coat--packed my knapsack, laid the basin within striking distance of the
pitcher, placed the candle and matches close to my hand, stretched
myself on the bed, and, strange as it may seem to you, again dropped off
to sleep; only to find myself again sitting bolt upright in bed, my
heart pounding away like a trip-hammer, my ears wide open.
"More footsteps!--this time in the corridor. I slid out of bed, crept to
the door, and pulled myself together. When the pitcher and basin came
together with a clink, he would get it behind the ear--all at
once--ker-chunk! He was so close now that I heard his fingers feeling
around in the dark for the knob. A steady, gentle push with his hand
near the key-hole, and he could then steal in without waking me. Whether
he smelt me or not I do not know, for I made no sound--not even with my
breath--but he came to a dead halt, backed away, rose to his feet and
tiptoed down the corridor.
"That settled all sleep for the night, and it was just as well, for the
day was breaking--first the gray, pallid light, then the yellow, and
then the rose tint. Nothing like a sunrise to put a fellow's ghosts to
flight. So I picked up the basin and pitcher, unhooked my towel, had a
wash, finished dressing, leaned out of the window for a while watching
the rising sun warm up the little snow peaks one after another, and,
shouldering my trap, started along the corridor and so on downstairs.
"The pot-bellied lump of a scoundrel was waiting for me in the square
room. He gave me the same keen, scrutinizing look with which he had
welcomed me the night before. This time it began with my hair and ended
at my boots, which were still muddy from the tramp of the previous
evening.
"'I am sorry, your Excellency,' he said, 'but if you had left your shoes
outside your door I could have polished them; I was afraid of disturbing
you or I should have hunted for them inside.'"
Louis, as he finished, settled his big shoulders back in the chair until
it creaked with his weight, and ran his eye around the table waiting for
the explosion which he knew would follow. All we could do was to stare
helplessly in his face. Le Blanc, who hadn't drawn a full breath since
the painter began, found his voice first.
"And he didn't intend cutting your throat?" he roared indignantly.
"No, of course not--I never said he did. I said I was scared blue, and I
was--real indigo. Oh!--an awful night--hardly got an hour's sleep."
"But what about the fellow on the shed, and his footsteps, and the
shadow of the hand?" demanded Brierley, wholly disappointed at the
outcome of the yarn.
"There was no fellow, Brierley, and no footsteps." This came in mild,
gentle tones, as if the hunter's credulity were something surprising.
"I thought you understood. It was the scraping of the dead tree against
the roof of the shed that made the creaking noise; the hand was the
shadow cast by the end of a bunched-up branch swaying in the wind. The
same thing occurred the next night and on every moonlight night for a
week after--as long as I stayed."
"And what became of the soap-suddy brigand with the rosaries?" inquired
The Engineer calmly, looking at Louis over the bowl of his pipe, a queer
smile playing around his lips.
"Oh, a ripping good fellow," returned Louis in the same innocent,
childlike tone--"a real comfort; best in the village outside the
landlord and his wife, with whom I stayed two weeks. Brought me my
luncheon every day and crawled up a breakneck hill to do it, and then
kept on two miles to mail my letters."
"Well, but Louis," I exclaimed, "what a mean, thin, fake of a yarn; no
point, no plot--no nothing but a string of----"
"Yes, High-Muck, quite true--no plot, no nothing; but it is as good as
your bogus ghosts and shivering bishops. And then I always had my doubts
about that bishop, High-Muck. I've heard you tell that story before, and
it has always struck me as highly improper. I don't wonder the girl was
scared to death and skipped the next morning. And the gay old bishop!
Felt cold, did he?" and Louis threw back his head and laughed until the
tears rolled down his cheeks.
XII
WHY MIGNON WENT TO MARKET
It is market day at Dives. This means that it is Saturday. On Friday the
market is at Cabourg, on Wednesday at Buezval, and on the other days at
the several small towns within a radius of twenty miles.
It means, too, that the street fronting the Inn is blocked up with a
line of carts, little and big, their shafts in the gutter, the horses
eating from troughs tied to the hind axle; that another line stretches
its length along the narrow street on the kitchen side of the Inn which
leads to the quaint Norman church, squeezing itself through a yet
narrower street into a small open square, where it comes bump up against
a huge hulk of a building, choked up on these market days with piles of
vegetables, crates of chickens, boxes of apples, unruly pigs alive and
squealing; patient, tired, little calves; geese, ducks--all squawking;
chrysanthemums in pots spread out on the sidewalk; old brass, old iron;
everything that goes to supply the needs of the white-capped women and
wide-hatted men who crowd every square foot of standing room.
Market day means, too, that Pierre is unusually busy; and so is Lemois,
and so are Leà and our little Mignon. Long before any one of us were out
of bed this morning, the court-yard was crowded with big red-faced
Norman farmers and their fat wives, all talking at once over their
coffee, each with half a glass of Calvados (Norman apple-jack) dumped
into their cups. At noon, the market over, they were back again for
their midday breakfast, and Pierre, who had been working since daylight
without a mouthful to eat, then placed on a big table in one of the open
kiosks a huge earthen crock, sizzling-hot, filled with tripe, bits of
pork, and chicken--the whole seasoned with onions and giving out a most
seductive and inviting smell when its earthenware cover was lifted.
There were great loaves of brown bread, too, which Lemois himself cut
and served to the guests, besides cold pork in slices and cabbage
chopped into shreds. When each plate was full, and the knives and forks
had begun to rattle, he went indoors for his most precious heirloom--the
square cut-glass decanter with its stopper made of silver buttons cut
from a peasant's jacket and soldered together--and after brimming each
glass, seated himself and took his meal with the others, bowing them out
when breakfast was over--hat in hand--as if they were ambassadors of a
foreign court--gentleman and peasant, as he is--while they, full to
their eyelids, stumbled up into their several carts, their women
climbing in after.
And a great day it was for an out-door meal or for anything else one's
soul longed for--and they have these days in Normandy in October, when
the fire is out in the Marmouset, the air a caress, and a hunger for the
vanished summer comes over you. So soothing was the touch of the autumn
air, and so lovely the tones of the autumn sky, that Louis hauled out a
sketch-box from beneath a pile of canvases, and tucking one of them
under his arm, disappeared through the big gate in the direction of the
old church. Brierley took down his gun, and, calling Peter, strolled out
of the court-yard promising to be back at luncheon, while Herbert, who
had risen at dawn and walked to Houlgate to bid The Engineer good-by,
dragged out an easy-chair from the "Gallerie," backed it up against the
statue of the Great Louis, and under pretence of resting his legs,
buried himself in a book, the warm sunshine full on the page.
I, being left to my own devices, waited until the last cart with its
well-fed load of Norman farmers had turned the corner of the Inn and
quiet reigned again; and remembering that I was host, sought out our
landlord and put the question squarely as to what objections, if any,
he, the lord of the manor, had to our lunching out of doors too, and at
the same table on which Pierre had placed the big crock and its
attendant trimmings.
"Of course, my dear Monsieur High-Muck, you shall all lunch in the
court, but the menu shall be better adapted to your more gentle
appetites than the one prepared for our departed guests. I am at this
moment paying the penalty for my share of the indigestible mess--but
then I could not hurt their feelings by refusing--and so I have a queer
feeling here"--and he ironed his waistcoat with the flat of his hand,
his eyes upraised as if in pain. "But let me think--what shall it be
to-day? I have a fish which Mignon, who has just gone to the market,
will bring back, because I could not go myself nor spare Leà. Those
big-eating people came so early and stayed so late. After the fish we
will have Poulet Vallèe D'auge, with stewed celery, and at last a Pêche
Flambée--and it will be the last time, for the late peaches are about
over. And now about the wine--will you pick it out or shall I? Ah!--I
remember--only yesterday I found a few bottles of Moncontour Vouvray at
the bottom of a shelf in my old wine-cellar. It will bring fresh courage
to your hearts. When it does not do that, and you have only dull despair
or thick headaches, it should be poured out on the ground"--having
delivered which homily, the old man, with his eye on Coco asleep on his
perch, sauntered slowly up the court in the direction of the
wine-cellar, from which he emerged a few minutes later bearing two
dust-encrusted bottles topped with yellow wax--a distinguishing mark
which he himself had placed there some twenty years before and had
forgotten.
So while Herbert read on, only looking up now and then from his book,
Leà and I set the table, stripping it of its rough, heavy dishes,
swabbing it off with a clean, water-soaked towel--I did the swabbing and
Leà held the basin--bringing from the Marmouset our linen and china,
then dragging up the big wooden chairs, which were rain-proof and never
housed.
We missed Mignon, of course. Buying a fish, and the market but half a
dozen blocks away, should not require a whole hour for its completion,
especially since she had been told to hurry--more especially still,
since Pierre's pot was on the boil awaiting its arrival, Louis and
Brierley having returned hungry as bears. Indeed I had already started
in to ask Lemois the plump question as to what detained our Bunch of
Roses, when Leà's thin, sharp, fingers clutched my coat-sleeve, her eyes
on Lemois. What she meant I dared not ask, but there was no doubt in my
mind that it had to do with the love affair in which every man of us was
mixed up as coconspirator--a conclusion which was instantly confirmed
when I looked into her shrivelled face and caught the joyous, lantern
flare behind her eyes.
Waiting until we were out of hearing, Lemois having gone to the kitchen,
she answered with a shake of her old head:
"Mignon loiters because Gaston is well again."
"But he has never been ill. That crack on his head did him a lot of
good--hurt Monsieur Lemois, I fancy, more than it did Gaston--set him to
thinking--maybe now it will come out all right."
"No; it only made him the more obstinate; he has forbidden the boy the
place."
"And is that why you are so happy?"
The shrewd, kindly eyes of the old woman looked into mine and then a
sudden smile flung a myriad of wrinkles across her face.
"I am happy, monsieur," she whispered as I followed her around the table
with the box of knives and forks, "because things are getting brighter.
Gaston has a stall now in the market where he can sell his fish himself,
and where Mignon can see him once in a while. She is with him now. You
know the hucksters paid him what they pleased, and sometimes, even when
Gaston's catch was big, he made only a few francs some mornings. And the
mother and he were obliged to take what they could get, for you cannot
wait with fish when the weather is hot. To buy the stall and pay for it
all at once was what troubled them, so it is a great day for
Gaston--Monsieur Gaston Duprè now"--and her eyes twinkled. "Even if
Monsieur Lemois holds out--and he may, after all--then there may be
another way. Is it not so? Ah, we will see! She is very happy now. Only
I am getting nervous; she stays so long I am afraid that Monsieur Lemois
may find out," and she shot an anxious glance up the garden.
"What did the stall cost, Leà?" I asked, flattening the knives beside
the plates as I talked, my eye on the kitchen door so Lemois should not
surprise us.
"Oh, a great sum--one hundred and ten francs. Two knives here, if you
please, monsieur."
"Well, where did it come from--their savings?" obeying her directions as
I spoke.
"No--not his money nor his mother's; she could not spare so much. She
must be buried some time, and there must always be money enough for
that. All Gaston knows is that the chief of the market came to his house
and left the receipt with the permit. It is for a year."
"Well--somebody must have paid. Who was it?" I had finished with the
knives and had begun on the forks and tablespoons.
"Yes--there was somebody, perhaps it was madame la marquise?" and she
turned quickly and looked into my eyes, an expression of shrewd inquiry
adding a new set of wrinkles to her gentle face. "Maybe you know,
monsieur?"
"No, it's all news to me. I am glad for her sake, anyhow, whoever did
it. Was it news to Mignon?"
"When?"
"Why this morning when she went to market?"
"Yes, of course it was news to her. I, myself, only knew it last night,
and I wouldn't tell her; she would have betrayed herself in her joy. So
when the market people stayed so long--and I did all I could to make
them stay"--here her small bead eyes were pinched tight in merriment--"I
said there was nothing for your dinner and we must have a fish and that
Mignon might better go for it. Watch her when she returns: her face will
tell you whether she has seen him or not. Now give me the box, monsieur,
and thank you for helping me. Listen! There she comes; I hear her
singing."
And so did the whole court-yard, and she kept on singing, her basket on
her arm, her face in full sunlight, until she espied Leà. Then down
went the fish and away she flew, throwing her arms around the dear old
woman's neck, not caring who saw her; hugging her one minute, kissing
her seamed cheeks the next, chattering like a magpie all the time, her
eyes flashing, her cheeks red as two roses.
Only when Lemois appeared in the kitchen door and bent his steps toward
us did her customary demureness return, and even then the joy in her
heart was only stifled for the moment by a fear of his having overheard
her song and of his wondering at the cause.
And if the truth be told, he did come very near finding out when
luncheon was served, and would have done so but for the fact that I
upset Le Blanc's glass of Vouvray and followed up the warning with a
punch below his fat waist-line when he began telling us how sorry he was
for being late, he having made a wide détour to avoid the market carts,
winding up with: "And oh, by the way, I met your little maid, Mignon, in
the fish-market; she was having a beautiful time with a young fisherman
who----"
It was here the dig came in.
"Ouch! What the devil, High-Muck, do you mean? Oh, I understand--yes, as
I was saying"--here he stole a glance at Lemois--"I met Mignon in the
market; she was buying a beautiful fish. I hope, Monsieur Lemois, we are
to have it for dinner. Don't bother, Leà, about the spilt wine; just get
me a fresh glass. And, Louis, do you mind letting go that crusting of
cobwebs so I can get another taste of that nosegay?" and thus the day
was saved.
We broke loose, however, when Lemois was gone, and I told the whole
story as Leà had given it, Louis, in his customary rôle of toast-master,
rising in his seat and pledging the young couple, whose health and
happiness we all drank, Brierley whistling the Wedding March to the
accompaniment of a great clatter of knives and forks on the plates.
In fact, the very air seemed so charged with uncontrollable exhilaration
that Coco, the oldest and most knowing of birds--he is sixty-five and
has seen more love-making from his perch in the dormer overlooking that
same court-yard than all the chaperones who ever lived--suddenly broke
out into screams of delight, ruffling his feathers, curling up his
celery sprout of a topknot, his eyes following Mignon, his head cocked
on one side, when she raced back and forth from Pierre's range to our
big table. Even Tito, the scrap of a black kitten, who was never three
feet away from Mignon's heels, dodged in and out of her swaying
petticoats in mad chase after her restless feet, and would not be
quieted until she stopped long enough to take him up in her arms for a
moment's cuddling.
Of none of all this, thank Heaven, did Lemois have the faintest glimmer
of a suspicion. When on her return from market he had scolded her for
being late, he had taken her silence only as proof that she thought she
deserved it. When he would have broken out on her again, suddenly
remembering that our coffee was likely to be delayed, Herbert, to whom I
had whispered my discovery--diplomat as he was--begged him to delay the
serving of it until it could be poured directly from the pot into our
cups, as the air of the court would chill it. All of which, Heaven be
thanked again, Mignon overheard, sending her flying back to the kitchen,
her eyes aglow with the happiness of a secret that filled her heart to
bursting.
When she at last appeared with the coffee-pot, so contagious was her joy
that our extended hands trembled as we held the tiny cups beneath her
fingers. Somehow we had caught a little of her thrill. And it was all
so evident and so marvellous and so inspiring that every man Jack of us,
blighted old bachelors as we were, fell to wondering whether, after all,
it would not have been better to have bent the neck to the yoke and had
a running-mate beside us than to have continued our dreary trot in
single harness.
XIII
WITH A DISSERTATION ON ROUND PEGS AND SQUARE HOLES
Work on the wrecked villa of madame la marquise was progressing with a
vim. The Engineer, called in consultation, had with a comprehensive
grasp of the situation brushed aside the architect's plan of shoring up
one end of the structure at a time; had rigged a pair of skids made from
some old abandoned timber found on the beach and with a common ship's
windlass, a heavy hawser, and a "Heave ho, my hearties!"--to which every
loose fisherman within reach lent a hand--had dragged the ruin up the
hill and landed it intact on level ground some twenty feet back from its
former site. This done--and it was accomplished in a day--the porch was
straightened and the lopsided walls forced into place. With the
exception of the collapsed chimney, the former residence of the
distinguished lady was not such a wreck as had been supposed.
Next followed the slicing off of the raw edge of the landslide, the
building of a fence, and, later on, the preparation of a new garden.
This last was to be madame's very own, and neither care nor cost was to
be considered in its making. She could sleep in a garage--she had slept
there since the catastrophe--and take her meals from the top of a barrel
(which was also true), but a garden meant the very breath of her
life--flowers she must have--flowers all the time, from the first crocus
to the last October blossoms. Marc, now her abject slave, was then at
Rouen arranging for their shipment. The daily news--such as twenty or
more men at work, the chimney half finished, the fence begun, etc.,
etc.--Le Blanc, who was constantly at the site, generally brought us at
night, his report being received with the keenest zest, for the marquise
was now counted as the most delightful of our coterie.
His very latest and most important bulletin set us all to
speculating;--the old garage--here his voice rose in intensity--was to
be moved back some fifty feet and a new wing added, with bedroom above
and a kitchen below. "A new garage!" we had all exclaimed. Who then was
to occupy it? Not madame, of course, nor her servants, for they, as
heretofore, would be quartered in the reconstructed villa. Certainly
not any of her visitors--and most assuredly not Marc!
"Take my advice and stop guessing," laughed the Frenchman; "she'll tell
you when she gets ready, and not before. And she'll have the wing
completed on time, for nothing daunts her. To want a thing done is, with
her, to have it finished. The new wing was an after-thought, and yet it
did not delay the work an hour. She'll be serving tea in that wreck next
week."
"It is because madame la marquise was born with a gift," remarked Lemois
dryly from his seat near the fire. "Her mind is constructive, and
everything madame touches must have a definite beginning and lead up to
a definite ending. Her sanity is shown in her never trying to do things
for which she is not fitted. As a musician, or a painter, or even a
sculptor, or in any occupation demanding a fine imagination, madame, it
seems to me, would have been a pathetic failure."
"How about an antiquary?" remarked Louis, blowing a ring of smoke across
the table, a quizzical smile lighting up his face.
"As an antiquary, my dear Monsieur Louis, the eminent lady would have
been a pronounced success. She is one now, for she insists on knowing
that the thing she buys is genuine, and it saves her many absurdities. I
can think of nothing in her collection that can be questioned--and I
cannot say that of my own."
"And so you don't believe that a man or a woman can make what they
please of themselves?" asked Herbert, who was always glad to hear from
Lemois.
"Not any more than I believe that tulip bulbs will grow blackberries if
I water them enough."
"It's all a question of blood," essayed Le Blanc, snipping the end from
his cigar with a gold cutter attached to his watch-chain. "Failures in
life are almost always due to a scrap of gray tissue clogging up a
gentleman's brain, which, ten chances to one, he has inherited from some
plebeian ancestor."
"Failures in life come from nothing of the sort!" blurted out Louis.
"It's just dead laziness, and of the cheapest kind. All the painters I
knew at Julien's who waited for a mood are waiting yet."
"The trouble with most unsuccessful men," volunteered Brierley, "is the
everlasting trimming up of a square peg to make it fit a round hole."
"Then drive it in and make it fit," answered Louis. "It will hug all the
tighter for the raw edges it raises."
"And if it splits the plank, Louis?" I asked.
"Let it split! A man, High-Muck, who can't make a success of his life is
better out of it, unless he's a cripple, and then he can have my
pocket-book every time. Look at Herbert!--he's forged ahead; yet he's
been so hungry sometimes he could have gnawed off the soles of his
shoes."
"Only the imagination of the out-door painter, gentlemen," answered
Herbert with a laughing nod to the table at large. "The hungry part is,
perhaps, correct, but I forget about the shoes."
"I stick to my point!" exclaimed Le Blanc, facing Herbert as he spoke.
"It's blood as well as push that makes a man a success. When he lacks
the combination he fails--that is, he does nine times out of ten, and
that percentage, of course, is too small to trust to."