marquise?" Madame was the one and only subject Lemois ever seemed to
approach with any degree of hesitancy. My objective point was, of
course, Mignon; but I had opened madame's gate, hoping for a short cut.
"Ah!--madame is quite different," he replied with sudden gravity. "All
the rules are broken in the case of a woman of fashion and of rank and
of very great wealth. These people do not live for themselves--they are
part of the State. But I will tell you one thing, Monsieur High-Muck,
though you may not believe it, and that is that Madame la Marquise de la
Caux was never so contented as she is at the present moment. She is free
now to do as she pleases. Did you hear what Monsieur Le Blanc said last
night about the way the work is being pressed? The old marquis would
have been a year deciding on a plan; madame will have that villa on its
legs and as good as new in a month. You know, of course, that she is
coming down this afternoon?"
I knew nothing of the kind, and told him so.
"Yes; she sent me word last night by a mysterious messenger, who left
the note and disappeared before I could see him--Leà brought it to me.
You see, madame is most anxious about her flowers for next year, and
this afternoon I am going with her to a nursery and to a great garden
overlooking the market-place to help her pick them out." Here he
caressed his pet again. "No, Monsieur Coco, you will not be allowed
down here in the court where your pretty white feathers and your
unblemished morals might be tarnished by the dreadful people all about.
You shall go up on your perch; it is much better"--and with a
deprecatory wave of his hand he strolled up the court-yard, Coco still
nibbling his cheek with his horny black beak, the old man crooning a
little love song as he walked.
[Illustration: "Just think, monsieur, what does go on below Coco in the
season"]
I rose from my chair and began bawling out the good news of madame's
expected visit to the occupants of the several windows, the effect being
almost as startling as had been Mignon's song.
Instantly plans were cried down at me for her entertainment. Of course
she must stay to dinner, our last one for the season! This was carried
with a whoop. There must be, too, some kind of a special ceremony when
the invitation was delivered. We must greet her at the door--all of us
drawn up in a row, with Herbert stepping out of the ranks, saluting like
a drum-major, and requesting the "distinguished honor"--and the rest of
it: that, too, was carried unanimously. Whatever her gardening costume,
it would make no difference, and no excuse on this score would receive
a moment's consideration. Madame even in a fisherman's tarpaulins would
be welcome--provided only that she was really inside of them.
With the whirl of her motor into the court-yard at dusk, and the
breathing of its last wheeze in front of the Marmouset, the plump little
woman sprang from her car muffled to her dimpled chin in a long
waterproof, her two brown, squirrel eyes laughing behind her goggles.
Instantly the importuning began, everybody crowding about her.
Up went her hands.
"No--please don't say a word and, whatever you do, don't invite me to
stay to dinner, because I'm not going to; and that is my last word, and
nothing will change my mind. Oh!--it is too banal--and you've spoiled
everything. I didn't think I'd see anybody. Why are you not all in your
rooms? Oh!--I am ready to cry with it all!"
"But we can't think of your leaving us," I begged, wondering what had
disturbed her, but determined she should not go until we had found out.
"Pierre has been at work all the morning and we----"
"No--it is I who have been working all the morning, digging in my
garden, getting ready for the winter, and I am tired out, and so I will
go back to my little bed in my dear garage and have my dinner alone."
Here Herbert broke loose. "But, madame, you _must_ dine with us; we have
been counting on it." He had set his heart on another evening with the
extraordinary woman and did not mean to be disappointed.
"But, my dear Monsieur Herbert, you see, I----"
"And you really mean that you won't stay?" groaned Louis, his face
expressive of the deepest despair.
"Stop!--stop!--I tell you, and hear me through. Oh!--you dreadful men!
Just see what you have done: I had such a pretty little plan of my
own--I've been thinking of it for days. I said to myself this morning:
I'll go to the Inn after I have finished with Lemois--about six
o'clock--when it is getting dark--quite too dark for a lady to be even
poking about alone. They will all be out walking or dressing for dinner,
and I'll slip into the darling Marmouset, just to warm myself a little,
if there should be a fire, and then they will come in and find me and
be so surprised, and before any one of them can say a word I will shout
out that I have come to dinner! And now you've ruined everything, and I
must say, 'Thank you, kind gentlemen'--like any other poor
parishioner--and eat my bowl of bread and milk in the corner. Was there
ever _anything_ so banal?--Oh!--I'm heartbroken over it all. No; don't
say another word--please, papa, I'll be a good girl. So help me off with
my wraps, dear Monsieur Louis. No; wait until I get inside--you see,
I've been gardening all day, and when one does gardening----"
The two were inside the Marmouset now, the others following, the
laughter increasing as Louis led her to the hearth, where a fire had
just been kindled. There he proceeded to unbutton her fur-lined
motor-cloak--the laughter changing to shouts of delight when freeing
herself from its folds. She stood before us a veritable Lebrun portrait,
in a short black-velvet gown with wide fichu of Venetian lace rolled
back from her plump shoulders, her throat circled with a string of tiny
jewels from which drooped a pear-shaped pearl big as a pecan-nut and
worth a king's ransom.
"There!" she cried, her brown eyes dancing, her face aglow with her
whirl through the crisp air. "Am I not too lovely, and is not my
gardening costume perfect? You see, I am always careful to do my digging
in black velvet and lace," and a low gurgling sound like the cooing of
doves followed by a burst of uncontrollable laughter filled the room.
If on her other visits she had captured us all by the charm of her
personality, she drew the bond the tighter now. Then she had been the
thorough woman of the world, adapting herself with infinite tact to new
surroundings, contributing her share to the general merriment--one of
us, so to speak; to-night she was the elder sister. She talked much to
Herbert about his new statue and what he expected to make of it. He must
not, she urged, concern himself alone with artistic values or the honors
they would bring. He had gone beyond all these; his was a higher
mission--one to bring the human side of the African savage to light and
so help to overturn the prejudice of centuries, and nothing must swerve
him from what she considered his lofty purpose--and there must be no
weak repetition of his theme. Each new note he sounded must be stronger
than the last.
She displayed the same fine insight when, dinner over, she talked to
Louis of his out-door work--especially the whirl and slide of his water.
"You will forgive a woman, Monsieur Louis, who is old enough to be your
great-grandmother, when she tells you that, fine as your pictures
are--and I know of no painter of our time who paints water as
well--there are some things in the out of doors which I am sure you will
yet put into your canvases. I am a fisherman myself, and have thrashed
many of the brooks you have painted, and there is nothing I love so much
as to peer down into the holes where the little fellows live--way down
among the pebbles and the brown moss and green of the water-plants.
Can't we get this--or do I expect the impossible? But if it could be
done--if the bottom as well as the surface of the water could be
given--would we not uncover a fresh hiding-place of nature, and would
not you--you, Monsieur Louis--be doing the world that much greater
service?--the pleasure being more ours than yours--your reward being the
giving of that pleasure to us. I hope you will all forgive me, but it
has been such an inspiration to meet you all. I get so smothered by the
commonplace that sometimes I gasp for breath, and then I find some oasis
like this and I open wide my soul and drink my fill.
"But enough of all this. Let us have something more amusing. Monsieur
Brierley, won't you go to the spinet and--" Here she sprang from her
chair. "Oh, I forgot all about it, and I put it in my pocket on purpose.
Please some one look in my cloak for a roll of music; none of you I know
have heard it before. It is an old song of Provence that will revive for
you all your memories of the place. Thank you, Monsieur Brierley, and
now lift the lid and I will sing it for you." And then there poured from
her lips a voice so full and rich, with notes so liquid and sympathetic,
that we stood around her in wonder doubting our ears.
Never had we found her so charming nor so bewitching, nor so full of
enchanting surprises.
So uncontrollable were her spirits, always rising to higher flights,
that I began at last to suspect that something outside of the
inspiration of our ready response to her every play of fancy and wit was
accountable for her bewildering mood.
The solution came when the coffee was served and fresh candles lighted
and Leà and Mignon, with a curtsy to the table and a gentle, furtive
good-night to madame, had left the room. Then, quite as if their
departure had started another train of thought, she turned and faced our
landlord.
"What a dear old woman is Leà, Lemois," she began in casual tones, "and
what good care she takes of that pretty child; she is mother and sister
and guardian to her. But she cannot be everything. There is always some
other yearning in a young girl's heart which no woman can satisfy. You
know that as well as I do. And this is why you are going to give Mignon
to young Gaston. Is it not true?" she added in dissembling tones.
Lemois moved uneasily in his chair. The question had come so
unexpectedly, and was so direct, that for a moment he lost his poise.
His own attitude, he supposed, had been made quite clear the night of
the rescue, when he had denounced Gaston and forbidden Mignon to see
him. Yet his manner was grave enough as he answered:
"Madame has so many things to occupy her mind, and so many people to
help, why should she trouble herself with those of my maid? Mignon is
very happy here, and has everything she wants, and she will continue to
have them as long as she is alive."
"Then I see it is not true, and that you intend breaking her heart; and
now will you please tell us why?" She looked at him and waited. There
was a new ring--one of command--in her voice. I understood now as I
listened why it took so short a time for her to rebuild the villa.
"Is madame the girl's guardian that she wishes to know?" asked Lemois.
The words came with infinite courtesy, madame being the only woman of
whom he stood in awe, but there was an undertone of opposition which, if
aggravated, would, I felt sure, end in the old man's abrupt departure
from the room.
I tried to relieve the situation by saying how happy not only Mignon but
any one of us would be with so brilliant an advocate as madame pleading
for our happiness, but she waved me aside with:
"No--please don't. I want dear Lemois to answer. It was one of my
reasons for coming to-night, and he must tell me. He is so kind and
considerate, and he is always so sorry for anything that suffers. He
loves flowers and birds and animals, and music and pictures and all
beautiful things, and yet he is worse than one of the cannibals that
Monsieur Herbert tells us about. They eat their young girls and have
done with them--Lemois kills his by slow torture--and so I ask you
again, dear Lemois--_why_?"
Everybody sat up straight. How would Lemois take it? His fingers began
to work, and the corners of his mouth straightened. A sudden flush
crossed his habitually pale face. We were sure now of an outbreak: what
would happen then none of us dared think.
"Madame la marquise," he began slowly--too slowly for anything but
ill-suppressed feeling--"there is no one that I know for whom I have a
higher respect; you must yourself have seen that in the many years I
have known you. You are a very good and a very noble woman; all your
life people have loved you--they still love you. It is one of your many
gifts--one you should be thankful for. Some of us do not win this
affection. You are, if you will permit me to say it, never lonely nor
alone, except by your own choosing. Some of us cannot claim that--I for
one. Do you not now understand?" He was still boiling inside, but the
patience of the trained landlord and the innate breeding of the man had
triumphed. And then, again, it would be a rash Frenchman of his class
who would defy a woman of her exalted rank.
Over her face crept a pleased look--as if she held some trump card up
her sleeve--and one of her cooing, bubbling laughs escaped her lips.
"You are not telling me the truth, you dear Lemois. I am not in love
with Gaston, the fisherman, nor are you with our pretty Mignon. Neither
you nor I have anything to do with it. Here are two young people whose
happiness is trembling in the balance. You hold the scales--that is, you
claim to, although the girl is neither your child nor your ward and
could marry without your consent, and would if she did not love you for
yourself and for all you have done for her. Answer me now--do you object
because Gaston is a fisherman?"
Whether her knowledge of Lemois' legal rights--and she had stated them
correctly--softened him, or whether he saw a loophole for himself, was
not apparent, but the answer came with a certain surrender.
"Yes. It is a dangerous life. You have only to live here, as I have
done, to count the women who bid their men good-by and watch in the
gray dawn for the boat that never comes back--Mignon's elder brothers in
one of them. I do not want her to go through that agony--she is young
yet--some one else will come. The first love is not always the
last--except in the case of madame"--and he smiled in strange fashion.
The bomb was still within reach of his hand, but the fuse had gone out.
"Then it isn't Gaston himself?" she demanded with unflinching gaze.
"No--he is an honest lad; good to his mother; industrious--a brave
fellow. He has, too, so I hear, a place in the market--one of the
stalls--so he is getting on, and will soon be one of our best citizens."
He would talk all night about Gaston, and pleasantly, if she wished.
"Well, if he were a notary? Would that be different?" Her soft brown
eyes were hardly visible between their lids, but they were burning with
an intense light.
"Yes, it might be." Same air of nonchalance--anything to please the
delightful woman.
"Or a chemist?"--just a slit between the lids now, with little flashes
along the edges.
"Or a chemist," intoned Lemois.
"Or a head gardener, perhaps?" Both eyes tight shut under the fluffy
gray hair, an intense expression on her face.
"Why not say a minister of state, madame?" laughed Lemois.
"No--no--don't you dare run away like that. Stand to your guns,
monsieur. If he were a head gardener, then what?"
Lemois rose from his chair, laid his hand on his shirt-front, and bowed
impressively. He was evidently determined to humor her passing whim.
"If he were a head gardener I would not have the slightest objection,
madame."
She sprang to her feet and began clapping her plump hands, her laughter
filling the room.
"Oh!--I am so happy! You heard what he said--all of you. You, Monsieur
Herbert--and you--and you"--pointing to each member of our group. "If he
were a head gardener! Oh, was there ever such luck! And do you listen
too, you magnificent Lemois! Gaston is a head gardener; has been a head
gardener for days; every one of the plants you bought for me to-day he
will put into the ground with his own hands. His mother will have the
stall I bought in the fish market, and he and Mignon are to live in the
new garage, and he is to have charge of the villa grounds, and she is
to manage the dairy and the linen and look after the chickens and the
ducks. And the wedding is to take place just as soon as you give your
consent; and if you don't consent, it will take place anyway, for I am
to be godmother and she is to have a dot and all the furniture they want
out of what was saved from my house, and that's all there is to
it--except that both of them know all about it, for I sent Gaston down
here last night with a note for you, and he told Mignon, and it's all
settled--now what do you say?"
A shout greeted her last words, and the whole room broke spontaneously
into a clapping of hands, Louis, as was his invariable custom whenever
excuse offered, on his feet, glass in hand, proposing the health of that
most adorable of all women of her own or any other time, past, present,
or future--at which the dear, penguin-shaped lady in black velvet and
lace raised her dainty white palms in holy horror, protesting that it
was Monsieur Lemois whose health must be drunk, as without him nothing
could have been done, the clear tones of her voice rising like a bird's
song above the others as she sprang forward, grasped Lemois' hand and
lifted him to his feet, the whole room once more applauding.
Yes, it was a great moment! Mignon's happiness was very dear to us, but
that which captured us completely was the daring and cleverness of the
little woman who had worked for it, and who was so joyous over her
success and so childishly enthusiastic at the outcome.
Lemois, unable to stem the flood of rejoicing, seemed to have
surrendered and given up the fight, complimenting the marquise upon her
diplomacy, and the way in which she had entirely outgeneralled an old
fellow who was not up to the wiles of the world. "Such a mean advantage,
madame, to take of a poor old man," he continued, bowing low, a curious,
unreadable expression crossing his face. "I am, as you know, but clay in
your hands, as are all the others who are honored by your acquaintance.
But now that I am tied to your chariot wheels, I must of course take
part in your triumphal procession; so permit me to make a few
suggestions."
The marquise laughed gently, but with a puzzled look in her eyes. She
was not sure what he was driving at, but she did not interrupt him.
"We will have an old-time wedding," he continued gayly, with a
comprehensive wave of his hand as if he were arranging the stage
setting--"something quite in keeping with the general sentiment; for
certain it is that not since the days when fair ladies let themselves
down from castle walls into the arms of their plumed knights, only to
dash away into space on milk-white steeds, will there be anything quite
so romantic as this child-wedding!"
"And so you mean to have a rope ladder, do you, and let my----"
"Oh, no, madame la marquise," he interrupted--"nothing so ordinary!
We"--here he began rubbing his hands together quite as if he was
ordering a dinner for an epicure--"we will have a revival of all the old
customs just as they were in this very place. Our bride will join her
lord in a cabriolet, and our groom will come on horseback--all fishermen
ride, you know--and so will the other fishermen and maids--each gallant
with a fair lady seated behind him on the crupper, her arms about his
waist. Then we will have trumpeters and a garter man----"
"A what!" She was still at sea as to his meaning, although she had not
missed the tone of irony in his voice.
"A man, madame, whose duty is to secure one of the bride's garters. Oh,
you need not start--that is quite simply arranged. The old-time brides
always carried an extra pair to save themselves embarrassment. The one
for the garter-man will be trimmed with ribbons which he will cut off
and distribute to the other would-be brides, who will keep them in their
prayer-books."
"Leà, for instance," chimed in Louis, winking at Herbert.
"Leà, for instance, my dear Monsieur Louis. I know of no better mate for
a man--and it is a pity you are too young."
The laugh was on Louis this time, but the old man kept straight on, his
subtle irony growing more pointed as he continued: "And then, madame,
when it is all over and the couple retire for the night--and of course
we will give them the best room in our house, they being most
distinguished personages--none other than Monsieur Gaston Duprè, Lord of
the Lobster Pot, Duke of Buezval, and Grand Marshal of the Deep Sea, and
Mademoiselle Mignon, Princess of----"
The marquise drew herself up to her full height. "Stop your nonsense,
Lemois. I won't let you say another word; you shan't ridicule my young
people. Stop it, I say!"
"Oh, but wait, madame--please hear me out--I have not finished. These
pewter dishes must also come into service"--and he caught up the two
bowls from the tops of the great andirons behind him--"these we will
fill with spices steeped in mulled wine, which, as I tried to say, we
will send to their Royal Highnesses' bedroom--after they are tucked away
in----"
"No!--no!--we will do nothing of the kind; everything shall be just the
other way. There will be no horses, no cabriolet, no trumpeters, no
garters except the ones the dear child will wear, and no mulled wine. We
will all go on foot, and the only music will be the organ in the old
church, and the breakfast will be here, in our beloved Marmouset, and
the punch will be mixed by Monsieur Brierley in the Ming bowl I brought,
and Monsieur Louis will serve it, and then they will both go to their
own home and sleep in their own bed. So there! Not another word, for it
is all settled and finished"--and one of her rippling, joyous laughs--a
whole dove-cote mingled with any number of silver bells--quivered
through the room.
Lemois joined in the merriment, shrugging his inscrutable shoulders,
repeating that he, of course, was only a captive, and must therefore do
as he was bid, a situation which, he added with another low bow, had its
good side since so charming a woman as madame held his chain.
And yet despite his gayety there was under it all a certain reserve
which, although lost on the others, convinced me that the old man had
not, by any means, made up his mind as to what he would do. While Mignon
was not his legal ward, his care of her all these years must count for
something. Madame, of course, was a difficult person to make war upon
once she had set her heart on a thing--and she certainly had on this
marriage, amazing as it was to him--and yet there was still the girl's
future to be considered, and with it his own. All this was in his eyes
as I watched him resuming his place by the fire after some of the
excitement had begun to quiet down.
But none of this--even if she, too, had studied him as I had--would have
made any impression on Mignon's champion. She was accustomed to being
obeyed--the gang of mechanics who had under her directions performed two
days' work in one had found that out. And then, again, her whole purpose
in life was to befriend especially those girls who, having no one to
stand by them, become broken down by opposition and so marry where their
hearts seldom lead. How many had she taken under her wing--how many more
would she protect as long as she lived!