Foundation Stones
Some days later a number of guests were entertained informally by Miss
Lord at her house in Versailles. The trip into the French country had
been depressing and if Miss Patricia’s ideas for future work in France
were still a little far distant, this was not true with the plans of the
Camp Fire girls.
For weeks they had been meeting other groups of girls in the city of
Paris and interesting them in their program for establishing a French
Camp Fire organization. They had written to the central organization in
the United States asking them to get in touch with the French for a
mutual exchange of ideas. Moreover, Mrs. Burton had also persuaded a
woman of unusual charm and high position to take over the work of the
French Camp Fire and become its first guardian.
But the group of girls who were invited by Miss Lord to her home at
Versailles were the original group of poor French girls who were
Marguerite Arnot’s friends.
Miss Patricia also suggested to Yvonne Fleury that she include her
acquaintances in the same invitation.
“As a matter of fact, Yvonne,” she insisted, “if democracy is to be the
order of the day, I don’t see why we should not try to practice it among
the groups of Camp Fire girls. I’ve an idea poor girls may be more in
need of just the help the Camp Fire can give than the rich. Also I would
like to see a little more democracy practiced in our own household at the
present time. You girls and Polly Burton must remember that I was once as
poor a girl as one could find in the county of Cork and that is saying a
good deal. No one need think I forget it! Now I have no mind to be
spoiling any of you by our own fine living for the next few months. This
is merely my way of celebrating the dawn of peace and perhaps of
rewarding you girls for the sacrifices you made during the war. But if
your friends, Yvonne, think they are too fine to meet Marguerite Arnot’s
friends and to be members of the same Camp Fire group, then in faith I
shall have nothing to do with them and never want them in my house! Of
course you may do as you like, Yvonne. Don’t ask them to come here if you
think they will object to meeting Marguerite, her friends or me. Neither
be a telling of them that Polly Burton is a famous actress and so making
them wish to come for that reason. A famous actress Polly may be, but she
is often an obstinate and mistaken woman.”
Without allowing Yvonne opportunity to reply, which was altogether like
her, Miss Patricia then withdrew.
Nevertheless, Yvonne thought she understood Miss Patricia’s point of
view. She also recognized the difficulty which lay behind it.
Originally there had been a mild argument between Mrs. Burton and Miss
Patricia on the question of introducing Marguerite Arnot into their Camp
Fire family at Versailles. Mrs. Burton was not stupid enough to find
fault with Marguerite’s occupation; she had always insisted that she had
made her own living by acting from the time she was a young girl, and
that therefore persons who felt a sense of superiority to other working
women, must also feel superior to her. But she did consider that Miss
Patricia had not sufficient knowledge of Marguerite Arnot’s character, or
of her previous associations to have so soon invited her into their
household. She should have waited until she learned to know her more
intimately. There was a possibility that Marguerite herself might not be
happy with them under the conditions Miss Patricia had arranged. Her
presence might in some way affect the complete happiness of the Camp Fire
girls.
But Miss Patricia had prevailed, and Yvonne was fairly well able to guess
what she must have said to her adored but often thwarted friend.
“You yourself, Polly Burton, invited Yvonne Fleury into our Camp Fire
family when you met on shipboard and knew nothing but what she chose to
tell you of herself. You likewise extended the same invitation to Mary
Gilchrist. I made no objection. Please remember that Marguerite Arnot is
now my choice.”
And of course, since the house at Versailles was Miss Patricia’s and
since Mrs. Burton’s objection had not been a serious one, Miss Patricia
had had her way.
Up to the present time, Mrs. Burton would have been the first person to
acknowledge that she had found no criticism in Marguerite Arnot’s
behavior. Never had she showed the slightest effort to take advantage of
Miss Patricia’s kindness. Moreover, Mrs. Burton, and each one of the Camp
Fire girls, had personal reasons for being grateful to her. She had made
several of the girls prettier clothes in the last few weeks than they had
ever possessed in their lives.
And she always seemed to make a special effort in her work for Mrs.
Burton.
So Yvonne went away to her room where she wrote notes asking her four
girl friends, who formed the nucleus of another French Camp Fire unit, to
luncheon on the following Saturday. She had sufficient faith to believe
they would not feel as Miss Patricia had intimated and her faith was
justified.
Mrs. Burton had invited as her guest, Madame Clermont, who had promised
to take charge of the Camp Fire organization in France. Madame Clermont
was in reality an American woman, but she had lived long in France and
both looked and talked like a French woman, so that it was difficult not
to think of her as one. As a matter of fact she had studied music in
Paris for fifteen years and sung at the Opera Comique before marrying a
Frenchman.
She and Mrs. Burton had known each other slightly for some time, but
their acquaintance had developed into a friendship in the interest of the
new Camp Fire movement for French as well as for American girls.
In the original plan for Miss Lord’s luncheon party, there had been no
idea of including any masculine guests. As a matter of fact in a somewhat
skilful fashion they invited themselves. But since Miss Patricia did not
refuse to allow them to be present, she must really have desired their
society.
After meeting Sally Ashton so unexpectedly in the streets of Paris, Dan
Webster had returned home with them for the evening, but later had
received official permission to spend several weeks with his sister,
Peggy Webster, and his aunt, Mrs. Burton, in the interval before going
home to the United States.
Dan was ill from starvation and from his long confinement in a German
prison. Mrs. Burton therefore thought it best that he secure a room in
their immediate neighborhood and have his meals with them.
This arrangement did not please Miss Patricia, who appreciated the
embarrassment of including one young man in a family of girls. However,
as Dan was Mrs. Burton’s nephew and assuredly needed care, she had made
no protest.
Later, as usual Miss Patricia had devoted herself to spoiling Dan rather
more than any one else.
On the day of her luncheon it was Dan who pleaded that Aunt Patricia
allow him to appear. Otherwise he was sure he must suffer with hunger
through a long winter day. No food to be had at any restaurant could
compare with Miss Patricia’s. As Miss Patricia agreed with him in this
and her own housekeeping was one of her vanities, Dan had been the
entering masculine wedge into the luncheon party.
The fact that Dan Webster must not be the only man present, had been
Lieutenant Fleury’s plea. Besides, he and Miss Patricia were such old
friends, after his visit to her at her farmhouse on the Aisne, that
Lieutenant Fleury had protested he could not endure to be cut off from
Miss Patricia’s society for a single day.
Hearing of Dan’s and Lieutenant Fleury’s good fortune, David Hale had
simply looked at Miss Patricia with such unuttered reproach, that she
really did weaken to the extent of inviting him.
“Young man, I presume you think one more guest cannot make any difference
when I have already asked twice as many people as my house can
accommodate. You are mistaken. Nevertheless, come along to lunch if you
like. No one will have enough to eat, but I would have you on my
conscience if you should feel hurt at being left out. Not that you would
have the faintest right to be hurt, David Hale. You are absolutely
nothing to any of us except a new acquaintance.”
After arguing that he was really a great deal more to her than a mere
acquaintance, but that Miss Patricia was so far unwilling to acknowledge
it, David Hale appeared at the hour of the luncheon with as much
cheerfulness as if he had been the most sought after of all the guests.
Following a buffet luncheon, at which the three young men had proved
themselves extremely useful in helping to serve the guests, who could not
be seated at the table, they were invited to go away until after a
meeting of the Camp Fire.
At the present moment it was four o’clock in the afternoon and the Camp
Fire ceremony had ended.
The girls were talking together in small groups, Miss Patricia was not in
the room, Mrs. Burton and Madame Clermont were arranging for an
engagement for the theatre in Paris.
“I wonder if you would mind singing for us?” Mrs. Burton asked. “Please
don’t if it would trouble you. But I’ve an idea no one of the girls here
has ever heard so beautiful a voice as yours!”
Madame Clermont smiled.
“Of course I shall love to sing. As a matter of fact I have been wounded
that you have not asked me before. So it does not require one half that
Irish flattery of yours to persuade me! Have you any of your Camp Fire
music here with you?”
The next half hour the Camp Fire girls listened for the first time in
their lives to the Camp Fire music sung by a great artist.
In the meantime Miss Patricia wandered back into her drawing room,
bringing with her the three young men whom she had found in hiding in her
little private sitting room on the second floor of the house.
Later Miss Patricia asked for the final song. Madame Clermont had just
announced that she could sing but one more song.
“Then do sing something more adapted to your voice. This Camp Fire music
is fanciful and pretty, but it is intended for young girls and not for
you,” Miss Patricia commented with her usual directness.
“Hasn’t some one written a song of peace? We have heard enough of the
Hymn of Hate for the past four years?”
Madame Clermont, who evidently understood and was amused by Miss
Patricia’s plain speaking turned at once to answer.
“No, Miss Patricia, I have not yet learned a new hymn of peace. We must
wait until peace actually arrives before the great song of it can be
written. But I would like you to give me your opinion of a song I have
just set to music. The verses I found in a New York newspaper and think
very wonderful. They tell the story of the visit of a King to France in
the old days and then of the coming of our President. I hope you may at
least admire the poem as much as I do, even though I may have failed with
the music.”
Madame Clermont’s voice was a mezzo soprano with a true dramatic quality.
Into her present song she put the emotion which France and America had
been sharing in the past few weeks.
The Old Regime
The banners breast the boulevard,
The crowds stretch gray and dim;
The royal guest nods lightly toward
The folk that cheer for him.
The King sets out his troops to show
The envoy speaks him fair;
His eye, it never wavers from
From the soldiers marching there.
Oh, its gold lace and blue lace
And troops in brave array;
And it’s your heart and my heart
Must bleed for it some day.
The Hostess-Queen is fair tonight,
Her pearls burn great and dim;
The visitor bows low upon
The hand she proffers him.
The King’s old crafty counselors
Sit at the banquet late,
Their secret compact safely signed
And sealed with seals of State.
Oh, it is one year or two years,
Or twenty years or ten,
Till in the murk of No Man’s Land
We’ll pay—we common men.
The New Day
The folks outsurge the boulevard;
Without a crown or sword,
A plain man greets the crowds today—
They wait a plain man’s word.
The hoarse and harrowed peoples wait;
For they and theirs—the dead—
Have all the savings of their hope
With dim deposited.
A democrat, a democrat
Rides with the Kings today:
And can it be the people’s turn,
And must the rulers pay?
Having finished Madame Clermont came and stood before Miss Patricia.
“I hope my song was not too long and that I have not bored you. Thank you
for my charming afternoon. I hope I may come to see you at some other
time.”
Although intending no ungraciousness, Miss Patricia did not reply,
instead allowing Mrs. Burton to answer for her. And this was because on
one of the few occasions in her life she was permitting herself the
enjoyment of a few, hardly wrung tears. Madame Clermont’s song had
stirred Miss Patricia’s gallant spirit, with its warm sympathy and love
of justice.