Chapter VIII: Part 8

"He is better without one. Half the trouble in the world comes from wanting mates; the other half comes from not knowing that this is true. My good Coco is not so stupid"--and he reached up and stroked the bird's crest and neck. "All day long he ponders over what is going on down below him. And just think, monsieur, what _does_ go on down below him in the season! The wrong man and the wrong woman most of the time, and the pressure of the small foot under the table, and the little note slipped under the napkin. Ah!--they don't humbug Coco! He laughs all day to himself--and I laugh too. There is nothing, if you think about it, so comical as life. It is really a Punch-and-Judy show, with one doll whacking away at the other--'Now, will you be good!--Now, will you be good!'--and they are never good. No--no--never a mate for my Coco--never a mate for anybody if I can help it."

"Would you have given the same advice thirty years ago to madame la marquise?" Madame was the one and only subject Lemois ever seemed to approach with any degree of hesitancy. My objective point was, of course, Mignon; but I had opened madame's gate, hoping for a short cut.

"Ah!--madame is quite different," he replied with sudden gravity. "All the rules are broken in the case of a woman of fashion and of rank and of very great wealth. These people do not live for themselves--they are part of the State. But I will tell you one thing, Monsieur High-Muck, though you may not believe it, and that is that Madame la Marquise de la Caux was never so contented as she is at the present moment. She is free now to do as she pleases. Did you hear what Monsieur Le Blanc said last night about the way the work is being pressed? The old marquis would have been a year deciding on a plan; madame will have that villa on its legs and as good as new in a month. You know, of course, that she is coming down this afternoon?"

I knew nothing of the kind, and told him so.

"Yes; she sent me word last night by a mysterious messenger, who left the note and disappeared before I could see him--Leà brought it to me. You see, madame is most anxious about her flowers for next year, and this afternoon I am going with her to a nursery and to a great garden overlooking the market-place to help her pick them out." Here he caressed his pet again. "No, Monsieur Coco, you will not be allowed down here in the court where your pretty white feathers and your unblemished morals might be tarnished by the dreadful people all about. You shall go up on your perch; it is much better"--and with a deprecatory wave of his hand he strolled up the court-yard, Coco still nibbling his cheek with his horny black beak, the old man crooning a little love song as he walked.

I rose from my chair and began bawling out the good news of madame's expected visit to the occupants of the several windows, the effect being almost as startling as had been Mignon's song.

Instantly plans were cried down at me for her entertainment. Of course she must stay to dinner, our last one for the season! This was carried with a whoop. There must be, too, some kind of a special ceremony when the invitation was delivered. We must greet her at the door--all of us drawn up in a row, with Herbert stepping out of the ranks, saluting like a drum-major, and requesting the "distinguished honor"--and the rest of it: that, too, was carried unanimously. Whatever her gardening costume, it would make no difference, and no excuse on this score would receive a moment's consideration. Madame even in a fisherman's tarpaulins would be welcome--provided only that she was really inside of them.

With the whirl of her motor into the court-yard at dusk, and the breathing of its last wheeze in front of the Marmouset, the plump little woman sprang from her car muffled to her dimpled chin in a long waterproof, her two brown, squirrel eyes laughing behind her goggles. Instantly the importuning began, everybody crowding about her.

Up went her hands.

"No--please don't say a word and, whatever you do, don't invite me to stay to dinner, because I'm not going to; and that is my last word, and nothing will change my mind. Oh!--it is too banal--and you've spoiled everything. I didn't think I'd see anybody. Why are you not all in your rooms? Oh!--I am ready to cry with it all!"

"But we can't think of your leaving us," I begged, wondering what had disturbed her, but determined she should not go until we had found out. "Pierre has been at work all the morning and we----"

"No--it is I who have been working all the morning, digging in my garden, getting ready for the winter, and I am tired out, and so I will go back to my little bed in my dear garage and have my dinner alone."

Here Herbert broke loose. "But, madame, you _must_ dine with us; we have been counting on it." He had set his heart on another evening with the extraordinary woman and did not mean to be disappointed.

"But, my dear Monsieur Herbert, you see, I----"

"And you really mean that you won't stay?" groaned Louis, his face expressive of the deepest despair.

"Stop!--stop!--I tell you, and hear me through. Oh!--you dreadful men! Just see what you have done: I had such a pretty little plan of my own--I've been thinking of it for days. I said to myself this morning: I'll go to the Inn after I have finished with Lemois--about six o'clock--when it is getting dark--quite too dark for a lady to be even poking about alone. They will all be out walking or dressing for dinner, and I'll slip into the darling Marmouset, just to warm myself a little, if there should be a fire, and then they will come in and find me and be so surprised, and before any one of them can say a word I will shout out that I have come to dinner! And now you've ruined everything, and I must say, 'Thank you, kind gentlemen'--like any other poor parishioner--and eat my bowl of bread and milk in the corner. Was there ever _anything_ so banal?--Oh!--I'm heartbroken over it all. No; don't say another word--please, papa, I'll be a good girl. So help me off with my wraps, dear Monsieur Louis. No; wait until I get inside--you see, I've been gardening all day, and when one does gardening----"

The two were inside the Marmouset now, the others following, the laughter increasing as Louis led her to the hearth, where a fire had just been kindled. There he proceeded to unbutton her fur-lined motor-cloak--the laughter changing to shouts of delight when freeing herself from its folds. She stood before us a veritable Lebrun portrait, in a short black-velvet gown with wide fichu of Venetian lace rolled back from her plump shoulders, her throat circled with a string of tiny jewels from which drooped a pear-shaped pearl big as a pecan-nut and worth a king's ransom.

"There!" she cried, her brown eyes dancing, her face aglow with her whirl through the crisp air. "Am I not too lovely, and is not my gardening costume perfect? You see, I am always careful to do my digging in black velvet and lace," and a low gurgling sound like the cooing of doves followed by a burst of uncontrollable laughter filled the room.

If on her other visits she had captured us all by the charm of her personality, she drew the bond the tighter now. Then she had been the thorough woman of the world, adapting herself with infinite tact to new surroundings, contributing her share to the general merriment--one of us, so to speak; to-night she was the elder sister. She talked much to Herbert about his new statue and what he expected to make of it. He must not, she urged, concern himself alone with artistic values or the honors they would bring. He had gone beyond all these; his was a higher mission--one to bring the human side of the African savage to light and so help to overturn the prejudice of centuries, and nothing must swerve him from what she considered his lofty purpose--and there must be no weak repetition of his theme. Each new note he sounded must be stronger than the last.

She displayed the same fine insight when, dinner over, she talked to Louis of his out-door work--especially the whirl and slide of his water.

"You will forgive a woman, Monsieur Louis, who is old enough to be your great-grandmother, when she tells you that, fine as your pictures are--and I know of no painter of our time who paints water as well--there are some things in the out of doors which I am sure you will yet put into your canvases. I am a fisherman myself, and have thrashed many of the brooks you have painted, and there is nothing I love so much as to peer down into the holes where the little fellows live--way down among the pebbles and the brown moss and green of the water-plants. Can't we get this--or do I expect the impossible? But if it could be done--if the bottom as well as the surface of the water could be given--would we not uncover a fresh hiding-place of nature, and would not you--you, Monsieur Louis--be doing the world that much greater service?--the pleasure being more ours than yours--your reward being the giving of that pleasure to us. I hope you will all forgive me, but it has been such an inspiration to meet you all. I get so smothered by the commonplace that sometimes I gasp for breath, and then I find some oasis like this and I open wide my soul and drink my fill.

"But enough of all this. Let us have something more amusing. Monsieur Brierley, won't you go to the spinet and--" Here she sprang from her chair. "Oh, I forgot all about it, and I put it in my pocket on purpose. Please some one look in my cloak for a roll of music; none of you I know have heard it before. It is an old song of Provence that will revive for you all your memories of the place. Thank you, Monsieur Brierley, and now lift the lid and I will sing it for you." And then there poured from her lips a voice so full and rich, with notes so liquid and sympathetic, that we stood around her in wonder doubting our ears.

Never had we found her so charming nor so bewitching, nor so full of enchanting surprises.

So uncontrollable were her spirits, always rising to higher flights, that I began at last to suspect that something outside of the inspiration of our ready response to her every play of fancy and wit was accountable for her bewildering mood.

The solution came when the coffee was served and fresh candles lighted and Leà and Mignon, with a curtsy to the table and a gentle, furtive good-night to madame, had left the room. Then, quite as if their departure had started another train of thought, she turned and faced our landlord.

"What a dear old woman is Leà, Lemois," she began in casual tones, "and what good care she takes of that pretty child; she is mother and sister and guardian to her. But she cannot be everything. There is always some other yearning in a young girl's heart which no woman can satisfy. You know that as well as I do. And this is why you are going to give Mignon to young Gaston. Is it not true?" she added in dissembling tones.

Lemois moved uneasily in his chair. The question had come so unexpectedly, and was so direct, that for a moment he lost his poise. His own attitude, he supposed, had been made quite clear the night of the rescue, when he had denounced Gaston and forbidden Mignon to see him. Yet his manner was grave enough as he answered:

"Madame has so many things to occupy her mind, and so many people to help, why should she trouble herself with those of my maid? Mignon is very happy here, and has everything she wants, and she will continue to have them as long as she is alive."

"Then I see it is not true, and that you intend breaking her heart; and now will you please tell us why?" She looked at him and waited. There was a new ring--one of command--in her voice. I understood now as I listened why it took so short a time for her to rebuild the villa.

"Is madame the girl's guardian that she wishes to know?" asked Lemois. The words came with infinite courtesy, madame being the only woman of whom he stood in awe, but there was an undertone of opposition which, if aggravated, would, I felt sure, end in the old man's abrupt departure from the room.

I tried to relieve the situation by saying how happy not only Mignon but any one of us would be with so brilliant an advocate as madame pleading for our happiness, but she waved me aside with:

"No--please don't. I want dear Lemois to answer. It was one of my reasons for coming to-night, and he must tell me. He is so kind and considerate, and he is always so sorry for anything that suffers. He loves flowers and birds and animals, and music and pictures and all beautiful things, and yet he is worse than one of the cannibals that Monsieur Herbert tells us about. They eat their young girls and have done with them--Lemois kills his by slow torture--and so I ask you again, dear Lemois--_why_?"

Everybody sat up straight. How would Lemois take it? His fingers began to work, and the corners of his mouth straightened. A sudden flush crossed his habitually pale face. We were sure now of an outbreak: what would happen then none of us dared think.

"Madame la marquise," he began slowly--too slowly for anything but ill-suppressed feeling--"there is no one that I know for whom I have a higher respect; you must yourself have seen that in the many years I have known you. You are a very good and a very noble woman; all your life people have loved you--they still love you. It is one of your many gifts--one you should be thankful for. Some of us do not win this affection. You are, if you will permit me to say it, never lonely nor alone, except by your own choosing. Some of us cannot claim that--I for one. Do you not now understand?" He was still boiling inside, but the patience of the trained landlord and the innate breeding of the man had triumphed. And then, again, it would be a rash Frenchman of his class who would defy a woman of her exalted rank.

Over her face crept a pleased look--as if she held some trump card up her sleeve--and one of her cooing, bubbling laughs escaped her lips.

"You are not telling me the truth, you dear Lemois. I am not in love with Gaston, the fisherman, nor are you with our pretty Mignon. Neither you nor I have anything to do with it. Here are two young people whose happiness is trembling in the balance. You hold the scales--that is, you claim to, although the girl is neither your child nor your ward and could marry without your consent, and would if she did not love you for yourself and for all you have done for her. Answer me now--do you object because Gaston is a fisherman?"

Whether her knowledge of Lemois' legal rights--and she had stated them correctly--softened him, or whether he saw a loophole for himself, was not apparent, but the answer came with a certain surrender.

"Yes. It is a dangerous life. You have only to live here, as I have done, to count the women who bid their men good-by and watch in the gray dawn for the boat that never comes back--Mignon's elder brothers in one of them. I do not want her to go through that agony--she is young yet--some one else will come. The first love is not always the last--except in the case of madame"--and he smiled in strange fashion. The bomb was still within reach of his hand, but the fuse had gone out.

"Then it isn't Gaston himself?" she demanded with unflinching gaze.

"No--he is an honest lad; good to his mother; industrious--a brave fellow. He has, too, so I hear, a place in the market--one of the stalls--so he is getting on, and will soon be one of our best citizens." He would talk all night about Gaston, and pleasantly, if she wished.

"Well, if he were a notary? Would that be different?" Her soft brown eyes were hardly visible between their lids, but they were burning with an intense light.

"Yes, it might be." Same air of nonchalance--anything to please the delightful woman.

"Or a chemist?"--just a slit between the lids now, with little flashes along the edges.

"Or a chemist," intoned Lemois.

"Or a head gardener, perhaps?" Both eyes tight shut under the fluffy gray hair, an intense expression on her face.

"Why not say a minister of state, madame?" laughed Lemois.

"No--no--don't you dare run away like that. Stand to your guns, monsieur. If he were a head gardener, then what?"

Lemois rose from his chair, laid his hand on his shirt-front, and bowed impressively. He was evidently determined to humor her passing whim.

"If he were a head gardener I would not have the slightest objection, madame."

She sprang to her feet and began clapping her plump hands, her laughter filling the room.

"Oh!--I am so happy! You heard what he said--all of you. You, Monsieur Herbert--and you--and you"--pointing to each member of our group. "If he were a head gardener! Oh, was there ever such luck! And do you listen too, you magnificent Lemois! Gaston is a head gardener; has been a head gardener for days; every one of the plants you bought for me to-day he will put into the ground with his own hands. His mother will have the stall I bought in the fish market, and he and Mignon are to live in the new garage, and he is to have charge of the villa grounds, and she is to manage the dairy and the linen and look after the chickens and the ducks. And the wedding is to take place just as soon as you give your consent; and if you don't consent, it will take place anyway, for I am to be godmother and she is to have a dot and all the furniture they want out of what was saved from my house, and that's all there is to it--except that both of them know all about it, for I sent Gaston down here last night with a note for you, and he told Mignon, and it's all settled--now what do you say?"

A shout greeted her last words, and the whole room broke spontaneously into a clapping of hands, Louis, as was his invariable custom whenever excuse offered, on his feet, glass in hand, proposing the health of that most adorable of all women of her own or any other time, past, present, or future--at which the dear, penguin-shaped lady in black velvet and lace raised her dainty white palms in holy horror, protesting that it was Monsieur Lemois whose health must be drunk, as without him nothing could have been done, the clear tones of her voice rising like a bird's song above the others as she sprang forward, grasped Lemois' hand and lifted him to his feet, the whole room once more applauding.

Yes, it was a great moment! Mignon's happiness was very dear to us, but that which captured us completely was the daring and cleverness of the little woman who had worked for it, and who was so joyous over her success and so childishly enthusiastic at the outcome.

Lemois, unable to stem the flood of rejoicing, seemed to have surrendered and given up the fight, complimenting the marquise upon her diplomacy, and the way in which she had entirely outgeneralled an old fellow who was not up to the wiles of the world. "Such a mean advantage, madame, to take of a poor old man," he continued, bowing low, a curious, unreadable expression crossing his face. "I am, as you know, but clay in your hands, as are all the others who are honored by your acquaintance. But now that I am tied to your chariot wheels, I must of course take part in your triumphal procession; so permit me to make a few suggestions."

The marquise laughed gently, but with a puzzled look in her eyes. She was not sure what he was driving at, but she did not interrupt him.

"We will have an old-time wedding," he continued gayly, with a comprehensive wave of his hand as if he were arranging the stage setting--"something quite in keeping with the general sentiment; for certain it is that not since the days when fair ladies let themselves down from castle walls into the arms of their plumed knights, only to dash away into space on milk-white steeds, will there be anything quite so romantic as this child-wedding!"

"And so you mean to have a rope ladder, do you, and let my----"

"Oh, no, madame la marquise," he interrupted--"nothing so ordinary! We"--here he began rubbing his hands together quite as if he was ordering a dinner for an epicure--"we will have a revival of all the old customs just as they were in this very place. Our bride will join her lord in a cabriolet, and our groom will come on horseback--all fishermen ride, you know--and so will the other fishermen and maids--each gallant with a fair lady seated behind him on the crupper, her arms about his waist. Then we will have trumpeters and a garter man----"

"A what!" She was still at sea as to his meaning, although she had not missed the tone of irony in his voice.

"A man, madame, whose duty is to secure one of the bride's garters. Oh, you need not start--that is quite simply arranged. The old-time brides always carried an extra pair to save themselves embarrassment. The one for the garter-man will be trimmed with ribbons which he will cut off and distribute to the other would-be brides, who will keep them in their prayer-books."

"Leà, for instance," chimed in Louis, winking at Herbert.

"Leà, for instance, my dear Monsieur Louis. I know of no better mate for a man--and it is a pity you are too young."

The laugh was on Louis this time, but the old man kept straight on, his subtle irony growing more pointed as he continued: "And then, madame, when it is all over and the couple retire for the night--and of course we will give them the best room in our house, they being most distinguished personages--none other than Monsieur Gaston Duprè, Lord of the Lobster Pot, Duke of Buezval, and Grand Marshal of the Deep Sea, and Mademoiselle Mignon, Princess of----"

The marquise drew herself up to her full height. "Stop your nonsense, Lemois. I won't let you say another word; you shan't ridicule my young people. Stop it, I say!"

"Oh, but wait, madame--please hear me out--I have not finished. These pewter dishes must also come into service"--and he caught up the two bowls from the tops of the great andirons behind him--"these we will fill with spices steeped in mulled wine, which, as I tried to say, we will send to their Royal Highnesses' bedroom--after they are tucked away in----"

"No!--no!--we will do nothing of the kind; everything shall be just the other way. There will be no horses, no cabriolet, no trumpeters, no garters except the ones the dear child will wear, and no mulled wine. We will all go on foot, and the only music will be the organ in the old church, and the breakfast will be here, in our beloved Marmouset, and the punch will be mixed by Monsieur Brierley in the Ming bowl I brought, and Monsieur Louis will serve it, and then they will both go to their own home and sleep in their own bed. So there! Not another word, for it is all settled and finished"--and one of her rippling, joyous laughs--a whole dove-cote mingled with any number of silver bells--quivered through the room.

Lemois joined in the merriment, shrugging his inscrutable shoulders, repeating that he, of course, was only a captive, and must therefore do as he was bid, a situation which, he added with another low bow, had its good side since so charming a woman as madame held his chain.

And yet despite his gayety there was under it all a certain reserve which, although lost on the others, convinced me that the old man had not, by any means, made up his mind as to what he would do. While Mignon was not his legal ward, his care of her all these years must count for something. Madame, of course, was a difficult person to make war upon once she had set her heart on a thing--and she certainly had on this marriage, amazing as it was to him--and yet there was still the girl's future to be considered, and with it his own. All this was in his eyes as I watched him resuming his place by the fire after some of the excitement had begun to quiet down.

But none of this--even if she, too, had studied him as I had--would have made any impression on Mignon's champion. She was accustomed to being obeyed--the gang of mechanics who had under her directions performed two days' work in one had found that out. And then, again, her whole purpose in life was to befriend especially those girls who, having no one to stand by them, become broken down by opposition and so marry where their hearts seldom lead. How many had she taken under her wing--how many more would she protect as long as she lived!

Before she bade us good-night all the wedding details were sketched out, our landlord listening and nodding his head whenever appeal was made to him, but committing himself by no further speech. The ceremony, she declared gayly--and it must be the most beautiful and brilliant of ceremonies--would take place in the old twelfth-century church, at the end of the street, from which the great knights of old had sallied forth and where a new knight, one Monsieur Gaston, would follow in their footsteps--not for war, but for love--a much better career--this, with an additional toss of her head at the silent Lemois. There would be flowers and perhaps music--she would see about that--but no trumpeters--and again she looked at Lemois--and everybody from Buezval would be invited--all the fishermen, of course, and their white-capped mothers and sisters and aunts, and cousins for that matter--everybody who would come; and Pierre and her own chef from Rouen would prepare the wedding breakfast if dear Lemois would consent--and if he didn't consent, it would be cooked anyhow, and brought in ready to be eaten--and in this very room with every one of us present.

"And now, Monsieur Louis, please get me my cloak, and will one of you be good enough to tell my chauffeur I am ready?--and one thing more, and this I insist on: please don't any of you move--and, whatever you do, don't bid me good-by. I want to carry away with me just the picture I am looking at: Monsieur Herbert there in his chair between the two live heads--yes, I believe it now--and Messieurs Louis and Brierley and Le Blanc, and our delightful host, and dear tantalizing Lemois, by the hearth--and the queer figures looking down at us through the smoke of our cigarettes--and the glow of the candles, and the light of the lovely fire to which you have welcomed me. Au revoir, messieurs--you have made me over new and I am very happy, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart!"

And she was gone.

When the door was shut behind her, Herbert strolled to the fire and stood with his face to the flickering blaze. We all remained standing, paying unconscious homage to her memory. For some seconds no one spoke. Then, turning and facing the group, Herbert said, half aloud, as if communing with himself:

"A real woman--human and big, half a dozen such would revolutionize France. And she knows--that is the best part of it"--and his voice grew stronger--"she _knows_! You may think you've reached the bottom of things--thought them all out, convinced you are right, even steer your course by your deductions--and here comes along a woman who lifts a lid uncovering a well in your soul you never dreamed of, and your conclusions go sky-high. And she does it so cleverly, and she is so sane about it all. If she were where I could get at her now and then I'd do something worth while. I've made up my mind to one thing, anyhow--I'm going to pull to pieces the thing I set up before I came down here and start something new. I've got another idea in my head--something a little more human."

"Isn't 'The Savage' human, Herbert?" I asked, filling his glass as I spoke, to give him time for reply.

"No; it's only African--one phase of a race."

"How about your 'group,' 'They Have Eyes and They See Not'?" asked Brierley, who had drawn up a chair and stood leaning over its back, gazing into the fire.

"A little better, but not much. The Great Art is along other lines--bigger, higher, stronger--more universal lines, one that has nothing racial about it, one that expresses the human heart no matter what the period or nationality. The 'Prodigal Son' is a drama which has been understood and is still understood by the whole earth irrespective of creed or locality. It appeals to the savage and the savant alike and always will to the end of time. So with the Milo. She is Greek, English, or Slav at your option, but she will live forever because she expresses the divine essence of maternity which is eternal. It is this, and only this, which compels. I have had glimmerings of it all my life. Madame cleared out the cobwebs for me in a flash. A great woman--real human."

Then noticing that no one had either interrupted his outburst or moved his position, he glanced around the group and, as if in doubt as to the way his outburst had been received, said simply:

"Well, speak up; am I right or wrong? You don't seem to see it as I do. How did she appeal to you, Brierley?"

The young fellow stepped in front of his chair and dropped into its depths.

"You are dead right, Herbert; you are, anyhow, about the Milo. I never go into her presence without lifting my hat, and I have kept it up for years. But you don't do yourself justice, old man. Some of your things will live as long as they hold together. However"--and he laughed knowingly--"that's for posterity to settle. How does madame appeal to me? you ask. Well, being a many-sided woman--no frills, no coquetry, nor sham--she appeals to me more as a comrade than in any other way--just plain comrade. Half the women one meets of her age and class have something of themselves to conceal, giving you a side which they are not, or trying to give it for you to read at first sight. She gave us her worst side first--or what we thought was her worst side--and her best last."

"And you, Le Blanc?" resumed Herbert. "She's your countrywoman; let's have it."

"Oh, I don't know, Herbert. I, of course, have heard of her for years, and she was therefore not so much of a surprise to me as she was to you all. If, however, you want me to get down to something fundamental, I'll tell you that she confirms a theory I have always had that--But I won't go into that. It's our last night together and we----"

"No; go on. This interests me enormously, especially her personality. We'll have our nightcap later on."

"Well, all right," and he squared himself toward Herbert. "She confirms, as I said, a theory of mine--one I have always had, that the Great Art--that for which the world is waiting--is not so much the creation of statues, if you will pardon me, as the creation of a better understanding of women by men. Not of their personalities, but of their impersonalities. Most women are afraid to let themselves go, not knowing how we will take them, and because of this fear we lose the best part of a woman's nature. She dares not do a great many generous things--sane, kindly, human things--because she is in dread of being misunderstood. She is even afraid to love some of us as intensely as she would. Madame dares everything and could never be misunderstood. All doubts of her were swept out in her opening sentence the night she arrived. She ought to found a school and teach women to be themselves, then we'd all be that much happier."

"And now, Louis," persisted Herbert, "come, we're waiting. No shirking, and no nonsense. Just the plain truth. How does she appeal to you?"

"As a dead game sport, Herbert, and the best ever! Every man on his feet and I'll give you a toast that is as short and sweet as her adorable self.

"Here's to our friend, Madame la Marquise de la Caux--THE WOMAN."

XV

APPLE-BLOSSOMS AND WHITE MUSLIN

Coco, the snow-white cockatoo, on his perch high up in the roof dormer overlooking the court, is having the time of his life. To see and hear the better, he wobbles back and forth to the end of his wooden peg, steadying himself by his black beak, and then, straightening up, unfurls his yellow celery top of a crest and, with a quick toss of his head, shrieks out his delight.

He wants to know what it is all about, and I don't blame him. No such hurrying and scurrying has been seen in the court-yard below since the morning the players came down from Paris and turned the sixteenth-century quadrangle into a stage-setting for an old-time comedy: new gravel is being raked and sifted over the open space; men on step-ladders are trimming up the vines and setting out plants on top of the kiosks; others are giving last touches to the tulip-beds and the fresh sod along the borders, while two women are scrubbing the chairs and tables under the arbors.

As for the Inn's inhabitants, everybody seems to have lost their wits: Pierre has gone entirely mad. When butter, or eggs, or milk, or a pint of sherry--or something he needs, or thinks he needs--is wanted, he does not wait until his under-chef can bring it from the storage-cave where they are kept--he rushes out himself, grabbing up a basket, or pitcher, or cup as he goes, and comes back on the double-quick to begin again his stirring, chopping, and basting--the roasting-spit turning merrily all the while.

Leà is even more restless. Her activities, however, are confined to clattering along the upstairs corridors, her arms full of freshly ironed clothes--skirts and things--and to the banging of chamber doors--one especially, behind which sits an old fishwoman, yellow as a dried mackerel and as stiff, helping a young girl dress.

The only one who seems to have kept his head is Lemois. His nervousness is none the less in evidence, but he gets rid of his pent-up steam in a different way. He lets the others hustle, while he stands still just inside the gate giving orders to hurrying market boys with baskets of fish; signing receipts for cases filled with poultry and early vegetables just in by the morning train from Caen; or firing instructions to his gardeners and workmen--self-contained as a ball governor on a horizontal engine and seemingly as inert, yet an index of both pressure and speed.

All this time Coco keeps up his hullabaloo, nobody paying the slightest attention. Suddenly there comes an answering cry and the cockatoo snaps his beak tight with a click and listens intently, his head on one side. It is the shriek of a siren--a long-drawn, agonizing wail that strikes the bird dumb with envy. Nearer it comes--nearer--now at the turn of the street; now just outside the gate, and in whirls Herbert's motor, the painter beside him.

"Ah!--Lemois--the top of the morning to you and yours!" Louis' stentorian voice rings out. "Never saw a better one come out of the skies. Out with you, Herbert. Are we the first to arrive? Here, give me that basket of grapes and box of bonbons. A magnificent run, Lemois. Left Paris at five o'clock, while the milk was going its rounds; spun through Lisieux before they were wide awake; struck the coast, and since then nothing but apple-bloom--one great pink-and-white bedquilt up hill and down dale. Glorious! I want a whole tree, full of blossoms, remember--just as I wrote you--none of your mean little chopped-off twigs, but a cart-load of branches. Let me have that old apple-tree out in the lot in front--the apples were never any good, and Mignon may as well have the blossoms as those thieving boys. Did you send word to the school children? Yes, of course you did. Oh, I tell you, Herbert, we are going to have a bully time--Paul and Virginia are not in it. Hello! Leà, you up there, you blessed old carved root of a virgin!--where's the adorable Mignon?"

"Good-morning, Monsieur Louis--and you too, Monsieur Herbert," came her voice in reply from the rail of the gallery above our heads. "Mignon is inside," and she pointed to the closed door behind her. "Gaston's mother is helping her. Madame la marquise will be here any minute, and so will Monsieur Le Blanc and everybody from Buezval. Oh!--you should see my child! You wouldn't know her in the pretty clothes madame has sent."

And now while Herbert is digging out from under the motor seats various packages tied with white ribbons, including the drawing he made of Leà, now richly framed, and which with the aid of the old woman he carried up the crooked stairway and deposited at a certain door, I will tell you what all this excitement is about.

Madame la marquise has had her way. Not an instantaneous and complete victory. There had been parleyings, of course, after that eventful night some months before when she had outgeneralled and then defied Lemois, and concessions had been made, both sides yielding a little; but before we separated for our homes we felt sure that the old man either had or would surrender.

"Well, let it be as you will," he had said with a sigh; "but not now. In the spring when the apple-blossoms are in bloom--and then perhaps you may come back."

To me, however, who had stayed on for a few days, he had, late one afternoon, poured out his whole heart. The twilight had begun to settle in the Marmouset, and the last glow of the western sky creeping through the stained-glass windows was falling upon the old Spanish leather and gold crowned saints and figures, warming them into rich harmonies, when I had stolen inside the wonderful room to take one of my last looks--an old habit of mine in a place I love. There I found him hunched up in Herbert's chair at one corner of the fireplace, his head on his hand.

"Well, you have won your fight," he had said in a low, measured voice, speaking into the bare chimney, his fingers still supporting his forehead. "You will take my child from me and leave me alone."

"But she will be much happier," I now ventured.

"Perhaps so--I cannot tell. I have seen many a bright sunrise end in a storm. But none of you have understood me. You thought it was money, and what the man could bring her, and that I objected because the boy was poor and a fisherman. What am I but a man of the people?--what is she but a peasant?--and her mother and grandmother before her. Who are we that we should try to rise above our station, making ourselves a laughing-stock? Had he been a land-owner with a thousand head of cattle it would have been the same with me. Nothing will be as it was any more. I am an old man and she is all the child I have. When she was eight years old she would come into this very room and nestle close in my lap, and I would talk to her by the hour--she and I alone, the fire lighting up the dark. And so it was when she grew up. It is only of late that she has shut herself away from me. I deserve it maybe--she must marry somebody, and I would not have it otherwise--but why must it be now? I do not blame madame la marquise. She is an enthusiastic woman whose heart often runs away with her head; but she is honest and sincere. She had only the child's happiness in view, and she will be a mother to them both as long as she lives, as she is to many others I know."

He had paused for a moment, I standing still beside him, and had then gone on, the words coming slowly, like the dropping of water:

"You remember Monsieur Herbert's story, do you not, of the old mould-maker who lost his daughter, and who died in his chair, his clay masks grinning down at him from the skylight above? Well, I am he. Just as they grinned at the old mould-maker, his daughter gone, so in my loneliness will my figures grin at me."

This had been in late October.

What the dull winter had been to him I never knew, but he had not gone back on his word, and now that the apple-blossoms were in bloom, and the orchards a blaze of glory, the wedding day, just as he had promised, had arrived!

No wonder, then, Coco is screaming at the top of his voice; no wonder the court-yard is swept by a whirlwind of flying feet; no wonder the upstairs chamber door, with Leà as guardian angel, is opened and shut every few minutes, hiding the girl behind it; and no wonder that Herbert's impatient car, every spoke in its wheels trembling with excitement, is puffing with eagerness to make the run to the old apple-tree in the outer lot, and so on to the church, loaded to its extra tires with a carpet of blossoms for Mignon's pretty feet.

No wonder, either, that before Herbert's car, with Louis in charge of the blossom raid, had cleared the back gate, there had puffed in another motor--two this time--Le Blanc in one, with his friend, The Architect, beside him, the seats packed full of children, their faces scrubbed to a phenomenal cleanliness, their hair skewered with gay ribbons, all their best clothes on their backs; madame la marquise and Marc in the other, an old weather-beaten fisherman--an uncle of Gaston's, too lame to walk--beside her, and bundled up on the back seat two lean withered fishwomen in black bombazine and close-fitting white caps--a cousin and an aunt of the groom--the first time any one of the three had ever stepped foot in a car.

As madame and her strange crew entered the court, I turned instinctively to Lemois, wondering how he would deport himself when the crucial moment arrived--and a car-load of relatives certainly seemed to express that fatality--but he was equal to the occasion.

"Ah, madame!" he said in his courtliest manner, his hand over his heart, "who else in the wide world would have thought of so kindly an act? These poor people will bless you to their dying day. And it is delightful to see you again, Monsieur Marc. You have, I know, come to help madame in her good works. As I have so often told her, she is----"

"And why should I not give them pleasure, you dear Lemois? See how happy they are. And this is not half of them! No, don't get out, mère Francine--you are all to keep on to the church and get into your seats before the village people crowd it full; and you, Auguste"--this to her chauffeur--"are to go back to Buezval for the others--they are all waiting." Here she espied Herbert on a ladder tacking some blossoms over the doorway. "Ah!--monsieur, aren't you very happy it has turned out so well? I caught only a glimpse of you as you dashed past a few minutes ago or I should have held you up and made you bring the balance of the old fishwomen. They are all crazy to come. Ah! but you needn't to have come down. It is so good to see you again," and she shook his hand heartily. "But what a morning for a wedding! Did you notice as you came along the shore road the little puff clouds skipping out to sea for very joy and hear the birds splitting their throats in song? Even my own head is getting turned with all this billing and cooing, and I warn all of you right here"--and she swept her glance over the men gathered about her, her eyes twinkling in merriment--"that you must be very careful to keep out of my way or the first thing you know one of you will be whisked off to the altar and married before you know it. And now I am going upstairs to see how my little bride gets on, if Monsieur Marc will be good enough to carry my heavy wraps inside."

She turned, stopped for an instant attracted by something she saw through the archway of the court, and burst into a peal of ringing laughter.

"Oh!--come here quick, every one of you, and see what's driving in! It's Monsieur Brierley in the dearest of donkey carts. Where did you get that absurd little beast?"

"Whoa! Victor Hugo!" shouted Brierley, springing from the cart (both together wouldn't have covered the space occupied by an upright piano). "I found him last fall, my dear madame la marquise, in a stable in Caen, kicking out the partitions, and brought him home to my Abandoned Farm by the Marsh to add a touch of hilarity to my surroundings. He wakes me every morning with his hind feet against the door of his stable and is a most engaging and delightful companion. Hello! Lemois, and--you here, Herbert! Shake!--awful glad to see you. Where's Louis?--gone for blossoms?--just like him. I tried to get here earlier, to help you all, but Victor Hugo is peculiar and considerably set in his ways, and if I had tried to overpersuade him he might still be a mile down the road with his feet anchored in the mud.

"Take a look inside my cart, will you, Herbert? My contribution to start the young couple housekeeping"--and he pulled off a covering of clean straw--"six dozen eggs, a pair of mallards--shot them yesterday, and about the last of them this season, and no business to shoot even these--a basket of potatoes, a dozen of pear jam--in family jars--and a small keg of apple-jack--the two last, the sweet and the strong, to be eaten and drank together to keep peace in the house. No, don't take Hugo out of the shafts, Lemois, and don't say anything about its being meal-time, not loud enough for him to hear. When the fun is over I'm going to drive him down to madame's garage and pack the housekeeping stuff away in Mignon's cupboard."

Long before noon the court-yard, as well as the archway and the kiosks and arbors, had begun to fill up, the news of the extraordinary proceedings having brought everybody ahead of time. There was the mayor, wearing his tricolor sash and insignia of office, and with him his stout, double-chinned wife in black silk and white gloves--bareheaded, except for a gold ornament that looked like a bunch of twisted hair-pins; there were the apothecary and the notary and the man who sold pottery, not forgetting the bustling, outspoken fat doctor who had sewed up Gaston's head the time madame's villa went sliddering toward the sea--or tried to--as well as all the great and small folk of the village who claimed the least little bit of acquaintance with any one connected with the function from Lemois down.

Why the distinguished Madame la Marquise de la Caux--to say nothing of Lemois and the equally distinguished sculptors, painters, and authors, some of whom were well known to them by reputation--should make all this fuss about a simple little serving-maid who had brought them their coffee--a waif, really, picked from between the cobbles--one like a dozen others the village over, except for her beauty--was a question no one of them had been able to answer. Was it a whim of the great lady?--for it was well known she had made the match--or was there something else behind it all? (a mystery, by the way, which they are still trying to solve; disinterested kindness being the most incomprehensible thing in the world to some people). The notary was particularly outspoken in his opinion. He even criticised the great woman herself from behind his hand to the apothecary, whose upper room he occupied. "Been much better if these people of high degree had stayed at home and let the two young people enjoy themselves in their own way. Great mistake mixing the classes." But, then, the notary is the mouth-piece of the revolutionary party in the village and hates the aristocracy as a singed cat does the fire.

Soon there came a shout from the gallery over our heads, and we all looked up. Leà, her wrinkled face aglow with that same inner light, the rays struggling through her rusty skin, craned her head over the rail. Then came Mignon, madame close behind, pushing her veil aside so we could all see her face--the girl blushing scarlet, but too happy to do more than laugh and bow and make little dumb nods with her head, hiding her face as best she could behind Leà's angular shoulders.

"Yes, we are all ready, and are coming down the back stairs, and will meet you at the gate," cried madame when she had released the girl--"and it's time to start."

Mignon's passage along the corridor, followed by madame and Leà and Gaston's old mother, roused a murmur of welcome which swelled into an outburst of joyous enthusiasm as her feet touched the level of the court, and continued until she had joined Gaston and the others already formed in line for the march to the church.

And a wonderful procession it was!

First, of course, came the mayor--his worthy spouse on his left. "The State before the Church," madame la marquise remarked with a sly twinkle, "and quite as it should be," rabid anti-clerical as she was.

Close behind stepped Lemois in a frock-coat buttoned to his chin, his grave, thoughtful face framed in a high collar and black cravat--like an old diplomat at a court function--Mignon on his arm: Such a pretty, shrinking, timid Mignon, her lashes lifting and settling as if afraid to raise her eyes lest some one should find a chink through which they could peep into her heart.

Next came Louis escorting dear old Leà!

There was a picture for you! Had she been a duchess the rollicking young painter could not have treated her with more deference, bearing himself aloft, his chest out, handing her over the low "thank-ye-marm" at the street corner--the old woman, straight as her bent shoulders would allow, calm, self-contained, but near bursting with a joy that would drown her in tears if she gave way but an instant--and all with a quiet dignity that somehow, when you looked at her, sent a lump to your throat.

And then madame and Gaston!--she stepping free and alive, her little feet darting in and out below her rich, short gown, her eyes dancing; he swinging along beside her with that quick, alert step of the young who have always stretched their muscles to the utmost, his sun-burnt skin twice as dark from the mad rush of blood through his veins; abashed at the great honor thrust upon him, and yet with that certain poise and independence common to men who have fought and won and can fight and win again.

And last--amused, glad to lend a hand, enjoying it all to the full--Herbert, and Gaston's poor old broken-down-with-hard-work mother--stiff, formal, scared out of her seven wits--trying to smile as she ambled along, her mouth dry, her knees shaking--the rest of us bringing up the rear--Brierley, Le Blanc, The Architect, Marc, and I walking together.