We got her back into the car; and the man who had shown us the cathedral
said that there was an hotel within five minutes' motoring distance. It
was not first rate, he explained, but officers messed there and
occasionally wives and mothers of officers stayed there. He thought we
might be taken in and made fairly comfortable; and to be sure we didn't
miss the house, he rode on the step of the car, to show us the way.
It was a sad way, for we had to pass hillocks of plaster and stone which
had once been streets, but we had eyes only for Mother Beckett's face,
Father Beckett and I: and even Brian seemed to look at her. Sirius, too,
for he would not go into the Red Cross taxi with the others! Brian, whom
in most things the dog obeys with a pathetic eagerness, couldn't get him
to do that: and when I said, "Oh, his eyes are tragic. He thinks you're
going to send him away, never to see you again!" Brian didn't insist. So
the dog sat squeezed in among us, knowing perfectly well that we were
anxious about the little lady who patted him so often, and
unpatriotically saved him lumps of sugar. He licked her small fingers,
clasped by her husband, and attracting Mother Beckett's attention
perhaps kept her from fainting again.
Well, we got to the hotel, which was really more of a _pension_ than an
hotel, and Madame Bornier, the elderly woman in deep mourning who was
_la patronne_, was kind and helpful. Her best room had been made ready
for the wife of an officer just coming out of hospital, but there would
be time to prepare another.
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