our landlord listening and nodding his head whenever appeal was made to
him, but committing himself by no further speech. The ceremony, she
declared gayly--and it must be the most beautiful and brilliant of
ceremonies--would take place in the old twelfth-century church, at the
end of the street, from which the great knights of old had sallied forth
and where a new knight, one Monsieur Gaston, would follow in their
footsteps--not for war, but for love--a much better career--this, with
an additional toss of her head at the silent Lemois. There would be
flowers and perhaps music--she would see about that--but no
trumpeters--and again she looked at Lemois--and everybody from Buezval
would be invited--all the fishermen, of course, and their white-capped
mothers and sisters and aunts, and cousins for that matter--everybody
who would come; and Pierre and her own chef from Rouen would prepare
the wedding breakfast if dear Lemois would consent--and if he didn't
consent, it would be cooked anyhow, and brought in ready to be
eaten--and in this very room with every one of us present.
"And now, Monsieur Louis, please get me my cloak, and will one of you be
good enough to tell my chauffeur I am ready?--and one thing more, and
this I insist on: please don't any of you move--and, whatever you do,
don't bid me good-by. I want to carry away with me just the picture I am
looking at: Monsieur Herbert there in his chair between the two live
heads--yes, I believe it now--and Messieurs Louis and Brierley and Le
Blanc, and our delightful host, and dear tantalizing Lemois, by the
hearth--and the queer figures looking down at us through the smoke of
our cigarettes--and the glow of the candles, and the light of the lovely
fire to which you have welcomed me. Au revoir, messieurs--you have made
me over new and I am very happy, and I thank you all from the bottom of
my heart!"
And she was gone.
When the door was shut behind her, Herbert strolled to the fire and
stood with his face to the flickering blaze. We all remained standing,
paying unconscious homage to her memory. For some seconds no one spoke.
Then, turning and facing the group, Herbert said, half aloud, as if
communing with himself:
"A real woman--human and big, half a dozen such would revolutionize
France. And she knows--that is the best part of it"--and his voice grew
stronger--"she _knows_! You may think you've reached the bottom of
things--thought them all out, convinced you are right, even steer your
course by your deductions--and here comes along a woman who lifts a lid
uncovering a well in your soul you never dreamed of, and your
conclusions go sky-high. And she does it so cleverly, and she is so sane
about it all. If she were where I could get at her now and then I'd do
something worth while. I've made up my mind to one thing, anyhow--I'm
going to pull to pieces the thing I set up before I came down here and
start something new. I've got another idea in my head--something a
little more human."
"Isn't 'The Savage' human, Herbert?" I asked, filling his glass as I
spoke, to give him time for reply.
"No; it's only African--one phase of a race."
"How about your 'group,' 'They Have Eyes and They See Not'?" asked
Brierley, who had drawn up a chair and stood leaning over its back,
gazing into the fire.
"A little better, but not much. The Great Art is along other
lines--bigger, higher, stronger--more universal lines, one that has
nothing racial about it, one that expresses the human heart no matter
what the period or nationality. The 'Prodigal Son' is a drama which has
been understood and is still understood by the whole earth irrespective
of creed or locality. It appeals to the savage and the savant alike and
always will to the end of time. So with the Milo. She is Greek, English,
or Slav at your option, but she will live forever because she expresses
the divine essence of maternity which is eternal. It is this, and only
this, which compels. I have had glimmerings of it all my life. Madame
cleared out the cobwebs for me in a flash. A great woman--real human."
Then noticing that no one had either interrupted his outburst or moved
his position, he glanced around the group and, as if in doubt as to the
way his outburst had been received, said simply:
"Well, speak up; am I right or wrong? You don't seem to see it as I do.
How did she appeal to you, Brierley?"
The young fellow stepped in front of his chair and dropped into its
depths.
"You are dead right, Herbert; you are, anyhow, about the Milo. I never
go into her presence without lifting my hat, and I have kept it up for
years. But you don't do yourself justice, old man. Some of your things
will live as long as they hold together. However"--and he laughed
knowingly--"that's for posterity to settle. How does madame appeal to
me? you ask. Well, being a many-sided woman--no frills, no coquetry, nor
sham--she appeals to me more as a comrade than in any other way--just
plain comrade. Half the women one meets of her age and class have
something of themselves to conceal, giving you a side which they are
not, or trying to give it for you to read at first sight. She gave us
her worst side first--or what we thought was her worst side--and her
best last."
"And you, Le Blanc?" resumed Herbert. "She's your countrywoman; let's
have it."
"Oh, I don't know, Herbert. I, of course, have heard of her for years,
and she was therefore not so much of a surprise to me as she was to you
all. If, however, you want me to get down to something fundamental, I'll
tell you that she confirms a theory I have always had that--But I won't
go into that. It's our last night together and we----"
"No; go on. This interests me enormously, especially her personality.
We'll have our nightcap later on."
"Well, all right," and he squared himself toward Herbert. "She confirms,
as I said, a theory of mine--one I have always had, that the Great
Art--that for which the world is waiting--is not so much the creation of
statues, if you will pardon me, as the creation of a better
understanding of women by men. Not of their personalities, but of their
impersonalities. Most women are afraid to let themselves go, not knowing
how we will take them, and because of this fear we lose the best part of
a woman's nature. She dares not do a great many generous things--sane,
kindly, human things--because she is in dread of being misunderstood.
She is even afraid to love some of us as intensely as she would. Madame
dares everything and could never be misunderstood. All doubts of her
were swept out in her opening sentence the night she arrived. She ought
to found a school and teach women to be themselves, then we'd all be
that much happier."
"And now, Louis," persisted Herbert, "come, we're waiting. No shirking,
and no nonsense. Just the plain truth. How does she appeal to you?"
"As a dead game sport, Herbert, and the best ever! Every man on his feet
and I'll give you a toast that is as short and sweet as her adorable
self.
"Here's to our friend, Madame la Marquise de la Caux--THE WOMAN."
XV
APPLE-BLOSSOMS AND WHITE MUSLIN
Coco, the snow-white cockatoo, on his perch high up in the roof dormer
overlooking the court, is having the time of his life. To see and hear
the better, he wobbles back and forth to the end of his wooden peg,
steadying himself by his black beak, and then, straightening up, unfurls
his yellow celery top of a crest and, with a quick toss of his head,
shrieks out his delight.
He wants to know what it is all about, and I don't blame him. No such
hurrying and scurrying has been seen in the court-yard below since the
morning the players came down from Paris and turned the
sixteenth-century quadrangle into a stage-setting for an old-time
comedy: new gravel is being raked and sifted over the open space; men on
step-ladders are trimming up the vines and setting out plants on top of
the kiosks; others are giving last touches to the tulip-beds and the
fresh sod along the borders, while two women are scrubbing the chairs
and tables under the arbors.
As for the Inn's inhabitants, everybody seems to have lost their wits:
Pierre has gone entirely mad. When butter, or eggs, or milk, or a pint
of sherry--or something he needs, or thinks he needs--is wanted, he does
not wait until his under-chef can bring it from the storage-cave where
they are kept--he rushes out himself, grabbing up a basket, or pitcher,
or cup as he goes, and comes back on the double-quick to begin again his
stirring, chopping, and basting--the roasting-spit turning merrily all
the while.
Leà is even more restless. Her activities, however, are confined to
clattering along the upstairs corridors, her arms full of freshly ironed
clothes--skirts and things--and to the banging of chamber doors--one
especially, behind which sits an old fishwoman, yellow as a dried
mackerel and as stiff, helping a young girl dress.
The only one who seems to have kept his head is Lemois. His nervousness
is none the less in evidence, but he gets rid of his pent-up steam in a
different way. He lets the others hustle, while he stands still just
inside the gate giving orders to hurrying market boys with baskets of
fish; signing receipts for cases filled with poultry and early
vegetables just in by the morning train from Caen; or firing
instructions to his gardeners and workmen--self-contained as a ball
governor on a horizontal engine and seemingly as inert, yet an index of
both pressure and speed.
All this time Coco keeps up his hullabaloo, nobody paying the slightest
attention. Suddenly there comes an answering cry and the cockatoo snaps
his beak tight with a click and listens intently, his head on one side.
It is the shriek of a siren--a long-drawn, agonizing wail that strikes
the bird dumb with envy. Nearer it comes--nearer--now at the turn of the
street; now just outside the gate, and in whirls Herbert's motor, the
painter beside him.
"Ah!--Lemois--the top of the morning to you and yours!" Louis'
stentorian voice rings out. "Never saw a better one come out of the
skies. Out with you, Herbert. Are we the first to arrive? Here, give me
that basket of grapes and box of bonbons. A magnificent run, Lemois.
Left Paris at five o'clock, while the milk was going its rounds; spun
through Lisieux before they were wide awake; struck the coast, and since
then nothing but apple-bloom--one great pink-and-white bedquilt up hill
and down dale. Glorious! I want a whole tree, full of blossoms,
remember--just as I wrote you--none of your mean little chopped-off
twigs, but a cart-load of branches. Let me have that old apple-tree out
in the lot in front--the apples were never any good, and Mignon may as
well have the blossoms as those thieving boys. Did you send word to the
school children? Yes, of course you did. Oh, I tell you, Herbert, we are
going to have a bully time--Paul and Virginia are not in it. Hello! Leà,
you up there, you blessed old carved root of a virgin!--where's the
adorable Mignon?"
"Good-morning, Monsieur Louis--and you too, Monsieur Herbert," came her
voice in reply from the rail of the gallery above our heads. "Mignon is
inside," and she pointed to the closed door behind her. "Gaston's mother
is helping her. Madame la marquise will be here any minute, and so will
Monsieur Le Blanc and everybody from Buezval. Oh!--you should see my
child! You wouldn't know her in the pretty clothes madame has sent."
And now while Herbert is digging out from under the motor seats various
packages tied with white ribbons, including the drawing he made of Leà,
now richly framed, and which with the aid of the old woman he carried up
the crooked stairway and deposited at a certain door, I will tell you
what all this excitement is about.
Madame la marquise has had her way. Not an instantaneous and complete
victory. There had been parleyings, of course, after that eventful night
some months before when she had outgeneralled and then defied Lemois,
and concessions had been made, both sides yielding a little; but before
we separated for our homes we felt sure that the old man either had or
would surrender.
"Well, let it be as you will," he had said with a sigh; "but not now. In
the spring when the apple-blossoms are in bloom--and then perhaps you
may come back."
To me, however, who had stayed on for a few days, he had, late one
afternoon, poured out his whole heart. The twilight had begun to settle
in the Marmouset, and the last glow of the western sky creeping through
the stained-glass windows was falling upon the old Spanish leather and
gold crowned saints and figures, warming them into rich harmonies, when
I had stolen inside the wonderful room to take one of my last looks--an
old habit of mine in a place I love. There I found him hunched up in
Herbert's chair at one corner of the fireplace, his head on his hand.
"Well, you have won your fight," he had said in a low, measured voice,
speaking into the bare chimney, his fingers still supporting his
forehead. "You will take my child from me and leave me alone."
"But she will be much happier," I now ventured.
"Perhaps so--I cannot tell. I have seen many a bright sunrise end in a
storm. But none of you have understood me. You thought it was money, and
what the man could bring her, and that I objected because the boy was
poor and a fisherman. What am I but a man of the people?--what is she
but a peasant?--and her mother and grandmother before her. Who are we
that we should try to rise above our station, making ourselves a
laughing-stock? Had he been a land-owner with a thousand head of cattle
it would have been the same with me. Nothing will be as it was any more.
I am an old man and she is all the child I have. When she was eight
years old she would come into this very room and nestle close in my
lap, and I would talk to her by the hour--she and I alone, the fire
lighting up the dark. And so it was when she grew up. It is only of late
that she has shut herself away from me. I deserve it maybe--she must
marry somebody, and I would not have it otherwise--but why must it be
now? I do not blame madame la marquise. She is an enthusiastic woman
whose heart often runs away with her head; but she is honest and
sincere. She had only the child's happiness in view, and she will be a
mother to them both as long as she lives, as she is to many others I
know."
He had paused for a moment, I standing still beside him, and had then
gone on, the words coming slowly, like the dropping of water:
"You remember Monsieur Herbert's story, do you not, of the old
mould-maker who lost his daughter, and who died in his chair, his clay
masks grinning down at him from the skylight above? Well, I am he. Just
as they grinned at the old mould-maker, his daughter gone, so in my
loneliness will my figures grin at me."
This had been in late October.
What the dull winter had been to him I never knew, but he had not gone
back on his word, and now that the apple-blossoms were in bloom, and
the orchards a blaze of glory, the wedding day, just as he had promised,
had arrived!
No wonder, then, Coco is screaming at the top of his voice; no wonder
the court-yard is swept by a whirlwind of flying feet; no wonder the
upstairs chamber door, with Leà as guardian angel, is opened and shut
every few minutes, hiding the girl behind it; and no wonder that
Herbert's impatient car, every spoke in its wheels trembling with
excitement, is puffing with eagerness to make the run to the old
apple-tree in the outer lot, and so on to the church, loaded to its
extra tires with a carpet of blossoms for Mignon's pretty feet.
No wonder, either, that before Herbert's car, with Louis in charge of
the blossom raid, had cleared the back gate, there had puffed in another
motor--two this time--Le Blanc in one, with his friend, The Architect,
beside him, the seats packed full of children, their faces scrubbed to a
phenomenal cleanliness, their hair skewered with gay ribbons, all their
best clothes on their backs; madame la marquise and Marc in the other,
an old weather-beaten fisherman--an uncle of Gaston's, too lame to
walk--beside her, and bundled up on the back seat two lean withered
fishwomen in black bombazine and close-fitting white caps--a cousin and
an aunt of the groom--the first time any one of the three had ever
stepped foot in a car.
As madame and her strange crew entered the court, I turned instinctively
to Lemois, wondering how he would deport himself when the crucial moment
arrived--and a car-load of relatives certainly seemed to express that
fatality--but he was equal to the occasion.
"Ah, madame!" he said in his courtliest manner, his hand over his heart,
"who else in the wide world would have thought of so kindly an act?
These poor people will bless you to their dying day. And it is
delightful to see you again, Monsieur Marc. You have, I know, come to
help madame in her good works. As I have so often told her, she is----"
"And why should I not give them pleasure, you dear Lemois? See how happy
they are. And this is not half of them! No, don't get out, mère
Francine--you are all to keep on to the church and get into your seats
before the village people crowd it full; and you, Auguste"--this to her
chauffeur--"are to go back to Buezval for the others--they are all
waiting." Here she espied Herbert on a ladder tacking some blossoms over
the doorway. "Ah!--monsieur, aren't you very happy it has turned out so
well? I caught only a glimpse of you as you dashed past a few minutes
ago or I should have held you up and made you bring the balance of the
old fishwomen. They are all crazy to come. Ah! but you needn't to have
come down. It is so good to see you again," and she shook his hand
heartily. "But what a morning for a wedding! Did you notice as you came
along the shore road the little puff clouds skipping out to sea for very
joy and hear the birds splitting their throats in song? Even my own head
is getting turned with all this billing and cooing, and I warn all of
you right here"--and she swept her glance over the men gathered about
her, her eyes twinkling in merriment--"that you must be very careful to
keep out of my way or the first thing you know one of you will be
whisked off to the altar and married before you know it. And now I am
going upstairs to see how my little bride gets on, if Monsieur Marc will
be good enough to carry my heavy wraps inside."
She turned, stopped for an instant attracted by something she saw
through the archway of the court, and burst into a peal of ringing
laughter.
"Oh!--come here quick, every one of you, and see what's driving in! It's
Monsieur Brierley in the dearest of donkey carts. Where did you get that
absurd little beast?"
"Whoa! Victor Hugo!" shouted Brierley, springing from the cart (both
together wouldn't have covered the space occupied by an upright piano).
"I found him last fall, my dear madame la marquise, in a stable in Caen,
kicking out the partitions, and brought him home to my Abandoned Farm by
the Marsh to add a touch of hilarity to my surroundings. He wakes me
every morning with his hind feet against the door of his stable and is a
most engaging and delightful companion. Hello! Lemois, and--you here,
Herbert! Shake!--awful glad to see you. Where's Louis?--gone for
blossoms?--just like him. I tried to get here earlier, to help you all,
but Victor Hugo is peculiar and considerably set in his ways, and if I
had tried to overpersuade him he might still be a mile down the road
with his feet anchored in the mud.
"Take a look inside my cart, will you, Herbert? My contribution to
start the young couple housekeeping"--and he pulled off a covering of
clean straw--"six dozen eggs, a pair of mallards--shot them yesterday,
and about the last of them this season, and no business to shoot even
these--a basket of potatoes, a dozen of pear jam--in family jars--and a
small keg of apple-jack--the two last, the sweet and the strong, to be
eaten and drank together to keep peace in the house. No, don't take Hugo
out of the shafts, Lemois, and don't say anything about its being
meal-time, not loud enough for him to hear. When the fun is over I'm
going to drive him down to madame's garage and pack the housekeeping
stuff away in Mignon's cupboard."
Long before noon the court-yard, as well as the archway and the kiosks
and arbors, had begun to fill up, the news of the extraordinary
proceedings having brought everybody ahead of time. There was the mayor,
wearing his tricolor sash and insignia of office, and with him his
stout, double-chinned wife in black silk and white gloves--bareheaded,
except for a gold ornament that looked like a bunch of twisted
hair-pins; there were the apothecary and the notary and the man who sold
pottery, not forgetting the bustling, outspoken fat doctor who had
sewed up Gaston's head the time madame's villa went sliddering toward
the sea--or tried to--as well as all the great and small folk of the
village who claimed the least little bit of acquaintance with any one
connected with the function from Lemois down.
Why the distinguished Madame la Marquise de la Caux--to say nothing of
Lemois and the equally distinguished sculptors, painters, and authors,
some of whom were well known to them by reputation--should make all this
fuss about a simple little serving-maid who had brought them their
coffee--a waif, really, picked from between the cobbles--one like a
dozen others the village over, except for her beauty--was a question no
one of them had been able to answer. Was it a whim of the great
lady?--for it was well known she had made the match--or was there
something else behind it all? (a mystery, by the way, which they are
still trying to solve; disinterested kindness being the most
incomprehensible thing in the world to some people). The notary was
particularly outspoken in his opinion. He even criticised the great
woman herself from behind his hand to the apothecary, whose upper room
he occupied. "Been much better if these people of high degree had stayed
at home and let the two young people enjoy themselves in their own way.
Great mistake mixing the classes." But, then, the notary is the
mouth-piece of the revolutionary party in the village and hates the
aristocracy as a singed cat does the fire.
Soon there came a shout from the gallery over our heads, and we all
looked up. Leà, her wrinkled face aglow with that same inner light, the
rays struggling through her rusty skin, craned her head over the rail.
Then came Mignon, madame close behind, pushing her veil aside so we
could all see her face--the girl blushing scarlet, but too happy to do
more than laugh and bow and make little dumb nods with her head, hiding
her face as best she could behind Leà's angular shoulders.
"Yes, we are all ready, and are coming down the back stairs, and will
meet you at the gate," cried madame when she had released the girl--"and
it's time to start."
Mignon's passage along the corridor, followed by madame and Leà and
Gaston's old mother, roused a murmur of welcome which swelled into an
outburst of joyous enthusiasm as her feet touched the level of the
court, and continued until she had joined Gaston and the others already
formed in line for the march to the church.
And a wonderful procession it was!
First, of course, came the mayor--his worthy spouse on his left. "The
State before the Church," madame la marquise remarked with a sly
twinkle, "and quite as it should be," rabid anti-clerical as she was.
Close behind stepped Lemois in a frock-coat buttoned to his chin, his
grave, thoughtful face framed in a high collar and black cravat--like an
old diplomat at a court function--Mignon on his arm: Such a pretty,
shrinking, timid Mignon, her lashes lifting and settling as if afraid to
raise her eyes lest some one should find a chink through which they
could peep into her heart.
Next came Louis escorting dear old Leà!
There was a picture for you! Had she been a duchess the rollicking young
painter could not have treated her with more deference, bearing himself
aloft, his chest out, handing her over the low "thank-ye-marm" at the
street corner--the old woman, straight as her bent shoulders would
allow, calm, self-contained, but near bursting with a joy that would
drown her in tears if she gave way but an instant--and all with a quiet
dignity that somehow, when you looked at her, sent a lump to your
throat.
And then madame and Gaston!--she stepping free and alive, her little
feet darting in and out below her rich, short gown, her eyes dancing; he
swinging along beside her with that quick, alert step of the young who
have always stretched their muscles to the utmost, his sun-burnt skin
twice as dark from the mad rush of blood through his veins; abashed at
the great honor thrust upon him, and yet with that certain poise and
independence common to men who have fought and won and can fight and win
again.
And last--amused, glad to lend a hand, enjoying it all to the
full--Herbert, and Gaston's poor old broken-down-with-hard-work
mother--stiff, formal, scared out of her seven wits--trying to smile as
she ambled along, her mouth dry, her knees shaking--the rest of us
bringing up the rear--Brierley, Le Blanc, The Architect, Marc, and I
walking together.
[Illustration: First, of course, came the mayor--his worthy spouse on
his left]