last forever; it was too good."
"And if Monsieur le Cure comes to dinner there is no more kuemmel," the
little maid had confessed, and added with a shy lifting of her truthful
eyes, "monsieur does not wish I should get more of the black cigars at
the grocery?"
I had winced as I recalled the last box, purchased from the only store
in Pont du Sable, where they had lain long enough to absorb the pungent
odour of dried herring and kerosene.
Of course it was not right that our guests should suffer thus from an
empty larder and so, as I have said, I had run up from the sea to
replenish it. It was, I confess, an extravagant way of doing one's
marketing; but then there was Paris in the spring beckoning me, and who
can resist her seductive call at such a time?
But to my story: I finished my glass of vermouth, and, following the
Baron's example, entered the Government's store, where I discovered him
selecting with the air of a connoisseur a dozen thin boxes of rare
perfectos. He chatted pleasantly with the clerk who served him and upon
going to the desk, opened a Russian-leather portfolio and laid before
the cashier six crisp, new one-hundred-franc notes in payment for the
lot. I have said that the Baron was immaculate, and he _was_, even to
his money. It was as spotless and unruffled as his linen, as neat, in
fact, as were the noble perfectos of his choice, long, mild and pure,
with tiny ends, and fat, comforting bodies that guaranteed a quality fit
for an emperor; but then the least a bank can do, I imagine, is to
provide clean money to its president.
As the Baron passed out and my own turn at the desk came to settle for
my modest provision of Havanas, I recalled to my mind the current gossip
of the Baron's extravagance, of the dinners he had lately given that
surprised Paris--and Paris is not easily surprised. What if he had "sold
more than half of his vast estate in Brazil last year"? And suppose he
was no longer able or willing "to personally supervise his racing
stable," that he "had grown tired of the track," etc. Nonsense! The
press knows so little of the real truth. For me the Baron Santos da
Granja a was simply a seasoned man of the world, with the good taste to
have retired from its conspicuous notoriety; and good taste is always
expensive. His bank account did not interest me.
* * * * *
I knew her well by sight, for she passed me often in the Bois de
Boulogne when I ran up to Paris on just such errands as my present one.
She had given me thus now and then glimpses of her feverish
life--gleams from the facets, since her success in Paris was as
brilliant as a diamond. Occasionally I would meet her in the shaded
alleys, but always in sight of her brougham, which kept pace with her
whims at a safe but discreet distance.
There was a rare perfection about her lithe, graceful person, an ease
and subtlety of line, an allure which was satisfying--from her trim
little feet gloved in suede, to the slender nape of her neck, from which
sprang, back of the loveliest of little ears, the exquisite sheen of her
blonde hair.
There were mornings when she wore a faultless tailor-made of plain dark
blue and carried a scarlet parasol, with its jewelled handle held in a
firm little hand secreted in spotless white kid.
I noticed, too, in passing that her eyes were deep violet and
exceedingly alert, her features classic in their fineness. Once I saw
her smile, not at me, but at her fox terrier. It was then that I caught
a glimpse of her young white teeth--pearly white in contrast to the
freshness of her pink and olive skin, so clear that it seemed to be
translucent, and she blushed easily, having lived but a score of springs
all told.
In the afternoon, when she drove in her brougham lined with dove-gray,
the scarlet parasol was substituted by one of filmy, creamy lace,
shading a gown of pale mauve or champagne colour.
I had heard that she was passionately extravagant, that she seldom, if
ever, won at the races--owned a little hotel with a carved facade in the
Avenue du Bois, a villa at Dinard, and three fluffy little dogs, who
jingled their gold bells when they followed her.
She dined at Paillard's, sometimes at the Cafe de la Paix, rarely at
Maxim's; skated at the Palais de Glace on the most respectable
afternoons--drank plain water--rolled her own cigarettes--and possessed
a small jewel box full of emeralds, which she seldom wore.
_Voila!_ A spoiled child for you!
There were mornings, too, when, after her tub, as early as nine, she
galloped away on her cob to the _Bois_ for her coffee and hot _brioche_
at the Pre Catelan, a romantic little farm with a cafe and a stableful
of mild-eyed cows that provide fresh milk to the weary at daylight, who
are trying hard to turn over a new leaf before the next midnight. Often
she came there accompanied by her groom and the three little dogs with
the jingling bells, who enjoyed the warm milk and the run back of the
fleet hoofs of her saddle-horse.
On this very morning--upon which opens the second act of my drama, I
found her sitting at the next table to mine, chiding one of the jingling
little dogs for his disobedience.
"_Eh ben! tu sais!_" she exclaimed suddenly, with a savage gleam in her
eyes.
I turned and gazed at her in astonishment. It was the first time I had
heard her voice. It was her accent that made me stare.
"_Eh ben! tu sais!_" she repeated, in the patois of the Normand peasant,
lifting her riding crop in warning to the ball of fluff who had refused
to get on his chair and was now wriggling in apology.
"Who is that lady?" I asked the old waiter Emile, who was serving me.
"Madame is an Austrian," he confided to me, bending his fat back as he
poured my coffee.
"Austrian, eh! Are you certain, Emile?"
"_Parbleu_, monsieur" replied Emile, "one is never certain of any one in
Paris. I only tell monsieur what I have heard. Ah! it is very easy to be
mistaken in Paris, monsieur. Take, for instance, the lady in deep
mourning, with the two little girls, over there at the table under the
lilac bush."
"She is young to be a widow," I interposed, glancing discreetly in the
direction he nodded.
Emile smiled faintly. "She is not a widow, monsieur," he returned,
"neither is she as Spanish as she looks; she is Polish and dances at the
Folies Parisiennes under the name of _La Belle Gueritta_ from Seville."
"But her children look French," I ventured.
"They are the two little girls of her concierge, monsieur." Emile's
smile widened until it spread in merry wrinkles to the corners of his
twinkling eyes.
"In all that lace and velvet?" I exclaimed.
"Precisely, monsieur."
"And why the deep mourning, Emile?"
"It is a pose, monsieur. One must invent novelties, eh? when one is as
good-looking as that. Besides, madame's reputation has not been of the
best for some time. Monsieur possibly remembers the little affair last
year in the Rue des Mathurins? Very well, it was she who extracted the
hundred thousand francs from the Marquis de Villiers. Madame now gives
largely to charity and goes to mass."
"Blackmail, Emile?"
"Of the worst kind, and so monsieur sees how easily one can be mistaken,
is it not so? _Sacristi!_ one never knows."
"But are you certain you are not mistaken about your Austrian, Emile?" I
ventured.
He shrugged his shoulders as if in apology for his opinion, and I turned
again to study his Austrian. The noses of her little dogs with the
jingling bells were now contentedly immersed in a bowl of milk.
A moment later I saw her lift her clear violet eyes and catch sight of
one of the milkers, who was trying to lead a balky cow through the court
by a rope badly knotted over her horns. She was smiling as she sat
watching the cow, who now refused to budge. The boy was losing his
temper when she broke into a rippling laugh, rose, and going over to the
unruly beast, unknotted the rope from her horns and, replacing it by two
half hitches with the ease and skill of a sailor, handed the rope back
to the boy.
"There, you little stupid!" she exclaimed, "she will lead better now.
_Allez!_" she cried, giving the cow a sharp rap on her rump. "_Allez!
Hup!_"
A murmur of surprise escaped Emile. "It is not the first time madame has
done that trick," he remarked under his hand, as she crossed the
courtyard to regain her chair.
"She is Normande," I declared, "I am certain of it by the way she said
'_Eh ben!_' And did you not notice her walk back to her table? Erect,
with the easy, quick step of a fisher girl? The same walk of the race of
fisher girls who live in my village," I continued with enthusiastic
decision. "There is no mistaking it; it is peculiar to Pont du Sable,
and note, too, her _patois_!"
"It is quite possible, monsieur," replied Emile, "but it does not
surprise me. One sees every one in Paris. There are few _grandes dames_
left. When one has been a _garcon de cafe_, as I have, for over thirty
years, one is surprised at nothing; not even----"
The tap of a gold coin on the rim of a cold saucer interrupted our talk.
The summons was from my lady who had conquered the cow.
"_Voila_, madame!" cried Emile, as he left me to hasten to her table,
where he made the change, slipped the _pourboire_ she gave him into his
alpaca pocket, and with a respectful, "_Merci bien_, madame," drew back
her chair as she rose and summoned her groom, who a moment later stood
ready to help her mount. The next instant I saw her hastily withdraw her
small foot from the hollow of his coarse hand, and wave to a passing
horse and rider. The rider, whose features were half hidden under the
turned-down brim of a panama, wheeled his horse, reined up before her,
dismounted, threw his rein to her groom and bending, kissed her on both
cheeks. She laughed; murmured something in his ear; the panama nodded in
reply, then, slipping his arm under her own, the two entered the
courtyard. There they were greeted by Emile.
"Madame and I will breakfast here to-day, Emile," said the voice beneath
the panama. "The little table in the corner and the same Pommard."
He threw his riding crop on a vacant chair and, lifting his hat, handed
it to the veteran waiter.
It was the Baron Santos da Granja!
* * * * *
Hidden at the foot of a plateau skirting the desert marshes, two miles
above my village of Pont du Sable, lies in ruins all that remains of the
deserted village known as La Poche.
It is well named "The Pocket," since for years it served as a safe
receptacle for itinerant beggars and fugitives from justice who found an
ideal retreat among its limestone quarries, which, being long
abandoned, provided holes in the steep hillside for certain vagabonds,
who paid neither taxes to the government, nor heed to its law.
There is an old cattle trail that leads to La Poche, crossed now and
then by overgrown paths, that wind up through a labyrinth of briers,
rank ferns and matted growth to the plateau spreading back from the
hillside. I use this path often as a short cut home.
One evening I had shot late on the marshes and started for home by way
of La Poche. It was bright moonlight when I reached a trail new to me
and approached the deserted village by way of a tangled, overgrown road.
The wind had gone down with the rising of the moon, and the intense
stillness of the place was such that I could hear about me in the tangle
the lifting of a trampled weed and the moving of the insects as my boots
disturbed them. The silence was uncanny. Under the brilliancy of the
moon all things gleamed clear in a mystic light, their shadows as black
as the sunken pits of a cave.
I pushed on through the matted growth, with the collar of my leather
coat buttoned up, my cap pulled down, and my hands thrust in my sleeves,
hugging my gun under my arm, for the briars made tough going.
Presently, I got free of the tangle and out to a grassy stretch of road,
once part of the river bed. Here and there emerged, from the matted
tangle of the hillside flanking it, the ruins of La Poche. Often only a
single wall or a tottering chimney remained silhouetted against the
skeleton of a gabled roof; its rafters stripped of tiles, gleaming in
the moonlight like the ribs and breastbone of a carcass.
If La Poche is a place to be shunned by day--at night it becomes
terrible; it seems to breathe the hidden viciousness of its past, as if
its ruins were the tombs of its bygone criminals.
I kept on the road, passed another carcass and drew abreast of a third,
which I stepped out of the road to examine. Both its floors had long
before I was born dropped into its cellar; its threshold beneath my feet
was slippery with green slime; I looked up through its ribs, from which
hung festoons of cobwebs and dead vines, like shreds of dried flesh
hanging from a skeleton.
Still pursuing my way, I came across an old well; the bucket was drawn
up and its chain wet; it was the first sign of habitation I had come
across. As my hand touched the windlass, I instinctively gave it a turn;
it creaked dismally and a dog barked savagely at the sound from
somewhere up the hillside; then the sharp, snappy yelping of other dogs
higher up followed.
I stopped, felt in my pockets and slipped two shells into my gun,
heavily loaded for duck, with the feeling that if I were forced to shoot
I would hold high over their heads. As I closed the breech of my gun and
clicked back my hammers to be ready for any emergency, the tall figure
of a man loomed up in the grassy road ahead of me, his legs in a ray of
moonlight, the rest of him in shadow.
"Does this road lead out to the main road?" I called to him, not being
any too sure that it did.
"Who is there?" he demanded sharply and in perfect French; then he
advanced and I saw that the heavy stick he carried with a firm grip was
mounted in silver.
"A hunter, monsieur," I returned pleasantly, noticing now his dress and
bearing.
It was so dark where we stood, that I could not yet distinguish his
features.
"May I ask you, monsieur, whom I have the pleasure of meeting," I
ventured, my mind now more at rest.
He strode toward me.
"My name is de Brissac," said he, extending his hand. "Forgive me," he
added with a good-natured laugh, "if I startled you; it is hardly the
place to meet a gentleman in at this hour. Have you missed your way?"
"No," I replied, "I shot late and took a short cut to reach my home." I
pointed in the direction of the marshes while I searched his face which
was still shrouded in gloom, in my effort to see what manner of man I
had run across.
"And have you had good luck?" he inquired with a certain meaning in his
voice, as if he was still in doubt regarding my trespass.
"Not worth speaking of," I returned in as calm a voice as I could
muster; "the birds are mostly gone. And do you shoot also, may I ask?"
"It is an incorrigible habit with me," he confessed in a more reassured
tone. "I have, however, not done so badly of late with the birds; I
killed seventeen plovers this morning--a fine lot."
Here his tone changed. All his former reserve had vanished. "Come with
me," said he; "I insist; I'll show you what I killed; they make a pretty
string, I assure you. You shall see, too, presently, my house; it is the
one with the new roof. Do you happen to have seen it?"
This came with a certain note of seriousness in his voice.
"No, but I am certain it must be a luxury in the debris," I laughed;
"but," I added, "I am afraid I must postpone the pleasure until another
time." I was still undecided as to my course.
Again his tone changed to one of extreme courtesy, as if he had been
quick to notice my hesitation.
"I know it is late," said he, "but I must insist on your accepting my
hospitality. The main road lies at the end of the plateau, and I will
see you safely out to it and on your way home."
I paused before answering. Under the circumstances, I knew, I could not
very well refuse, and yet I had a certain dread of accepting too easily.
In France such refusals are sometimes considered as insults. "Thank
you," I said at last, resolved to see the adventure out; "I accept with
pleasure," adding with a laugh and speaking to his shadowy bulk, for I
could not yet see his face:
"What silent mystery, what an uncanny fascination this place has about
it! Even our meeting seems part of it. Don't you think so?"
"Yes, there is a peculiar charm here," he replied, in a more cautious
tone as he led me into a narrow trail, "a charm that has taken hold of
me, so that I bury myself here occasionally; it is a rest from Paris."
From Paris, eh? I thought--then he does not belong to the coast.
I edged nearer, determined now to catch a glimpse of his features, the
light of the moon having grown stronger. As he turned, its rays
illumined his face and at the same instant a curious gleam flashed into
his eyes.
Again the Baron da Granja stood before me.
Da Granja! the rich Brazilian! President of one of the biggest foreign
banks in Paris. Man of the world, with a string of horses famous for
years on a dozen race tracks. What the devil was he doing here? Had the
cares of his bank driven him to such a lonely hermitage as La Poche? It
seemed incredible, and yet there was not the slightest doubt as to his
identity--I had seen him too often to be mistaken. His voice, too, now
came back to me.
He strode on, and for some minutes kept silent, then he stopped suddenly
and in a voice in which the old doubting tones were again audible said:
"You are English?"
Here he barred the path.
"No," I answered, a little ill at ease at his sudden change of manner.
"American, from New York."
"And yet, I think I have seen you in Paris," he replied, after a
moment's hesitation, his eyes boring into mine, which the light of the
moon now made clear to him.
"It is quite possible," I returned calmly; "I think I have seen you
also, monsieur; I am often in Paris."
Again he looked at me searchingly.
"Where?" he asked.
"At the Government's store, buying cigars." I did not intend to go any
further.
He smiled as if relieved. He had been either trying to place me, or his
suspicions had been again aroused, I could not tell which. One thing was
certain: he was convinced I had swallowed the name "de Brissac" easily.
All at once his genial manner returned. "This way, to the right," he
exclaimed. "Pardon me if I lead the way; the path is winding. My ruin,
as I sometimes call it, is only a little farther up, and you shall have
a long whiskey and siphon when you get there. You know Pont du Sable, of
course," he continued as I kept in his tracks; the talk having again
turned on his love of sport.
"Somewhat. I live there."
This time the surprise was his.
"Is it possible?" he cried, laying his hand on my shoulder, his face
alight.
"Yes, my house is the once-abandoned one with the wall down by the
marsh."
"Ah!" he burst out, "so you are _the_ American, the newcomer, the man I
have heard so much about, the man who is always shooting; and how the
devil, may I ask, did you come to settle in Pont du Sable?"
"Well, you see, every one said it was such a wretched hole that I felt
there must be some good in it. I have found it charming, and with the
shooting it has become an old friend. I am glad also to find that you
like it well enough to (it was I who hesitated now) to visit it."
"Yes, to shoot is always a relief," he answered evasively, and then in a
more determined voice added, "This way, to the right, over the rocks!
Come, give me your gun! The stones are slippery."
"No, I will carry it," I replied. "I am used to carrying it," and though
my voice did not betray me, I proposed to continue to carry it. It was
at least a protection against a walking stick with a silver top. My mind
being still occupied with his suspicions, his inquiries, and most of all
his persistence that I should visit his house, with no other object in
view than a whiskey and siphon and a string of plovers. And yet, despite
the gruesomeness of the surroundings, while alert as to his slightest
move, I was determined to see the adventure through.
He did not insist, but turned sharply to the left, and the next instant
I stood before the threshold of a low stone house with a new tiled roof.
A squat, snug house, the eaves of whose steep gabled roof came down well
over its two stories, like the snuffer on a candle. He stepped to the
threshold, felt about the door as if in search for a latch, and rapped
three times with the flat of his hand. Then he called softly:
"Lea!"
"_C'est toi?_" came in answer, and a small hand cautiously opened a
heavy overhead shutter, back of which a shaded lamp was burning.
"Yes, it is all right, it is I," said he. "Come down! I have a surprise
for you. I have captured an American."
There came the sound of tripping feet, the quick drawing of a heavy
bolt, and the door opened.
My little lady of the Pre Catelan!
Not in a tea-gown from the Rue de la Paix--nothing of that kind
whatever; not a ruffle, not a jewel--but clothed in the well-worn
garment of a fisher girl of the coast--a coarse homespun chemise of
linen, open at the throat, and a still coarser petticoat of blue, faded
by the salt sea--a fisher girl's petticoat that stopped at her knees,
showing her trim bare legs and the white insteps of her little feet,
incased in a pair of heelless felt slippers.
For the second time I was treated to a surprise. Really, Pont du Sable
was not so dead a village after all.
Emile was wrong. She was one of my village people.
My host did not notice my astonishment, but waved his hand courteously.
"_Entrez_, monsieur!" he cried with a laugh, and then, turning sharply,
he closed the door and bolted it.
I looked about me.
We were in a rough little room, that would have won any hunter's heart;
there were solid racks, heavy with guns, on the walls, a snapping wood
fire, and a clean table, laid for dinner, and lastly, the chair quickly
drawn to it for the waiting guest. This last they laughingly forced me
into, for they both insisted I should dine with them--an invitation
which I gladly accepted, for my fears were now completely allayed.
We talked of the neighbourhood, of hunting, of Paris, of the new play at
the Nouveautes--I did not mention the Bois. One rarely mentions in
France having seen a woman out of her own home, although I was sure she
remembered me from a look which now and then came into her eyes that
left but little doubt in my mind that she vaguely recalled the incident
at the Pre Catelan with the cow.
It was a simple peasant dinner which followed. When it was over, he
went to a corner cupboard and drew forth a flat box of long perfectos,
which I recognized instantly as the same brand of rare Havanas he had so
extravagantly purchased from the Government. If I had had my doubt as to
the identity of my man it was at rest now.
"You will find them mild," said he with a smile, as he lifted the
tinfoil cover.
"No good cigar is strong," I replied, breaking the untouched row and
bending my head as my host struck a match, my mind more on the scene in
the Government's shop than the quality of his tobacco. And yet with all
the charm that the atmosphere of his place afforded, two things still
seemed to me strange--the absence of a servant, until I realized
instinctively the incident of the balky cow, and the prompt bolting of
the outside door.
The first I explained to myself as being due to her peasant blood and
her ability to help herself; the second to the loneliness of the place
and the characters it sometimes harboured. As for my host, I had to
admit, despite my mental queries, that his bearing and manner
completely captivated me, for a more delightful conversationalist it
would have been difficult to find.
Not only did he know the art of eliminating himself and amusing you with
topics that pleased you, but his cleverness in avoiding the personal was
amazingly skilful. His tact was especially accentuated when, with a
significant look at his companion, who at once rose from her seat and,
crossing the room, busied herself with choosing the liqueurs from a
closet in the corner of the room, he drew me aside by the fire, and in a
calm, sotto voce said with intense earnestness: