The Tower of Oblivion Part 73

"And they will return and be pardoned?"

"It is what I seek to arrange."

She had placed a chair for me. She herself sat with her back to the table on the bench that had been occupied by the red-breeched dragoons the night before I glanced round the room. Behind the open door the inner tube of a bicycle hung on a nail in the wall, and a bicycle-pump and an oilcan stood on a little shelf above it. Beneath the shelf was an empty s.p.a.ce, more than sufficient for a bicycle. I saw now how I had missed her. She had wheeled her bicycle straight in and had put it behind the door, had crossed the kitchen to a closed door on my right, and had gone to her room--gone to where he waited for her, for he had certainly not been among the soldiers when I had peeped in.

"You say that M'sieu' talks to the clients of an evening, Madame. Did he do so last night?"

"Last night, no, M'sieu'. One missed him. But talk to them, he! For three nights he has talked and laughed all the evening while she has a.s.sisted me. Talk and laugh? C'est a dire! To hear him sing to the copains--'En France y a qu' des Francais'--la figure, les gestes--c'est a tordre!"

And sitting there she sought to give me the impression, singing his song in a cracked voice:

"A part les Anglais, Americains, Espagnols, Anamit's, Italiens, Les Russes, Les Hollandais et les p't.i.ts j.a.ponais-- En France y a qu' des Francais!

Ah, but he is an original, he!"

"But why then was he not of the clientele last night?" I asked.

"I do not know, M'sieu'. Perhaps he was a little souffrant. It was Madame who made les emplettes last night; ordinarily it is he, and oh, M'sieu', M'sieu', pour les occasions!... She took her bicycle which reposes behind the door there, and was gone scarcely a little half-hour, and then she replaced the bicycle and mounted straight to him in the room that is above."

"Did you see them go out this morning?"

"No, M'sieu'."

("Then, chere Madame," I thought to myself, "do not be surprised if you do not see them return this evening.")

For this was newly disturbing. Apparently for three nights he had made the purchases, as I had antic.i.p.ated he would; then on the fourth night he had sent her. For three nights he had sat in that half-underground room, laughing and talking with the evening customers; then on the fourth he had buried himself upstairs. I looked round the kitchen again.

I tried to see the picture--the incredulous poilus, questioning, cross-questioning, demanding who was on his regiment's right, who on its left, what division was in support, under whose command. Quite possibly Caporal Robert had been had in specially to check his accuracy. What a stroke of luck for him that he had actually served at a point of contact between the British line and the French! And here in this room he had sat, pulling their legs, as he had pulled mine in the Boulevard Feart, Alec Aird's at Ker Annic. The cool impudence of his song! "Only Frenchmen in France!" How he had laughed in his sleeve! Well might Madame Carguet shake her head and say that he was impayable, he!

But--it (you know what I mean by "it") happened in the night; and what was the appalling position now that his nights were shared with another?

Her too I tried to picture again in that lamplighted kitchen, clumsily sewing, burning herself with the iron, with the poilus, grave and respectful, but making the very utmost of their moustaches and stealing covert glances at her as her head was down hung over the ironing-board.

"Une fuite"--obviously an elopement. Anyone could see that with half an eye. But to what had she fled? To yet another of his transformations?

Slight though any transformation must now be, she knew every line of his beautiful face, and what must be her consternation, what her alarm, did but a single line alter, though it became more beautiful still?

And unless they returned to the Rue de la Cordonnerie to-night (which I now entirely doubted), what was the good of telegraphing to Alec?

"You say he is painting, as every day," I said. "Has he any pictures in the house at this moment?"

"Twenty or more, M'sieu'."

"They are in his room without doubt?"

"Oui, M'sieu'. At this moment even. After his departure this morning I did his room with my own hands."

"He sells his pictures?"

She gave a shrug. "That I cannot say. He sketches the clients, but those he gives away. Caporal Robert he drew as one should say himself, le Caporal, breathing upon the paper. Evidemment he has exposed at the Galleries. Are his pictures of great value, M'sieu'?"

"I am unable to say, Madame."

("But," I thought, "as it is a wager that those pictures upstairs and that bicycle-pump behind the door will be his payment for his lodging, it is to be hoped they are.")

I rose.

"Thank you, Madame. As to my visit to you, you will see that there is a discretion to be observed. I shall return this evening at nine o'clock.

In the meantime it would give me great pleasure if you would share a vermouth sec with me."

But she was on her feet instantly. "Non non non non! It is I who should have remembered! We are going to drink to those two angels, but yes, at the expense of the house, I implore! Et quand la Carosse de Cendrillon arrivera a la porte ... non non, M'sieu', it is the house that pays ...

ah, but what insistence!... Well, well, as M'sieu' wishes----"

She busied herself among her bottles, humming to herself as she did so the words of his song: "----et les p't.i.ts j.a.ponais, En France y a qu'

des Francais!"

I will not linger over the details of that day. I wandered aimlessly hither and thither, out through St Louis' ancient gate, under the grey walls of the Pet.i.ts Fosses, back and forth in the shade of the tall elms, stupid with too much thinking. I could only repeat over and over to myself, "Another lapse, another lapse! That was why he kept to his room last night. His landlady didn't see him go out this morning; she won't see him come back to-night. It's happened again, and he's off somewhere else. And she's with him. Poor child, poor, poor child!"

I lunched at the Poste, and in the afternoon walked again. But the brilliance of the summer's day was lost on me. I thought that after all I would go back to England. What was done was done, what was to come would come. The sight-seers who wandered up and down under the Porches or gaped in groups in the Place St Sauveur seemed unreal to me; the shadow of what had probably again happened was my reality. Poor, poor child! She, our lovely Jennie Aird, to alight on a broken wing in that dingy kitchen, to sit among poilus, to listen to his mocking song! And he, with that shadow darkening over both of them, could actually find it in his heart to sing....

The visitors descended the Lainerie to the vedettes again; the Porches watched them go; and once more I had the Place St Sauveur to myself.

Mechanically I entered the church. I closed the leather door softly behind me as I became aware of a small group a little way up the aisle.

I slipped into the nearest pew, half concealed behind a pillar.

Apparently a christening was toward, for a stout little Frenchman with a waxed moustache held a babe in his arms. He tickled the infant's chin and allowed it to clutch his finger, chatting and laughing softly as they waited for the priest. The priest appeared, followed by three or four acolytes carrying candles; he also laughed and joked and chatted quietly, while the cerise-coped urchins, their candles at all angles, s.h.i.+fted their feet, leaned against the font, and looked negligently round. There was an almost jocular intimacy about it all, until the priest, in a secret, attentive and distinct voice that nevertheless filled the aisle, began the Sacrament.... And I caught myself foolishly wondering whether that babe too would grow up, have something inexplicable happen to it, and set out on the return journey to the cradle again. If to one, why not to another? Why not to all the world?

What was there to prevent one of those inattentive acolytes having by and by the part of a George Coverham to play? Why should not that mite of four holding her mother's hand turn out to be a Julia Oliphant? Or those other wide-eyed tots be some future Madge and Alec Aird?... But it occurred to me that these thoughts would not do. All at once I rose and stole silently out. Even in a church there seemed to be no comfort for me. This time I took a long walk, I hardly remember where, and did not return till it was time for dinner.

I had very little hope of seeing the runaways, but I might as well keep my appointment as not. At a little before nine, therefore, I turned into the Rue de la Cordonnerie. As I did so my heart gave a leap to notice that the window over the low doorway of the inn was lighted up.

With my eyes on the light I moved to the other side of the street.

Carved wooden corbals supported the overhanging bay, but the window itself was modern. The light was apparently placed low down, on a chair or on the floor, for half over the sagging ceiling I could see the enormous soft shadow of somebody's head. The shadow moved, and the somebody approached the window.

Then I saw the glint of her hair.

I entered the bra.s.serie, bowed to Madame among her troopers, and looked inquiringly towards the inner door. She had a candle ready. She lighted it, opened the door, put the candle into my hand and one finger on her lips, pointed up a staircase no wider than if two interior walls had cracked slightly apart, and withdrew. I ascended.

Then, before I reached the landing, I heard his clear voice.

"I say, darling, what does 'belier' mean?"

IV

The door was a couple of inches ajar. The clear voice continued.

Apparently he was reading aloud.

"'La etait une tour dite Le Poulailler'--(poulaille's poultry)--'qui renfermait Le Chat, machine de guerre'--(where the Chat, a machine of war, was kept)--'sorte de belier a griffes pour les sieges'--something with claws for sieges--now what on earth is 'belier'? Seems to have been some sort of a battering-ram.... There, how stupid of me! Why, I've just said the very word! 'Ram,' of course. They kept the battering-ram there.... 'On peut visiter dans une maison voisine le pa.s.sage en casemate de la courtine'--sort of fortified wall, I expect--'et aussi dans les caves de l'Hotel de la Poste'--and also in the cellars of the Hotel de la Poste----"

Thereupon I pushed and entered.

He was sitting on a long, low chest, the sort of thing corn or flour would be kept in, with the single candle by his side. In his hand was the paper-covered guide-book from which he was laboriously reading. The little table at which she stood was pushed up against the wall just beyond him; she was preparing their supper. A long roll was tucked under her left arm, and she spread the b.u.t.ter from a little ca.s.serole. A paper of sausage was before her, with two of Madame's gla.s.ses and a bottle of milk. In the corner by the window stood a bed with a draped canopy and a crimson coverlet that resembled a souffle. Had you put a marble down on that ancient floor heaven knows where it would have come to rest, for the whole room was warped and distorted, as if indeed it had just retired panting from its struggle with the house across the street.

Under the window his canvases were stacked. Near the bed's head hung a single devotional picture, a Virgin and Child in blue and white and gilt. The bed had to be where it was because of the window on the other side of the way.