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

"Yes – yes – I understand," he broke in testily, "I suppose I have been too long among the black tents. I learn your ways with difficulty. I am sure every one means well, but how am I to do all that thanking? Can I bow backs at my age and say grace for what I would rather have done without?"

"You cannot," I said, laughing at his perturbed face, "for we do not tell the name of the givers lest it should bring ill-luck. But where is Alida?"

Alida, it seemed, was in the pleasant gable parlour which, with so much anxious forethought, we had fitted up for her. She had been arranging her books on the shelves, and was now going from picture to picture and from window to window.

She gave me both hands when she saw me and said immediately, "Angoos, who would have thought that we had among us at Autun such an observant boy! You have reproduced my room there with hardly a change, save the pictures and the pottery. Has your father let them to us along with the house?"

"No," I said, "they are loving gifts from Madame Deventer, and as for the arrangement, Rhoda Polly did that, questioning me as she went, and forcing me to recall exactly whether I would or not."

"I sent for you," said Alida, "to tell me all about this family who have been so kind, so that I may make no mistake. And first, why did only the women come? – where was Monsieur Hugh, who dwelt with us at Autun?"

I explained to her the mystery of a great factory, where were thousands of men all doing different things, and how Hugh, though but a small wheel in such a mechanism, could not leave his post at will without interfering with the work of many others.

I sketched rough, strong, imperious Dennis to her. Rhoda Polly purposely somewhat vague, because I knew that she would soon enough find out about Rhoda Polly for herself. But I made word cameos of Hannah and Liz and concluded with a full-length portrait of Mrs. Deventer, in whom I hoped (though I took care not to say so) Alida would find the mother her youth had lacked.

She listened with lowered eyes and a silent attention as if she were weighing every word.

"Yes," she said, "I shall like them all. I feel sure – or almost."

Then she asked suddenly, "Does Rhoda Polly sing? Can she play?"

"In a way," I answered lamely enough; "she has had the usual lessons before she went to college, but her voice has never been trained."

"Is she very clever?"

"Yes, at driving nails, hanging pictures, laying down carpets, and getting a house ready – I never saw anyone to match her."

"But I mean – she is very learned – will she look down upon me who have to step carefully among abysses of ignorance?"

"Alida," I said earnestly, "she is likely to spoil you far more than is good for you. The others will do so also, but you will find that Rhoda Polly will win your heart more than all of us put together."

"I do not think so," said Alida composedly.

And then, struck by the astonishment in my face, she continued, "I shall not like her if you praise her so much!"

"Do not be foolish, Alida," I said, "you should have heard me praising you to Rhoda Polly when I got back from Autun. It took me nearly one whole day, and ever since she has been painting, varnishing, and scrubbing, that the nest should be worthy of such a bird of Paradise as I described."

"Oh, I know," pouted Alida, "she is infinitely better than I, more unselfish, and – and – you love her!"

"She is certainly more unselfish," I said, firing up; "you have yet to learn what the word means. Perhaps that partly explains your charm, but all the same you must love Rhoda Polly."

"Because you do?"

I was tempted to deny my gods and declare that I did not love Rhoda Polly, when the remembrance of a particular smear on her nose one day of mutual paintwork on opposite sides of a fireplace, and a way she had of throwing her head back to toss the blonde curls out of her eyes, stopped me.

"Of course I love Rhoda Polly, and so will you (and more than I love her) when your eyes are opened!"

And with that I left Alida to digest the fact of her own selfishness. At the time I considered myself a kind of hero for having so spoken. Now I am not so sure. She was what Keller and Linn had made her, and I ought to have remembered the snubs and rebuffs which she must have suffered from Sous-Préfecture dames and other exacting though respectable ladies of Autun.

* * * * *

This week held many other matters and the seeds of more. Rhoda Polly came to take Alida out in her mother's Victoria, and spent a long day in the garden instead, sending back the coachman to be ready to take Mrs. Deventer to the works to drive her husband home to lunch, as was her daily custom.

I do not know what the girls said to one another. I kept out of the way, but when I came into the dining-room with my father a little before noon, I was certain that Alida had been crying and that Rhoda Polly had been dabbing her eyes with hasty inexperienced fingers.

I thought this no ill sign of coming friendship, and indeed it was not an hour before I received a first confidence on the subject from Alida.

"She is all you say and more. She makes me so ashamed of myself!"

"So she does me!" I answered, thinking of my dealings with Jeanne and our walk home from the restaurant of Mère Félix.

Alida held out her hand quickly.

"Does she make you feel that too? – I am glad," she said, and smiled gratefully like a child consoled.

Then came Rhoda Polly's mother, and my father, who had been talking to Rhoda Polly by the sundial, rose and with a word and smile excused himself and went indoors. The interview that followed I should have loved well to watch and hear. But after all I doubt if any great part of the gentle influences which rained from Mrs. Deventer could have been written down. No stenographer could take note of those captivating intonations, the soft subtle pauses of speech, the lingering tender understanding in her motherly eyes, the way she had of laying her hand upon Alida's.

She had been a counsellor to many, and had never forgotten a sore heart even when healed, nor told a tale out of that gracious confessional.

Certain it is that the conquest of Alida was soon made, in so far as Mrs. Deventer could make it. They saw each other every day, and the sight of Rhoda Polly and Alida striking across the big bridge with the wind right in their faces – or of Alida, with Linn, like a gaunt watch-dog, thrusting a combative shoulder into the mistral to fend a way for her charge – became familiar on the windy sidewalks of the great suspension bridge.

All went as we could have wished it, till one day I took the Bey across to go over the works. Dennis Deventer was to afford enough time to conduct us in person. It was no small honour, for visitors were generally either refused altogether, or handed over to Jack Jaikes with instructions that they should see as little as possible.

I was wholly at ease about the meeting of the Bey and Dennis Deventer. Two such fighters, I thought, could not but be delighted with one another.

I was only partly right. They met with mutual respect. Dennis had been in Algeria at a more recent date than the Bey, and could give news of deaths of chiefs, of successions disputed and consequently bloody, and of all the tangled politics of the South Oran.

But once in the hum and turmoil of the works, the power-straps running overhead like lightning flashes, the spinning lathes, the small busy mechanisms installed on tables and set going by tiny levers, the Bey's attention wandered. Instead of attending to the wonderful fittings and the constant jingle of the finished parts, he seemed to search out each man's face, in a manner to compel their attention. Usually when a visitor goes round with the "chief," the men make it a point of honour to turn away their eyes almost disdainfully. But it was different with the personally conducted trip of Keller Bey. At him the men gazed with sudden evident respect, and we were not half-way through the first room before the whisper of our coming ran far ahead of us through the workshops.

I could see nothing about Keller Bey to explain this sudden interest. He did not make masonic signs with his hands. He hardly spoke a word. He never looked at the men who were devouring him with their eyes. All I could see was that he wore the red tie habitual to him, clasped by a little pin made of two crossed standards drooped upon their hampes, one red with rubies and the other formed of black diamonds. It was the only jewellery Keller Bey ever wore and naturally, since I had never seen him without it, it seemed a part of him like his collar-stud or his sleeve-links.

Dennis Deventer, who never missed anything in the works, noted the men's behaviour, but continued his exposition of the secret of preventing the jamming of the mitrailleuses.

"I am a little late with my invention," he said, "I shall have to wait for the next war to make my demonstration complete."

"You may not have to wait so long as you think!" said the Bey quietly. "Had you not a little private war of your own a month ago?"

The time was so ill chosen as to make Keller's reference almost a disaster. There were men within earshot who had driven the troops of the Republic out of Aramon, perhaps even some who had assaulted the house of the Chief Director.

"We had some little trouble like other folks," said Dennis Deventer lightly, "but we have forgotten all about that!"

"Ah!" said the Bey reflectively, as they passed on. In the big gun foundry a huge Hercules of a fellow, naked to the waist, thrust his way through the little crowd about us, seized Keller Bey by the hand, murmured something to us unintelligible. The Bey took no notice beyond nodding briefly to the man. Then turning to Deventer he continued unconcernedly, "About that feeding gear, you were saying – ?"

But Dennis Deventer looked at Keller Bey curiously.

"Did you know that man?" he asked earnestly.

"No, I never set eyes on him before," said the Bey carelessly as before; "is there anything against him?"

"Not exactly," replied Deventer, "but he is one of the most dangerous men in the works – almost as strong in body as I am myself, and much listened to by the men. I wish I could say he leads them wisely."

Keller Bey shook his head gravely, but except repeating that he knew nothing whatever about the foundryman, he uttered no word of excuse or commendation. However, Dennis Deventer was in no mind to let him off so easily.

"You are having such a success among the men as I never saw the like of, and would not have believed if I had not seen with my own eyes. Have you been to St. Etienne or Creusot? Many of our fellows come from there. It is possible that they may recognise you."

"I have never been in either place in my life," said Keller Bey simply, and so cut off discussion.

But I could see that a doubt remained and brooded upon the spirit of Dennis Deventer. He brought the visit abruptly and rather disappointingly to a close, by saying that there was a man waiting for him in his office. But as men were always waiting to see Dennis Deventer at any hour of the day, his taking himself off must have been an excuse. I felt vaguely to blame. Indeed, I was wholly at sea, the more so when just outside the great gates of the Small Arms Company's yards Keller was met by half a dozen workmen of a superior sort, who saluted him respectfully and asked for a private interview.

I said I should go and wait for him at the bridge-end, and he kept me waiting for an hour and a half, which I would much rather have spent with Rhoda Polly. Keller Bey was altogether too much of a responsibility in Aramon-les-Ateliers. If he had further visits to pay on this side, he could find his way himself, so far as I was concerned. I would not waste a whole morning only to get myself suspected by Rhoda Polly's father.

I sat down on the parapet and watched the drowsy douaniers at the receipt of custom, or the still drowsier fishermen dropping baited lines into a seven-knot current, which banked itself up and then swirled high between the piers.

And lazying thus in the sunshine, I cast my mind over many things, but particularly I thought of Hugh. Had I indeed lost Hugh Deventer? Why was he no longer my faithful confidant and comrade as of old? Had we gone together to the wars, slept under one blanket, only to bring about this separation? Even to-day I had not seen him. Had he of set purpose hid himself away?

Certainly he was no more the dreamily affectionate companion, a little slow in comprehension but rapid and accurate in execution, upon whose thews and muscles I had been wont to depend. Hugh Deventer was lost to me. More than that, he could hardly any more be said to belong to the family circle at Château Schneider. He had furnished a room for himself down at the works, where he read and slept. His meals were cooked by the wife of the chief night-watchman and at home no one was surprised. For the Deventers were, even before coming of age, in fact as soon as they had left school, a law to themselves. And I think that Dennis was secretly pleased at his boy's setting up for himself.

But I knew that Hugh was not driven by any noble desire for independence. Sitting there in the warm sun which beat upon the bridge parapet, I set aside one possible cause for our estrangement after another.

It was not on account of Jeanne or Rhoda Polly. No jealousy possessed Hugh Deventer because I sat at his father's table far oftener than he did. One reason only could explain all the circumstances. He had been at Autun and had supposed that Alida's idea of coming to the Garden Cottage had originated with me. Evidently he had resented this, and since our return he had kept himself, in all save the most formal fashion, apart from all the rejoicing over the new tenants.

Obviously he must consider himself in love with Alida, which was, of course, wholly natural and within his right. But why vent his humour upon me? I could not make Alida return his love, and certainly sulking in the holes and corners of a factory would do nothing to soften the heart of that imperious little lady. He had indeed become little more than a memory to Alida.

"I don't think Hugh likes me," she said, more than once. "He never comes to see me – not even to tell me how selfish I am!"

CHAPTER XXIV

PEACE BEFORE STORM

The 18th of March dawned clear and bright, the wind still a little chill, but the whole land, as we looked down upon it from our Gobelet watch-tower on the front of St. Andre's hill, tinted white and pink with blossom, almond, peach, pear, plum, and cherry. It was wonderful to see them running up, as it were scrambling over fence and rock scarp, till they broke in a sunshiny spray of hawthorn blossom against the grey walls of the lycée of St. André.

Never was there a quieter day nor one that seemed filled with more happy promise. For the first time Linn and Alida had resumed their old understanding. For there is no doubt that Linn had been somewhat jealous of the absorbing commerce between the house of Deventer and the cottage in the laurel bushes beyond the garden of Gobelet.

Keller had gone to Aramon, Linn said. He might be away all night, for he had it in his mind to push as far as Marseilles. I knew of the Bey's absences from Autun, and so thought no more of the matter. Linn, put in good humour by having Alida to herself (for me she did not count), talked freely of the beauties of their installation. The Basse Cour and the poultry especially delighted her, and she had already prepared a ruled book which was to show in parallel columns the cost of feeding as compared with the result in chickens and eggs.

All that day no one crossed over the bridge from Château Schneider and the time was blessed for Linn. She knew very well that it was for just such companionship that Alida had come to Aramon. She had herself supported the necessity for change, even against her husband. But all the same, now when she got her Princess a day to herself she made the most of it, falling back into her old caressing habits and ready to treat Alida as the little girl who long ago had been put in her hands with all a queen's habits of command and the sweet waywardness of a child.

I helped when I could and fetched huge stuffed buffets and cushions, so that Alida could install herself beside my father at the fishpond, and then I left him to make his usual conquest. He was smiling and tranquil as I remember, but with an unwonted eagerness in his eye, which did not by any means come from the anticipation of a morning with Alida. I remembered afterwards that he had had an interview the night before with Keller Bey in which they had talked much Arabic, and early this morning he had dispatched Saunders McKie over the water with a letter to Dennis Deventer. But these things did not fall into place in my mind, at least not till long afterwards.

We had a happy day among the sunflecked glades of Gobelet – that is, Alida, my father and I. When they two were alone, they talked Arabic, but ceased as soon as I joined them.

Conscious of the awkwardness Alida renewed her offer to teach me colloquially if my father would put me in the way of learning the grammar, while I regretted bitterly having wasted my time at St. André. Finally to change the subject we fell to talking over the Montmorencies and their Tour Carrée on the heights of Aramon le Vieux. Here at hand, where the Tessiers slept at the far side of Dennis Deventer's flying bridge of steel, was their gateway tower, still pitted by the balls of Mazarin's troops. For a Montmorency of those days, probably held in leash by his wife, had taken the popular side in the wars of the Fronde.

Down there on that islet in the reign of Louis XII (said my father) a great tournament was held in which the knights of France, light and lissom, overwhelmed the weightier champions of Burgundy.

If we had been more watchful as we talked, we might have seen the smoke die out of the tall chimneys of Aramon-les-Ateliers, the blast furnaces withdraw their crowns of pale flame, and an unnatural quiet settle down upon the busy city.

But our minds were bent wholly on giving pleasure to Alida. She must be taken through this glade, climb this steep path, and see the marvellous spectacle of the Rhône delta with its wide wastes wandered over by fierce cattle, its sinuous waterways blocked by the only beavers remaining in Europe, and far away beyond it the violet-blue bar of the Midland Sea.

We did indeed conduct Alida from admiration to admiration, and she had what I fear Rhoda Polly would have called "the time of her life." It did strike me several times how strange it was that since my father had sent his morning message to Dennis Deventer, we had had no news of the household at Château Schneider.

I sounded Saunders on the subject, but he knew nothing, or at least would tell nothing.

"The letter? Oh, Maister Dennis just read it and put it in his waistcoat pooch. Syne, says he, 'Saunders, will ye drink?' 'No,' says I; for if I did, when I gaed hame I micht smell! So he gied me yin o' thae French sovereigns as easy as puttin' a penny in the plate. Oh, a grand man is Maister Deventer when ye get the richt side o' him, but as they tell me the very deevil and a' when his monkey is up. Do you ken, Maister Aängus, he was just trying me on, by asking me to drink? For if I had ta'en as muckle as a sup frae his hand, I micht hae whistled for the wee French sovereign – whilk is only barely worth saxteen shillings when a' is said and done!"

Nevertheless in the full bliss of ignorance we idled away the day while about us the flowers grew as we looked at them, so keen an edge was on that spring day. Linn ranged her napery cupboards to her most perfect content, not that she could do it better than Mrs. Deventer had done, but simply for the satisfaction of, as it were, expressing her mind and doing it differently.

The shadows passed steadily across the sundial. The underneath inscription became more strongly incised as the sun dipped westward. The rock plants on the little island in the pond fell into shadow and some closed up their petals for the night. And still in the midst of a great silence we moved and smiled and were happy. Aramon le Vieux drowsed beneath us. The good wives at their doors were out gossiping their hardest, but in undertones which must not pass from one group to another. Cats sunned themselves in window sills beyond the reach of the prowling cur, and the majestic river, so soon to be split and worried into a hundred waterways, étangs and backwaters, passed noiselessly in front of us in one noble rush, level, calm, and swift.

I think it was about three o'clock in the afternoon when Professor Renard, coming from the post office, where the telegraph had been recently installed, brought tidings.

"There is a revolt in Paris," he said, "the soldiers and the National Guard have expelled the Government. That is the news they have received, but no one knows whether it is false or true."

Nor in the midst of our quiet park with the fruit trees in blossom everywhere could we have any guess at the turmoil, the riding of orderlies, and the hasty ordering of official carriages in Paris.

Indeed, the talk passed to other matter and on the surface, and the tidings seemed to affect us little. So having left Linn still busy with her linen, Alida and I took our way to the look-out summer-house above the aerial swing of the suspension bridge, leaving the elders talking very soberly together.

"Surely there is no danger here?" the girl asked when we had seated ourselves. She spoke not from any fear but that she might contrive means of helping her friends the Deventers if they needed it.

"Not that I know of," I answered, "but the workmen of Aramon are always fiery and hard to handle. We have had battles and sieges, yet things were smoothed over and the works went on as before – the men who had been busily shooting each other down talking over details of work and taking orders from one another as if nothing had happened."

"How long ago was that?"

"Only about two months," I explained, "but you need expect nothing of that kind on this side. The workmen never cross the bridge save when on pleasure bent, or when our July fair-time fills the green yonder with the din of booths, circuses, and penny theatres."

Nevertheless, Alida's face continued to express trouble.

"But Rhoda Polly, her mother, and the others – are they in danger?"

"Not, I think, for the moment. The more serious the news from Paris, the less will the men think of their grievances against the Company and the Company's manager. Last time the siege was bitter and determined on both sides. Many were killed. Yet it was no more than a trade dispute which Mr. Deventer could have settled in half an hour if the men had brought their grievances directly to him, instead of trying to wreck the works for the safety of which he is responsible."

"We must go and see for ourselves," said Alida imperiously. "If there is danger for my friends, I must be there to share it."

"You must not do anything of the kind," I cried, "you do not understand the fierce blindness which comes upon men at such times. I shall go, if necessary, and you shall stay with my father and Linn in the refuge which those who love you have chosen for you."

"Then if I let you go, you will come back and tell me all – remember, do not put me off with lies such as they tell to ordinary women."

I promised, and as we stood looking across the glistening waters I saw for the second time in my life the tricolour flutter down from its staff, and after a pause the shining "Tatter of Scarlet" of the red revolution blow out on the valley wind.

CHAPTER XXV

THE PROCLAMATION

The street lamps had not been lighted when I landed on the left bank of the river, well above any outposts of the new revolt. I pulled my skiff safely under shelter of some bushes. The spot I had chosen was one well known to me, and exceedingly safe. My father often sent me over to bring plants and seeds from Arcadius, the gardener at Les Linottes, whose extensive grounds ran right down to the river's edge. A soft, rather hulking, good-natured man was Arcadius, who went through the world apparently breathing to the full ease of life. His body somewhat resembled a large slug supported on two smaller slugs, which were his legs. He worked in his garden, his pipe continually between his lips. At a first glance the slowness of his movements seemed laughable and ridiculous. But leave him half an hour and then see what he had accomplished. There was no man in Aramon who could get through so much work as Arcadius the Slug. By a kind of instinct he saw exactly where every stroke ought to fall, how much or how little was to be done, and the completed task ran out behind him like the wake from a well-rowed boat.