A Tatter of Scarlet: Adventurous Episodes of the Commune in the Midi 1871

"Why, of course I will!" cried Rhoda Polly the golden-hearted; "why did it ever get into your stupid old noddle that I would not? And so will the rest – specially mother, who will be the most useful of us all. She has never had any mother, really, this Alida of yours! Oh, of course, your Linn has done her best, but then, you see, she knew she was a princess, and from early association Madame Keller would be little more than a servant. Oh, I shall understand, never fear. Mother will be as grand a dame as she is, and I – well, I shall be the daughter of the Great Emir of the Aramon Small Arms Factory. I wish she had been coming to stay with us – but no, it is better as it is. The Garden Cottage! – Think of it, what a Princess of the Sleeping Woods she will make. We are too noisy. But why did Hugh never tell us? I should have thought he would simply have raved about such a marvel. But he has been as silent as mumchance!"

"Forgive me. I wanted to tell you myself," I said, still humbly; "it was very good of Hugh, but I really could not let anyone else tell you, and it seemed so hard to get hold of you these days – I mean without your fighting tail."

"The fighting tail have gone off to-day to rustle chiffons," cried Rhoda Polly; "but never mind them! Tell me about this Princess from the East. I never thought I should see one, yet I once saw her father, a patch of white on the high promenade at Amboise, the year that Dad took me with him for company. He was bringing out a new carbine for the Cavalry School at Saumur on the Loire. So it was from there that we went one day to see the great man."

Then I told Rhoda Polly about the brown prince of the Khedival house, his visit and the answer he had carried back.

"Of course she could not," she cried, all on fire in a moment. "It would be like imprisonment for life, only far more dreadful."

Rhoda Polly's eyes, unused to untimeous moisture, were at least vague and misty, but that might only be because she was looking into the blue distance towards the Alps of Mont Ventoux.

"Poor precious waif," she said, "if she is wayward and a little difficult – who can wonder? We shall all try hard to make her happy. We will come and pay court to her in the garden."

I explained that a girl who had been a music mistress to the exigent Sous-Préfectoral dames and other ladies of Autun, might not be so difficult to deal with as she seemed to expect. It was only Keller Bey and Linn who, if spoiling had been possible, had spoilt her ever since she came to them as a little child, the charge committed to them by their master, the battle Emir of the Atlas.

"Oh," cried Rhoda Polly, hardly able to curb her feet to a decent walk, "how mean it will be if they stop Keller Bey's money, and that wretch of an old Emir getting so much from the Government. I wish I did not spend every centime of my allowance without ever knowing where it goes to! But at any rate I mean for the future to share with Alida if she will let me."

I explained how from what Keller had told me Alida would have enough to live upon even if they never saw another sixpence of her father's money. Also I described what my father was doing to the Garden Cottage to fit it for their coming.

"Oh, do let me come and help. Ask your father. I should love to! And I should have far more idea than a man. I could get mother to come too, sometimes, though you know how loath she is to move far out of her own house. Still, she could drive over."

Never was there so short a walk as that between the pier above Mère Felix's and the gate of Château Schneider. Rhoda Polly was so eager that she would have gone right across the river there and then, and climbed the hill to Garden Cottage, if I had not insisted on delivering her to her mother, and generally giving an account of my stewardship.

Before going in, however, I warned her that the secret of Alida the Princess must be kept. It was only for herself. To the rest of the family she must be Mademoiselle Keller, the daughter of Keller Bey and his wife Linn.

The need to keep so great a matter secret seemed to damp the girl's enthusiasm for a moment, but almost instantly she caught me by the hand in her impulsive boyish way.

"I promise," she said, "and you are quite right. It was splendid of you to tell me. I am so grateful for that."

"Of course I told you, Rhoda Polly. Who else could I have told?"

She meditated a little, finger on lip before speaking.

"Do you know it is rather a pity not to tell mother," she said at last. "She does not interfere, but she moderates and eases off the hard places. She has a great deal of influence in a quiet way – more than any-one – and she would never tell a soul. I really think that it would do Alida more good than anything else to have mother on our side from the first. We are all trumpeters like father (except perhaps Hugh, who is not like any of our brood), but it is mother who tells the trumpets when to stop sounding."

I assured Rhoda Polly that she could do as she thought best in the matter. Mrs. Deventer was all she said and more. She possessed, besides, a pleasant quality of motherhood that glinted kindly through her spectacles. Then, of course, Rhoda Polly knew best. All that I wanted to avoid was having the secret which had been entrusted to me being battered about in the daily brawls of the Deventer family – still less did I wish that it should get abroad to set talking the commonplace gossips of the town.

"Ah, mon ami," said Rhoda Polly, "you need not fear my mother. She knows the secrets of every one of us, I think – except perhaps Hugh's, who is too young to have any – and yet when we girls come to confide some tremendous fact to each other, we are astonished to find that mother has known it all the time."

CHAPTER XXII

IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

Garden Cottage was occupied on the eleventh of March, 1871. For several days before that, the great discharging lorries lent by Mr. Deventer had toiled up the hill, the four stout horses leaning hard on the collar and their drivers ready to insert the wheel-rest at every turning.

Ever since this time began, Rhoda Polly had almost lived at our house, and she it was who had done the ordering of all the strange Oriental furnishings, partly from her own taste and partly from questioning me as to the arrangement of the different rooms I had seen at Autun.

Mrs. Deventer came across the bridge every day in her little blue Victoria – taking a peep in at us in the morning and hurrying back to tend her flocks, but in the afternoon, stopping over tea till she could drive a rather soiled Rhoda Polly home, as it were a much ruffled chick under a motherly wing. For indeed Rhoda Polly spared neither man nor beast, least of all did she spare herself. A tack-hammering, painting and varnishing, cellar-to-garret Rhoda Polly pervaded the house, swooping upon all and sundry and compelling strict attention to business among the much-promising, little-performing tradesmen of Aramon.

My father had already done his part, for he was a man who could not endure the chill mistral of the Rhône valley. Every room which had a chimney was equipped above with a wind shield, and beneath with steel andirons, beside which the cut faggots lay ready piled. The chambers without chimneys had been fitted with porcelain German stoves, the pipes of which bristled like lightning-rods along the roof ridges, and in the hall a great open fire-place shone with brass and copper, the spoil of an ancient Spanish monastery condemned in 1835 by Mendizabal, prime minister and Jew share-broker. What wonder if Rhoda Polly went home dishevelled and not over clean, but full of excitement and ready to battle for her new fad with the family at Château Schneider. Once there her mother plumped her into a hot bath, and after a smart douche to close the pores, Rhoda Polly came down literally as fresh as paint, to do battle for her new enthusiasms.

Hannah and Liz Deventer came once or twice to see what it was all about, but as they would not help, but only went round accumulating brickbats to pelt Rhoda Polly with later in the day, on the second occasion that capable young woman turned them both out vi et armis, though she must have weighed a good third less than Hannah.

The girls went good-humouredly enough, and having found my father talked with him in the Gobelet garden, by the old sundial which bore the arms of a former Marquis de Gallifet, and a date which commemorated the visit of Mesdames de Grignan and de Sevigné during the governorship of the former's husband.

Gordon Cawdor, my father, pleased all women, and I must admit most men – though up till now I had not been able to allow him the full measure of my sympathy or admiration. To do him justice he did not seem in the least conscious of the need of these, so long as I behaved decently and did my duty at school and college.

He was a man wonderfully stoical about the modern lack of filial recognition, no doubt saying to himself, as I came to do later, that the bringing up of sons was a poor business if one looked for direct returns on the capital and labour expended. But he never complained, and must, I think, have been finally and lastingly astonished when the long-barren fields of my filial piety ripened of themselves.

At any rate I began to know him better during these days. I marked his gentle ways, his enormous reading and erudition, never flaunted, never refused, never at fault. He had already finished his part of the work at the Garden Cottage, so he sat either in his study with the tall French window on the hasp ready to a visitor's hand – or, if the sun shone and the mistral was stilled, out on the broad wooden bench by the fish pond, a volume in his hand to read or annotate when alone – but quite ready to drop it into the pocket of his velvet jacket, and turn the gaze of his gentle scholarly eyes upon whomsoever had come forth in need of society or soul refreshment.

I learned a lesson in those days – to know how other people estimated my father. Of course, I had seen Dennis Deventer drinking in the knowledge he felt the lack of, as from a fountain. I knew what Professor Renard and the Bey thought of him. Yet, after all, these were men of Gordon Cawdor's own age and stamp.

But when I saw the fine sweet house-motherliness of Mrs. Deventer sitting at my father's feet and talking confidentially yet with respect, the thing seemed to me strange. I have seen her finish the review and arrangement of a series of china and napery closets, the laying down of fresh papers in chests of drawers, or the ordering of knick-knacks gathered in the Bey's campaigns. Then she would throw a fold of black Spanish lace over her pretty grey hair, always shining and neat – and so, without explanation or apology, hie herself out to find my father.

"A talk with him is my refreshment!" she said once when she came back and laid the folded lace scarf down beside the work she was next to attack. More than once I had passed them speaking low and earnestly, and I am sure she was consulting him about some intimate affairs of which she had spoken to no one else.

Or it was the turn of Rhoda Polly and her procedure was different. She would remove the provision of tin-tacks, French nails, or whatnot from her mouth, her habitual ready receptacle, throw a wisp or two of rebellious ripe-corn hair back from her brow, and demand to be told if there were any very bad smuts on her face! When she presented her handkerchief or the hem of her apron to me I knew from long experience what was expected of me. I was to remove the offending smuts from Rhoda Polly's face with the oldest and most natural of cleansers, exactly as we had done to one another when the dinner bell or the voice of authority called us from some extra grubby tree-climbing or mud-pie making experiment in the days when the world was young.

"Spell ho!" Rhoda Polly would cry; "had enough this one time. I am off to talk to your father. He does me good."

And now when the other Deventer girls, the stately swan-necked Hannah and the Dresden shepherdess of a dainty Liz, being expelled for "shameless slacking" and "getting in everybody's way," took their road with happy expectant faces to the bench by the sundial, I knew in my heart for the first time that I would never so add to the happiness of humanity as that gentle refined scholarly man who was my father.

To my shame I took a cast about the garden, and from the top of a ladder looked down upon the trio in an unworthy and wholly ungentlemanly way. I did not mean to overhear – of course not – but I overheard. My only excuse is that I was in a quandary. I knew that I had somehow been all wrong about my father, and I wanted to find out how I could put matters right. Hannah was seated on the bench beside him, listening and looking down, making diagrams meanwhile in the gravel with the point of her en-tout-cas, a sort of long-handled parasol sent from Paris.

Liz had characteristically pulled one of the little stools called "banquettes" from under the sundial, and had seated herself between my father's knees. She had taken her hat off and now leaned her elbow on his knee looking up into his face.

He was telling them about maidens of old times, how the Lesbia of Catullus looked and dressed, how he and she idled the day by the length a-dream in a boat in the bays about Sirmio. He quoted Tennyson's delicious verses to them, and they promised to look them up that night.

"If it were not that Rhoda Polly knows so much, I should begin Latin this very day," said Liz; "but she is such a swell that she can always come down on a fellow. She thinks we know nothing!"

"I know I don't," said Hannah, "except how to walk and dance and behave at table."

"No, that last you don't," retorted Liz Deventer; "you were far the noisiest (mother said so) in our last big family fight!"

"Well, I mean I can do these things when I like, Silly!" said Hannah, unmoved.

The hand of my father descended slowly. It had been raised to mark the rhythm of Olive-silvery-Sirmio! It now rested on the curly brown locks of Liz Deventer. He ceased to speak, and then suddenly with a sigh he said, "I envy Dennis. I have a good son – yes, a good son," he repeated with emphasis, "but I should have liked a daughter also. There is a side of me she would have understood."

Instantly the girls had their arms about his neck, and I hastily descended my shameful ladder, leaving behind me a chorus of "We will be your daughters – Rhoda Polly too – mother too – she thinks – "

But I got out of earshot as fast as might be, quite chopfallen and ashamed. I had not been a good son, whatever Gordon Cawdor might say – I knew it. I had held him lightly and withheld what others found their greatest joy in giving him – my confidence. It was no use saying that he never invited it. No more had he invited that of Mrs. Deventer, or of the girls – or, what touched me more nearly, that of Rhoda Polly herself.

At last the great day came, and by the same train which had brought the Bey on his errand of inspection the three new tenants of the Cottage arrived. The Bey looked military and imposing as he stood over the baggage counter. Linn, tall and gaunt in unbroken black, accepted my father's arm smilingly almost at the first sound of his voice. He showed her through the narrow shed-like waiting-rooms to the carriage in readiness outside. Mrs. Deventer had received Alida into her arms as she descended from the carriage, and was now cooing over her, watched hungrily by Rhoda Polly, who wearied for her turn to come.

It struck me that Alida was not looking quite so well as usual. It had cost her more than I thought to disobey her father – more afterwards perhaps than at the time. For among those of her blood, the servitude of woman goes with heredity, and the culture of Europe, though it may render obedience impossible, does not kill the idea of parental authority. "Though he slay me, yet shall I trust in him!"

But when Alida greeted me, I knew in a moment that though the battle had been sore, the victory was won. There would be no looking back.

"What, Angoos, mon ami, have I all those friends already? I owe them all to you!"

I took Rhoda Polly's hand, and put it into the gloved fingers of the little Princess.

"Not to me, dear Alida," I said, "but to this girl; she has, as you shall find, a heart of gold."

Alida kept the strong roughened fingers in hers, and looked deep into the eyes of Rhoda Polly as if to read her inmost soul.

"I shall remember that, Angoos," she said; "that is a beautiful thing when it is said in the language of my own country. It sings itself – it makes poetry. Listen!

"'Rhoda Polly of the Golden Heart – Heart of Gold, how true is my maiden!' Wait, I will sing it for you in Arabic – "

But suddenly, no one knew why, the female heart being many stringed and unaccountable, even to me, Rhoda Polly was crying – yes, Rhoda Polly the dry-eyed, and who but Alida was comforting her under the stupid gaze of hangers-on about the station of Aramon!

CHAPTER XXIII

THE MISGIVINGS OF ALIDA

At the house in the garden the new servants stood ready, neat and smiling. My father had written to a Protestant pastor at Grenoble to send him two maids of his religion. Accordingly two sisters had arrived, Claire and Hermance Tessier, reliable pleasant-faced girls with no family ties in Aramon and with the difference of religion to keep them apart from indiscriminate gossipry. The wing of the house where they were to sleep had formed a part of the wall, possibly even it may have been an ancient gateway in the time of the Montmorencies. My father had joined it to the main building by a flying bridge of iron roofed with zinc – which was Dennis Deventer's own private contribution to Garden Cottage. I had warned him of the nocturnal habits of Linn and her husband, and he agreed with me that while for Alida's sake they must be served according to the French fashion, they need not be deprived of the nightly freedom of their own house which was their greatest luxury.

So at the Cottage door we judged it best to leave them. Rhoda Polly and her mother drove home. My father and I withdrew, I to my den, he to his study. If the new tenants of the Garden Cottage had any changes to make or any fault to find with what had been prepared for them, the alterations could be done quietly and by degrees. Besides, the pale face of Alida haunted me and I thought that a night's rest would be for her the surest medicine.

But the general joyousness of the journey up the hill was our best hope that all would be well. The Bey was gay. Even Linn relaxed when she saw the noble prospect of the blue Rhône and the little white and green house among the laurels, walled in like a fortress. Hand in hand but silent Rhoda Polly sat beside Alida as the coachman drove over the bridge and up the winding road, St. André looming up a crenellated wall of red and gold above them.

This was the beginning of a wonderful week which, lived in the unseen and unsuspected shadow of disaster, now shines the brighter for the contrast with what was to come after. The last week of the theatres and baths of Pompeii was not more memorable, and we who sunned ourselves upon the limestone slopes of Mont St. André thought as little of the future as the many tinted crowd of merry-makers who thronged the beaches between the city gate and the white sands of Torre del Greco.

They came on the 11th of March, and one week after fell the 18th, a date ever memorable in the history of the cities of France.

Yet how much happiness did we manage to put in between the one day and the other.

Next morning, that is on the 12th, I was up early, so early that no one was visible about the Garden Cottage except the two Grenoble maids, who had settled down to their duties as if they had been on the spot for months. They were indeed lucky, for few new bonnes come to so clean a house – "shining like a soldier's button," averred Claire.

Linn and her husband had doubtless spent the night in making an exhaustive survey of the dwelling, and Linn especially would be full of discoveries. At present they were retired in their own chamber, dozing doubtless, after their long nocturnal expeditions, and also probably because after the awakening of the maids they felt the house no more their own.

It was a morning when the chill gusting of the mistral wind hurtled and raved about St. André. I had already made friends with the sisters Tessier, of whom Claire was housemaid and Hermance cook. Rhoda Polly had introduced us and that curious and almost affectionate regard which springs up between good servants and friends of the house soon made my visits very agreeable to them.

They asked counsels of me – as for example, how Monsieur liked his coffee, if Madame was more set upon the kitchen or the "lingerie," and how best to serve Mademoiselle, who, as they had been given to understand (probably by Linn), was of chief standing in the house.

I told them that they needed no more than to be good brave girls and all would go well. But I warned them that both Madame and her husband had been accustomed to many things in the wild countries where they had dwelt, which would be looked upon as strange by a burgher who had never set a head outside his own wall.

I prepared them for the Bey's occasional absences, and for Linn's restless wanderings and perpetual rangings of cupboards. They were quite contented, thanked me blithely, and Claire took up the morning breakfast of rolls and café au lait with shining success. All that she had to tell when she came down was that Mademoiselle had asked her to rub her feet in order to awaken her.

Whereupon I pointed the not unuseful moral that what I had said applied to Mademoiselle also. She had spent her childhood in Africa and though the best and sweetest lady in the world, might do or ask for things that need not be repeated outside the house. The Tessiers quite saw the necessity.

"They are all tattlers in the south," said Claire, "I have heard it from my friend who had service here. It is different at Nîmes or Grenoble, where the families are mostly Protestant."

They knew somehow that my father had once been a pasteur and they had all the Scottish weakness for a "son of the manse."

When at last Linn began to make her presence heard in the upper story, I retreated without being discovered, extremely satisfied with my diplomacy. After all, this transplantation was a hazardous experiment, and all who had taken part in the business must see to it that the little foxes did not spoil the vineyard by any side entrance.

I had scarcely begun my task of writing for the day, when I was called from my desk by a message from Alida. It was a cunningly folded note, sealed with the great seal which had been her father's. The bright splash of red wax occupied quite a third of the back. So, not to tear the paper, I laid it a moment on the hob, and then with the thinnest blade of my knife, I lifted it cleanly away in one piece. After which I unfolded the rustling sheet.

"Come and see me before anyone else."

That was all and indeed quite enough, for with quick beating pulses I hastened to obey. Linn was waiting for me at the first turn of the wooded path, and as we paced along together towards Garden Cottage I could feel the "gleg" inquisitorial eyes of Saunders McKie boring into my back. I wished Linn had sent over one of the Tessiers on this first occasion, but I do not suppose it ever occurred to her to let another do for Alida what she could do herself.

The Bey was within the walled garden, pacing up and down, revolving in his mind something which pleased him but little.

"What is it, Keller Bey?" I asked sharply. "Do you not find yourself comfortable among us?"

"Too comfortable by half," he grunted, "here are many things which must have cost much money, and yet I am told by Alida that they are presents of welcome for which I must not pay – whereupon, of course, Linn agrees with her, and I who was the right hand of Abd-el-Kader and thought myself indebted to no man, am made in my own eyes a veritable pauper!"

"Keller Bey," I said, "you speak in ignorance of our English customs. At a house-warming or the taking possession of a new residence, all your friends are under obligation to bring their contribution to the home. It is our way of wishing you good luck and a happy tenancy. Nothing could be more unfortunate than any offer of payment for such a service."