THE PRINCESS COMMANDS
We slept late the next morning, Hugh and I. Indeed, Hugh always slept
late unless he had the luck to be awakened. We did not breakfast till
Linn had returned from her watch-dog march along with Alida to the house
of the Sous-Prefet.
There was now no regular drill, and instead of roll-call it was regarded
sufficient if we reported to the guard which remained in permanence
playing at cards and "bouchon" under the central bastion of the fort.
This Hugh and I did, remaining a little while to gossip with Victor Dor
and others of our company who were lounging about the barrack square. I
fear that during those weeks we passed for rather sulky dogs who would
not share our bone with our neighbours. For, having little to do, the
young fellows of the first Milanese often followed with admiring eyes
the daily progress of Alida and Linn in the direction of the
Sous-Prefecture. We had requests for introductions even from the younger
officers, but all such we referred to Keller Bey, knowing that the old
man would be able to deal with any intrusion. And indeed matters stopped
there till the regiment was disbanded, and the Italians were sent home
at the expense of the French Republic.
Meantime we continued, as Saunders McKie would have said, "living at
hack and manger," free of the privileges of the house of Keller Bey and
Linn his wife.
Since Alida had taken my advice and written to her father that she would
not marry the brown man, nor leave the life for which he had educated
her for that of the harem, she had treated me as an intimate friend and
adviser. We had long talks together, so often and so long, indeed, that
I could see that Keller Bey and Linn were seriously troubled. Perhaps
they were a little jealous also, but for all that they did not dream of
opposing their wills to the slightest wish of their ward.
"What shall I do when you are gone?" Alida cried one day. It was still
early forenoon, for the Sous-Prefet's lady had to attend a Government
function. Besides, it was a dismalish day outside with a low crawl of
leaden clouds overhead, and along the horizon only one swiftly eclipsed
streak of gold bead-work to show where the sunshine was at work.
"I can _not_ stay on here, content with only the round of teaching
visits, and the love of these two good souls! 'I have had playmates--I
have had companions,' as your poet sings, and now there is you--and
Hugh--who have come to me to show me how lonely I was."
She thought a while, and then in her imperious way she sketched a
programme.
"There is no reason why Keller Bey and Linn should stop here. The house
is well placed, and one of the best in the town. It would let to-morrow.
Why should we not all go to Aramon and be happy? We could find a house
there and company--all those girls, Hugh's sisters, of whom you have
told me. I should be so happy. And we would get away from the brown man.
He would not know where to find us if he should come back!"
She clapped her hands joyfully, as if the matter were already settled,
and ran upstairs to break the matter to Keller and Linn. When next I saw
these two I was conscious of a little chill in the atmosphere. They
thought that I was responsible for the wish of Alida to leave Autun and
go to Aramon.
"Do you think it is a proper thing," said Linn, "that a maid should
follow two young men?"
"I think you wrong her," I said, "unwittingly of course, but certainly
you mistake Alida. It springs from no feeling of love for either of us,
but she has now tasted comradeship and the equality of years for the
first time. She thinks there is nothing else worth living for in the
world. She will change her mind by and by. Her mind and affection will
turn again to her elders."
So I spoke from the unplumbed depths of a youthful
self-sufficiency--that curious malady (happily fleeting) which compels
all clever young men to feel called upon to lay down rules for their
elders and for the world about them, at or about the age of twenty-one.
Linn and Keller looked at one another in a kind of hopeless
bewilderment. I think they felt that this was only the first of a series
of changes from the quiet life they had been leading. They told
themselves that they need expect no more happy uneventful days and
delicious nights when they used their house as of old they had done many
an Arab encampment, a place to wander and dally in, to lie down and rise
up, to drowse and wake, to smoke in, and to play bezique together when
the heart told them to. A sort of terror seized them as they saw
themselves going off to bed at reasonable hours like mere untravelled
burghers, each with a candle in hand, and nothing but the drum of the
rain on the roof or the gnawing of a mouse in the wainscot to help them
over the dead hours till the sun should rise.
It was Keller who this time broke the silence.
"Of course," he said, speaking slowly, and poising each word carefully,
"if Alida has set her heart upon it of her own free will, there is
nothing to be said. Linn and I must obey, at whatever cost to ourselves.
For all we have is hers, and has come to us because of her. On that
score we need not fear. We have enough for ourselves, and enough to
leave to Alida. We can go to Aramon, but the business will need to be
carefully gone about, and not too soon after your return. Alida is a
girl among ten thousand. You are well-looking young men, and doubtless
there are as many evil tongues in Aramon as there are in all places
where human creatures herd together."
This was a great concession, and accordingly I plucked up heart and
began to make plans and suggest ways and means, eager to get ahead of
all possible objections on the part of Linn.
"There is an empty house at the corner of my father's property of
Gobelet--not one so large as this, but quite large enough and pleasantly
situated within the grounds. My father has never let it, but I know that
he would be glad of a brave soldier and his wife to take care of it and
keep it in order. The place is retired and he would feel protected. The
gate in the wall opens on to the road to the _lycee_ of St. Andre, so
that you would come and go without any overlooking. Besides, my father
is a student and interferes with no one. He would talk as much Arabic to
you as you wish. So too would old Professor Renard up at the College. He
was once Vicar Apostolic out in your parts. You would have the best
companions for Alida, in the sisters Deventer and their friends. If you
like I will write to my father to-day? Not that there is any need. I
know that he will be delighted, nay, that he will offer you a wing of
Gobelet itself, which is much too large for him. But do not accept, the
Garden Cottage is ten times as amusing, and infinitely prettier."
I could see that I was making some way. Linn and her husband looked at
each other, and if they did not smile, at least there was a more hopeful
look on their faces. Linn was touched by the thought of the
companionship of the Deventer girls, for in this matter Autun had been
gravely lacking.
Nor did the bribe of Arabic-speaking students to talk with appear to be
wholly lost upon Keller Bey, even though he spoke still somewhat
restively.
"I have little acquaintance with book Arabic beyond the Koran, but it is
a noble language in which to vent one's thoughts."
I reassured him that both the ex-Vicar Apostolic and my father found it
so. They would sit smoking and talking Arabic all a long evening over
their parchments.
"All this must I come and see for myself," said Keller Bey; "such a
plant as Alida is not to be pulled up by the roots till we know where we
shall find better ground and more fertile in which to reset her. But
tell me, is not this Aramon of yours an unsafe town? The mob had
possession of it for some days lately, attacking the works and the
manager's house--can we safely take Alida to such a place?"
Then in mighty haste I showed him the difference between the unceasing
activity of Aramon-of-the-Workshops and the scholastic calm of Aramon le
Vieux. I extended the width of the dividing river to a three-quarters of
a mile, a size to which it only reaches in times of flood when the tall
ladder of the painted scale by the bridge-end is wholly covered, and
still the flood creeps up inch by inch till the people of Vallabregues
and Saint Jacques are crying for succour from the roofs of their
drowned-out houses, and the pigs and poultry go out to sea feet up on a
six-knot current.
Keller and Linn sat and listened--Linn with a lost air of someone whose
scheme of life has suddenly become impossible. I think Linn had expected
the quiet days, the morning promenades with Alida, the cheerful suppers
of the house in the square in Autun to go on always. Alida would always
be as content with them as she had been when a little girl. Had she not
come back from school to the warm love and unbounded spoiling which
awaited her there?
As they sat and pondered, Alida entered, her roll of music in her hand.
"What," she cried, "you are all sitting as gloomy as crows in a
cemetery. Where is Hugh? I want you both to come out and walk by the
river. The early violets are out, and yesterday Madame the Sous-Prefet
found a daffodil."
"Alida," said I, "at Aramon all the flowers are out, and the broom runs
along the river banks like a mile-wide flame of fire. Everywhere is
yellow in spring, ranunculus, buttercups, celandine, and the yellow
wallflowers sprouting among all the old walls of Gobelet. When will you
come and see them?"
Alida went prettily to Linn and kissed her. Then she put her arms about
Keller without saying anything. The game was won. No more remained but
to make the arrangements.
"As soon as these two dear people will let me!" she said.
Bless her! She might have started next morning if she had been set upon
the matter! That is, so far as Keller and Linn were concerned.
Afterwards while we were walking home Hugh looked edgeways at me.
"Angus," said he gravely, "I should not like to have your
responsibility. Are you sure that she will take to the family at Chateau
Schneider? Or they to her? We are rather a handful, you know, and
she--well, she is not exactly ordinary."
"As to that I don't know," I said sharply, for I did not like to hear my
darling project decried or even suspected, "and what is more, I don't
care. The garden and the Garden Cottage at Gobelet are large enough and
safe enough."
"Pardon," he retorted, more unpleasantly than he had ever spoken to me.
"I was under the impression that Alida was going to Aramon for society."
"Well, and suppose she finds it without crossing the bridge--what then?"
"Oh, nothing," he said, "I was only considering what you meant to do for
yourself in the way of a career!"