A VERSAILLES CHRISTMAS-TIDE
By
Mary Stuart Boyd
With Fifty-three Illustrations by A.S. Boyd
1901
Contents
I. The Unexpected Happens
II. Ogams
III. The Town
IV. Our Arbre de Noël
V. Le Jour de l'Année
VI. Ice-bound
VII. The Haunted Château
VIII. Marie Antoinette
IX. The Prisoners Released
Illustrations
The Summons
Storm Warning
Treasure Trove
The Red Cross in the Window
Enter M. le Docteur
Perpetual Motion
Ursa Major
Meal Considerations
The Two Colonels
The Young and Brave
Malcontent
The Aristocrat
Papa, Mama, et Bébé
Juvenile Progress
Automoblesse oblige
Sable Garb
A Football Team
Mistress and Maid
Sage and Onions
Marketing
Private Boxes
A Foraging Party
A Thriving Merchant
Chestnuts in the Avenue
The Tree Vendor
The Tree Bearer
Rosine
Alms and the Lady
Adoration
Thankfulness
One of the Devout
De l'eau Chaude
The Mill
The Presbytery
To the Place of Rest
While the Frost Holds
The Postman's Wrap
A Lapful of Warmth
The Daily Round
Three Babes and a Bonne
Snow in the Park
A Veteran of the Château
Un, Deux, Trois
Bedchamber of Louis XIV
Marie Leczinska
Madame Adelaide
Louis Quatorze
Where the Queen Played
Marie Antoinette
The Secret Stair
Madame sans Tête
Illumination
L'Envoi
CHAPTER I
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS
[Illustration: The Summons]
No project could have been less foreseen than was ours of wintering in
France, though it must be confessed that for several months our thoughts
had constantly strayed across the Channel. For the Boy was at school at
Versailles, banished there by our desire to fulfil a parental duty.
The time of separation had dragged tardily past, until one foggy
December morning we awoke to the glad consciousness that that very
evening the Boy would be with us again. Across the breakfast-table we
kept saying to each other, "It seems scarcely possible that the Boy is
really coming home to-night," but all the while we hugged the assurance
that it was.
The Boy is an ordinary snub-nosed, shock-headed urchin of thirteen, with
no special claim to distinction save the negative one of being an only
child. Yet without his cheerful presence our home seemed empty and dull.
Any attempts at merry-making failed to restore its life. Now all was
agog for his return. The house was in its most festive trim. Christmas
presents were hidden securely away. There was rejoicing downstairs as
well as up: the larder shelves were stored with seasonable fare, and
every bit of copper and brass sparkled a welcome. Even the kitchen cat
sported a ribbon, and had a specially energetic purr ready.
Into the midst of our happy preparations the bad news fell with
bomb-like suddenness. The messenger who brought the telegram whistled
shrilly and shuffled a breakdown on the doorstep while he waited to hear
if there was an answer.
"He is ill. He can't come. Scarlet fever," one of us said in an odd,
flat voice.
"Scarlet fever. At school. Oh! when can we go to him? When is there a
boat?" cried the other.
There was no question of expediency. The Boy lay sick in a foreign land,
so we went to him. It was full noon when the news came, and nightfall
saw us dashing through the murk of a wild mid-December night towards
Dover pier, feeling that only the express speed of the mail train was
quick enough for us to breathe in.
But even the most apprehensive of journeys may hold its humours. Just at
the moment of starting anxious friends assisted a young lady into our
carriage. "She was going to Marseilles. Would we kindly see that she got
on all right?" We were only going as far as Paris direct. "Well, then,
as far as Paris. It would be a great favour." So from Charing Cross to
the Gare du Nord, Placidia, as we christened her, became our care.
She was a large, handsome girl of about three-and-twenty. What was her
reason for journeying unattended to Cairo we know not. Whether she ever
reached her destination we are still in doubt, for a more complacently
incapable damsel never went a-voyaging. The Saracen maiden who followed
her English lover from the Holy Land by crying "London" and "À Becket"
was scarce so impotent as Placidia; for any information the Saracen
maiden had she retained, while Placidia naively admitted that she had
already forgotten by which line of steamers her passage through the
Mediterranean had been taken.
Placidia had an irrational way of losing her possessions. While yet on
her way to the London railway station she had lost her tam-o'-shanter.
So perforce, she travelled in a large picture-hat which, although pretty
and becoming, was hardly suitable headgear for channel-crossing in
mid-winter.
[Illustration: Storm Warning]
It was a wild night; wet, with a rising north-west gale. Tarpaulined
porters swung themselves on to the carriage-steps as we drew up at Dover
pier, and warned us not to leave the train, as, owing to the storm, the
Calais boat would be an hour late in getting alongside.
The Ostend packet, lying beside the quay in full sight of the
travellers, lurched giddily at her moorings. The fourth occupant of our
compartment, a sallow man with yellow whiskers, turned green with
apprehension. Not so Placidia. From amongst her chaotic hand-baggage she
extracted walnuts and mandarin oranges, and began eating with an
appetite that was a direct challenge to the Channel. Bravery or
foolhardiness could go no farther.
Providence tempers the wind to the parents who are shorn of their lamb.
The tumult of waters left us scatheless, but poor Placidia early paid
the penalty of her rashness. She "thought" she was a good sailor--though
she acknowledged that this was her first sea-trip--and elected to remain
on deck. But before the harbour lights had faded behind us a sympathetic
mariner supported her limp form--the feathers of her incongruous hat
drooping in unison with their owner--down the swaying cabin staircase
and deposited her on a couch.
"Oh! I do wish I hadn't eaten that fruit," she groaned when I offered
her smelling-salts. "But then, you know, I was so hungry!"
In the _train rapide_ a little later, Placidia, when arranging her wraps
for the night journey, chanced, among the medley of her belongings, upon
a missing boat-ticket whose absence at the proper time had threatened
complications. She burst into good-humoured laughter at the discovery.
"Why, here's the ticket that man made all the fuss about. I really
thought he wasn't going to let me land till I found it. Now, I do wonder
how it got among my rugs?"
We seemed to be awake all night, staring with wide, unseeing eyes out
into the darkness. Yet the chill before dawn found us blinking sleepily
at a blue-bloused porter who, throwing open the carriage door, curtly
announced that we were in Paris.
Then followed a fruitless search for Placidia's luggage, a hunt which
was closed by Placidia recovering her registration ticket (with a
fragment of candy adhering to it) from one of the multifarious pockets
of her ulster, and finding that the luggage had been registered on to
Marseilles. "Will they charge duty on tobacco?" she inquired blandly, as
she watched the Customs examination of our things. "I've such a lot of
cigars in my boxes."
There was an Old-Man-of-the-Sea-like tenacity in Placidia's smiling
impuissance. She did not know one syllable of French. A new-born babe
could not have revealed itself more utterly incompetent. I verily
believe that, despite our haste, we would have ended by escorting
Placidia across Paris, and ensconcing her in the Marseilles train, had
not Providence intervened in the person of a kindly disposed polyglot
traveller. So, leaving Placidia standing the picture of complacent
fatuosity in the midst of a group consisting of this new champion and
three porters, we sneaked away.
[Illustration: Treasure Trove]
Grey dawn was breaking as we drove towards St. Lazare Station, and the
daily life of the city was well begun. Lights were twinkling in the dark
interiors of the shops. Through the mysterious atmosphere figures loomed
mistily, then vanished into the gloom. But we got no more than a vague
impression of our surroundings. Throughout the interminable length of
drive across the city, and the subsequent slow train journey, our
thoughts were ever in advance.
The tardy winter daylight had scarcely come before we were jolting in a
_fiacre_ over the stony streets of Versailles. In the gutters, crones
were eagerly rummaging among the dust heaps that awaited removal. In
France no degradation attaches to open economies. Housewives on their
way to fetch Gargantuan loaves or tiny bottles of milk for the matutinal
_café-au-lait_ cast searching glances as they passed, to see if among
the rubbish something of use to them might not be lurking. And at one
alluring mound an old gentleman of absurdly respectable exterior
perfunctorily turned over the scraps with the point of his cane.
We had heard of a hotel, and the first thing we saw of it we liked. That
was a pair of sabots on the mat at the foot of the staircase. Pausing
only to remove the dust of travel, we set off to visit our son, walking
with timorous haste along the grand old avenue where the school was
situated. A little casement window to the left of the wide entrance-door
showed a red cross. We looked at it silently, wondering.
[Illustration: The Red Cross in the Window]
In response to our ring the portal opened mysteriously at touch of the
unseen concierge, and we entered. A conference with Monsieur le
Directeur, kindly, voluble, tactfully complimentary regarding our
halting French, followed. The interview over, we crossed the courtyard
our hearts beating quickly. At the top of a little flight of worn stone
steps was the door of the school hospital, and under the ivy-twined
trellis stood a sweet-faced Franciscan Soeur, waiting to welcome us.
[Illustration: Enter M. Le Docteur]
Passing through a tiny outer room--an odd combination of dispensary,
kitchen, and drawing-room with a red-tiled floor--we reached the
sick-chamber, and saw the Boy. A young compatriot, also a victim of the
disease, occupied another bed, but for the first moments we were
oblivious of his presence. Raising his fever-flushed face from the
pillows, the Boy eagerly stretched out his burning hands.
"I heard your voices," his hoarse voice murmured contentedly, "and I
knew _you_ couldn't be ghosts." Poor child! in the semidarkness of the
lonely night-hours phantom voices had haunted him. We of the morning
were real.
The good Soeur buzzed a mild frenzy of "Il ne faut pas toucher" about
our ears, but, all unheeding, we clasped the hot hands and crooned over
him. After the dreary months of separation, love overruled wisdom. Mere
prudence was not strong enough to keep us apart.
Chief amongst the chaos of thoughts that had assailed us on the
reception of the bad news, was the necessity of engaging an English
medical man. But at the first sight of the French doctor, as, clad in a
long overall of white cotton, he entered the sick-room, our insular
prejudice vanished, ousted by complete confidence; a confidence that our
future experience of his professional skill and personal kindliness only
strengthened.
It was with sore hearts that, the prescribed _cinq minutes_ ended, we
descended the little outside stair. Still, we had seen the Boy; and
though we could not nurse him, we were not forbidden to visit him. So we
were thankful too.