instance, he was very fond of sole Normande, but he insisted on its being cooked with the best butter, and with butter at the price it was since the war that was very expensive. Every Thursday morning Aunt Carrie took the cellar key from the place where she had hidden it and herself fetched a bottle of claret from the cellar. She and her sister finished what was left of it by the end of the week.
They made a great fuss of Julia. They dosed her with tisanes,* and were anxious that she should not sit in anything that might be thought a draught. Indeed a great part of their lives was devoted to avoiding draughts. They made her lie on sofas and were solicitous that she should cover her feet. They reasoned with her about the clothes she wore. Those silk stockings that were so thin you could see through them; and what did she wear next to her skin? Aunt Carrie would not have been surprised to learn that she wore nothing but a chemise.
"She doesn't even wear that," said Mrs. Lambert.
"What does she wear then?"
"Panties," said Julia.
"And a soutien-gorge,* I suppose."
"Certainly not," cried Julia tartly.
"Then, my niece, under your dress you are naked?"
"Practically."
"C'est de la folie,"* said Aunt Carrie.
"C'est vraiment pas raisonnable, ma fille,"* said Mrs. Lambert.
"And without being a prude," added Aunt Carrie, "I must say that it is hardly decent."
Julia showed them her clothes, and on the first Thursday after her arrival they discussed what she should wear for dinner. Aunt Carrie and Mrs. Lambert grew rather sharp with one another. Mrs. Lambert thought that since her daughter had evening dresses with her she ought to wear one, but Aunt Carrie considered it quite unnecessary.
"When I used to come and visit you in Jersey, my dear, and gentlemen were coming to dinner, I remember you would put on a tea-gown."
"Of course a tea-gown would be very suitable."
They looked at Julia hopefully. She shook her head.
"I would sooner wear a shroud."
Aunt Carrie wore a high-necked dress of heavy black silk, with a string of jet, and Mrs. Lambert a similar one, but with her lace shawl and a paste necklace. The Commandant, a sturdy little man with a much-wrinkled face, white hair cut en brosse* and an imposing moustache dyed a deep black, was very gallant, and though well past seventy pressed Julia's foot under the table during dinner. On the way out he seized the opportunity to pinch her bottom.
"Sex appeal," Julia murmured to herself as with dignity she followed the two old ladies into the parlour.
They made a fuss of her, not because she was a great actress, but because she was in poor health and needed rest. Julia to her great amazement soon discovered that to them her celebrity was an embarrassment rather than an asset. Far from wanting to show her off, they did not offer to take her with them to pay calls. Aunt Carrie had brought the habit of afternoon tea with her from Jersey, and had never abandoned it. One day, soon after Julia's arrival, when they had invited some ladies to tea, Mrs. Lambert at luncheon thus addressed her daughter.
"My dear, we have some very good friends at St. Malo, but of course they still look upon us as foreigners, even after all these years, and we don't like to do anything that seems at all eccentric. Naturally we don't want you to tell a lie, but unless you are forced to mention it, your Aunt Carrie thinks it would be better