with its walls panelled in worm-eaten oak reflecting the firelight and
its rows of volumes too close to the grave to be handled. Here and there
above the high wainscoting are ancestral portraits, some of them as
black as a favourite pipe. Above the great stone chimney-piece is a
full-length figure of the duke in a hunting costume of green velvet. The
candelabra that Henri had just lighted on the long centre-table,
littered with silver souvenirs and the latest Parisian comedies, now
illumined the duke's smile, which he must have held with bad grace
during the sittings. The rest of him was lost in the shadow above the
chimney-piece of sculptured cherubs, whose missing noses have been badly
restored in cement by the gardener.
I had settled myself in a chintz-covered chair and was idly turning the
pages of one of the latest of the Parisian comedies when I heard the
swish of a gown and the patter of two small slippered feet hurrying
across the hall. I rose to regard my hostess with a feeling of tender
curiosity mingled with resentment over her treatment of my old friend,
when the portiere was lifted and Alice came toward me with both white
arms outstretched in welcome. She was so pale in her dinner gown of
black tulle that all the blood seemed to have taken refuge in her
lips--so pale that the single camellia thrust in her corsage was less
waxen in its whiteness than her neck.
I caught her hands and she stood close to me, smiling bravely, the tips
of her fingers trembling in my own.
"You are ill!" I exclaimed, now thoroughly alarmed. "You must go
straight to bed."
"No, no," she replied, with an effort. "Only tired, very tired."
"You should not have let me come," I protested.
She smiled and smoothed back a wave of her glossy black hair and I saw
the old mischievous gleam flash in her dark eyes.
"Come," she whispered, leading me to the door of the dining room. "It is
a secret," she confided, with a forced little laugh. "Look!" And she
pinched my arm.
I glanced within--the table with its lace and silver under the glow of
the red candle-shades was laid for two.
"It was nice of you," I said.
"We shall dine alone, you and I," she murmured. "I am so tired of
company."
I was on the point of impulsively mentioning poor Tanrade's absence, but
the subtle look in her eyes checked me. During dinner we should have our
serious little talk, I said to myself as we returned to the library
table.
"It's so amusing, that little comedy of Flandrean's," laughed Alice,
picking up the volume I had been scanning. "The second act is a jewel
with its delicious situation in which Francois Villers, the husband, and
Therese, his wife, divorce in order to carry out between them a secret
love-affair--a series of mysterious rendezvous that terminate in an
amusing elopement. _Tres chic_, Flandrean's comedy. It should have a
_succes fou_ at the Palais Royal."
"Madame is served," gravely announced Henri.
Not once during dinner was Alice serious. Over the soup--an excellent
bisque of _ecrevisses_--she bubbled over with the latest Parisian
gossip, the new play at the Odeon, the fashion in hats. With the fish
she prattled on over the limitations of the new directoire gowns and the
scandal involving a certain tenor and a duchess. Tanrade's defence,
which I had so carefully thought out and rehearsed in my garden, seemed
doomed to remain unheard, for her cleverness in evading the subject, her
sudden change to the merriest of moods, and her quick wit left me
helpless. Neither did I make any better progress during the pheasant and
the salad, and as she sipped but twice the Pommard and scarcely
moistened her lips with the champagne my case seemed hopeless. Henri
finally left us alone over our coffee and cigarettes. I had become
desperate.
"Alice," I said bluntly, "we are old friends. I have some things to say
to you of--of the utmost importance. You will listen, my friend, will
you not, until I am quite through, for I shall not mention it again?"
She leaned forward with a little start and gazed at me suddenly, with
dilated eyes--eyes that were the next minute lowered in painful
submission, the corners of her mouth contracting nervously.
"_Mon Dieu!_" she murmured, looking up. "_Mon Dieu!_ But you are cruel!"
"No," I replied calmly. "It is you who are cruel."
"No, no, you shall not!" she exclaimed, raising both ringless hands in
protest, her breath coming quick. "I--I know what you are going to say.
No, my dear friend--I beg of you--we are good comrades. Is it not so?
Let us remain so."
"Listen," I implored.
"Ah, you men with your idea of marriage!" she continued. "The wedding,
the aunts, the cousins, who come staring at you for a day and giving you
advice for years. A solemn apartment near the Etoile--madame with her
afternoons--monsieur with his club, his maitresse, his gambling and his
debts--the children with their English governess. A villa by the sea,
tennis, infants and sand-forts. The annual stupid _voyage en Suisse_.
The inane slavery of it all. _You_ who are a bohemian, you who
_live_--with all your freedom--all my freedom! _Non, merci!_ I have seen
all that! Bah! You are as crazy as Tanrade."
"Alice," I cried, "you think----"
"Precisely, my friend."
She rose swiftly, crossed the room, and before I knew it slipped back of
my chair, put both arms about my neck, kissed me, and burst into tears.
"There, there, _mon pauvre petit_," she whispered. "Forgive me--I was
angry--we are not so stupid as all that--eh? We are not like the stupid
_bourgeoisie_."
"But it is not I----" I stammered.
She caught her breath in surprise, straightened, and slowly retraced her
steps to her vacant chair.
"Ah! So it is that?" she said slowly, drawing her chair close to my own.
Then she seated herself, rested her chin in her hands, and regarded me
for some moments intently.
"So you have come for--for him?" she resumed, her breast heaving. "I am
right, am I not?"
"He loves you," I declared. "Do you think I am blind as to your love for
him? You who came to greet me to-night out of your suffering?"
For some moments she was silent, her fingers pressed over her eyes.
"Do you love him?" I insisted.
"No, no," she moaned. "It is impossible."
"Do you know," I continued, "that he has not slept or hunted or smoked
for a week before he was forced to go to Paris? Can you realize what he
suffers now during days of exhausting rehearsals? He came to me a
wreck," I said. "You have been cruel and you have----"
Again she had become deathly pale. Then at length she rose slowly,
lifted her head proudly, and led the way back to the library fire.
"You must go," she said. "It is late."
* * * * *
When the little boy of the fisherman, Jean Tranchard, was not to be
found playing with the other barelegged tots in the mud of the village
alleys, or wandering alone on the marsh, often dangerously near the
sweep of the incoming tide, one could be quite sure he was safe with
Tanrade. Frequently, too, when the maker of ballets was locked in his
domain and his servant had strict orders to admit no one--neither
Monsieur le Cure nor the mayor, nor so intimate a comrade as
myself--during such hours as these the little boy was generally beside
the composer, his chubby toes scarcely reaching to the rungs of the
chair beside Tanrade's working desk.
Though the little boy was barely seven he was a sturdy little chap with
fair curly hair, blue eyes, and the quick gestures of his father. He had
a way of throwing out his chest when he was pleased, and gesticulating
with open arms and closed fists when excited, which is peculiar to the
race of fishermen. The only time when he was perfectly still was when
Tanrade worked in silence. He would then often sit beside him for hours
waiting until the composer dropped his pen, swung round in his chair to
the keyboard at his elbow, and while the piano rang with melody the
little boy's eyes danced. He forgot during such moments of ecstasy that
his father was either out at sea with his nets or back in the village
good-naturedly drunk, or that his mother, whom he vaguely remembered,
was dead.
Tanrade was a so much better father to him than his own that the rest of
his wretched little existence did not count. When the father was
fishing, the little boy cared for himself. He knew how to heat the pot
and make the soup when there was any to make. He knew where to dig for
clams and sputtering crabs. It was the bread that bothered him most--it
cost two sous. It was Tanrade who discovered and softened these hard
details.
The house in which the fisherman and the little boy live is tucked away
in an angle of the walled lane leading out to the marsh. This stone
house of Tranchard's takes up as little room as possible, since its
front dare not encroach upon the lane and its back is hunched up
apologetically against the angle of the wall. The house has but two
compartments--the loft above stored with old nets and broken oars, and
the living room beneath, whose dirt floor dampens the feet of an oak
cupboard, a greasy table, a chair with a broken leg, and a mahogany bed.
Over the soot-blackened chimney-piece is a painted figure of the Virgin,
and a frigate in a bottle.
Monsieur le Cure had been watching all night beside the mahogany bed.
Now and then he slipped his hand in the breast of his soutane of rusty
black, drew out a steel watch, felt under a patchwork-quilt for a small
feverish wrist, counted its feeble pulse, and filling a pewter spoon
with a mixture of aconite, awakened the little boy who gazed at him with
hollow eyes sunken above cheeks of dull crimson.
In the corner, his back propped against the cupboard, his bare feet
tucked under him, dozed Tranchard. There was not much else he could do,
for he was soaked to the skin and half drunk. Occasionally he shifted
his feet, awakened, and dimly remembered the little boy was worse; that
this news had been hailed to him by the skipper of the mackerel smack,
_La Belle Elise_, and that he had hauled in his empty nets and come
home.
As the gray light of dawn crept into the room, the little boy again grew
restless. He opened the hollow eyes and saw dimly the black figure of
the cure.
"Tanne," he whimpered. "Where is he, Tanne?"
"Monsieur Tanrade will come," returned the cure, "if you go to sleep
like a brave little man."
"Tanne," repeated the child and closed his eyes obediently.
A cock crowed in a distant yard, awakening a sleek cat who emerged from
beneath the bed, yawned, stretched her claws, and walked out of the
narrow doorway into the misty lane.
The cure rose stiffly, went over to the figure in the corner and shook
it. Tranchard started up out of a sound sleep.
"Tell madame when she arrives that I have gone for Doctor Thevenet. I
shall return before night."
"I won't forget," grumbled Tranchard.
"I have left instructions for madame beside the candle. See that you
keep the kettle boiling for the poultices."
The fisherman nodded. "_Eh ben!_ How is it with the kid?" he inquired.
"He does not take after his mother. _Parbleu!_ She was as strong as a
horse, my woman."
Monsieur le Cure did not reply. He had taken down his flat black hat
from a peg and was carefully adjusting his square black cravat edged
with white beneath his chin, when Alice de Breville entered the doorway.
"How is his temperature?" she asked eagerly, unpinning a filmy green
veil and throwing aside a gray automobile coat.
Monsieur le Cure graciously uncovered his head. "There has been no
change since you left at midnight," he said gravely. "The fever is still
high, the pulse weaker. I am going for Doctor Thevenet after mass. There
is a train at eight."
Tranchard was now on his knees fanning a pile of fagots into a blaze,
the acrid smoke drifting back into the low-ceiled room.
"I will attend to it," said Alice, turning to the fisherman. "Tell my
chauffeur to wait at the church for Monsieur le Cure. The auto is at the
end of the lane."
For some minutes after the clatter of Tranchard's sabots had died away
in the lane, Alice de Breville and Monsieur le Cure stood in earnest
conversation beside the table.
"It may save the child's life," pleaded the priest. There was a ring of
insistence in his voice, a gleam in his eyes that made the woman beside
him tremble.
"You do not understand," she exclaimed, her breast heaving. "You do not
realize what you ask of me. I cannot."
"You must," he insisted. "He might not understand it coming from me. You
and he are old friends. You _must_, I tell you. Were he only here the
child would be happy, the fever would be broken. It must be broken and
quickly. Thevenet will tell you that when he comes."
Alice raised her hands to her temples.
"Will you?" he pleaded.
"Yes," she replied half audibly.
Monsieur le Cure gave a sigh of relief.
"God be with you!" said he.
He watched her as she wrote in haste the following telegram in pencil
upon the back of a crumpled envelope:
MONSIEUR TANRADE, Theatre des Folies Parisiennes, Paris.
Tranchard's child very ill. Come at once.
A. de Breville.
This she handed to the priest in silence. Monsieur le Cure tucked it
safely in the breast of his cassock. "God be with you!" he repeated and
turned out into the lane. He ran, for the cracked bell for mass had
ceased ringing.
The woman stood still by the table as if in a dream, then she staggered
to the door, closed it, and throwing herself on her knees by the bedside
of the sleeping boy, buried her face in her hands.
The child stirred, awakened by her sobbing.
"Tanne," he cried feebly.
"He will come," she said.
Outside in the mist-soaked lane three toothless fisherwomen gossiped in
whispers.
Almost any day that you pass through the village you will see a chubby
little rascal who greets you with a cheery "_Bonjour_" and runs away,
dragging a tin horse with a broken tail. Should you chance to glance
over my wall you will discover the tattered remnants of two Japanese
lanterns hanging among the fruit-trees. They are all that remain of a
fete save the memory of two friends to whom the whole world now seems
_couleur de rose_.
* * * * *
"Hi, there! wake up! Where's Suzette? Where's the coffee! Daylight and
not a soul up! _Mon Dieu_, what a house! Hurry up, _Mon vieux!_ Alice is
waiting!"
[Illustration: three toothless fisherwomen]
* * * * *
[Illustration: smuggler ship]
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SMUGGLERS
Some centuries ago the windows of my house abandoned on the marsh looked
out upon a bay gay with the ships of Spanish pirates, for in those days
Pont du Sable served them as a secret refuge for repairs. Hauled up to
the tawny marsh were strange craft with sails of apple-green, rose,
vermilion and sinister black; there were high sterns pierced by carved
cabin-windows--some of them iron-barred, to imprison ladies of high or
low degree and unfortunate gentlemen who fought bravely to defend them.
From oaken gunwales glistened slim cannon, their throats swabbed clean
after some wholesale murder on the open seas. Yes, it must have been a
lively enough bay some centuries ago!
To-day Pont du Sable goes to bed without even turning the key in the
lock. This is because of a vast army of simple men whose word, in
France, is law.
To begin with, there are the President of the Republique and the
Ministers of War and Agriculture, and Monsieur the Chief of Police--a
kind little man in Paris whom it is better to agree with--and the prefet
and the sous-prefet--all the way down the line of authority to the
red-faced, blustering _chef de gare_ at Pont du Sable--and Pierre.
On off-duty days Pierre is my gardener at eleven sous an hour. On these
occasions he wears voluminous working trousers of faded green corduroy
gathered at the ankles; a gray flannel shirt and a scarlet cravat. On
other days his short, wiry body is encased in a carefully brushed
uniform of dark blue with a double row of gold buttons gleaming down his
solid chest. When on active duty in the Customs Coast Patrol of the
Republique Francaise at Pont du Sable, he carries a neatly folded cape
with a hood, a bayonet, a heavy calibred six-shooter and a trusty
field-glass, useful in locating suspicious-looking objects on marsh or
sea.
On this particular morning Pierre was late! I had been leaning over the
lichen-stained wall of my wild garden waiting to catch sight of him as
he left the ragged end of the straggling village. Had I mistaken the
day? Impossible! It was Thursday and I knew he was free. Finally I
caught sight of him hurrying toward me down the road--not in his working
clothes of faded green corduroy, but in the full majesty of his
law-enforcing uniform. What had happened? I wondered. Had his stern
brigadier refused to give him leave?
"_Bonjour_, Pierre!" I called to him as he came within hailing distance.
He touched the vizor of his cap in military salute, and a moment later
entered my garden.
"A thousand pardons, monsieur," he apologized excitedly, labouring to
catch his breath.
"My artichokes have been waiting for you," I laughed; "they are nearly
strangled with weeds. I expected you yesterday." He followed me through
a lane of yellow roses leading to the artichoke bed. "What has kept you,
Pierre?"
He stopped, looked me squarely in the eyes, placed his finger in the
middle of his spiked moustache, and raised his eyebrows mysteriously.
"Monsieur must not ask me," he replied. "I have been on duty for
forty-eight hours; there was not even time to change my uniform."
"A little matter for headquarters?" I ventured indiscreetly, with a nod
in the direction of Paris.
Pierre shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "Monsieur must ask the
semaphore; my lips are sealed."
Had he been the chief of the Secret Service just in possession of the
whereabouts of an international criminal, he could not have been more
uncommunicative.
"And monsieur's artichokes?" he asked, abruptly changing the subject.
Further inquiry I knew was useless--even dangerous. Indeed I swallowed
my curiosity whole, for I was aware that this simple gardener of mine,
in his official capacity, could put me in irons, drag me before my
friend the ruddy little mayor, and cast me in jail at Bar la Rose, had
I given him cause. Then indeed, as Pompanet said, I would be "A _sacre_
vagabond from Pont du Sable."
Was it not only the other day a well-dressed stranger hanging about my
lost village had been called for by two gendarmes, owing to Pierre's
watchful eye? And did not the farmer Milon pay dearly enough for the
applejack he distilled one dark night? I recalled, too, a certain
morning when, a stranger on the marsh, I had lighted Pierre's cigarette
with an honest wax-match from England. He recognized the brand
instantly.
"They are the best in the world," I had remarked bravely.
"Yes," he had replied, "but dear, monsieur. The fine is a franc apiece
in France."
We had reached the artichokes.
"_Mon Dieu!_" exclaimed Pierre, glancing at the riot of weeds as he
stripped off his coat and, unbuckling his belt with the bayonet, the
six-shooter and the field-glass, hung them in the shade upon a
convenient limb of a pear tree. He measured the area of the unruly
patch with a military stride, stood thinking for a moment, and then, as
if a happy thought had struck him, returned to me with a gesture of
enthusiasm.
"If monsieur will permit me to offer a suggestion--that is, if monsieur
approves--I should like to make a fresh planting. Ah! I will explain
what I mean to monsieur, so monsieur may see clearly my ideas. _Voila!_"
he exclaimed. "It is to have the new artichokes planted in three
circles--in three circles, monsieur," he went on excitedly, "crossed
with the star of the compass," he continued, as the idea rapidly
developed in his peasant brain. "Then in the centre of the star to plant
monsieur's initials in blue and red flowers. _Voila!_ It will be
something for monsieur's friends to admire, eh?"
He stood waiting tensely for my reply, for I shivered inwardly at the
thought of the prospective chromo.
"Excellent, my good Pierre," I returned, not wishing to hurt his
feelings. "Excellent for the gardens of the Tuileries, but my garden is
such a simple one."
"Pardon, monsieur," he said, with a touch of mingled disappointment and
embarrassment, "they shall be replanted, of course, just as monsieur
wishes." And Pierre went to digging weeds with a will while I went back
to my own work.
At noon Pierre knocked gently at my study door.
"I must breakfast, monsieur," he apologized, "and get a little sleep. I
have promised my brigadier to get back at three."
"And to-morrow?" I asked.
Again the shoulders shrugged under the uniform.
"Ah, monsieur!" he exclaimed helplessly. "_Malheureusement_, to-morrow I
am not free; nor the day after. _Parbleu!_ I cannot tell monsieur _when_
I shall be free."
"I understand, Pierre," said I.
* * * * *
Before sundown the next afternoon I was after a hare through a maze of
thicket running back of the dunes fronting the open sea. I kept on
through a labyrinth of narrow trails--crossing and recrossing each
other--the private by-ways of sleek old hares in time of trouble, for
the dunes were honeycombed with their burrows. Now and then I came
across a tent-shaped thatched hut lined with a bed of straw, serving as
snug shelters for the coast patrol in tough weather.
I had just turned into a tangle of scrub-brush, and could hear the
breakers pound and hiss as they swept up upon the hard smooth beach
beyond the dunes, when a low whistle brought me to a leisurely halt, and
I saw Pierre spring up from a thicket a rod ahead of me--a Government
carbine nestled in the hollow of his arm.
I could scarcely believe it was the genial and ever-willing Pierre of my
garden. He was the hard-disciplined soldier now, under orders. I was
thankful he had not sent a bullet through me for not halting more
promptly than I did.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, coming briskly toward me along a
trail no wider than his feet.
Instantly my free hand went to my hunting-cap in salute.
"After--a--hare!" I stammered innocently.
"Not so loud," he whispered. "_Mon Dieu!_ If the brigadier should hear
you! Come with me," he commanded, laying his hand firmly upon my arm.
"There are six of us hidden between here and the fortress. It is well
that you stumbled upon me first. They must know who you are. It is not
safe for you to be hunting to-day."
I had not followed him more than a dozen rods before one of his
companions was at my side. "The American," said Pierre in explanation,
and we passed on down through a riot of stunted growth that choked the
sides of a hollow.
Beyond this rose the top of a low circular fort overgrown with
wire-grass--the riot of tangle ceasing as we reached the bottom of the
hollow and stood in an open patch before an ancient iron gate piercing
the rear of the fort.
Pierre lifted the latch and we passed through a wall some sixteen feet
thick and into a stone-paved courtyard with a broad flight of steps at
its farther end sweeping to the top of the circular defence. Flanking
the sunken courtyard itself were a dozen low vaultlike compartments,
some of them sealed by heavy doors. At one of these, containing a
narrow window, Pierre knocked. The door opened and I stood in the
presence of the Brigadier Bompard.
"The American gentleman," announced Pierre, relieving me of my gun.
The brigadier bowed, looked me over sharply, and bade me enter.
"At your service, monsieur," he said coldly, waving his big freckled
hand toward a chair drawn up to a fat little stove blushing under a
forced draft.
"At yours, monsieur," I returned, bowed, and took my seat.
Then there ensued a dead silence, Pierre standing rigid behind my chair,
the brigadier reseated back of a desk littered with official papers.
For some moments he sat writing, his savage gray eyes scanning the page,
the ends of his ferocious moustache twitching nervously as his pen
scratched on. Back of his heavy shoulders ran a shelf supporting a row
of musty ledgers, and above a stout chest in one corner was a rack of
gleaming carbines.
The silence became embarrassing. Still the pen scratched on. Was he
writing my death-warrant, I wondered nervously, or only a milder order
for my arrest? It was a relief when he finally sifted a spoonful of fine
blue sand over the document, poured the remaining grains back into their
receptacle, puffed out his coarse red jowls, emitted a grunt of
approval, and raised his keen eyes to mine.
"A thousand pardons, monsieur," I began, "for being where I assure you I
would not have been had I known exactly where I was."
"So monsieur is fond of the chase of the hare?" he asked, with a grim
smile.