Next Morning
It must have been between nine and ten o’clock the next day when Bettina
heard voices in the garden.
She was not fully awake; having slept but little during the night and
only dozing fitfully since daybreak.
Except for the cold she had not suffered especial discomfort. During the
early hours of the evening, accepting the inevitable result of her own
action, Bettina had refused to allow herself to become frightened or
miserable, as many girls would have done under the same circumstances.
This was partly due to her own temperament, but perhaps more to her
father’s influence and training. A poor boy, who had made his own way to
a distinguished position, Senator Graham had long discussed with Bettina,
with whom he was peculiarly intimate, the futility of wasting one’s
energy against a set of unimportant circumstances which cannot be
overcome.
So when darkness fell and the stars came out and Bettina found herself
becoming lonely and unhappy, deliberately she had set about to overcome
her mood. This could best be accomplished by thinking not of herself and
the uneasiness she was causing Mrs. Burton and her Camp Fire friends, but
by entertaining herself with an imaginary story. Having read so many
stories recently the effort was not difficult.
So Bettina had pictured to herself a lady of the court of Queen Marie
Antoinette, conceiving her as young, stately and reserved, with lovely
fair hair, blue eyes and delicate features.
Indeed the heroine of Bettina’s self-told tale, as so often happens with
the heroines of one’s imagination, bore a likeness to herself. But with
the personal resemblance the analogy ceased.
In Bettina’s romance, Mademoiselle Elise Dupuy is the daughter of a poor
French nobleman whose parents desire her marriage to a man of great
wealth but far older than herself. Elise is one of the Maids of Honor at
Queen Marie Antoinette’s court. Both the King and Queen are also anxious
for her marriage, wishing to attach her fiancé to their service.
As the young French girl refuses the marriage she is banished from Court.
Hoping she may reconsider her position Queen Marie Antoinette, who has an
affection for her as well, has sent her to spend the winter months alone
at the Little Trianon. She has a few servants to care for her, but no
friends are allowed to see her and no letters are to be written her, save
that now and then a letter from the Queen to ask if she has decided to
submit her will to those in authority over her.
So strong was Bettina’s creative imagination and so frequent her habit of
entertaining herself in secret with the stories that she hoped some day
to write, that during the long hours of the night, her little French
heroine became a real person to her.
She had a remarkably clear vision of Elise Dupuy walking alone in the
Queen’s secret garden three centuries ago. Mam’selle Dupuy wore lovely
flowered silk gowns and a flowing mantle and the picture hats which were
the fashion of her day.
The point of Bettina Graham’s romance, wherein it differed from more
conventional fiction, was that Elise Dupuy had no young lover who made
her marriage distasteful.
Instead the young French girl desired to dedicate her life to the service
of the women and children of France.
Recalling the past, one must remember that in the days of Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette, the poor of France were starving. Among the nobility
and wealthy classes there was no interest in their fate, until after the
advent of the French revolution and the execution of the King and Queen.
Therefore, no one sympathized or believed in Elise Dupuy’s self imposed
mission, which received no aid or support from her friends. In Bettina’s
story, the young French girl, through the assistance of one of the
servants at the Little Trianon, who is in accord with her, makes her
escape from Versailles to Paris, and there begins her lifework among the
poor.
The years pass on and Marie Antoinette is about to be beheaded. Her one
friend now is Elise Dupuy, who is herself a working girl and beloved by
the people and the leaders of the revolution.
Elise makes an effort to save the Queen but is unsuccessful.
One winter afternoon, returning to the secret garden near the Little
Trianon, again she wanders about remembering and regretting her lost
friend.
At first she is walking there alone, but later some one joins her, a
young man who is her lover, a French workman, a printer by trade and a
member of the Sans-Culotte.
At first he pleads vainly for Elise’s love, but in the end she agrees to
their marriage, provided she is to be allowed to continue her work among
the poor.
Afterwards as the young lovers walk about in the garden together,
Bettina’s impressions became more confused.
Half a dozen times during the long night, while in the act of composing
her story, Bettina had fallen asleep, only to awaken at intervals and go
on with it. In her dreams the story had often grown strangely confused
with her own personal experience.
Now, as a matter of fact, long after the coming of day, when first she
heard human voices speaking close beside her in the garden, during the
first few moments of waking, Bettina had still to struggle between the
reality and her dream.
Several hours she had been half seated, half reclining on a small stone
settee protected from the wind by evergreens. During the night she had
often walked about at different periods of time in order to keep her
blood in circulation.
Yet now, trying to rise and ask for aid and also to explain her presence
in the garden, Bettina found herself scarcely able to move. She had not
realized that she had grown so benumbed and cramped from her exposure to
the winter night.
She made an effort to cry out, but found speech as difficult as movement.
The voices which had sounded so nearby a short time before were growing
less distinct. Unless she could attract some one’s attention immediately,
she must remain an indefinite length of time, half frozen and half
starved in the Queen’s garden. In all probability no one ever entered it
save the gardeners who came in now and then to take care of it.
Bettina’s second effort to call for help was more successful.
The following instant she became aware of a puzzled silence. Then the
voices addressed each other again, as if they were questioning their own
ears.
A third time Bettina called, making another effort to move forward. Then
she knew that some one must have heard her, because the footsteps which
had been dying away a short time before were now approaching.
There was a figure in marble nearby, the figure of a Greek girl, and
against this Bettina leaned for support, scarcely conscious of what she
was doing.
The next moment two persons were standing within a few feet of her, both
faces betraying an almost equal astonishment.
The one was an old Frenchman’s, evidently one of the park gardeners,
since he had on his working clothes and the insignia of his occupation.
His skin, which was weather beaten and wrinkled at all times, now seemed
to crinkle into fresh lines through surprise and consternation.
“_Mon Dieu!_” he exclaimed, staring blankly and offering no further aid
or suggestion.
His companion was a young man, whom, in spite of her exhausted condition,
Bettina recognized at once as one of her own countrymen.
Instantly, whatever his secret astonishment, he came forward and without
asking permission, slipped his arm through Bettina’s, having realized
that she was hardly able to stand alone.
Yet he had seen an extraordinary picture he was not likely to forget.
Against the background of an early winter morning landscape, her arm
resting for support upon the arm of a piece of Greek statuary, was a
young girl, almost as pale as the marble image.
Her eyes were a deep cornflower blue, her fair hair pushed up under her
small fur hat, her lips and the tip of her nose blue with cold.
Fortunately for her she wore a close-fitting long fur coat. Yet, in spite
of her physical discomfort, she did not look especially disconcerted.
“I am afraid I am rather an unexpected apparition,” she began, speaking
slowly and yet finding her voice growing stronger with each word.
“Neither have I a very satisfactory explanation for my presence here in
this garden, which I know tourists are not supposed to enter. But I was
passing by yesterday and seeing an opening in the wall I came in here for
a few moments. It is the old story with persons who are too curious. I
was not able to find the gate afterwards and spent the night here alone.
Will either of you be kind enough to show me the way out? I am afraid my
friends have spent a very uncomfortable time because of my stupidity.”
Appreciating the kindness of his intention, nevertheless, Bettina drew
her arm from her companion’s clasp, and turned to the French gardener.
She observed an expression in the old man’s face which made her glad of
the unexpected presence of one of her own countrymen. The man’s look was
undoubtedly troubled and suspicious, and a moment later Bettina was able
to appreciate his discomfiture.
“You are looking tired; I am sorry to be compelled to doubt your story,”
he responded, speaking in French and with a Frenchman’s innate courtesy.
Then he turned to the younger man.
“You understand my position, sir, I will not be doing my duty unless the
young lady can prove that what she has just told me is true. Ever since
the war began we have been forced to doubt every story. Now that the war
is over until peace is actually declared, and afterwards maybe, France
has got to be pretty careful to see that no harm comes to her again from
her enemy. The old palace at Versailles is closed just at present, but
the Germans are to sign the peace terms in the old Hall of Peace, and it
wouldn’t look well if trouble should come to anybody here at Versailles.
I have been a gardener in this park for something over a quarter of a
century. The young lady must go with me to the proper authorities. They
will understand what she has to say better than I can, though it is true
she speaks the French language very well.”
Recognizing the justice of the old gardener’s point of view, in spite of
her fatigue, Bettina nodded.
“Certainly, I will do whatever you think best. Only I am so very tired
and cold and hungry, may I have something to eat and a chance to get warm
before I try to talk to anybody?”
Then she turned to the young American.
“I wonder if you would be so good as to telephone my friends and tell
them I am all right. I know they have been dreadfully worried about me
and, although my story does sound rather improbable, I am sure I shall
have no difficulty in proving it. If you will please call up Mrs. Richard
Burton, 27 Rue de Varennes, I shall be deeply grateful. My name is
Bettina Graham; my father is Senator Graham of Washington and I have been
in France for some time helping with the reclamation work.”
“I say, Miss Graham, then I know your father slightly!” the young man
exclaimed. “I have been living in Washington for several years, only for
the past few weeks I have been in France as one of the unimportant
members of the United States Peace Commission.
“My name is David Hale. Of course I will telephone your friends with
pleasure, but I think you had best allow me to go along with you
afterwards as perhaps I may be useful. I am boarding in Versailles at
present because the hotels in Paris are so crowded and by a lucky chance
I was allowed to pay a visit to the Queen’s secret garden this morning. I
don’t have to go into Paris for several hours, not until the afternoon
session of the Peace Commission.”
At this the old gardener, evidently relieved by the turn events had
taken, started off, Bettina and her new acquaintance following.
A few feet further along, David Hale, added unexpectedly:
“See here, Miss Graham, you probably may not appreciate the fact, but I
have seen you before. I was in Paris the day the armistice was signed,
having been sent over to France on a special mission a little time
before. On the morning of the great day an American woman, a friend of
mine whose son had been killed fighting in France, asked me to place a
bouquet on the statue of Alsace Lorraine in the Place de la Concorde. It
is queer I should remember perhaps, but you were standing close beside
the monument. I call this a piece of good luck.”
Bettina smiled, although not feeling in a particularly cheerful mood.
“I am sure the good luck is mine.”