CHAPTER II--HIS BOOTS
"Eh! well then, Monsieur Mutuel! What do I know, what can I say? I
assure you that he calls himself Monsieur The Englishman."
"Pardon. But I think it is impossible," said Monsieur Mutuel,--a
spectacled, snuffy, stooping old gentleman in carpet shoes and a
cloth cap with a peaked shade, a loose blue frock-coat reaching to
his heels, a large limp white shirt-frill, and cravat to
correspond,--that is to say, white was the natural colour of his
linen on Sundays, but it toned down with the week.
"It is," repeated Monsieur Mutuel, his amiable old walnut-shell
countenance very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in
the bright morning sunlight,--"it is, my cherished Madame Bouclet, I
think, impossible!"
"Hey!" (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her
head.) "But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!" retorted
Madame Bouclet, a compact little woman of thirty-five or so. "See
then,--look there,--read! 'On the second floor Monsieur L'Anglais.'
Is it not so?"
"It is so," said Monsieur Mutuel.
"Good. Continue your morning walk. Get out!" Madame Bouclet
dismissed him with a lively snap of her fingers.
The morning walk of Monsieur Mutuel was in the brightest patch that
the sun made in the Grande Place of a dull old fortified French
town. The manner of his morning walk was with his hands crossed
behind him; an umbrella, in figure the express image of himself,
always in one hand; a snuffbox in the other. Thus, with the
shuffling gait of the Elephant (who really does deal with the very
worst trousers-maker employed by the Zoological world, and who
appeared to have recommended him to Monsieur Mutuel), the old
gentleman sunned himself daily when sun was to be had--of course, at
the same time sunning a red ribbon at his button-hole; for was he
not an ancient Frenchman?
Being told by one of the angelic sex to continue his morning walk
and get out, Monsieur Mutuel laughed a walnut-shell laugh, pulled
off his cap at arm's length with the hand that contained his
snuffbox, kept it off for a considerable period after he had parted
from Madame Bouclet, and continued his morning walk and got out,
like a man of gallantry as he was.
The documentary evidence to which Madame Bouclet had referred
Monsieur Mutuel was the list of her lodgers, sweetly written forth
by her own Nephew and Bookkeeper, who held the pen of an Angel, and
posted up at the side of her gateway, for the information of the
Police: "Au second, M. L'Anglais, Proprietaire." On the second
floor, Mr. The Englishman, man of property. So it stood; nothing
could be plainer.
Madame Bouclet now traced the line with her forefinger, as it were
to confirm and settle herself in her parting snap at Monsieur
Mutuel, and so placing her right hand on her hip with a defiant air,
as if nothing should ever tempt her to unsnap that snap, strolled
out into the Place to glance up at the windows of Mr. The
Englishman. That worthy happening to be looking out of window at
the moment, Madame Bouclet gave him a graceful salutation with her
head, looked to the right and looked to the left to account to him
for her being there, considered for a moment, like one who accounted
to herself for somebody she had expected not being there, and
reentered her own gateway. Madame Bouclet let all her house giving
on the Place in furnished flats or floors, and lived up the yard
behind in company with Monsieur Bouclet her husband (great at
billiards), an inherited brewing business, several fowls, two carts,
a nephew, a little dog in a big kennel, a grape-vine, a counting-
house, four horses, a married sister (with a share in the brewing
business), the husband and two children of the married sister, a
parrot, a drum (performed on by the little boy of the married
sister), two billeted soldiers, a quantity of pigeons, a fife
(played by the nephew in a ravishing manner), several domestics and
supernumeraries, a perpetual flavour of coffee and soup, a terrific
range of artificial rocks and wooden precipices at least four feet
high, a small fountain, and half-a-dozen large sunflowers.
Now the Englishman, in taking his Appartement,--or, as one might say
on our side of the Channel, his set of chambers,--had given his
name, correct to the letter, LANGLEY. But as he had a British way
of not opening his mouth very wide on foreign soil, except at meals,
the Brewery had been able to make nothing of it but L'Anglais. So
Mr. The Englishman he had become and he remained.
"Never saw such a people!" muttered Mr. The Englishman, as he now
looked out of window. "Never did, in my life!"
This was true enough, for he had never before been out of his own
country,--a right little island, a tight little island, a bright
little island, a show-fight little island, and full of merit of all
sorts; but not the whole round world.
"These chaps," said Mr. The Englishman to himself, as his eye rolled
over the Place, sprinkled with military here and there, "are no more
like soldiers--" Nothing being sufficiently strong for the end of
his sentence, he left it unended.
This again (from the point of view of his experience) was strictly
correct; for though there was a great agglomeration of soldiers in
the town and neighbouring country, you might have held a grand
Review and Field-day of them every one, and looked in vain among
them all for a soldier choking behind his foolish stock, or a
soldier lamed by his ill-fitting shoes, or a soldier deprived of the
use of his limbs by straps and buttons, or a soldier elaborately
forced to be self-helpless in all the small affairs of life. A
swarm of brisk, bright, active, bustling, handy, odd, skirmishing
fellows, able to turn cleverly at anything, from a siege to soup,
from great guns to needles and thread, from the broadsword exercise
to slicing an onion, from making war to making omelets, was all you
would have found.
What a swarm! From the Great Place under the eye of Mr. The
Englishman, where a few awkward squads from the last conscription
were doing the goose-step--some members of those squads still as to
their bodies, in the chrysalis peasant-state of Blouse, and only
military butterflies as to their regimentally-clothed legs--from the
Great Place, away outside the fortifications, and away for miles
along the dusty roads, soldiers swarmed. All day long, upon the
grass-grown ramparts of the town, practising soldiers trumpeted and
bugled; all day long, down in angles of dry trenches, practising
soldiers drummed and drummed. Every forenoon, soldiers burst out of
the great barracks into the sandy gymnasium-ground hard by, and flew
over the wooden horse, and hung on to flying ropes, and dangled
upside-down between parallel bars, and shot themselves off wooden
platforms,--splashes, sparks, coruscations, showers of soldiers. At
every corner of the town-wall, every guard-house, every gateway,
every sentry-box, every drawbridge, every reedy ditch, and rushy
dike, soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. And the town being pretty well
all wall, guard-house, gateway, sentry-box, drawbridge, reedy ditch,
and rushy dike, the town was pretty well all soldiers.
What would the sleepy old town have been without the soldiers,
seeing that even with them it had so overslept itself as to have
slept its echoes hoarse, its defensive bars and locks and bolts and
chains all rusty, and its ditches stagnant! From the days when
VAUBAN engineered it to that perplexing extent that to look at it
was like being knocked on the head with it, the stranger becoming
stunned and stertorous under the shock of its incomprehensibility,--
from the days when VAUBAN made it the express incorporation of every
substantive and adjective in the art of military engineering, and
not only twisted you into it and twisted you out of it, to the
right, to the left, opposite, under here, over there, in the dark,
in the dirt, by the gateway, archway, covered way, dry way, wet way,
fosse, portcullis, drawbridge, sluice, squat tower, pierced wall,
and heavy battery, but likewise took a fortifying dive under the
neighbouring country, and came to the surface three or four miles
off, blowing out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among the
quiet crops of chicory and beet-root,--from those days to these the
town had been asleep, and dust and rust and must had settled on its
drowsy Arsenals and Magazines, and grass had grown up in its silent
streets.
On market-days alone, its Great Place suddenly leaped out of bed.
On market-days, some friendly enchanter struck his staff upon the
stones of the Great Place, and instantly arose the liveliest booths
and stalls, and sittings and standings, and a pleasant hum of
chaffering and huckstering from many hundreds of tongues, and a
pleasant, though peculiar, blending of colours,--white caps, blue
blouses, and green vegetables,--and at last the Knight destined for
the adventure seemed to have come in earnest, and all the Vaubanois
sprang up awake. And now, by long, low-lying avenues of trees,
jolting in white-hooded donkey-cart, and on donkey-back, and in
tumbril and wagon, and cart and cabriolet, and afoot with barrow and
burden,--and along the dikes and ditches and canals, in little peak-
prowed country boats,--came peasant-men and women in flocks and
crowds, bringing articles for sale. And here you had boots and
shoes, and sweetmeats and stuffs to wear, and here (in the cool
shade of the Town-hall) you had milk and cream and butter and
cheese, and here you had fruits and onions and carrots, and all
things needful for your soup, and here you had poultry and flowers
and protesting pigs, and here new shovels, axes, spades, and bill-
hooks for your farming work, and here huge mounds of bread, and here
your unground grain in sacks, and here your children's dolls, and
here the cake-seller, announcing his wares by beat and roll of drum.
And hark! fanfaronade of trumpets, and here into the Great Place,
resplendent in an open carriage, with four gorgeously-attired
servitors up behind, playing horns, drums, and cymbals, rolled "the
Daughter of a Physician" in massive golden chains and ear-rings, and
blue-feathered hat, shaded from the admiring sun by two immense
umbrellas of artificial roses, to dispense (from motives of
philanthropy) that small and pleasant dose which had cured so many
thousands! Toothache, earache, headache, heartache, stomach-ache,
debility, nervousness, fits, fainting, fever, ague, all equally
cured by the small and pleasant dose of the great Physician's great
daughter! The process was this,--she, the Daughter of a Physician,
proprietress of the superb equipage you now admired with its
confirmatory blasts of trumpet, drum, and cymbal, told you so: On
the first day after taking the small and pleasant dose, you would
feel no particular influence beyond a most harmonious sensation of
indescribable and irresistible joy; on the second day you would be
so astonishingly better that you would think yourself changed into
somebody else; on the third day you would be entirely free from
disorder, whatever its nature and however long you had had it, and
would seek out the Physician's Daughter to throw yourself at her
feet, kiss the hem of her garment, and buy as many more of the small
and pleasant doses as by the sale of all your few effects you could
obtain; but she would be inaccessible,--gone for herbs to the
Pyramids of Egypt,--and you would be (though cured) reduced to
despair! Thus would the Physician's Daughter drive her trade (and
briskly too), and thus would the buying and selling and mingling of
tongues and colours continue, until the changing sunlight, leaving
the Physician's Daughter in the shadow of high roofs, admonished her
to jolt out westward, with a departing effect of gleam and glitter
on the splendid equipage and brazen blast. And now the enchanter
struck his staff upon the stones of the Great Place once more, and
down went the booths, the sittings and standings, and vanished the
merchandise, and with it the barrows, donkeys, donkey-carts, and
tumbrils, and all other things on wheels and feet, except the slow
scavengers with unwieldy carts and meagre horses clearing up the
rubbish, assisted by the sleek town pigeons, better plumped out than
on non-market days. While there was yet an hour or two to wane
before the autumn sunset, the loiterer outside town-gate and
drawbridge, and postern and double-ditch, would see the last white-
hooded cart lessening in the avenue of lengthening shadows of trees,
or the last country boat, paddled by the last market-woman on her
way home, showing black upon the reddening, long, low, narrow dike
between him and the mill; and as the paddle-parted scum and weed
closed over the boat's track, he might be comfortably sure that its
sluggish rest would be troubled no more until next market-day.
As it was not one of the Great Place's days for getting out of bed,
when Mr. The Englishman looked down at the young soldiers practising
the goose-step there, his mind was left at liberty to take a
military turn.
"These fellows are billeted everywhere about," said he; "and to see
them lighting the people's fires, boiling the people's pots, minding
the people's babies, rocking the people's cradles, washing the
people's greens, and making themselves generally useful, in every
sort of unmilitary way, is most ridiculous! Never saw such a set of
fellows,--never did in my life!"
All perfectly true again. Was there not Private Valentine in that
very house, acting as sole housemaid, valet, cook, steward, and
nurse, in the family of his captain, Monsieur le Capitaine de la
Cour,--cleaning the floors, making the beds, doing the marketing,
dressing the captain, dressing the dinners, dressing the salads, and
dressing the baby, all with equal readiness? Or, to put him aside,
he being in loyal attendance on his Chief, was there not Private
Hyppolite, billeted at the Perfumer's two hundred yards off, who,
when not on duty, volunteered to keep shop while the fair
Perfumeress stepped out to speak to a neighbour or so, and
laughingly sold soap with his war-sword girded on him? Was there
not Emile, billeted at the Clock-maker's, perpetually turning to of
an evening, with his coat off, winding up the stock? Was there not
Eugene, billeted at the Tinman's, cultivating, pipe in mouth, a
garden four feet square, for the Tinman, in the little court, behind
the shop, and extorting the fruits of the earth from the same, on
his knees, with the sweat of his brow? Not to multiply examples,
was there not Baptiste, billeted on the poor Water-carrier, at that
very instant sitting on the pavement in the sunlight, with his
martial legs asunder, and one of the Water-carrier's spare pails
between them, which (to the delight and glory of the heart of the
Water-carrier coming across the Place from the fountain, yoked and
burdened) he was painting bright-green outside and bright-red
within? Or, to go no farther than the Barber's at the very next
door, was there not Corporal Theophile -
"No," said Mr. The Englishman, glancing down at the Barber's, "he is
not there at present. There's the child, though."
A mere mite of a girl stood on the steps of the Barber's shop,
looking across the Place. A mere baby, one might call her, dressed
in the close white linen cap which small French country children
wear (like the children in Dutch pictures), and in a frock of
homespun blue, that had no shape except where it was tied round her
little fat throat. So that, being naturally short and round all
over, she looked, behind, as if she had been cut off at her natural
waist, and had had her head neatly fitted on it.
"There's the child, though."
To judge from the way in which the dimpled hand was rubbing the
eyes, the eyes had been closed in a nap, and were newly opened. But
they seemed to be looking so intently across the Place, that the
Englishman looked in the same direction.
"O!" said he presently. "I thought as much. The Corporal's there."
The Corporal, a smart figure of a man of thirty, perhaps a thought
under the middle size, but very neatly made,--a sunburnt Corporal
with a brown peaked beard,--faced about at the moment, addressing
voluble words of instruction to the squad in hand. Nothing was
amiss or awry about the Corporal. A lithe and nimble Corporal,
quite complete, from the sparkling dark eyes under his knowing
uniform cap to his sparkling white gaiters. The very image and
presentment of a Corporal of his country's army, in the line of his
shoulders, the line of his waist, the broadest line of his Bloomer
trousers, and their narrowest line at the calf of his leg.
Mr. The Englishman looked on, and the child looked on, and the
Corporal looked on (but the last-named at his men), until the drill
ended a few minutes afterwards, and the military sprinkling dried up
directly, and was gone. Then said Mr. The Englishman to himself,
"Look here! By George!" And the Corporal, dancing towards the
Barber's with his arms wide open, caught up the child, held her over
his head in a flying attitude, caught her down again, kissed her,
and made off with her into the Barber's house.
Now Mr. The Englishman had had a quarrel with his erring and
disobedient and disowned daughter, and there was a child in that
case too. Had not his daughter been a child, and had she not taken
angel-flights above his head as this child had flown above the
Corporal's?
"He's a "--National Participled--"fool!" said the Englishman, and
shut his window.
But the windows of the house of Memory, and the windows of the house
of Mercy, are not so easily closed as windows of glass and wood.
They fly open unexpectedly; they rattle in the night; they must be
nailed up. Mr. The Englishman had tried nailing them, but had not
driven the nails quite home. So he passed but a disturbed evening
and a worse night.
By nature a good-tempered man? No; very little gentleness,
confounding the quality with weakness. Fierce and wrathful when
crossed? Very, and stupendously unreasonable. Moody? Exceedingly
so. Vindictive? Well; he had had scowling thoughts that he would
formally curse his daughter, as he had seen it done on the stage.
But remembering that the real Heaven is some paces removed from the
mock one in the great chandelier of the Theatre, he had given that
up.
And he had come abroad to be rid of his repudiated daughter for the
rest of his life. And here he was.
At bottom, it was for this reason, more than for any other, that Mr.
The Englishman took it extremely ill that Corporal Theophile should
be so devoted to little Bebelle, the child at the Barber's shop. In
an unlucky moment he had chanced to say to himself, "Why, confound
the fellow, he is not her father!" There was a sharp sting in the
speech which ran into him suddenly, and put him in a worse mood. So
he had National Participled the unconscious Corporal with most
hearty emphasis, and had made up his mind to think no more about
such a mountebank.
But it came to pass that the Corporal was not to be dismissed. If
he had known the most delicate fibres of the Englishman's mind,
instead of knowing nothing on earth about him, and if he had been
the most obstinate Corporal in the Grand Army of France, instead of
being the most obliging, he could not have planted himself with more
determined immovability plump in the midst of all the Englishman's
thoughts. Not only so, but he seemed to be always in his view. Mr.
The Englishman had but to look out of window, to look upon the
Corporal with little Bebelle. He had but to go for a walk, and
there was the Corporal walking with Bebelle. He had but to come
home again, disgusted, and the Corporal and Bebelle were at home
before him. If he looked out at his back windows early in the
morning, the Corporal was in the Barber's back yard, washing and
dressing and brushing Bebelle. If he took refuge at his front
windows, the Corporal brought his breakfast out into the Place, and
shared it there with Bebelle. Always Corporal and always Bebelle.
Never Corporal without Bebelle. Never Bebelle without Corporal.
Mr. The Englishman was not particularly strong in the French
language as a means of oral communication, though he read it very
well. It is with languages as with people,--when you only know them
by sight, you are apt to mistake them; you must be on speaking terms
before you can be said to have established an acquaintance.
For this reason, Mr. The Englishman had to gird up his loins
considerably before he could bring himself to the point of
exchanging ideas with Madame Bouclet on the subject of this Corporal
and this Bebelle. But Madame Bouclet looking in apologetically one
morning to remark, that, O Heaven! she was in a state of desolation
because the lamp-maker had not sent home that lamp confided to him
to repair, but that truly he was a lamp-maker against whom the whole
world shrieked out, Mr. The Englishman seized the occasion.
"Madame, that baby--"
"Pardon, monsieur. That lamp."
"No, no, that little girl."
"But, pardon!" said Madame Bonclet, angling for a clew, "one cannot
light a little girl, or send her to be repaired?"
"The little girl--at the house of the barber."
"Ah-h-h!" cried Madame Bouclet, suddenly catching the idea with her
delicate little line and rod. "Little Bebelle? Yes, yes, yes! And
her friend the Corporal? Yes, yes, yes, yes! So genteel of him,--
is it not?"
"He is not -?"
"Not at all; not at all! He is not one of her relations. Not at
all!"
"Why, then, he--"
"Perfectly!" cried Madame Bouclet, "you are right, monsieur. It is
so genteel of him. The less relation, the more genteel. As you
say."
"Is she -?"
"The child of the barber?" Madame Bouclet whisked up her skilful
little line and rod again. "Not at all, not at all! She is the
child of--in a word, of no one."
"The wife of the barber, then -?"
"Indubitably. As you say. The wife of the barber receives a small
stipend to take care of her. So much by the month. Eh, then! It
is without doubt very little, for we are all poor here."
"You are not poor, madame."
"As to my lodgers," replied Madame Bouclet, with a smiling and a
gracious bend of her head, "no. As to all things else, so-so."
"You flatter me, madame."
"Monsieur, it is you who flatter me in living here."
Certain fishy gasps on Mr. The Englishman's part, denoting that he
was about to resume his subject under difficulties, Madame Bouclet
observed him closely, and whisked up her delicate line and rod again
with triumphant success.
"O no, monsieur, certainly not. The wife of the barber is not cruel
to the poor child, but she is careless. Her health is delicate, and
she sits all day, looking out at window. Consequently, when the
Corporal first came, the poor little Bebelle was much neglected."
"It is a curious--" began Mr. The Englishman.
"Name? That Bebelle? Again you are right, monsieur. But it is a
playful name for Gabrielle."
"And so the child is a mere fancy of the Corporal's?" said Mr. The
Englishman, in a gruffly disparaging tone of voice.
"Eh, well!" returned Madame Bouclet, with a pleading shrug: "one
must love something. Human nature is weak."
("Devilish weak," muttered the Englishman, in his own language.)
"And the Corporal," pursued Madame Bouclet, "being billeted at the
barber's,--where he will probably remain a long time, for he is
attached to the General,--and finding the poor unowned child in need
of being loved, and finding himself in need of loving,--why, there
you have it all, you see!"
Mr. The Englishman accepted this interpretation of the matter with
an indifferent grace, and observed to himself, in an injured manner,
when he was again alone: "I shouldn't mind it so much, if these
people were not such a"--National Participled--"sentimental people!"
There was a Cemetery outside the town, and it happened ill for the
reputation of the Vaubanois, in this sentimental connection, that he
took a walk there that same afternoon. To be sure there were some
wonderful things in it (from the Englishman's point of view), and of
a certainty in all Britain you would have found nothing like it.
Not to mention the fanciful flourishes of hearts and crosses in wood
and iron, that were planted all over the place, making it look very
like a Firework-ground, where a most splendid pyrotechnic display
might be expected after dark, there were so many wreaths upon the
graves, embroidered, as it might be, "To my mother," "To my
daughter," "To my father," "To my brother," "To my sister," "To my
friend," and those many wreaths were in so many stages of
elaboration and decay, from the wreath of yesterday, all fresh
colour and bright beads, to the wreath of last year, a poor
mouldering wisp of straw! There were so many little gardens and
grottos made upon graves, in so many tastes, with plants and shells
and plaster figures and porcelain pitchers, and so many odds and
ends! There were so many tributes of remembrance hanging up, not to
be discriminated by the closest inspection from little round
waiters, whereon were depicted in glowing lines either a lady or a
gentleman with a white pocket-handkerchief out of all proportion,
leaning, in a state of the most faultless mourning and most profound
affliction, on the most architectural and gorgeous urn! There were
so many surviving wives who had put their names on the tombs of
their deceased husbands, with a blank for the date of their own
departure from this weary world; and there were so many surviving
husbands who had rendered the same homage to their deceased wives;
and out of the number there must have been so many who had long ago
married again! In fine, there was so much in the place that would
have seemed more frippery to a stranger, save for the consideration
that the lightest paper flower that lay upon the poorest heap of
earth was never touched by a rude hand, but perished there, a sacred
thing!
"Nothing of the solemnity of Death here," Mr. The Englishman had
been going to say, when this last consideration touched him with a
mild appeal, and on the whole he walked out without saying it. "But
these people are," he insisted, by way of compensation, when he was
well outside the gate, "they are so"--Participled--"sentimental!"
His way back lay by the military gymnasium-ground. And there he
passed the Corporal glibly instructing young soldiers how to swing
themselves over rapid and deep watercourses on their way to Glory,
by means of a rope, and himself deftly plunging off a platform, and
flying a hundred feet or two, as an encouragement to them to begin.
And there he also passed, perched on a crowning eminence (probably
the Corporal's careful hands), the small Bebelle, with her round
eyes wide open, surveying the proceeding like a wondering sort of
blue and white bird.
"If that child was to die," this was his reflection as he turned his
back and went his way,--"and it would almost serve the fellow right
for making such a fool of himself,--I suppose we should have him
sticking up a wreath and a waiter in that fantastic burying-ground."
Nevertheless, after another early morning or two of looking out of
window, he strolled down into the Place, when the Corporal and
Bebelle were walking there, and touching his hat to the Corporal (an
immense achievement), wished him Good-day.
"Good-day, monsieur."
"This is a rather pretty child you have here," said Mr. The
Englishman, taking her chin in his hand, and looking down into her
astonished blue eyes.
"Monsieur, she is a very pretty child," returned the Corporal, with
a stress on his polite correction of the phrase.
"And good?" said the Englishman.
"And very good. Poor little thing!"
"Hah!" The Englishman stooped down and patted her cheek, not
without awkwardness, as if he were going too far in his
conciliation. "And what is this medal round your neck, my little
one?"
Bebelle having no other reply on her lips than her chubby right
fist, the Corporal offered his services as interpreter.
"Monsieur demands, what is this, Bebelle?"
"It is the Holy Virgin," said Bebelle.
"And who gave it you?" asked the Englishman.
"Theophile."
"And who is Theophile?"
Bebelle broke into a laugh, laughed merrily and heartily, clapped
her chubby hands, and beat her little feet on the stone pavement of
the Place.
"He doesn't know Theophile! Why, he doesn't know any one! He
doesn't know anything!" Then, sensible of a small solecism in her
manners, Bebelle twisted her right hand in a leg of the Corporal's
Bloomer trousers, and, laying her cheek against the place, kissed
it.
"Monsieur Theophile, I believe?" said the Englishman to the
Corporal.
"It is I, monsieur."
"Permit me." Mr. The Englishman shook him heartily by the hand and
turned away. But he took it mighty ill that old Monsieur Mutuel in
his patch of sunlight, upon whom he came as he turned, should pull
off his cap to him with a look of pleased approval. And he
muttered, in his own tongue, as he returned the salutation, "Well,
walnut-shell! And what business is it of YOURS?"
Mr. The Englishman went on for many weeks passing but disturbed
evenings and worse nights, and constantly experiencing that those
aforesaid windows in the houses of Memory and Mercy rattled after
dark, and that he had very imperfectly nailed them up. Likewise, he
went on for many weeks daily improving the acquaintance of the
Corporal and Bebelle. That is to say, he took Bebelle by the chin,
and the Corporal by the hand, and offered Bebelle sous and the
Corporal cigars, and even got the length of changing pipes with the
Corporal and kissing Bebelle. But he did it all in a shamefaced
way, and always took it extremely ill that Monsieur Mutuel in his
patch of sunlight should note what he did. Whenever that seemed to
be the case, he always growled in his own tongue, "There you are
again, walnut-shell! What business is it of yours?"
In a word, it had become the occupation of Mr. The Englishman's life
to look after the Corporal and little Bebelle, and to resent old
Monsieur Mutuel's looking after HIM. An occupation only varied by a
fire in the town one windy night, and much passing of water-buckets
from hand to hand (in which the Englishman rendered good service),
and much beating of drums,--when all of a sudden the Corporal
disappeared.
Next, all of a sudden, Bebelle disappeared.
She had been visible a few days later than the Corporal,--sadly
deteriorated as to washing and brushing,--but she had not spoken
when addressed by Mr. The Englishman, and had looked scared and had
run away. And now it would seem that she had run away for good.
And there lay the Great Place under the windows, bare and barren.
In his shamefaced and constrained way, Mr. The Englishman asked no
question of any one, but watched from his front windows and watched
from his back windows, and lingered about the Place, and peeped in
at the Barber's shop, and did all this and much more with a
whistling and tune-humming pretence of not missing anything, until
one afternoon when Monsieur Mutuel's patch of sunlight was in
shadow, and when, according to all rule and precedent, he had no
right whatever to bring his red ribbon out of doors, behold here he
was, advancing with his cap already in his hand twelve paces off!
Mr. The Englishman had got as far into his usual objurgation as,
"What bu-si- " when he checked himself.
"Ah, it is sad, it is sad! Helas, it is unhappy, it is sad!" Thus
old Monsieur Mutuel, shaking his gray head.
"What busin- at least, I would say, what do you mean, Monsieur
Mutuel?"
"Our Corporal. Helas, our dear Corporal!"
"What has happened to him?"
"You have not heard?"
"No."
"At the fire. But he was so brave, so ready. Ah, too brave, too
ready!"
"May the Devil carry you away!" the Englishman broke in impatiently;
"I beg your pardon,--I mean me,--I am not accustomed to speak
French,--go on, will you?"
"And a falling beam--"
"Good God!" exclaimed the Englishman. "It was a private soldier who
was killed?"
"No. A Corporal, the same Corporal, our dear Corporal. Beloved by
all his comrades. The funeral ceremony was touching,--penetrating.
Monsieur The Englishman, your eyes fill with tears."
"What bu-si- "
"Monsieur The Englishman, I honour those emotions. I salute you
with profound respect. I will not obtrude myself upon your noble
heart."
Monsieur Mutuel,--a gentleman in every thread of his cloudy linen,
under whose wrinkled hand every grain in the quarter of an ounce of
poor snuff in his poor little tin box became a gentleman's
property,--Monsieur Mutuel passed on, with his cap in his hand.
"I little thought," said the Englishman, after walking for several
minutes, and more than once blowing his nose, "when I was looking
round that cemetery--I'll go there!"
Straight he went there, and when he came within the gate he paused,
considering whether he should ask at the lodge for some direction to
the grave. But he was less than ever in a mood for asking
questions, and he thought, "I shall see something on it to know it
by."
In search of the Corporal's grave he went softly on, up this walk
and down that, peering in, among the crosses and hearts and columns
and obelisks and tombstones, for a recently disturbed spot. It
troubled him now to think how many dead there were in the cemetery,-
-he had not thought them a tenth part so numerous before,--and after
he had walked and sought for some time, he said to himself, as he
struck down a new vista of tombs, "I might suppose that every one
was dead but I."
Not every one. A live child was lying on the ground asleep. Truly
he had found something on the Corporal's grave to know it by, and
the something was Bebelle.
With such a loving will had the dead soldier's comrades worked at
his resting-place, that it was already a neat garden. On the green
turf of the garden Bebelle lay sleeping, with her cheek touching it.
A plain, unpainted little wooden Cross was planted in the turf, and
her short arm embraced this little Cross, as it had many a time
embraced the Corporal's neck. They had put a tiny flag (the flag of
France) at his head, and a laurel garland.
Mr. The Englishman took off his hat, and stood for a while silent.
Then, covering his head again, he bent down on one knee, and softly
roused the child.
"Bebelle! My little one!"
Opening her eyes, on which the tears were still wet, Bebelle was at
first frightened; but seeing who it was, she suffered him to take
her in his arms, looking steadfastly at him.
"You must not lie here, my little one. You must come with me."
"No, no. I can't leave Theophile. I want the good dear Theophile."
"We will go and seek him, Bebelle. We will go and look for him in
England. We will go and look for him at my daughter's, Bebelle."
"Shall we find him there?"
"We shall find the best part of him there. Come with me, poor
forlorn little one. Heaven is my witness," said the Englishman, in
a low voice, as, before he rose, he touched the turf above the
gentle Corporal's breast, "that I thankfully accept this trust!"
It was a long way for the child to have come unaided. She was soon
asleep again, with her embrace transferred to the Englishman's neck.
He looked at her worn shoes, and her galled feet, and her tired
face, and believed that she had come there every day.
He was leaving the grave with the slumbering Bebelle in his arms,
when he stopped, looked wistfully down at it, and looked wistfully
at the other graves around. "It is the innocent custom of the
people," said Mr. The Englishman, with hesitation. "I think I
should like to do it. No one sees."
Careful not to wake Bebelle as he went, he repaired to the lodge
where such little tokens of remembrance were sold, and bought two
wreaths. One, blue and white and glistening silver, "To my friend;"
one of a soberer red and black and yellow, "To my friend." With
these he went back to the grave, and so down on one knee again.
Touching the child's lips with the brighter wreath, he guided her
hand to hang it on the Cross; then hung his own wreath there. After
all, the wreaths were not far out of keeping with the little garden.
To my friend. To my friend.
Mr. The Englishman took it very ill when he looked round a street
corner into the Great Place, carrying Bebelle in his arms, that old
Mutuel should be there airing his red ribbon. He took a world of
pains to dodge the worthy Mutuel, and devoted a surprising amount of
time and trouble to skulking into his own lodging like a man pursued
by Justice. Safely arrived there at last, he made Bebelle's toilet
with as accurate a remembrance as he could bring to bear upon that
work of the way in which he had often seen the poor Corporal make
it, and having given her to eat and drink, laid her down on his own
bed. Then he slipped out into the barber's shop, and after a brief
interview with the barber's wife, and a brief recourse to his purse
and card-case, came back again with the whole of Bebelle's personal
property in such a very little bundle that it was quite lost under
his arm.
As it was irreconcilable with his whole course and character that he
should carry Bebelle off in state, or receive any compliments or
congratulations on that feat, he devoted the next day to getting his
two portmanteaus out of the house by artfulness and stealth, and to
comporting himself in every particular as if he were going to run
away,--except, indeed, that he paid his few debts in the town, and
prepared a letter to leave for Madame Bouclet, enclosing a
sufficient sum of money in lieu of notice. A railway train would
come through at midnight, and by that train he would take away
Bebelle to look for Theophile in England and at his forgiven
daughter's.
At midnight, on a moonlight night, Mr. The Englishman came creeping
forth like a harmless assassin, with Bebelle on his breast instead
of a dagger. Quiet the Great Place, and quiet the never-stirring
streets; closed the cafes; huddled together motionless their
billiard-balls; drowsy the guard or sentinel on duty here and there;
lulled for the time, by sleep, even the insatiate appetite of the
Office of Town-dues.
Mr. The Englishman left the Place behind, and left the streets
behind, and left the civilian-inhabited town behind, and descended
down among the military works of Vauban, hemming all in. As the
shadow of the first heavy arch and postern fell upon him and was
left behind, as the shadow of the second heavy arch and postern fell
upon him and was left behind, as his hollow tramp over the first
drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler sound, as his hollow tramp
over the second drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler sound, as he
overcame the stagnant ditches one by one, and passed out where the
flowing waters were and where the moonlight, so the dark shades and
the hollow sounds and the unwholesomely locked currents of his soul
were vanquished and set free. See to it, Vaubans of your own
hearts, who gird them in with triple walls and ditches, and with
bolt and chain and bar and lifted bridge,--raze those
fortifications, and lay them level with the all-absorbing dust,
before the night cometh when no hand can work!
All went prosperously, and he got into an empty carriage in the
train, where he could lay Bebelle on the seat over against him, as
on a couch, and cover her from head to foot with his mantle. He had
just drawn himself up from perfecting this arrangement, and had just
leaned back in his own seat contemplating it with great
satisfaction, when he became aware of a curious appearance at the
open carriage window,--a ghostly little tin box floating up in the
moon-light, and hovering there.
He leaned forward, and put out his head. Down among the rails and
wheels and ashes, Monsieur Mutuel, red ribbon and all!
"Excuse me, Monsieur The Englishman," said Monsieur Mutuel, holding
up his box at arm's length, the carriage being so high and he so
low; "but I shall reverence the little box for ever, if your so
generous hand will take a pinch from it at parting."
Mr. The Englishman reached out of the window before complying, and--
without asking the old fellow what business it was of his--shook
hands and said, "Adieu! God bless you!"
"And, Mr. The Englishman, God bless YOU!" cried Madame Bouclet, who
was also there among the rails and wheels and ashes. "And God will
bless you in the happiness of the protected child now with you. And
God will bless you in your own child at home. And God will bless
you in your own remembrances. And this from me!"
He had barely time to catch a bouquet from her hand, when the train
was flying through the night. Round the paper that enfolded it was
bravely written (doubtless by the nephew who held the pen of an
Angel), "Homage to the friend of the friendless."
"Not bad people, Bebelle!" said Mr. The Englishman, softly drawing
the mantle a little from her sleeping face, that he might kiss it,
"though they are so--"
Too "sentimental" himself at the moment to be able to get out that
word, he added nothing but a sob, and travelled for some miles,
through the moonlight, with his hand before his eyes.
