Tales from Many Sources. Vol. V

She embraced him with all the gratitude a woman feels when her good offices are accepted.

"To-morrow," she said cheerfully, "to-morrow will bring you some tobacco."

"To-morrow will also, I imagine, bring Périne," he replied, with a laugh, and when he laughed it was possible to see what a handsome young fellow the haggard man had been. "Well, I am not sure that Périne isn't preferable to old Plon-Plon. When I hear him prosing away to you on the duty of being contented, it's all I can do not to knock him down. You a bad manager, indeed!"

"Do not talk of anything so imprudent."

"He would roll like a ball," said Jean longingly.

"Jean!"

"Bah, you need not fear. To do things sometimes in imagination is the only way of keeping my muscles in exercise. Oh, if I could only get a little fresh air, or drop in at the brasserie and hear what is doing!"

"See, here," said Marie, true to her mission of comforter, "to-night we shall have a luxury, for this work must be finished and carried home to-morrow morning, and so I shall allow myself a candle. Sometimes I am afraid that I want more light than in old days, but I daresay that is a foolish fancy. The cabbage will be ready in a few minutes; meanwhile, tell me what more news you have got there in the paper. M. Plon has a great respect for my scholarship, but he is afraid I waste my time over his journals—aha, M. Plon, you little know that I have got my reader!"

"Plon is an ass," said Jean gruffly, for he did not like any one to find a flaw in the wife whom he often scolded himself.

"Perhaps," said Marie happily. "But now, find me something horribly delightful to-night, something to make me shudder."

"Capture of a wolf in Auvergne."

"Of a wolf! Is it possible!" demanded Madame Didier, much interested. "And how many people did he eat?"

"Only one."

"Only one! What a stupid wolf! Go on, my friend."

"Suicide of a husband."

"Not that, I do not like anything so sad," she said in a changed voice. "And where was his wife all the time, that she could not prevent it, I should like to know? No, let me hear a little more about this robbery, and then we will have our dinner."

PART III

The hours passed, the light faded in the little garret where Marie's busy fingers toiled day after day to add to the little hoard so slowly accumulating, and Marie's cheerful heart brought out greater treasures of unselfish devotion, if her husband had only known it. Perhaps he did know it—in a fashion. Through the night, when it came, she thought often uneasily of Périne out in the heart of the great wicked city. But Périne had a haunt or two of her own, and Marie said prayers for her, and slept, hoping the girl would be safe.

She got up early the next morning while Jean was yet asleep, and cheered herself as she looked at her scanty supply of poor coffee with the thought that she would be paid for her work in the course of the day. Meanwhile the breakfast would not be a very rich affair, and she was pondering whether she could be so extravagant as to run to a crêmerie near at hand for two sous-worth of milk, when an unexpected sound filled her with dismay. It was Périne's shuffling steps upon the stairs, and she was by no means sure how Jean would receive such an early visitor. Moreover, she did not care that he should be disturbed, and she went hastily to the door to moderate the noise of the girl's awkward entry. For a wonder no word or look of hers could do this. Périne, who generally was obedient to her smallest sign, was in a state of uncontrollable excitement; she fled to Marie's arms, buried her rough head there, sobbed her loudest, and presently, in the thick of incoherent lamentations, pulled down her dress, and showed a heavy bruise on her shoulder. Then she sobbed again, and implored Madame Didier not to let them beat her.

"Come, come, come!" said Marie reassuringly, "tell me a little more about this, and don't be a baby, Périne. Remember that you are a big girl. No one will come here to beat you; if they did, good M. Plon would not let them come up the stairs. Tell me who did it?"

She sat down on the stool as she spoke, and let the poor clumsy creature rest on her knee.

"The man, the bad man!" howled Périne.

"That I hear; but what were you doing to make any one so cruel?"

"Périne only looking at pretty bright figures, mother; so pretty with the light on them. 7639."

"What is she talking about?" said Madame Didier, puzzled, "7639?"

"Yes, yes," said the girl eagerly, and then she broke off again into her lamentations, which lasted until Marie had bathed her hurt, and soothed her by degrees. But when she proposed to take her to the crêmerie, Périne began to wail again, and it was evident that something had so terrified her, that it would be cruelty to force her out into the streets. Every now and then she let drop another word or two on the subject of her fright; her poor disconnected brain seemed unable to grasp anything as a whole; something would float across it and be lost. Marie had grown apt at gathering together these cobweb strands, and disentangling them, but now even her ingenuity was at fault, and the number was the only point which stood out clearly from wavering words about a man and a box. She gathered at last that somewhere or other this number with the light shining on it had attracted Périne's attention, that she went to look, and that a man pushed her away with a blow, and with threats which had been strong enough to send her terrified from the spot. Evidently she scarcely felt secure in her present quarters, and piteously implored Marie not to suffer him to come. Marie soothed her, and hoped that Jean's compassion might be as strong as her own. Had she not been taken up with Périne, she would have more quickly caught the impatient scratching like a mouse in the wainscot, with which he summoned her.

He made signs that he must speak, and with some difficulty she got Périne into the landing, thrusting into her hands the bread which would have been her own portion. Then she locked her door and went back to Jean, who was eagerly waiting.

"Marie, I have a thought," he began. "What do you make out of all she says?"

"Next to nothing," said his wife, shrugging her shoulders.

"No?" said Jean, feverishly and a little contemptuously. "Suppose I suggested that she saw the figures on the lamp of a cab, what then?"

"What then?" repeated she, puzzled.

"And a box, and a man angry with her for looking. What then?"

"Oh, I don't understand!" said Marie, shaking her head.

"Heavens, that any one should be so dense! Have you forgotten the robbery?"

"In the Rue Vivienne—oh, do you mean—do you think it possible! Jean, how clever you are! I wonder whether—shall I run to the place and see?"

"To the place, and even if they were still there, get yourself knocked on the head!"

"I should not mind," cried Marie eagerly. "I should mind nothing with such a hope before me."

"No, my good Marie," Jean returned grandly; "you have excellent intentions, but it is well you have some one to guide you. The first thing is to find a commissaire of police."

The name seemed terrible; she turned pale, but he hurried on, losing himself again in his excitement, and with all his haggard features working:

"Yes, yes, I know what you will say, but do you not understand that if this is what I believe, anything will be forgiven to the man who can put the sergent de ville on the track?"

"If! At any rate I will do what you bid me," the young wife said, trembling. "There is a bureau not so far away. Only promise me you will be prudent, for I must leave Périne here, though I will lock the door. Remember, M. Plon has his own keys."

Nor would she relax one of her precautions in spite of his heated impatience. But she had spoken truly, for after the daily fear of years, the personal danger of encountering the robbers assuredly seemed nothing in comparison with having to do with the police. She told Périne where she was to sit, and tried to extract more coherent details, but only as to the figures was Périne clear. These she repeated again and again, while more than once Jean's sharp whisper reached his wife's ears. "Make haste, make haste!" and she signed caution in return.

When she had gone there was for some time absolute silence in the garret, Jean having flung himself on his bed, and given himself up to a wild delirium of hope. By-and-by this took the form of restlessness. He tossed and tumbled on his bed, and, his ear full of sounds which expectation and imagination brought there, sometimes started up, keen to listen, and the next moment pressed his fingers into his ears, to try to shut out these delusive sounds. Then he became almost as reckless as to Périne; what did her seeing him matter when so soon he would be a free man? Once or twice the bed creaked and groaned under his tossings, so that he imagined she would surely look round. But no, the girl was blind and deaf to everything but Marie's orders, she sat squarely on the wooden stool with her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her hands, every now and then uttering a disjointed sob, until fatigue and tears brought about their natural consequence, and it became evident that she was asleep.

Jean got up and shook himself and looked out at her, his head in a whirl. He began to think that Marie was long absent, and to lay the blame on the back which was always ready to bear his burdens.

"She will not know where to go, she will stand gossipping with any fool who asks her a question, and in this time I would wager a piece of twenty sous the police or some other busy-body will have got on the track. What more likely? And there's an end to our luck. Why did I let her waste all these moments? Why didn't I go myself? Women always muddle things. There would have been a scene, beyond doubt. 'Holà!—thunder and lightning, who may this be?'" Jean planted himself in an attitude, and struck his chest violently. "Then I should have drawn myself up, always with dignity—thus—'This, gentlemen, is none other than Jean Didier!'—'Who? What!'—'Jean Didier, at your service, gentlemen, falsely denounced as Communist, executed and reported dead, but, as you see alive, and able to render an important service to an ungrateful country.'—That sounds sublime! I flatter myself it would have produced an impression. Why didn't I go? Women, with all their good intentions, haven't an idea of the value of a stroke like that! It requires genius. And I foresee my excellent Marie will muddle the whole affair, very likely allow them to pick her brains and cajole the number out of her, then one of these messieurs will slip off and secure the reward." Excitement got a strong hold upon Jean as this idea presented itself, and his castles toppled over. "That's it, that's how it will go! And I deserve it for having left such a delicate affair in the hands of a woman. I could have managed it to a turn, and here I have let her go off, and the whole thing will slip through her fingers. I could beat myself with vexation."

In effect, he stamped his foot with such violence that Périne jumped up and, looking round, saw him vanishing behind the curtains. She shrieked with terror, "The man! Oh, it's the man!"

White as death, Jean rushed out and tried to calm her.

"Hush, child, hush! it's only me!"

But Périne was past all control, she screamed for "Mother!" for "M. Plon!" until it seemed to Jean that not only the house but the whole neighbourhood would presently be on him. He tried coaxing, he tried menace, but Périne shrieked the more.

"Will you hold your tongue!" he cried, with a wild thought of strangling her. "I'm a friend, I'm not the man; I won't touch you. Périne, Périne, don't cry out so, look at me!"

At this appeal she hid her eyes with her hands.

"The man! the man! Mother! Help!" Nevertheless, though it seemed to poor Jean that the very streets must tingle with her cries, it is possible, for the upper-stories of the house had early risers for their dwellers, that the deaf old woman left on the fifth floor might have heard nothing; but unfortunately M. Plon had taken it into his head to make a visitation to those uninhabited rooms of his in which some one had housed his furniture, and at this moment was on his way. He knew that Madame Didier was out, and Périne's screams seemed to point to fire or something equally disastrous. The door was locked, but he had all his keys about him, and soon succeeded in opening it, when Périne in a transport of terror rushed at him, and flung herself into his arms with a force which might have knocked over a less ponderous rescuer, and effectually blocked the door at which Jean glanced longingly.

"Holà!" cried the astonished landlord. "Que diable! A man in Madame Didier's room! What's the meaning of all this? Police!"

Jean advanced with a threatening gesture, and the valiant Plon quickly retreated. For one wild moment his lodger contemplated the chances which lay in knocking him down, and taking refuge in flight, but he reflected that if the house were alarmed he would not get off, and if not, it might be possible to enlist M. Plon on his side. He therefore went quietly back into the room, saying, "Do not fear, M. Plon.... I give you my word, I am not going to fight."

"You had better not," said the other blusteringly. "You had better not!"

"Oh, as to that …" said Jean with anger.

M. Plon retreated a second time before this demonstration, and again lifted his voice for the police.

"They'll be here fast enough, no doubt," said Jean quietly, though there was a bitter feeling of downfall in his heart. "Meanwhile, perhaps it might be as well for me to tell you who I am."

"Who you are?" repeated M. Plon indignantly. "It's easy enough to see that, my fine fellow, though what you could expect to steal here is not so clear. You've got the air of a gallows bird, and it's well this poor child has me—the brave Plon—to protect her."

"Come, come, M. Plon—listen to reason. I'm the husband of Madame Didier."

"The husband of Madame Didier? What, when she hasn't got one!" cried the other, now fairly enraged.

"Nevertheless, you might remember Jean Didier—if only you would," said Jean imploringly, for he began to think there was yet a chance for him if he could conciliate his landlord, and he made a few steps towards him holding out his hands. But Périne screamed and Plon waved him energetically back. Finding his prisoner cowed he launched some strong invectives at him.

"You're a thief and a cut-throat, that's what you are!" he said, shivering. "Keep off, keep off! You could no more stand in Jean Didier's shoes than you could in mine, for he was a decent, peaceable young fellow, and more than that, he was shot. So you've got hold of the wrong story here, Monsieur Blacklegs, and one that won't serve you much in the violon."

"It's true, I give you my word," said Jean.

"They did their best to shoot me, but I was only wounded. Marie got me up here, and here I have been ever since."

"Was there ever such a cool hand!" cried Plon wrathfully. "And you absolutely think to persuade me of this when not a soul comes in and out of this house without my knowing. A pretty tale!"

Jean muttered "Blockhead!" under his breath. Aloud he said, "But—M. Plon—am I not here now?"

"No, you are not!" Plon retorted,—"or if you are, you shall soon be out of it again. Police! Help, help!"

"If only Marie were here!" groaned Jean. "M. Plon, I implore you to have pity! wait until my wife arrives; you will believe her if you can't believe your own eyes. Lock me into the room, do whatever you like—only wait!"

If M. Plon had indeed had sufficient calmness to contemplate the figure before him, it is probable that in spite of alteration he would have found something to recognise. But he was in a state of perturbed excitement which altogether confused his judgment, and only inclined him to refuse all his prisoner's suggestions. He therefore set himself more vigorously than ever to bawl for help, and Périne seconded him with all her might. The next moment Jean went back to the table, seated himself upon it and crossed his arms. He had recognised Marie's step.

She came into the room pale as death, and even as she came, hesitated, and held up her hand, as if she would have prevented a man who was with her from following. But seeing that she was too late, and that Jean was already discovered, she rushed into his arms, crying out:

"What has happened?"

M. Plon took up the parable, quite regardless of her action.

"What has happened, Madame Didier? There is no saying what might not have happened if I had not been on the spot. Here is a rascally, black-guardly, good-for-nothing!" and as he uttered these bold invectives, he advanced and shook his fist in Jean's face. "You see him, M. le Commissaire, you behold what a villain, what a desperate villain he looks? Listen, then, I hear screams, I meet this poor imbecile flying out in terror, I rush—I seize—I overpower—I make him my prisoner—"

At this point the police officer interposed a question:

"You used force, M. Plon?"

"I used—but certainly—moral force. He had made his way into this room through the window, Monsieur—Monsieur—?"

"Leblanc, at your service," said the commissioner carelessly. "Did you say through the window? That seems scarcely probable."

But Plon was positive there was no other way by which he could have entered unseen by him. And now he would give M. le Commissaire a dozen guesses to find out what this rascal had the villainy to pretend. To look at him, would any one suppose now that he could be the husband of madame?

"Apparently," said the other, glancing at them, "Madame herself is not averse from that opinion."

"Her husband—hee, hee!" said M. Plon, getting red. "Poor Jean, who was shot in émeute three years ago! See there, monsieur, it is ridiculous! If any one should know anything about those times, it is I. I was myself on the very point of becoming a martyr for my country; and as for Jean Didier, whether rightly or wrongly, he was shot, and there was an end of him. To pretend that he turns up three years later...."

Marie was crying, and M. Plon thought his eloquence had provoked her tears, but she put aside his hand, walked to the commissioner, and dropped on her knees before him.

"Monsieur, if you have a wife—"

"I have not," said the man roughly.

"But your mother! If her son—"

"I have my duty, that is enough," he said in the same tone, "Get up, Madame Didier, and let me know the truth of all this matter. This explains your unwillingness that I should return with you. Who's the man?"

"My husband, monsieur," sobbed Marie, springing up and putting her hand in Jean's.

"How came he here?"

"Monsieur, he escaped and crawled here."

"And how has he been supported?"

"By me," said the wife simply.

Plon had recoiled during this explanation, and gazed helplessly from one to the other.

"Go on," said Leblanc, taking out a note-book.

"He has not been out of this room for three years—three years! That is a long time for a man to be shut up," pleaded Marie, with her heart in her eyes. "And, M. le Commissaire, you must understand it was all a mistake. He tried to stop them, but they dragged him along, the Communists, and then one of them turns round and denounces him. There are very wicked people in the world, M. le Commissaire."

"His name?"

Jean answered for her:

"The name of that man was Fort."

Leblanc turned the pages of his note-book more quickly." Dumont—Court—ah, here it is, 'Jean Didier, glazier, with insurgents; pointed out as Communist by one Fort; executed on spot.' Is that correct?"

"He was innocent," said Marie, nervously twisting her fingers.

"But am I to understand that you deny his identity?" said the officer, turning sharply on Plon. "Speak up, man!"

M. Plon looked round, bewildered. "How could he have got into the house?"

"Never mind that. What we want is 'yes' or 'no' Is it Jean Didier? Come close and see for yourself."

"It is like him," said the landlord, examining him from head to foot, "certainly it is like him; I could almost believe it was he, only—how could he have got into the house?"

"As to that—where there's a woman—" said Leblanc, turning away. They were all watching him, except Périne, who was sobbing stormily on the wooden stool, and he said shortly, "There is something more in my note-book."

"More!" repeated Jean with alarm.

"Would you rather not have it?"

Marie, who had not taken her eyes from him, advanced with her hands pressed upon her heart.

"Courage, my friend," she said breathlessly. "Yes, M. le Commissaire, we will hear."

It had struck her that he was smiling.

He began to read in his sing-song voice, "Fort, convicted of forgery, died last month in the Grande Roquette. Before his death he confessed his denunciation of Jean Didier to have been false."

Jean Didier's wife turned round, opened her arms and fell upon her husband's neck, speechless.

So this was the end of that affair. As for No. 7639, which had brought Leblanc in pursuit of Périne, it did not turn out so romantically as might have been desired, having nothing to do with the great robbery of the Rue Vivienne, which remains a mystery—to most people—to this day. But oddly enough, it set the police on the track of a smaller crime; a certain reward was handed over to the Didiers for the use of the poor girl, and no one will deny that it was her unconscious instrumentality which brought their change of fortune. Jean is almost always kind to her, but Marie treats her with a sort of reverence.

You may see them sometimes, of a summer evening, walking along the quays. The great river sweeps slowly down, the busy lights which flit about the houses or point the span of the bridges with golden dots, fling long reflections on its surface. Overhead, more peaceful lights are shining. All about us is the rush of tumult and change, men drifting here and there, struggling, weeping, jesting, passing away; but over all God watches, and His world goes on.

FRANCES MARY PEARD

GONERIL

A STORY IN FOUR CHAPTERSCHAPTER 1THE TWO OLD LADIES

On one of the pleasant hills round Florence, a little beyond Camerata, there stands a house, so small that an Englishman would probably take it for a lodge of the great villa behind, whose garden trees at sunset cast their shadow over the cottage and its terrace on to the steep white road. But any of the country people could tell him that this, too, is Casa Signorile, spite of its smallness. It stands somewhat high above the road, a square, white house with a projecting roof, and with four green-shuttered windows overlooking the gay but narrow terrace. The beds under the windows would have fulfilled the fancy of that French poet who desired that in his garden one might, in gathering a nosegay, cull a salad, for they boasted little else than sweet basil, small and white, and some tall grey rosemary bushes. Nearer to the door an unusually large oleander faced a strong and sturdy magnolia-tree, and these, with their profusion of red and white sweetness, made amends for the dearth of garden flowers. At either end of the terrace flourished a thicket of gum-cistus, syringa, stephanotis, and geranium bushes, and the wall itself, dropping sheer down to the road, was bordered with the customary Florentine hedge of China roses and irises, now out of bloom. Great terra-cotta flower-pots, covered with devices, were placed at intervals along the wall; as it was summer, the oranges and lemons, full of wonderfully sweet white blossoms and young green fruit, were set there in the sun to ripen.

It was the 17th of June. Although it was after four o'clock, the olives on the steep hill that went down to Florence looked blindingly white, shadeless, and sharp. The air trembled round the bright green cypresses behind the house. The roof steamed. All the windows were shut, all the jalousies shut, yet it was so hot that no one could stir within. The maid slept in the kitchen; the two elderly mistresses of the house dozed upon their beds. Not a movement; not a sound.

Gradually, along the steep road from Camerata there came a roll of distant carriage-wheels. The sound came nearer and nearer, till one could see the carriage, and see the driver leading the tired, thin, cab-horse, his bones starting under the shaggy hide. Inside the carriage reclined a handsome middle-aged lady, with a stern profile turned towards the road; a young girl in pale pink cotton and a broad hat trudged up the hill at the side.