Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
TOLD IN
A FRENCH GARDEN
AUGUST, 1914
BY
_Mildred Aldrich_
_Author of_
_"A Hilltop on the Marne"_
BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
1916
Copyright, 1916
BY MILDRED ALDRICH
TO
F. E. C.
a prince of comrades and a royal
friend, whose quaint humor
gladdened the days of my early
struggle, and whose unfailing
faith inspired me in later days
to turn a smiling face to Fate
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
INTRODUCTION
How We Came into the Garden
I THE YOUNGSTER'S STORY
It Happened at Midnight--The
Tale of a Bride's New Home
II THE TRAINED NURSE'S STORY
The Son of Josephine--The Tale
of a Foundling
III THE CRITIC'S STORY
'Twas in the Indian Summer--The
Tale of an Actress
IV THE DOCTOR'S STORY
As One Dreams--The Tale of
an Adolescent
V THE SCULPTOR'S STORY
Unto This End--The Tale of a
Virgin
VI THE DIVORCÉE'S STORY
One Woman's Philosophy--The
Tale of a Modern Wife
VII THE LAWYER'S STORY
The Night Before the Wedding--The
Tale of a Bride-Elect
VIII THE JOURNALIST'S STORY
In a Railway Station--The Tale
of a Dancer
IX THE VIOLINIST'S STORY
The Soul of the Song--The Tale
of a Fiancée
X EPILOGUE
Adieu--How We Went Out of
the Garden
TOLD IN A FRENCH GARDEN
INTRODUCTION
HOW WE CAME INTO THE GARDEN
It was by a strange irony of Fate that we found ourselves reunited for
a summer's outing, in a French garden, in July, 1914.
With the exception of the Youngster, we had hardly met since the days
of our youth.
We were a party of unattached people, six men, two women, your humble
servant, and the Youngster, who was an outsider.
With the exception of the latter, we had all gone to school or college
or dancing class together, and kept up a sort of superficial
acquaintance ever since--that sort of relation in which people know
something of one another's opinions and absolutely nothing of one
another's real lives.
There was the Doctor, who had studied long in Germany, and become an
authority on mental diseases, developed a distaste for therapeutics,
and a passion for research and the laboratory. There was the Lawyer,
who knew international law as he knew his Greek alphabet, and hated a
court room. There was the Violinist, who was known the world over in
musical sets,--everywhere, except in the concert room. There was the
Journalist, who had travelled into almost as many queer places as
Richard Burton, seen more wars, and followed more callings. There was
the Sculptor, the fame of whose greater father had almost paralyzed a
pair of good modeller's hands. There was the Critic, whose friends
believed that in him the world had lost a great romancer, but whom a
combination of hunger and laziness, and a proneness to think that
nothing not genius was worth while, had condemned to be a mere
breadwinner, but a breadwinner who squeezed a lot out of life, and who
fervently believed that in his next incarnation he would really be
"it." Then there was "Me," and of the other two women--one was a
Trained Nurse, and the other a Divorcée, and--well, none of us really
knew just what she had become, but we knew that she was very rich, and
very handsome, and had a leaning toward some sort of new religion. As
for the Youngster--he was the son of an old chum of the Doctor--his
ward, in fact--and his hobby was flying.
Our reunion, after so many years, was a rather pretty story.
In the summer of 1913, the Doctor and the Divorcée, who had lost sight
of one another for twenty years, met by chance in Paris. Her
ex-husband had been a college friend of the Doctor. They saw a great
deal of one another in the lazy way that people who really love
France, and are done sightseeing, can do.
One day it occurred to them to take a day's trip into the country, as
unattached people now and then can do. They might have gone out in a
car--but they chose the railroad, with a walk at the end--on the
principle that no one can know and love a country who does not press
its earth beneath his feet,--the Doctor would probably have said, "lay
his head upon its bosom." By an accident--they missed a train--they
found themselves at sunset of a beautiful day in a small village, and
with no possible way of getting back to Paris that night unless they
chose to walk fifteen miles to the nearest railway junction. After a
long day's tramp that seemed too much of a good thing.
So they looked about to find a shelter for the night. The village--it
was only a hamlet--had no hotel, no café, even. Finally an old peasant
said that old Mother Servin--a widow--living a mile up the road--had a
big house, lived alone, and could take them in,--if she wanted to,--he
could not say that she would.
It seemed to them worth trying, so they started off in high spirits to
tramp another mile, deciding that, if worse became worst--well--the
night was warm--they could sleep by the roadside under the stars.
It was near the hour when it should have been dark--but in France at
that season one can almost read out of doors until nine--when they
found the place. With some delay the gate in the stone wall was
opened, and they were face to face with the old widow.
It was a long argument, but the Doctor had a winning way, and at the
end they were taken in,--more, they were fed in the big clean
kitchen, and then each was sheltered in a huge room, with cement
floor, scrupulously clean, with the quaint old furniture and the queer
appointments of a French farmhouse.
The next morning, when the Doctor threw open the heavy wooden shutters
to his window, he gave a whistle of delight to find himself looking
out into what seemed to be a French Paradise--and better than that he
had never asked.
It was a wilderness. Way off in the distance he got glimpses of broken
walls with all kinds of green things creeping and climbing, and
hanging on for life. Inside the walls there was a riot of
flowers--hollyhocks and giroflées, dahlias and phlox, poppies and huge
daisies, and roses everywhere, even climbing old tree trunks, and
sprawling all over the garden front of the rambling house. The edges
of the paths had green borders that told of Corbeil d'Argent in
Midwinter, and violets in early spring. He leaned out and looked along
the house. It was just a jumble of all sorts of buildings which had
evidently been added at different times. It seemed to be on half a
dozen elevations, and no two windows were of the same size, while
here and there an outside staircase led up into a loft.
Once he had taken it in he dressed like a flash--he could not get out
into that garden quickly enough, to pray the Widow to serve coffee
under a huge tree in the centre of the garden, about the trunk of
which a rude table had been built, and it was there that the Divorcée
found him when she came out, simply glowing with enthusiasm--the
house, the garden, the Widow, the day--everything was perfect.
While they were taking their coffee, poured from the earthen jug, in
the thick old Rouen cups, the Divorcée said:
"How I'd love to own a place like this. No one would ever dream of
building such a house. It has taken centuries of accumulated needs to
expand it into being. If one tried to do the thing all at once it
would look too on-purpose. This place looks like a happy combination
of circumstances which could not help itself."
"Well, why not? It might be possible to have just this. Let's ask the
Widow."
So, when they were sitting over their cigarettes, and the old woman
was clearing the table, the Doctor looked her over, and considered
the road of approach.
She was a rugged old woman, well on toward eighty, with a bronzed,
weather-worn face, abundant coarse gray hair, a heavy shapeless
figure, but a firm bearing, in spite of her rounded back. As far as
they could see, they were alone on the place with her. The Doctor
decided to jump right into the subject.
"Mother," he said, "I suppose you don't want to sell this place?"
The old woman eyed him a moment with her sharp dark eyes.
"But, yes, _Monsieur_," she replied. "I should like it very well, only
it is not possible. No one would be willing to pay my price. Oh, no,
no one. No, indeed."
"Well," said the Doctor, "how do you know that? What is the price?--Is
it permitted to ask?"
The old woman hesitated,--started to speak--changed her mind, and
turned away, muttering. "Oh, no, _Monsieur_,--it is not worth the
trouble--no one will ever pay my price."
The Doctor jumped up, laughing, ran after her, took her by the arm,
and led her back to the table.
"Now, come, come, Mother," he remarked, "let us hear the price at any
rate. I am so curious."
"Well," said the Widow, "it is like this. I would like to get for it
what my brother paid for it, when he bought it at the death of my
father--it was to settle with the rest of the heirs--we were eight
then. They are all dead but me. But no, no one will ever pay that
price, so I may as well let it go to my niece. She is the last. She
doesn't need it. She has land enough. The cultivator has a hard time
these days. It is as much as I can do to make the old place feed me
and pay the taxes, and I am getting old. But no one will ever pay the
price, and what will my brother think of me when the _bon Dieu_ calls
me, if I sell it for less than he paid? As for that, I don't know what
he'll say to me for selling it at all. But I am getting old to live
here alone--all alone. But no one will ever pay the price. So I may as
well die here, and then my brother can't blame me. But it is lonely
now, and I am growing too old. Besides, I don't suppose _you_ want to
buy it. What would a gentleman do with this?"
"Well," said the Doctor, "I don't really know what a _gentleman
would_ do with it," and he added, under his breath, in English, "but I
know mighty well what this fellow _could_ do with it, if he could get
it," and he lighted a fresh cigarette.
The keen old eyes had watched his face.
"I don't suppose _you_ want to buy it?" she persisted.
"Well," responded the Doctor, "how can a poor man like me say, if you
don't care to name your price, and unless that price is within
reason?"
After some minutes of hesitation the old woman drew a deep breath.
"Well," she said, with the determination of one who expected to be
scoffed at, "I won't take a _sou_ less than my brother paid."
"Come on, Mother," said the Doctor, "what _did_ your brother pay? No
nonsense, you know."
"Well, if you must know--it was FIVE THOUSAND FRANCS, and I
can't and won't sell it for less. There, now!"
There was a long silence.
The Doctor and his companion avoided one another's eyes. After a
while, he said in an undertone, in English: "By Jove, I'm going to buy
it."
"No, no," remonstrated his companion, her eyes gazing down the garden
vista to where the wistaria and clematis and flaming trumpet flower
flaunted on the old wall. "I am going to have it--I thought of it
first. I want it."
"So do I," laughed the Doctor. "Never wanted anything more in all my
life."
"For how long," she asked, "would a rover like you want this?"
"Rover yourself! And you? Besides what difference does it make how
_long_ I want it--since I want it _now_? I want to give a
party--haven't given a party since--since Class Day."
The Divorcée sighed. Still gazing down the garden she said quietly:
"How well I remember--ninety-two!"
Then there was another silence before she turned to him suddenly: "See
here--all this is very irregular-so, that being the case--why
shouldn't we buy it together? We know each other. Neither of us will
ever stay here long. One summer apiece will satisfy us, though it is
lovely. Be a sport. We'll draw lots as to who is to have the first
party."
The Doctor waved the old woman away. Her keen eyes watched too
sharply. Then, with their elbows on the table, they had a long and
heated argument. Probably there were more things touched on than the
garden. Who knows? At the end of it the Divorcée walked away down that
garden vista, and the old woman was called and the Doctor took her at
her word. And out of that arrangement emerged the scheme which
resulted in our finding ourselves, a year later, within the old walls
of that French garden.
Of course a year's work had been done on the interior, and Doctor and
Divorcée had scoured the department for old furniture. Water had been
brought a great distance, a garage had been built with servants'
quarters over it--there were no servants in the house,--but the look
of the place, we were assured, had not been changed, and both Doctor
and Divorcée declared that they had had the year of their lives. Well,
if they had, the place showed it.
But, as Fate would have it, the second night we sat down to dinner in
that garden, news had come of the assassination of Franz
Ferdinand-Charles-Louis Joseph-Marie d'Autriche-Este, whom the tragic
death of Prince Rudolphe, almost exactly twenty-four years and six
months earlier to a day, had made Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary--and
the tone of our gathering was changed. From that day the party
threatened to become a little Bedlam, and the garden a rostrum.
In the earlier days it did not make so much difference. The talk was
good. We were a travelled group, and what with reminiscences of people
and places, and the scandal of courts, it was far from being dull. But
as the days went on, and the war clouds began to gather, the
overcharged air seemed to get on the nerves of the entire group, and
instead of the peaceful summer we had counted upon, every one of us
seemed to live in his own particular kind of fever. Every one of us,
down to the Youngster, had fixed ideas, deep-set theories, and
convictions as different as our characters, our lives, our callings,
and our faiths. We were all Cosmopolitan Americans, but ready to
spread the Eagle, if necessary, and all of us, except the Violinist,
of New England extraction, which means really of English blood, and
that _will_ show when the screws are put on. We had never thought of
the Violinist as not one of us, but he was really of Polish origin.
His great-grandfather had been a companion of Adam Czartoriski in the
uprising of 1830, and had gone to the States when the amnesty was not
extended to his chief after that rebellion, Poland's last, had been
stamped out.
As well as I can remember it was the night of August 6th that the
first serious dispute arose. England had declared war. All our male
servants had left us except two American chauffeurs, and a couple of
old outside men. Two of our four cars, and all our horses but one had
been requisitioned. That did not upset us. We had taken on the wives
of some of the men, among them Angéle, the pretty wife of one of the
French chauffeurs, and her two-months-old baby into the bargain. We
still had two cars, that, at a pinch, would carry the party, and we
still had one mount in case of necessity.
The question arose as to whether we should break up and make for the
nearest port while we could, or "stick it out." It had been finally
agreed not to evacuate--_yet_. One does not often get such a chance to
see a country at war, and we were all ardent spectators, and all
unattached. I imagine not one of us had at that time any idea of
being useful--the stupendousness of it all had not dawned on any of
us--unless it was the Doctor.
But after the decision of "stick" had been passed unanimously, the
Critic, who was a bit of a sentimentalist, and if he were anything
else was a Norman Angel-lite, stuck his hands in his pockets, and
remarked: "After all, it is perfectly safe to stay, especially now
that England is coming in."
"You think so?" said the Doctor.
"Sure," smiled the Critic. "The Germans will never cross the French
frontier this time. This is not 1870."
"Won't they, and isn't it?" replied the Doctor sharply.
"They never can get by Verdun and Belfort."
"Never said they could," remarked the Doctor, with a tone as near to a
sneer as a good-natured host can allow himself. "But they'll invade
fast enough. I know what I am talking about."
"You don't mean to tell me," said the Critic, "that a nation like
Germany--I'm talking now about the people, the country that has been
the hot bed of Socialism,--will stand for a war of invasion?"
That started the Doctor off. He flayed the theorists, the people who
reasoned with their emotions and not their brains, the mob that looked
at externals, and never saw the fires beneath, the throng that was
unable to understand anything outside its own horizon, the mass that
pretended to read the history of the world, and because it changed its
clothes imagined that it had changed its spirit.
"Why, I've lived in Germany," he cried. "I was educated there. I know
them. I have the misfortune to understand them. They'll stick together
and Socialism go hang--as long as there is a hope of victory. The
Confederation was cemented in the blood of victory. It can only be
dissolved in the blood of defeat. They are a great, a well-disciplined,
and an obedient people."
"One would think you admired them and their military system," remarked
the Critic, a bit crest-fallen at the attack.
"I may not, but I'll tell you one sure thing if you want a good circus
you've got to train your animals. The Kaiser has been a corking
ringmaster."
Of course this got a laugh, and though both Critic and Journalist
tried to strike fire again with words like "democracy" and
"civilization," the Doctor had cooled down, and nothing could stir him
again that night.
Still the discord had been sown. I suppose the dinner-table talk was
only a sample of what was going on, in that month, all over the world.
It did not help matters that as the days went on we all realized that
the Doctor had been right--that France was to be invaded, not across
her own proper frontier, but across unprotected Belgium. This seemed
so atrocious to most of us that indignation could only express itself
in abuse. There was not a night that the dinner-table talk was not
bitter. You see the Doctor did not expect the world ever to be
perfect--did not know that he wanted it to be--believed in the
struggle. On the other hand the Critic, and in a certain sense the
Journalist, in spite of their experiences, were more or less Utopian,
and the Sculptor and the Violinist purely spectators.
No need to go into the details of the heated arguments. They were only
the echo of what all the world,--that had cradled itself into the
belief that a great war among the great nations had become, for
economic as well as humanitarian reasons, impossible,--were, I
imagine, at this time saying.
As nearly as I can remember it was on August 20th that the climax
came. Liège had fallen. The English Expedition had landed, and was
marching on Belgium. A victorious German army had goose-stepped into
defenseless Brussels, and was sweeping out toward the French frontier.
The French advance into Alsace had been a blunder.
The Doctor remarked that "the English had landed twelve days too
late," and the Journalist drew a graphic, and purely imaginary,
picture of the pathos of the Belgians straining their eyes in vain to
the West for the coming of the men in khaki, and unfortunately he let
himself expatiate a bit on German methods.
The spark touched the Doctor off.
"By Jove," he said, "all you sentimentalists read the History of the
World with your intellects in your breeches pockets. War is not a game
for babies. It is war--it is not sport. You chaps think war can be
prevented. All I ask you is--why hasn't it been prevented? In every
generation that we know anything about there have been some pretty
fine men who have been of your opinion--Erasmus for one, and how many
others? But since the generations have contented themselves with
talking, and not talked war out of the problem, why, I can't see, for
my part, that Germany's way is not as good as any. She is in to win,
and so are all the rest of them. Schools of War are like the Schools
of Art you chaps talk so much about--it does not make much difference
what school one belongs to--the only important thing is making good."
"One would think," said the Journalist, "that you _liked_ such a war."
"Well, I don't even know that I can deny that. I would not
deliberately _choose_ it. But I am willing to accept it, and I am not
a bit sentimental about it. I am not even sure that it was not needed.
The world has let the Kaiser sit twenty-five years on a throne
announcing himself as 'God's anointed.' His pretensions have been
treated seriously by all the democracies of the world. What for?
Purely for personal gain. We have come to a pass where there is little
a man won't do--for personal gain. The business of the world, and its
diplomacy, have all become so complicated and corrupt that a large
percentage of the brains of honest mankind are little willing to touch
either. We need shaking up--all of us. If nothing can make man realize
that he was not born to be merely happy and get rich, or to have a
fine old time, why, such a complete upheaval as this seems to me to be
necessary, and for me--if this war can rip off, with its shrapnel, the
selfishness with which prosperity has encrusted the lucky: if it can
explode our false values with its bombs: if it can break down our
absurd pretensions with its cannon,--all I can say is that Germany
will have done missionary work for the whole world--herself included."
Before he had done, we were all on our feet shouting at him, all but
the Lawyer, who smiled into his coffee cup.
"Why," cried the Critic, in anger, "one would think you held a brief
for them!"
"I do NOT," snapped the Doctor, "but I don't dislike them any
more than I do--well," catching himself up with a laugh, "lots of
other people."
"And you mean to tell me," said the gentle voice of the Divorcée at
his elbow, "that you calmly face the idea of the hundreds of
thousands of men,--well and strong to-day--dead to-morrow,--the
thought of the mothers who have borne their sons in pain, and bred
them in love, only to fling them before the cannon?"
"For what, after all, _are_ we born?" said the Doctor. "_Where_ we
die, or _when_ is a trifle, since die we must. But _why_ we die and
_how_ is vital. It is not only vital to the man that goes--it is vital
to the race. It is the struggle, it is the fight, which, no matter
what form it takes, makes life worth living. Men struggle for money.
Financiers strangle one another at the Bourse. People look on and
applaud, in spite of themselves. That is exciting. It is not
uplifting. But for men just like you and me to march out to face death
for an idea, for honor, for duty, that very fact ennobles the race."
"Ah," said the Lawyer, "I see. The Doctor enjoys the drama of life,
but he does not enjoy the purely domestic drama."
"And out of all this," said the Trained Nurse, in her level voice,
"you are leaving the Almighty. He gave us a world full of beauty, full
of work, full of interest, and he gave us capacities to enjoy it, and
endowed us with emotions which make it worth while to live and to
die. He gave us simple laws--they are clear enough--they mark sharply
the line between good and evil. He left us absolutely free to choose.
And behold what man has made of it!"
"I deny the statement," said the Doctor.
"That's easy," laughed the Journalist.
"I believe," said the Doctor, impatiently, "that no good comes but
through evil. Read your Bible."
"I don't want to read it with _your_ eyes," replied the Journalist,
and marched testily down the path toward the house.
"Well," snapped the Doctor, "if I read it with _yours_, I should call
on the Almighty to smite this planet with his fires and send us
spinning, a flaming brand through space, to annihilation--the great
scheme would seem to me a failure--but I don't believe it is." And off
he marched in the other direction.
The Lawyer shrugged his shoulders, and suppressed, as well as he
could, a smile. The Youngster, leaning his elbows on his knees,
recited under his breath:
"And as he sat, all suddenly there rolled,
From where the woman wept upon the sod,
Satan's deep voice, 'Oh Thou unhappy God.'"
"Exactly," said the Lawyer.
"What's that?" asked the Violinist.
"Only the last three lines of a great little poem by a little great
Irishman named Stephens--entitled 'What Satan Said.'"
"After all," said the Lawyer, "the Doctor is probably right. It all
depends on one's point of view."
"And one's temperament," said the Violinist.
"And one's education," said the Critic.
Just here the Doctor came back,--and he came back his smiling self. He
made a dash down the path to where the Journalist was evidently
sulking, went up behind him, threw an arm over his shoulder, and led
him back into the circle.
"See here," he said, "you are all my guests. I am unreasonably fond of
you, even if we can't see Life from the same point of view. Man as an
individual, and Man as a part of the Scheme are two different things.
I asked you down here to enjoy yourselves, not to argue. I
apologize--all my fault--unpardonable of me. Come now--we have decided
to stay as long as we can--we are all interested. It is not every
generation that has the honor to sit by, and watch two systems meet
at the crossroads and dispute the passage to the Future. We'll agree
not to discuss the ethics of the matter again. If the men marching out
there to the frontier can agree to face the cannon--and there are as
many opinions there as here--surely we can _look on_ in silence."
And on that agreement we all went to bed.
But on the following day, as we sat in the garden after dinner, our
attempts to "keep off the grass" were miserably visible. They cast a
constraint on the party. Every topic seemed to lead to the forbidden
enclosure. It was at a very critical moment that the Sculptor, sitting
cross-legged on a bench, in a real Alma Tadema attitude, filled the
dangerous pause with:
"It was in the days of our Lord 1348 that there happened in Florence,
the finest city in Italy--"
And the Violinist, who was leaning against a tree, touched an
imaginary mandolin, concluding: "A most terrible plague."
The Critic leaped to his feet.
"A corking idea," he cried.
"Mine, mine own," replied the Sculptor. "I propose that what those
who, in the days of the terrible plague, took refuge at the Villa
Palmieri, did to pass away the time, we, who are watching the war
approach--as our host says it will--do here. Let us, instead of
disputing, each tell a story after dinner--to calm our nerves,--or
otherwise."
At first every one hooted.
"I could never tell a story," objected the Divorcée.
"Of course you can," declared the Journalist. "Everybody in the world
has one story to tell."
"Sure," exclaimed the Lawyer. "No embargo on subjects?"
"I don't know," smiled the Doctor. "There is always the Youngster."
"You go to blazes," was the Youngster's response, and he added: "No
war stories. Draw that line."
"Then," laughed the Doctor, "let's make it tales of our own, our
native land." And there the matter rested. Only, when we separated
that night, each of us carried a sealed envelope containing a
numbered slip, which decided the question of precedence, and it was
agreed that no one but the story-teller should know who was to be the
evening's entertainer, until story-telling hour arrived with the
coffee and cigarettes.
I
THE YOUNGSTER'S STORY
IT HAPPENED AT MIDNIGHT
THE TALE OF A BRIDE'S NEW HOME
The daytimes were not ever very bad. Short-handed in the pretty
garden, every one did a little work. The Lawyer was passionately fond
of flowers, and the Youngster did most of the errands. The Sculptor
had found some clay, and loved to surprise us at night with a new
centre piece for the table, and the Divorcée spent most of her time
tending Angéle's baby, while the Doctor and the Nurse were eternally
fussing over new kinds of bandages and if ever we got together, it was
usually for a little reading aloud at tea-time, or a little music. The
spirit of discussion seemed to keep as far away before the lights were
up as did the spirit of war, and nothing could be farther than that
_appeared_.
The next day we were unusually quiet.
Most of us kept in our rooms in the afternoon. There were those
stories to think over, and that we all took it so seriously proved how
very much we had been needing some real thing to do. We got through
dinner very comfortably.
There was little news in the papers that day except enthusiastic
accounts of the reception of the British troops by the French. It was
lovely to see the two races that had met on so many battle
fields--conquered, and been conquered by one another--embracing with
enthusiasm. It was to the credit of all of us that we did not make the
inevitable reflections, but only saw the humor and charm of the thing,
and remembered the fears that had prevented the plans of tunnelling
the channel, only to find them humorous.
The coffee had been placed on the table. The Trained Nurse, as usual,
sat behind the tray, and we each went and took our cup, found a
comfortable seat in the circle under the trees, where a few yellow
lanterns swung in the soft air.
Then the Youngster pulled a white head-band with a huge "Number One"
on it, out of his pocket, placed it on his head after the manner of
the French Conscripts, struck an attitude in the middle of the
circle, drew his chair deftly under him, and with the air of an
experienced monologist began:
* * * * *
Not so very many years ago there was a pretty wedding at Trinity
Church in Boston. It was quite the sort of marriage Bostonians believe
in. The man was a rising lawyer, rather a sceptic on all sorts of
questions, as most of us chaps pride ourselves on being, when we come
out of college. They were married in church to please the Woman. What
odds did it make?
Before they were married they had decided to live outside the city.
She wanted a garden and an old house. He did not care where they lived
so long as they lived together. Very proper of him, too. They spent
the last year of their engaged life, the nicest year of some girls'
lives, I have heard--in hunting the place. What they finally settled
on was an old colonial house with a colonnaded front, and a round
tower at each end, standing back from the road, and approached by a
wide circular drive. It was large, substantial, with great
possibilities, and plenty of ground. It had been unoccupied for many
years, and the place had an evil report, and, at the time when they
first saw it, appeared to deserve it.
He had looked it over. The situation was healthy. It was convenient to
the city. He could make it in his car in less than forty-five minutes.
They saw what could be done with the place, and did not concern
themselves with _why_ other people had not cared to live there.
Architects, interior decorators, and landscape gardeners were put to
work on it, and, even before the wedding, the place was well on toward
its habitable stage.
Then they were married, and, quite correctly, went abroad to float in
a gondola on the Grand Canal--together; to cross the Gemmi--together;
to stroll about Pompeii and cross to Capri--together; and then ravage
antiquity shops in Paris--together. They returned in the early days of
a glorious September. The house was ready for its master and mistress
to lay the touch of their personality on it, and put in place the
trophies of their Wedding Journey.
The evil look the house once had was gone.
A few old trees had been cut down round it to let in the glorious
autumn sun all over the house, and when, on their first morning, after
a good sound, well-earned sleep, they took their coffee on the terrace
off the breakfast room, under a yellow awning, they certainly did not
think, if they ever had, of the mysterious rumors against the house
which had been whispered about when they first bought it. To them it
seemed that they had never seen a gayer place.
But on the second night, just as the Woman was putting her book aside,
and had a hand stretched out to shut off the light, she stopped--a
carriage was coming up the drive. She sat up, and listened for the
bell. It did not ring. After a few moments--as there was absolutely no
sound of the carriage passing--she got up, and gently pushed the
shutter--her room was on the front--there was nothing there, so,
attaching no importance to it, she went quietly to bed, put out her
light, just noticing as she did so, that it was midnight, and went to
sleep. In the morning, the incident made so little impression on her,
that she forgot to even mention it.
The next night, by some queer trick of memory, just as she went to
bed, the thing came back to her, and she was surprised to find that
she had no sleep in her. Instead of that she kept looking at the
clock, and just before twelve, cold chills began to go down her back,
when she heard the rapid approach of a carriage--this time she was
conscious that her hearing was so keen that she knew there were two
horses. She listened intently--no doubt about it--the carriage had
stopped at the door.
Then there was a silence.
She was just convincing herself that there must be some sort of echo
which made it appear that a team passing in the road had come up the
drive--when she was suddenly sure that she heard a hurried step in the
corridor--it passed the door. Now she was naturally a very
unimaginative person, and had never had occasion to know fear. So,
after a bit, she put out her light, saying to herself that a belated
servant was busy with some neglected work--nothing more likely--and
she went to sleep.
Again the morning sunlight, the Man's gay companionship, the hundreds
of delightful things to do, wiped out that bad quarter of an hour,
and again it never occurred to her to mention it.
The next night the remembrance came back so vividly after the Man had
gone to his room, that she regretted she had not at least asked him if
he had heard a carriage pass in the night. Of course she was sure that
he had not. He was such a sound sleeper. Besides, it was not
important. If he had, he would not have been nervous about it. Still,
she could not sleep, and, just before the dining room clock began to
chime midnight--she had never heard it before, and that she heard it
now was a proof of how her whole body was listening--again came the
rapid tread of running horses. This time every hair stood up on her
head, and before she could control herself, she called out toward the
open door: "Dearest, are you awake?"
Almost before she had the words out he was standing smiling in the
doorway. It was all right.
"Did you _think_ you heard a carriage come up the driveway?" she
asked.
"Why, yes," he replied, "but I didn't."
"Listen! Is there some one coming along the corridor?"
He crossed the room quietly, opened the door, and turned on the light.
"No, dear. There is no one there."
"Hadn't you better ring for your man, and have him see if any of the
servants are up?"
He sat down on the edge of the bed, and laughed heartily.
"See here, dear girl," he said, "you and I are a pair of healthy
people. We have happened to hear a noise which we can't explain. Be
sure that there is rational explanation. You're not afraid?"
"Well, no, I really am not," she declared, "but you cannot deny that
it is strange. Did you hear it last night?"
"Go on, now, with your cross-examination," he said. "Let's go to
sleep. At any rate the exhibition is over for to-night."
The fourth night they did not speak in the night any more than they
had in the daytime. But the next day they had a long conversation, the
gist of which was this: That they had bought the place, that except
for fifteen minutes at midnight, the place was ideal. They were both
level-headed, neither believed in anything super-natural. Were they to
be driven out of such a place by so harmless a thing as an
unexplained noise? They could get used to it. After a bit it would no
more wake them up,--such was the force of habit--than the ticking of
the clock. To all this they both agreed, and the matter was dropped.
For ten days they did not mention it, but in all those ten days a sort
of crescendo of emotion was going on in her. At first she began to
think of it as soon as bed-time approached; then she felt it intruding
on her thoughts at the dinner table; then she was unable to sleep for
an hour or two after the fifteen minutes had passed, and, finally, one
night, she fled into his room to find him wide awake, just before
dawn, and to confess that the shadow of midnight was stretched before
and after until it was almost a black circle round the twenty-four
hours.
She knew it was absurd. She had no intention of being driven out of
such a lovely place--BUT--
"See here, dear," he said. "Let's break our rule. We neither of us
want company, but let's, at least, have a big week ender, and perhaps
we can prove to ourselves that our nerves are wrong. One thing is
sure, if you are going to get pale over it, I'll burn the blooming
house down before we'll live in it."
"But you mind it yourself?"
"Not a bit!"
"But you are awake."
"Of course I am, because I know that you are."
"Do you mean to say that if I slept you wouldn't notice it?"
"On my honor--I should not."
"You are a comfort," she ejaculated. "I shall go right to sleep." And
off she went, and did go to sleep.
All the same, in the morning, he insisted on the house-party.
"Let me see our list," he said. "Let us have no students of occult; no
men who dabble in laboratory spiritualism; just nice, live, healthy
people who never heard of such things--if possible. You can find
them."
"You see, dear," she explained, "it would not trouble me if I heard it
and you did not--but--"
"Oh, fudge!" he laughed. "Just now I should be sure to hear anything
you did, I suppose."
"You old darling," she replied, "then I don't care for it a bit."
"All the same we'll have the house-party."
So the following Saturday every room in the house was occupied.
At midnight they were all gathered in the long drawing room opening on
the colonnade, and, when the hour sounded, some one was singing. The
host and hostess heard the running horses, as usual, and they were
conscious that one or two people turned a listening ear, but evidently
no one saw anything strange in it, and no comment was made. It was
after one when they all went up to their rooms, so that evening passed
off all right.
But on Sunday night two of the younger guests had gone to sit on the
front terrace, and the older people were walking, in the moonlight, in
the garden at the back. The sweet little girl, who was having her hand
held, got up properly when she heard the carriage coming, and went to
the edge of the terrace to see who was arriving at midnight. She had a
fit of nerves as the invisible vehicle and its running horses seemed
about to ride over her. She ran in, trembling with fear, to tell the
tale, and of course every one laughed at her, and the matter would
have been dropped, if it had not happened that, just at that moment a
very pale gentleman came stumbling out of the house with the statement
that he wanted a conveyance "to take him back to town," that "he
refused to sleep in a haunted house," that he "had encountered an
invisible person running along the corridor to his room," in fact the
footsteps had as he put it "passed right through him."
The host broke into laughter, but he took the bull by the horns--the
facts, as he knew them, were safer than the tales which he knew would
run over the city if he attempted to deny things.
"See here, my good people," he said, "there is a little mystery here
that we can't explain. The truth is, there _is_ a story about this
house. It used to belong to the president of a well-known railroad.
That was twenty-five years ago. They say that one night, when he was
driving from a place he had up country, his team was run into at a
railway crossing five miles from here--one of those grade crossings
that never ought to have been--and he was killed and his horses came
home at midnight. 'They say' that the people who lived here after that
declared that the horses have come home every midnight since. Now,
there's the story. They don't do any harm. It only takes them a few
minutes. They don't even trample the driveway, so why not?"
"All the same, I want to go back to town," said the frightened guest.
"I would stay the night, if I were you," said the host. "They won't
come again until to-morrow."
All the same, when morning came, every one skipped, and as the last of
them drove away, the Woman put her hand through the Man's arm, and
smiled as she said: "It's all over. I don't mind a bit. When I heard
you saying last night, 'They don't even trample the driveway, so why
not?' I said to myself, 'Why not?' indeed."
"Good girl," he replied. "I'll bet my top hat you grow to be proud of
them."
I don't know that they ever did, but I do know that they still live
there. I went to school with the son, and whenever any one bragged, he
used to say, "Well, we've _always_ had a ghost. You ain't got that!"
The Youngster threw his lighted cigarette into the air, ran under it,
caught it between his lips, and made a bow, as the Doctor broke into a
roar of laughter.
"I know that old house," he said. "Jamaica Pond. But see here,
Youngster, your idea of ghosts is terribly illogical. It was the _man_
who was killed, not the _horses_. The wrong part of the team walked."
"You _are_ particular," replied the Youngster. "The man did not come
back, and the horses did. I can't split hairs when it's a ghost story.
I feel afraid that I have missed my vocation, and that flights in the
imagination are more in my line than flights in the air. I don't know
what you think. _I_ think it's a mighty good story. I say, Journalist,
do you think I could sell that story? I've never earned a dollar in my
life."
"Well," laughed the Journalist, "a dollar is just about what you would
get for it."
"If I had been doing that story," said the Critic, "I should have
found a logical explanation for it."
"Of course you would," said the Youngster. "I know one of a haunted
house on St. James Street which had an explanation."
But the Doctor cut him short with: "Come now, you've done your stunt.
No more stories to-night. Off to bed. You and I are going to take a
run to Paris to-morrow."
"What for?"
"Tell you to-morrow."
As every one began to move toward the house, the Violinist remarked,
"I was thinking of running up to Paris myself to-morrow. Any one else
want to go with me?" The Journalist said that he did, and the party
broke up. As they strolled toward the house the Lawyer was heard
asking the Youngster, "What were the steps in the corridor?"
"Well," replied the Youngster, "I suppose on the night that the team
came home there must have been great excitement in the house--every
one running to and fro and--"
But the Journalist's shout of laughter stopped him.
The Youngster eyed him with shocked surprise.
"By Jupiter!" cried the Journalist. "That is the darnedest ghost story
I ever heard. Everything and everybody walked but the dead man--even
the carriage."
"That isn't _my_ fault," said the Youngster, indignantly.
II
THE TRAINED NURSE'S STORY
THE SON OF JOSEPHINE
THE TALE OF A FOUNDLING
The house was very quiet next day. All the men, except the Critic and
the Sculptor, had made an early and hurried run to Paris. So we saw
little of each other until we gathered for dinner, and the
conversation was calm--in fact subdued.
The Doctor was especially quiet. No one was really gay except the
Youngster. He talked of what he had seen in Paris--the silent
streets--the moods of the women--the sight of officers in khaki flying
about in big touring cars--and no one asked what had really taken them
to town.
The Trained Nurse and I had walked to the nearest village, but we
brought back little in the way of news. The only interesting thing we
saw was _Monsieur le Curé_ talking to a handsome young peasant woman
in the square before the church. We heard her say, with a sob in her
throat, "If my man does not come back, I'll never say my prayers
again. I'll never pray to a God who let this thing happen unless my
man comes back."
"She will, just the same," said the Lawyer. "One of the strangest
features of such a catastrophe is that it steadies a race, especially
the race convinced that it has right on its side."
"It goes deeper than that," said the Journalist. "It strikes millions
with the same pain, and they bear together what they could not have
faced separately."
"True," remarked the Doctor, "and that is one reason why I have always
mistrusted the effort of people outside the radius of disaster to help
in anyway, except scientifically."
"That is rather a cruel idea," commented the Trained Nurse.
"Perhaps. But I believe organized charity even of that sort is usually
ineffective, and weakens the race that accepts it. I believe victims
of such disaster are healthier and come out stronger for facing it,
dying, or surviving, as Fate decrees."
"Keep off the grass," cried the Youngster. "I brought back a car full
of books." The hint was taken, and we talked of books until the coffee
came out.
As usual, the Trained Nurse sat behind the pot, and when we were all
served, she pushed the tray back, folded her strong capable white
hands on the edge of the table, and said quietly:
"_Messieurs et Mesdames_"--
We lit our cigarettes, and she began:
* * * * *
It was the first year after I left home and took up nursing. I had a
room at that time in one of the Friendly Society refuges on the lower
side of Beacon Hill. It was under the auspices of an Episcopal High
Church in the days of Father Hall, and was rather English in tone.
Indeed its matron was an Englishwoman--gentle, round-faced,
lace-capped, and very sympathetic. I was very fond of her. I had, as a
seamstress, a neat little girl named Josephine.
Josephine was a tiny creature, all grey in tone, with mouse-colored
hair. She was a foundling. She had not the least notion who her people
were. Her first recollections were of the orphan asylum where she was
brought up. In her early teens she had been bound out to a
dressmaker, who had been kind to her, and, when her first employer
died, Josephine, who had saved a little money, and longed for
independence, began to go out as a seamstress among the women she had
grown to know in the dressmaking establishment, and went to live at
one of the Christian Association homes for working girls.
Every one knows what those boarding houses are--two or three hundred
girls of all ages, from sixteen up, of all temperaments. All girls
willing to submit to control; girls with their gay days and their
tragic, girls of ambition, and girls with faith in the future, as well
as girls of no luck, and girls with their simple youthful romances.
Every one loved Josephine.
She was by nature a little lady, dainty in her ways, industrious,
unrebellious, always ready to help the other girls about their
clothes, and a model of a confidant. Every one told her their little
troubles, every one confided their little romances. They were sure of
a good listener, who never had any troubles or romances of her own to
confide.
I don't know how old Josephine was at that time. She might have been
twenty-five, looked younger, but was perhaps older. She was so tiny,
and such a mouse of a thing that she seemed a child, but for her
energy, and her capacity for silence.
It was, I fancy, three years after I first knew her that she one
evening confided to a group of her intimate friends, as they sat
together over their sewing, that she was engaged to be married. There
was a great excitement. Little lonely Josephine, so discreet, who had
sympathized with the romances of so many of her comrades, had a
romance of her own. Such a hugging and kissing as went on, you never
saw, unless you have seen a crowd of such girls together. Every one
was full of questions, and there were almost as many tears shed as
questions asked.
He was a carpenter, Josephine told them. She had known him ever since
she was with the dressmaker who took her out of the asylum. He lived
in Utica, New York. He had a good job, and they were to be married as
soon as she could get ready.
So Josephine set to work with her nimble fingers to make her
trousseau. During the years she had worked for me, the Matron at the
Friendly Society, and many of its patrons had come to know and love
dear little Josephine, and in our house there was almost as much
excitement over the news as there was at the Association at the South
End. All the girls set to work to make something for little Josephine.
Every one for whom she had worked gave her something. One lady gave
her black silk for a frock. All the girls sewed a bit of underwear for
her. She had sheets and table linen, and all sorts of dainty things
which her girl friends loved to count over, and admire in the evening
without the least bit of envy. By the time Spring came Josephine had
to buy a new trunk to pack her things away in.