A Tatter of Scarlet Part 22

All that day no one crossed over the bridge from Chateau Schneider and the time was blessed for Linn. She knew very well that it was for just such companionship that Alida had come to Aramon. She had herself supported the necessity for change, even against her husband. But all the same, now when she got her Princess a day to herself she made the most of it, falling back into her old caressing habits and ready to treat Alida as the little girl who long ago had been put in her hands with all a queen's habits of command and the sweet waywardness of a child.

I helped when I could and fetched huge stuffed buffets and cushions, so that Alida could install herself beside my father at the fishpond, and then I left him to make his usual conquest. He was smiling and tranquil as I remember, but with an unwonted eagerness in his eye, which did not by any means come from the antic.i.p.ation of a morning with Alida. I remembered afterwards that he had had an interview the night before with Keller Bey in which they had talked much Arabic, and early this morning he had dispatched Saunders McKie over the water with a letter to Dennis Deventer. But these things did not fall into place in my mind, at least not till long afterwards.

We had a happy day among the sunflecked glades of Gobelet--that is, Alida, my father and I. When they two were alone, they talked Arabic, but ceased as soon as I joined them.

Conscious of the awkwardness Alida renewed her offer to teach me colloquially if my father would put me in the way of learning the grammar, while I regretted bitterly having wasted my time at St. Andre.

Finally to change the subject we fell to talking over the Montmorencies and their _Tour Carree_ on the heights of Aramon le Vieux. Here at hand, where the Tessiers slept at the far side of Dennis Deventer's flying bridge of steel, was their gateway tower, still pitted by the b.a.l.l.s of Mazarin's troops. For a Montmorency of those days, probably held in leash by his wife, had taken the popular side in the wars of the Fronde.

Down there on that islet in the reign of Louis XII (said my father) a great tournament was held in which the knights of France, light and lissom, overwhelmed the weightier champions of Burgundy.

If we had been more watchful as we talked, we might have seen the smoke die out of the tall chimneys of Aramon-les-Ateliers, the blast furnaces withdraw their crowns of pale flame, and an unnatural quiet settle down upon the busy city.

But our minds were bent wholly on giving pleasure to Alida. She must be taken through this glade, climb this steep path, and see the marvellous spectacle of the Rhone delta with its wide wastes wandered over by fierce cattle, its sinuous waterways blocked by the only beavers remaining in Europe, and far away beyond it the violet-blue bar of the Midland Sea.

We did indeed conduct Alida from admiration to admiration, and she had what I fear Rhoda Polly would have called "the time of her life." It did strike me several times how strange it was that since my father had sent his morning message to Dennis Deventer, we had had no news of the household at Chateau Schneider.

I sounded Saunders on the subject, but he knew nothing, or at least would tell nothing.

"The letter? Oh, Maister Dennis just read it and put it in his waistcoat pooch. Syne, says he, 'Saunders, will ye drink?' 'No,' says I; for if I did, when I gaed hame I micht smell! So he gied me yin o' thae French sovereigns as easy as puttin' a penny in the plate. Oh, a grand man is Maister Deventer when ye get the richt side o' him, but as they tell me the very deevil and a' when his monkey is up. Do you ken, Maister Aangus, he was just trying me on, by asking me to drink? For if I had ta'en as muckle as a sup frae his hand, I micht hae whistled for the wee French sovereign--whilk is only barely worth saxteen shillings when a'

is said and done!"

Nevertheless in the full bliss of ignorance we idled away the day while about us the flowers grew as we looked at them, so keen an edge was on that spring day. Linn ranged her napery cupboards to her most perfect content, not that she could do it better than Mrs. Deventer had done, but simply for the satisfaction of, as it were, expressing her mind and doing it differently.

The shadows pa.s.sed steadily across the sundial. The underneath inscription became more strongly incised as the sun dipped westward. The rock plants on the little island in the pond fell into shadow and some closed up their petals for the night. And still in the midst of a great silence we moved and smiled and were happy. Aramon le Vieux drowsed beneath us. The good wives at their doors were out gossiping their hardest, but in undertones which must not pa.s.s from one group to another. Cats sunned themselves in window sills beyond the reach of the prowling cur, and the majestic river, so soon to be split and worried into a hundred waterways, _etangs_ and backwaters, pa.s.sed noiselessly in front of us in one n.o.ble rush, level, calm, and swift.

I think it was about three o'clock in the afternoon when Professor Renard, coming from the post office, where the telegraph had been recently installed, brought tidings.

"There is a revolt in Paris," he said, "the soldiers and the National Guard have expelled the Government. That is the news they have received, but no one knows whether it is false or true."

Nor in the midst of our quiet park with the fruit trees in blossom everywhere could we have any guess at the turmoil, the riding of orderlies, and the hasty ordering of official carriages in Paris.

Indeed, the talk pa.s.sed to other matter and on the surface, and the tidings seemed to affect us little. So having left Linn still busy with her linen, Alida and I took our way to the look-out summer-house above the aerial swing of the suspension bridge, leaving the elders talking very soberly together.

"Surely there is no danger here?" the girl asked when we had seated ourselves. She spoke not from any fear but that she might contrive means of helping her friends the Deventers if they needed it.

"Not that I know of," I answered, "but the workmen of Aramon are always fiery and hard to handle. We _have_ had battles and sieges, yet things were smoothed over and the works went on as before--the men who had been busily shooting each other down talking over details of work and taking orders from one another as if nothing had happened."

"How long ago was that?"

"Only about two months," I explained, "but you need expect nothing of that kind on this side. The workmen never cross the bridge save when on pleasure bent, or when our July fair-time fills the green yonder with the din of booths, circuses, and penny theatres."

Nevertheless, Alida's face continued to express trouble.

"But Rhoda Polly, her mother, and the others--are they in danger?"

"Not, I think, for the moment. The more serious the news from Paris, the less will the men think of their grievances against the Company and the Company's manager. Last time the siege was bitter and determined on both sides. Many were killed. Yet it was no more than a trade dispute which Mr. Deventer could have settled in half an hour if the men had brought their grievances directly to him, instead of trying to wreck the works for the safety of which he is responsible."

"We must go and see for ourselves," said Alida imperiously. "If there is danger for my friends, I must be there to share it."

"You must not do anything of the kind," I cried, "you do not understand the fierce blindness which comes upon men at such times. I shall go, if necessary, and you shall stay with my father and Linn in the refuge which those who love you have chosen for you."

"Then if I let you go, you will come back and tell me all--remember, do not put me off with lies such as they tell to ordinary women."

I promised, and as we stood looking across the glistening waters I saw for the second time in my life the tricolour flutter down from its staff, and after a pause the shining "Tatter of Scarlet" of the red revolution blow out on the valley wind.

CHAPTER XXV

THE PROCLAMATION

The street lamps had not been lighted when I landed on the left bank of the river, well above any outposts of the new revolt. I pulled my skiff safely under shelter of some bushes. The spot I had chosen was one well known to me, and exceedingly safe. My father often sent me over to bring plants and seeds from Arcadius, the gardener at Les Linottes, whose extensive grounds ran right down to the river's edge. A soft, rather hulking, good-natured man was Arcadius, who went through the world apparently breathing to the full ease of life. His body somewhat resembled a large slug supported on two smaller slugs, which were his legs. He worked in his garden, his pipe continually between his lips. At a first glance the slowness of his movements seemed laughable and ridiculous. But leave him half an hour and then see what he had accomplished. There was no man in Aramon who could get through so much work as Arcadius the Slug. By a kind of instinct he saw exactly where every stroke ought to fall, how much or how little was to be done, and the completed task ran out behind him like the wake from a well-rowed boat.

It was in a little bay behind a promontory filled with the Slug's sapling pines that I landed. I knew the place well, I knew also that Arcadius would almost certainly be in his potting house, putting things to rights after the labours of the day (the middle of March is high season for every gardener in the Midi). There indeed I found him surrounded with repaired hoes and rakes, and at that moment putting a new handle into the small gardener's _beche_ (or mattock) which was hardly ever out of his hands while in the open air.

Arcadius was not a man of politics.

"I have never known politics to improve the weather or keep off frosts!"

he said. "I have yet to learn what good they do to a working gardener!"

I asked about the works and the town.

"Oh," he said, "my 'prentice lads stayed with me till six o'clock because I had put the fear of death on them if they tried to run. Yet I could see that they were itching to be off, and as soon as six struck from the Mairie, they dropped their tools and were over the wall. Only my Italians stayed and went soberly to bed. More I do not know. But, though there has been much noise of cheering in the square, there has been no shooting."

I told Arcadius of the skiff fastened up behind his sapling copse. He nodded easily and looked out of doors to examine the weather signs.

"It is not likely to rain, but it will hurt nothing to turn her upside down and stay her with a rope and a pair of stones. She will be ready when you want her. If you are bound on going into Aramon to-night, you may want her with great suddenness."

I left him at the upper gate of his garden opposite to the waste ground where the harmless bull fights of Provence took place.

"Now," he said, "there is a key for you. Put it in your pocket. Cross that bull yard and go through the pa.s.sage, at the end of which you will come upon a door. When you open it you will find yourself in the narrow street by the new Lay Schools of the town."

Then my kindly Slug took himself off without waiting for thanks, shaking all over like a jelly, and his lantern making a trickle of clear yellow light on the pathway in front of him. His wife was calling him in to supper, "Arcad-arcad-ar-cad-i-oos!"

I crossed the road hastily. All was empty and desolate, and in a moment more I was fronted by the barricade over which every Sunday the "amateurs" of this innocent bull-baiting leaped back to safety and the applause of their friends.

Almost I had lost my way among piled benches, when a faint light showed through a much barred door. I pa.s.sed through the money-taker's box with double doors and found myself facing the dark tunnel of which Arcadius had spoken. It looked dismal and uninviting enough, but at least there was no reason to suppose that any revolutionaries would be skulking there. Even if there were, what had I, an old Garibaldian, to fear? The pa.s.sage had evidently been used for bringing the bull into the arena, and I was glad enough when the ma.s.sive double portal stopped me, even though it was the b.u.mp on my forehead which first acquainted me with its position.

I felt for the keyhole and found that it took all my strength to turn the wards of the ancient lock which in that damp place creaked dismally.

The half of the heavy door swung back ponderously. The street without seemed dim and forlorn in front of me, glimmering with a kind of bluish light. I was glad that I had not to step at once into the bright illumination of the Cours or the more restrained golden glow which distinguished the Place de la Mairie. I made what slight toilet I could, carefully wiping my muddy boots on the door-mat of a perfect stranger to whom in days to come I make belated acknowledgments.

I peered out and it was well I did so, for not ten yards from the end of the pa.s.sage a sentry was posted in the dress of the National Guard of Aramon, blue breeches, blue coat liberally faced with red, and a red _kepi_. I could see the light from an unseen lamp shining on the flat of his sword-bayonet, no doubt fresh from the storehouse of Dennis Deventer.

For since the ignominious retreat of the military two months ago, the Government had insisted that a National Guard on the Paris model should be established in Aramon and, for that matter, in all the larger towns of the Midi. Dennis Deventer warned the prefect of the department of Rhone-et-Durance that they were laying up trouble for themselves. He told them that if they armed the workmen of the Arms Factories on the slightest outbreak in Paris, all power in Aramon-les-Ateliers would pa.s.s instantly into their hands. The like would also happen in every town of the Midi.

"You of the South are afraid when a mouse squeaks," the Secretary of the Interior had replied (for Dennis and he were closeted together). "We accounted for the Reds easily enough in October and again in January.

They have lost both in power and numbers since then. If anything grave does happen, we can always take Cavaignac's way--isolate suburb from suburb and--shoot!"