Books: The Guest of Quesnay
B >>
Booth Tarkington >> The Guest of Quesnay
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14
"I am a doctor," the man answered, advancing and kneeling quickly by the
dancer. "And you--you may be of help yonder."
We turned toward the ruined car where Ward's driver was shouting for us.
"What is it?" called Ward as we ran toward him.
"Monsieur," he replied, "there is some one under the tonneau here!"
The smoke had cleared a little, though a rivulet of burning gasoline ran
from the wreck to a pool of flame it was feeding in the road. The front
cushions and woodwork had caught fire and a couple of labourers, panting
with the run across the fields, were vainly belabouring the flames with
brushwood. From beneath the overturned tonneau projected the lower part
of a man's leg, clad in a brown puttee and a russet shoe. Ward's driver
had brought his tools; had jacked up the car as high as possible; but
was still unable to release the imprisoned body.
"I have seized that foot and pulled with all my strength," he said, "and
I cannot make him move one centimetre. It is necessary that as many
people as possible lay hold of the car on the side away from the fire
and all lift together. Yes," he added, "and very soon!"
Some carters had come from the road and one of them lay full length on
the ground peering beneath the wreck. "It is the head of monsieur,"
explained this one; "it is the head of monsieur which is fastened under
there."
"Eh, but you are wiser than Clemenceau!" said the chauffeur. "Get up, my
ancient, and you there, with the brushwood, let the fire go for a moment
and help, when I say the word. And you, monsieur," he turned to Ward,
"if you please, will you pull with me upon the ankle here at the right
moment?"
The carters, the labourers, the men from the other automobile, and I
laid hold of the car together.
"Now, then, messieurs, LIFT!"
Stifled with the gasoline smoke, we obeyed. One or two hands were
scorched and our eyes smarted blindingly, but we gave a mighty heave,
and felt the car rising.
"Well done!" cried the chauffeur. "Well done! But a little more! The
smallest fraction--HA! It is finished, messieurs!"
We staggered back, coughing and wiping our eyes. For a minute or two I
could not see at all, and was busy with a handkerchief.
Ward laid his hand on my shoulder.
"Do you know who it is?" he asked.
"Yes, of course," I answered.
When I could see again, I found that I was looking almost straight down
into the upturned face of Larrabee Harman, and I cannot better express
what this man had come to be, and what the degradation of his life had
written upon him, than by saying that the dreadful thing I looked upon
now was no more horrible a sight than the face I had seen, fresh from
the valet and smiling in ugly pride at the starers, as he passed the
terrace of Larue on the day before the Grand Prix.
We helped to carry him to the doctor's car, and to lift the dancer into
Ward's, and to get both of them out again at the hospital at Versailles,
where they were taken. Then, with no need to ask each other if we should
abandon our plan to breakfast in the country, we turned toward Paris,
and rolled along almost to the barriers in silence.
"Did it seem to you," said George finally, "that a man so frightfully
injured could have any chance of getting well?"
"No," I answered. "I thought he was dying as we carried him into the
hospital."
"So did I. The top of his head seemed all crushed in--Whew!" He broke
off, shivering, and wiped his brow. After a pause he added thoughtfully,
"It will be a great thing for Louise."
Louise was the name of his second cousin, the girl who had done battle
with all her family and then run away from them to be Larrabee Harman's
wife. Remembering the stir that her application for divorce had made, I
did not understand how Harman's death could benefit her, unless George
had some reason to believe that he had made a will in her favour.
However, the remark had been made more to himself than to me and I did
not respond.
The morning papers flared once more with the name of Larrabee Harman,
and we read that there was "no hope of his surviving." Ironic phrase!
There was not a soul on earth that day who could have hoped for his
recovery, or who--for his sake--cared two straws whether he lived or
died. And the dancer had been right; one of her legs was badly broken:
she would never dance again.
Evening papers reported that Harman was "lingering." He was lingering
the next day. He was lingering the next week, and the end of a month saw
him still "lingering." Then I went down to Capri, where--for he had been
after all the merest episode to me--I was pleased to forget all about
him.
CHAPTER III
A great many people keep their friends in mind by writing to them, but
more do not; and Ward and I belong to the majority. After my departure
from Paris I had but one missive from him, a short note, written at the
request of his sister, asking me to be on the lookout for Italian
earrings, to add to her collection of old jewels. So, from time to time,
I sent her what I could find about Capri or in Naples, and she responded
with neat little letters of acknowledgment.
Two years I stayed on Capri, eating the lotus which grows on that happy
island, and painting very little--only enough, indeed, to be remembered
at the Salon and not so much as knowing how kindly or unkindly they hung
my pictures there. But even on Capri, people sometimes hear the call of
Paris and wish to be in that unending movement: to hear the
multitudinous rumble, to watch the procession from a cafe terrace and to
dine at Foyot's. So there came at last a fine day when I, knowing that
the horse-chestnuts were in bloom along the Champs Elysees, threw my
rope-soled shoes to a beggar, packed a rusty trunk, and was off for the
banks of the Seine.
My arrival--just the drive from the Gare de Lyon to my studio--was like
the shock of surf on a bather's breast.
The stir and life, the cheerful energy of the streets, put stir and life
and cheerful energy into me. I felt the itch to work again, to be at it,
at it in earnest--to lose no hour of daylight, and to paint better than
I had painted!
Paris having given me this impetus, I dared not tempt her further, nor
allow the edge of my eagerness time to blunt; therefore, at the end of a
fortnight, I went over into Normandy and deposited that rusty trunk of
mine in a corner of the summer pavilion in the courtyard of Madame
Brossard's inn, Les Trois Pigeons, in a woodland neighborhood that is
there. Here I had painted through a prolific summer of my youth, and I
was glad to find--as I had hoped--nothing changed; for the place was
dear to me. Madame Brossard (dark, thin, demure as of yore, a fine-
looking woman with a fine manner and much the flavour of old Norman
portraits) gave me a pleasant welcome, remembering me readily but
without surprise, while Amedee, the antique servitor, cackled over me
and was as proud of my advent as if I had been a new egg and he had laid
me. The simile is grotesque; but Amedee is the most henlike waiter in
France.
He is a white-haired, fat old fellow, always well-shaved; as neat as a
billiard-ball. In the daytime, when he is partly porter, he wears a
black tie, a gray waistcoat broadly striped with scarlet, and, from
waist to feet, a white apron like a skirt, and so competently encircling
that his trousers are of mere conventionality and no real necessity; but
after six o'clock (becoming altogether a maitre d'hotel) he is clad as
any other formal gentleman. At all times he wears a fresh table-cloth
over his arm, keeping an exaggerated pile of them ready at hand on a
ledge in one of the little bowers of the courtyard, so that he may never
be shamed by getting caught without one.
His conception of life is that all worthy persons were created as
receptacles for food and drink; and five minutes after my arrival he had
me seated (in spite of some meek protests) in a wicker chair with a
pitcher of the right Three Pigeons cider on the table before me, while
he subtly dictated what manner of dinner I should eat. For this interval
Amedee's exuberance was sobered and his badinage dismissed as being
mere garniture, the questions now before us concerning grave and inward
matters. His suggestions were deferential but insistent; his manner was
that of a prime minister who goes through the form of convincing the
sovereign. He greeted each of his own decisions with a very loud "Bien!"
as if startled by the brilliancy of my selections, and, the menu being
concluded, exploded a whole volley of "Biens" and set off violently to
instruct old Gaston, the cook.
That is Amedee's way; he always starts violently for anywhere he means
to go. He is a little lame and his progress more or less sidelong, but
if you call him, or new guests arrive at the inn, or he receives an
order from Madame Brossard, he gives the effect of running by a sudden
movement of the whole body like that of a man ABOUT to run, and moves
off using the gestures of a man who IS running; after which he proceeds
to his destination at an exquisite leisure. Remembering this old habit
of his, it was with joy that I noted his headlong departure. Some ten
feet of his progress accomplished, he halted (for no purpose but to
scratch his head the more luxuriously); next, strayed from the path to
contemplate a rose-bush, and, selecting a leaf with careful
deliberation, placed it in his mouth and continued meditatively upon his
way to the kitchen.
I chuckled within me; it was good to be back at Madame Brossard's.
The courtyard was more a garden; bright with rows of flowers in formal
little beds and blossoming up from big green tubs, from red jars, and
also from two brightly painted wheel-barrows. A long arbour offered a
shelter of vines for those who might choose to dine, breakfast, or
lounge beneath, and, here and there among the shrubberies, you might
come upon a latticed bower, thatched with straw. My own pavilion (half
bedroom, half studio) was set in the midst of all and had a small porch
of its own with a rich curtain of climbing honeysuckle for a screen from
the rest of the courtyard.
The inn itself is gray with age, the roof sagging pleasantly here and
there; and an old wooden gallery runs the length of each wing, the
guest-chambers of the upper story opening upon it like the deck-rooms of
a steamer, with boxes of tulips and hyacinths along the gallery railings
and window ledges for the gayest of border-lines.
Beyond the great open archway, which gives entrance to the courtyard,
lies the quiet country road; passing this, my eyes followed the wide
sweep of poppy-sprinkled fields to a line of low green hills; and there
was the edge of the forest sheltering those woodland interiors which I
had long ago tried to paint, and where I should be at work to-morrow.
In the course of time, and well within the bright twilight, Amedee
spread the crisp white cloth and served me at a table on my pavilion
porch. He feigned anxiety lest I should find certain dishes (those which
he knew were most delectable) not to my taste, but was obviously so
distended with fatuous pride over the whole meal that it became a
temptation to denounce at least some trifling sauce or garnishment;
nevertheless, so much mendacity proved beyond me and I spared him and my
own conscience. This puffed-uppedness of his was to be observed only in
his expression of manner, for during the consumption of food it was his
worthy custom to practise a ceremonious, nay, a reverential, hush, and
he never offered (or approved) conversation until he had prepared the
salad. That accomplished, however, and the water bubbling in the coffee
machine, he readily favoured me with a discourse on the decline in glory
of Les Trois Pigeons.
"Monsieur, it is the automobiles; they have done it. Formerly, as when
monsieur was here, the painters came from Paris. They would come in the
spring and would stay until the autumn rains. What busy times and what
drolleries! Ah, it was gay in those days! Monsieur remembers well. Ha,
Ha! But now, I think, the automobiles have frightened away the painters;
at least they do not come any more. And the automobiles themselves; they
come sometimes for lunch, a few, but they love better the seashore, and
we are just close enough to be too far away. Those automobiles, they
love the big new hotels and the casinos with roulette. They eat hastily,
gulp down a liqueur, and pouf! off they rush for Trouville, for
Houlgate--for heaven knows where! And even the automobiles do not come
so frequently as they did. Our road used to be the best from Lisieux to
Beuzeval, but now the maps recommend another. They pass us by, and yet
yonder--only a few kilometres--is the coast with its thousands. We are
near the world but out of it, monsieur."
He poured my coffee; dropped a lump of sugar from the tongs with a
benevolent gesture--"One lump: always the same. Monsieur sees that I
remember well, ha?"--and the twilight having fallen, he lit two orange-
shaded candles and my cigar with the same match. The night was so quiet
that the candle-lights burned as steadily as flames in a globe, yet the
air was spiced with a cool fragrance, and through the honeysuckle leaves
above me I saw, as I leaned back in my wicker chair, a glimmer of kindly
stars.
"Very comfortably out of the world, Amedee," I said. "It seems to me I
have it all to myself."
"Unhappily, yes!" he exclaimed; then excused himself, chuckling. "I
should have said that we should be happier if we had many like monsieur.
But it is early in the season to despair. Then, too, our best suite is
already engaged."
"By whom?"
"Two men of science who arrive next week. One is a great man. Madame
Brossard is pleased that he is coming to Les Trois Pigeons, but I tell
her it is only natural. He comes now for the first time because he likes
the quiet, but he will come again, like monsieur, because he has been
here before. That is what I always say: 'Any one who has been here must
come again.' The problem is only to get them to come the first time.
Truly!"
"Who is the great man, Amedee?"
"Ah! A distinguished professor of science. Truly."
"What science?"
"I do not know. But he is a member of the Institute. Monsieur must have
heard of that great Professor Keredec?"
"The name is known. Who is the other?"
"A friend of his. I do not know. All the upper floor of the east wing
they have taken--the Grande Suite--those two and their valet-de-chambre.
That is truly the way in modern times--the philosophers are rich men."
"Yes," I sighed. "Only the painters are poor nowadays."
"Ha, ha, monsieur!" Amedee laughed cunningly.
"It was always easy to see that monsieur only amuses himself with his
painting."
"Thank you, Amedee," I responded. "I have amused other people with it
too, I fear."
"Oh, without doubt!" he agreed graciously, as he folded the cloth. I
have always tried to believe that it was not so much my pictures as the
fact that I paid my bills the day they were presented which convinced
everybody about Les Trois Pigeons that I was an amateur. But I never
became happily enough settled in this opinion to risk pressing an
investigation; and it was a relief that Amedee changed the subject.
"Monsieur remembers the Chateau de Quesnay--at the crest of the hill on
the road north of Dives?"
"I remember."
"It is occupied this season by some rich Americans."
"How do you know they are rich?"
"Dieu de Dieu!" The old fellow appealed to heaven. "But they are
Americans!"
"And therefore millionaires. Perfectly, Amedee."
"Perfectly, monsieur. Perhaps monsieur knows them."
"Yes, I know them."
"Truly!" He affected dejection. "And poor Madame Brossard thought
monsieur had returned to our old hotel because he liked it, and
remembered our wine of Beaune and the good beds and old Gaston's
cooking!"
"Do not weep, Amedee," I said. "I have come to paint; not because I know
the people who have taken Quesnay." And I added: "I may not see them at
all."
In truth I thought that very probable. Miss Elizabeth had mentioned in
one of her notes that Ward had leased Quesnay, but I had not sought
quarters at Les Trois Pigeons because it stood within walking distance
of the chateau. In my industrious frame of mind that circumstance seemed
almost a drawback. Miss Elizabeth, ever hospitable to those whom she
noticed at all, would be doubly so in the country, as people always are;
and I wanted all my time to myself--no very selfish wish since my time
was not conceivably of value to any one else. I thought it wise to leave
any encounter with the lady to chance, and as the by-paths of the
country-side were many and intricate, I intended, without ungallantry,
to render the chance remote. George himself had just sailed on a
business trip to America, as I knew from her last missive; and until his
return, I should put in all my time at painting and nothing else, though
I liked his sister, as I have said, and thought of her--often.
Amedee doubted my sincerity, however, for he laughed incredulously.
"Eh, well, monsieur enjoys saying it!"
"Certainly. It is a pleasure to say what one means."
"But monsieur could not mean it. Monsieur will call at the chateau in
the morning"--the complacent varlet prophesied--"as early as it will be
polite. I am sure of that. Monsieur is not at all an old man; no, not
yet! Even if he were, aha! no one could possess the friendship of that
wonderful Madame d'Armand and remain away from the chateau."
"Madame d'Armand?" I said. "That is not the name. You mean Mademoiselle
Ward."
"No, no!" He shook his head and his fat cheeks bulged with a smile which
I believe he intended to express a respectful roguishness. "Mademoiselle
Ward" (he pronounced it "Ware") "is magnificent; every one must fly to
obey when she opens her mouth. If she did not like the ocean there below
the chateau, the ocean would have to move! It needs only a glance to
perceive that Mademoiselle Ward is a great lady--but MADAME D'ARMAND!
AHA!" He rolled his round eyes to an effect of unspeakable admiration,
and with a gesture indicated that he would have kissed his hand to the
stars, had that been properly reverential to Madame d'Armand. "But
monsieur knows very well for himself!"
"Monsieur knows that you are very confusing--even for a maitre d'hotel.
We were speaking of the present chatelaine of Quesnay, Mademoiselle
Ward. I have never heard of Madame d'Armand."
"Monsieur is serious?"
"Truly!" I answered, making bold to quote his shibboleth.
"Then monsieur has truly much to live for. Truly!" he chuckled openly,
convinced that he had obtained a marked advantage in a conflict of wits,
shaking his big head from side to side with an exasperating air of
knowingness. "Ah, truly! When that lady drives by, some day, in the
carriage from the chateau--eh? Then monsieur will see how much he has to
live for. Truly, truly, truly!"
He had cleared the table, and now, with a final explosion of the word
which gave him such immoderate satisfaction, he lifted the tray and made
one of his precipitate departures.
"Amedee," I said, as he slackened down to his sidelong leisure.
"Monsieur?"
"Who is Madame d'Armand?"
"A guest of Mademoiselle Ward at Quesnay. In fact, she is in charge of
the chateau, since Mademoiselle Ward is, for the time, away."
"Is she a Frenchwoman?"
"It seems not. In fact, she is an American, though she dresses with so
much of taste. Ah, Madame Brossard admits it, and Madame Brossard knows
the art of dressing, for she spends a week of every winter in Rouen--and
besides there is Trouville itself only some kilometres distant. Madame
Brossard says that Mademoiselle Ward dresses with richness and splendour
and Madame d'Armand with economy, but beauty. Those were the words used
by Madame Brossard. Truly."
"Madame d'Armand's name is French," I observed.
"Yes, that is true," said Amedee thoughtfully. "No one can deny it; it
is a French name." He rested the tray upon a stump near by and scratched
his head. "I do not understand how that can be," he continued slowly.
"Jean Ferret, who is chief gardener at the chateau, is an acquaintance
of mine. We sometimes have a cup of cider at Pere Baudry's, a kilometre
down the road from here; and Jean Ferret has told me that she is an
American. And yet, as you say, monsieur, the name is French. Perhaps she
is French after all."
"I believe," said I, "that if I struggled a few days over this puzzle, I
might come to the conclusion that Madame d'Armand is an American lady
who has married a Frenchman."
The old man uttered an exclamation of triumph.
"Ha! without doubt! Truly she must be an American lady who has married a
Frenchman. Monsieur has already solved the puzzle. Truly, truly!" And he
trulied himself across the darkness, to emerge in the light of the open
door of the kitchen with the word still rumbling in his throat.
Now for a time there came the clinking of dishes, sounds as of pans and
kettles being scoured, the rolling gutturals of old Gaston, the cook,
and the treble pipings of young "Glouglou," his grandchild and scullion.
After a while the oblong of light from the kitchen door disappeared; the
voices departed; the stillness of the dark descended, and with it that
unreasonable sense of pathos which night in the country brings to the
heart of a wanderer. Then, out of the lonely silence, there issued a
strange, incongruous sound as an execrable voice essayed to produce the
semblance of an air odiously familiar about the streets of Paris some
three years past, and I became aware of a smell of some dreadful thing
burning. Beneath the arbour I perceived a glowing spark which seemed to
bear a certain relation to an oval whitish patch suggesting the front of
a shirt. It was Amedee, at ease, smoking his cigarette after the day's
work and convinced that he was singing.
"Pour qu'j'finisse
Mon service
Au Tonkin je suis parti--
Ah! quel beau pays, mesdames!
C'est l'paradis des p'tites femmes!"
I rose from the chair on my little porch, to go to bed; but I was
reminded of something, and called to him.
"Monsieur?" his voice came briskly.
"How often do you see your friend, Jean Ferret, the gardener of
Quesnay?"
"Frequently, monsieur. To-morrow morning I could easily carry a message
if--"
"That is precisely what I do not wish. And you may as well not mention
me at all when you meet him."
"It is understood. Perfectly."
"If it is well understood, there will be a beautiful present for a good
maitre d'hotel some day."
"Thank you, monsieur."
"Good night, Amedee."
"Good night, monsieur."
Falling to sleep has always been an intricate matter with me: I liken it
to a nightly adventure in an enchanted palace. Weary-limbed and with
burning eyelids, after long waiting in the outer court of wakefulness, I
enter a dim, cool antechamber where the heavy garment of the body is
left behind and where, perhaps, some acquaintance or friend greets me
with a familiar speech or a bit of nonsense--or an unseen orchestra may
play music that I know. From here I go into a spacious apartment where
the air and light are of a fine clarity, for it is the hall of
revelations, and in it the secrets of secrets are told, mysteries are
resolved, perplexities cleared up, and sometimes I learn what to do
about a picture that has bothered me. This is where I would linger, for
beyond it I walk among crowding fantasies, delusions, terrors and shame,
to a curtain of darkness where they take my memory from me, and I know
nothing of my own adventures until I am pushed out of a secret door into
the morning sunlight. Amedee was the acquaintance who met me in the
antechamber to-night. He remarked that Madame d'Armand was the most
beautiful woman in the world, and vanished. And in the hall of
revelations I thought that I found a statue of her--but it was veiled. I
wished to remove the veil, but a passing stranger stopped and told me
laughingly that the veil was all that would ever be revealed of her to
me--of her, or any other woman!
CHAPTER IV
I was up with the birds in the morning; had my breakfast with them--a
very drowsy-eyed Amedee assisting--and made off for the forest to get
the sunrise through the branches, a pack on my back and three sandwiches
for lunch in my pocket. I returned only with the failing light of
evening, cheerfully tired and ready for a fine dinner and an early bed,
both of which the good inn supplied. It was my daily programme; a
healthy life "far from the world," as Amedee said, and I was sorry when
the serpent entered and disturbed it, though he was my own. He is a pet
of mine; has been with me since my childhood. He leaves me when I live
alone, for he loves company, but returns whenever my kind are about me.
There are many names for snakes of his breed, but, to deal charitably
with myself, I call mine Interest-In-Other-People's-Affairs.
One evening I returned to find a big van from Dives, the nearest railway
station, drawn up in the courtyard at the foot of the stairs leading to
the gallery, and all of the people of the inn, from Madame Brossard (who
directed) to Glouglou (who madly attempted the heaviest pieces), busily
installing trunks, bags, and packing-cases in the suite engaged for the
"great man of science" on the second floor of the east wing of the
building. Neither the great man nor his companion was to be seen,
however, both having retired to their rooms immediately upon their
arrival--so Amedee informed me, as he wiped his brow after staggering up
the steps under a load of books wrapped in sacking.
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14