OUR FIRST COMMUNARD
Hannah and Liz Deventer came in arm and arm. Hannah grave and sweet,
with her air of taking admiration for granted and being rather bored by
it; Liz dimpled and glancing from one to the other, deciding which of
the young men would best serve her for cavalier that day. As for Rhoda
Polly she had been in and out of the room for an hour, enforcing
authority in the kitchen, rousing new courage in frightened servants
whom only her example and abounding vitality shamed into remaining at
their duty.
Dennis Deventer did not appear. Jack Jaikes came down presently and
carried him up a pot of strong coffee and some rolls. Most of us hardly
made even a pretence of sitting down, so eager were we to get back to
our posts, but Hugh Deventer and a young apprentice, Laurent, the son of
an English mother and a French father, stayed to keep the two younger
girls company. As for me, I followed Rhoda Polly out upon the roof.
There I cleaned her rifle for her carefully, while she sat and watched
me, her chin upon her palms. We were both quite comfortably hidden
behind the stack of north-looking chimneys.
Rhoda Polly had always been a friend of mine, and there was no false
shame between us, any more than between two college comrades of the same
age and standing.
In quickly lapsing phrases she told me how the trouble had begun.
"It was," she said, "altogether a political matter at first. It had to
do with the position of Procureur of the Republic, held by young Gaston
Cremieux of Marseilles. He had been appointed by Gambetta in September,
in the war year. But he was a 'red' and belonged to the Internationale,
so that the solid people of the department, royalists for the most part,
set about to try and dislodge him. He used to come often to our house,
and he and father sat long arguing. I think we all liked him. He had
great influence with the men up at the works, and so long as he was
permitted to speak to them and go to their reunions, we had no trouble.
"But when Gambetta lost his power, and Thiers became dictator, or
president, or something, Gaston Cremieux could not long remain
Procureur. They stripped him of his office, and gave it to a dry-as-dust
lawyer who did as the military tribunals bade him."
I put a question here.
"No," continued Rhoda Polly, with a flash of indignation, "if you knew
my father better, you would know that he does not shelter himself behind
anyone. Still, Cremieux was undoubtedly a help. My father can explain
better than I can, but the men down here wanted to make our department a
sovereign state like the American ones--New York, Massachusetts, Ohio,
and so on."
"But," said I, "over there they have just fought a long and bloody war
for the purpose of proving that no state is sovereign, but each must be
subordinate to the central authority at Washington."
"Well, I don't know," said Rhoda Polly, "at least, that was the idea of
these people down here, and I suppose all over France wherever there are
many workmen. The peasants and agriculturists are different. They want
only two things: low taxes and high prices."
Rhoda Polly was swinging herself back and forward on the low parapet
which ran round the roof in so careless a fashion, that I begged her to
take care that she did not lose her balance. At my words she stopped,
cast a glance behind her, was instantly brought to her feet by what she
saw, and ran towards the steel ladder crying, "It is Gaston Cremieux. I
must let him in."
I went to the parapet holding the cleaned gun idly in my hand. A tall
young man, with dark hair and a slight pointed beard, was coming
straight across from the head-quarters of the insurgents. He walked
easily and with a confident swing up the wide Stair of Honour which led
to the front door.
Before he had reached the top the bolts were already shooting from
within, and the door soon stood open; for Rhoda Polly had gathered in
Jack Jaikes on her way, to help in undoing the intricate barrage and
strengthening of the defence.
I am not sure that Jack Jaikes looked with much favour upon the welcome
which Rhoda Polly gave to the young ex-Procureur of the Republic, but
the lady knew well what she was about. In losing his office he had
neither lost in influence nor authority, and she knew that if anyone
could help to end the strife, it was this polite and deferential young
man.
"I have been over at Nimes seeing the family of my friend Rossel," he
explained. "I heard there was some trouble at the works, so I took
Aramon-les-Ateliers on my way back to Marseilles."
"That was good of you," said Rhoda Polly, "if anyone can set things
right, you can. You know what my father thinks, and what he has done for
the men, but he will not have the firm's machinery tampered with if he
can help it."
Gaston Cremieux nodded his head of crisp black curls.
"_I_ understand," he said; "but there are men over yonder who cannot
understand the uprightness of a man like your father. Worse still, they
cannot believe that he wishes them well, just because he is a manager in
the pay of the Company. He must on that very account be their enemy,
they say, and they remain blind to the fact that he alone can put their
needs and demands before the masters."
"Come up and see my father," said the girl, and without waiting for any
word of consent, she turned and led the way, flitting before him with
the lithe grace learned in the gymnasia of Selborne College.
Some minutes afterwards I encountered Jack Jaikes who had returned from
re-bolting and restrengthening the door.
"If I could break that young scoundrel's neck I would be doing some
good. He is at the bottom of all this trouble. I went to one of his
speechifyings to see what he was after, and he led them like a flock of
lambs. He was preaching revolt and red revolution, so far as I could
make out--the works to belong to the workers and such-like clotted
nonsense--and now Rhoda Polly receives him like an angel from heaven,
and up they go to throw dust in the eyes of the old man. If I had my way
of it--_augh_!"
And here Jack Jaikes turned away snorting to express the suddenness and
certainty with which he would regulate the case of ex-Procureur Gaston
Cremieux, if the matter were left in his hands.
On the roof another view was being taken. I heard the details from Hugh
Deventer, who at this time was constantly with his father, now that he
had been forgiven and, as it were, taken back into the general scheme of
things as conceived by Dennis Deventer.
"Rhoda Polly brought him up" (so ran his narrative), "and it was like
watching a hen with a new brood of chickens to see the pair of them.
Rhoda Polly is like that. She was quite sure that she had found the
specific remedy for all our woes, so she could hardly let the man speak
at first, so anxious was she that he should say the right thing.
"She kept at it interrupting so long, that at last the Pater, who was
not specially patient just then, told her to go away and let them talk
it out in peace. And that is pretty strong from the Pater to Rhoda
Polly, for mostly he encourages her to say and do just what she likes.
She is not like the others. There is nothing of the
mother's-apron-string-girl about Rhoda Polly. She likes running about
the works in a dirty blouse much better than sitting all day, with
embroidery on her knee, listening to mother purring.
"As for Cremieux and my father, they understood each other from the
first. It was wonderful to find how much they had in common. And he will
help to stop the rioting. He says he will not go away from Aramon till
the men are back at work. Cremieux's opinion is that these sporadic
risings do no good, even when run on the best lines, without personal
violence or destruction of property. To succeed, the thing must be a
national movement, concerted and directed from each one of the great
towns, otherwise the bourgeois government merely waits till its feet are
free elsewhere, and then tramples out one by one all the little
revolts."
At that moment Deventer caught me by the arm.
"Hold hard," he whispered, "here he comes with the Chief. I declare they
are as thick as thieves, and yet in an hour he may be leading the
rascals over yonder to burn down the Chateau."
The restless eyes of Dennis Deventer spied me out.
"Ah, Angus me boy," he hailed, "come this way. You two ought to know one
another. This is our philosopher's son from Gobelet, who has run away
from college to take service under Garibaldi."
"If he casts his eyes in that direction," said the dark young man,
smiling, "I can find him more profitable work nearer home."
"Come, none of your proselytising on my ground!" said Dennis Deventer,
laying a heavy hand on his companion's shoulder. "If he chooses to go
and get a bullet in him for the sake of France, that is his own affair.
But I will not have him mixed up in your little revolutions about which
he knows nothing at all."
"But I will teach him. He is intelligent--of a fine race--it is such
men we need. Let me speak to him, I beg."
But Dennis Deventer would listen to nothing. He pushed his visitor out
of the hall, laughing and shaking his head good-humouredly.
"Take anyone you like from my rank and file," he said, "but leave my
staff officers alone."
But I did not forget that tall, grave young man, who talked so earnestly
and pleaded so strongly for a chance to teach me the wisdom of
insurrection.