HOW AUNT JEANNE GAVE A PARTY
It was on my return from my fourth voyage—in the brig Sarnia—that things began to happen.
The voyage had been a disastrous one all through. We had bad weather right across to the Indies, and had to patch up there as best we could. It was when we were slowly making our way north that a hurricane, such as those seas know, caught us among the Bahamas and brought us to a sudden end.
The ship had been badly strained already on the voyage out, and the repairs had been none too well done. Our masts went like carrots and we were rolling helplessly in the grip of the storm, pumping doggedly but without hope against seams that gaped like a sieve, when the Providence that rules even hurricanes flung us high on a sandy coast and left us there to help ourselves.
Of our blind wanderings in that gruesome land of swamps and sand, which, when we at last escaped from it, we learned was Florida, I must not write here. It was months before such of us as were left crawled through into civilisation, and it is not too much to say that every day of the time after we parted from the wreck we carried our lives in our hands. It was sixteen months almost to a day before I set foot once more on Peter Port quay. For beggars cannot be choosers, and for the very clothes we stood in we were indebted to the kind hearts who took pity on us in the American States. We had had to wait at every point till means of forwarding us could be found, and we were welcomed in Peter Port as men returned from the dead. Within two hours I was scrambling up through the ferns and gorse above Port à la Jument to the welcome that awaited me at home.
I peeped through the window before going in, and saw the table laid for supper and my mother busy at the hearth. She turned when I entered, supposing it was my grandfather and Krok, and then with a cry she was on my neck.
Ah, how good it was to feel her there, and to find her unbroken by all the terrible waiting! She had hoped and hoped, and refused to give up hoping long after the others had done so. She told me, between smiles and tears, that each time I went she had felt that she had probably seen me for the last time. "But," she said quietly, "I left you in the good God's hands, and I believed that however it was with you it would be well."
Then my grandfather and Krok came in, and my grandfather said very fervently, "Now God be praised!" and wrung my right hand as if he could never wring it enough, while Krok wrung the other, with eyes that stood out of his head like marbles and yet were full of tears.
During supper I told them shortly what had befallen us, and I had so much to tell, and they so much to hear, that we none of us supped over well, yet none of us had probably ever enjoyed a supper like it.
Then in turn I was hungry for news, and began asking about this one and that, intending so to come presently to Carette without baring my heart. But my dear mother, guessing perhaps what was in me, gave me full measure.
"Jeanne Falla has a party to-night, my boy, and Carette is stopping with her. You should go down and give them a surprise."
"I will go," I said, and jumped up at once to see if, among the things I had left behind when I went away, I could find enough to rig myself out suitably to the occasion.
My mother had a new blue guernsey just finished for me, a wonderful guernsey, when you think of it. She had, I think, gone on working at it, after the others had given me up, just to show her trust in Providence, and her dear eyes shone when she saw me in it. Loans from my grandfather, whose full stature I had now attained, and whose contribution was of importance, and from Krok, who would have given me one of his eyes if I had needed it, filled all my requirements, and I set off for Beaumanoir about nine o'clock as glad a man as any in Sercq that night.
And oh, the sweetness of the night and all things in it. The solemn pulse of the great sea in Saut de Juan; the voices of many waters in the Gouliot Pass; the great dusky cushions of gorse studded with blooms that looked white under the moon; the mingling in the soft salt air of the scent of hedge-roses and honeysuckle, of dewy, trodden grass and the sweet breath of cows—ay, even the smell of the pigsties was good that night, and mightily refreshing after the dark Everglades of Florida.
Aunt Jeanne's hospitable door stood wide. She kept open house that night, for the old observances were dear to her ever-young heart. I walked right into her kitchen, and she met me with a cry of amazement and delight, and every wrinkle in the weather-browned face creased into a smile.
"Why, Phil, mon gars! Is it possible?" she cried. "You are welcome as one from the dead. Though, ma fé, I hoped all along, as your mother did. And, my good! what a big fellow it is! And not bad-looking either! I used to think you'd grow up square. You were the squarest boy I ever saw. But foreign parts have drawn you out like a ship's mast."
She was dragging me by the hand all the time, and now halted me in front of the great square fern-bed in the corner between the window and the hearth, and stood looking up into my face with the air of an artist awaiting approval of her latest masterpiece. A dear old face, sharp-featured, clever, all alive with the brightness of that which was in her, and with two bright dark eyes sparkling like a robin's under the black silk sun-bonnet which the gossips said she wore day and night.
I knew she looked just all that, but no eyes or thought had I for Aunt Jeanne or anyone else just then.
For here in front of me was the great green fern-bed, green no longer but transformed into a radiant shrine of flowers. Nine feet long it was, and not much less in width, and its solid oaken sides rose some two feet from the floor. It was heaped indeed with the bronze-green fronds and russet-gold stalks of fresh-cut bracken, but this was only the ordinary workaday foundation, and was almost hidden beneath a coverlet of roses—roses of every hue from damask-red to saffron-yellow and purest white, heaped and strewn in richest profusion and filling the room with perfume. From somewhere in the roof above, long sprays of creeping geranium and half-opened honeysuckle and branches of tree fuchsia hung down to the sides of the couch and formed a canopy, the most beautiful one could imagine. For the flowers of the honeysuckle looked like tiny baby-fingers reaching down for something below, and the red and purple fuchsias looked like a rain of falling stars. And beneath it sat the Queen of the Revels dressed all in white, her unbound hair rippling about her like a dark sunset cloud, till it lost itself among the creamy many-coloured petals below,—Carette, the loveliest flower of all.
She had shaken her hair over her face to veil her modesty at the very outspoken admiration of some of the earlier comers, but I caught the sparkle of her dark eyes as she looked up at me through the silken mesh, and the sweet slim figure set the flowery canopy shaking with its restrained eagerness. And my heart jumped within me at the lovely sight.
Disregardful of custom, I was stooping to speak to her, when Aunt Jeanne dragged me away with a gratified laugh, and a quick "Nenni, nenni! She may not speak till the time comes, or dear knows what will happen to us! Come away, mon gars, and tell me where you have been and what you have been doing," and she sat me down in a corner at the far end of the big dresser, and herself beside me so that I should not get away, and made me talk, but I could not take my eyes fora moment off the slim white figure on the radiant bed of roses.
A most delightful place at all times was that great kitchen at Beaumanoir, with its huge fireplace like a smaller room opening off the larger, and put to many other uses besides simply that of cooking;—its black oak presses and dressers and shelves all aglow with much polishing, and bright with crockery and pewter; its great hanging rack under the ceiling, laden with hams and sides of bacon and a hundred and one odds and ends of household use; and the great table in the corner weighted now with piles of currant-cake—Aunt Jeanne's gâche had a name in Sercq—and more substantial faring still.
There were about a score of young men and girls there, with a sprinkling of older folk, and every minute brought fresh arrivals to add to the talk and laughter. Each new-comer on entering paid homage to the silent figure on the green bed, and gave me boisterous welcome home as they came to receive a word of greeting from the mistress of the house.
Everyone knew everyone else most intimately. Scarce one but was related to half the people in the room. And all were in the gayest of spirits, for there, in a far corner, old Nicholas Grut every now and again gave the strings of his fiddle an impatient twang, as an intimation that all this was sheer waste of time, and that the only proper business in life was dancing. And presently they would begin, and they would dance until the sun rose, and then—well, the new day had its own rites and ceremonies, and eyes were bright and pulses leaping, and hearts were all a-flutter with hopes and fears of what the day might bring.
"And who is this, Jeanne Falla?" I asked, as one came in whom I had never seen before—a young man, dark and well-looking, and very handsomely dressed compared with the rest of us. And he stood so long before the green-bed, gazing at Carette, that there sprang up in me a sudden desire to take him by the neck and drag him away, or, better still, to hurl him through the open door into outer darkness.
"Tiens!" said Aunt Jeanne softly, "it is the young Torode—"
"Torode? I do not know him. Who is he?"
"C'est ça. It is since you left. His father has settled himself on Herm. He is a great man in these parts nowadays. They do say—"
"They do say—?" I asked, as she stopped short.
"Bon dou! They say many strange things about M. Torode. But you know how folks talk," she murmured.
"And what kind of things do they say, Aunt Jeanne?"
"Oh, all kinds of things. He's making a fine streak of fat—"
"So much the better for him."
"Maybe! But, mon dou, when a man gets along too quickly, the others will talk, you know. They say he has the devil's own luck in all he undertakes. He has three of the fastest chasse-marées in the Islands, and they say he's never lost a cargo yet. And they say he has dealings with the devil and Bonaparte and all the big merchants in Havre and Cherbourg. But of late he's gone in for privateering, and the streak's growing a fat one, I can tell you. He's got the finest schooner in these waters, and, ma fé, broth and soup are both alike to him, I trow! Oh yes, he can see through a fog, can Monsieur Torode."
"And what does Peter Port say to it all?"
"Pergui! Peter Port didn't like having its bread taken out of its mouth,—not that it's bread contents Monsieur Torode, not by a very long way. Fine doings there are on Herm, they say, when they're all at home there. But he's too big and bold a man to interfere with. He pays for the island, they say, and a good price too. Some say he's a wealthy emigre turning his talents to account. For myself—" and the black sun-bonnet nodded knowingly.
"You don't care for him over much, Aunt Jeanne?" and I felt unreasonably glad that it was so.
"Ma fé, I've never set eyes on the man and never wish to! But such luck is not too natural, you understand. The devil's flour has a way of turning to bran, and what comes with the flood goes out with the ebb sometimes."
"All the same you invite the young one here."
"The door of Beaumanoir is wide to-night, and everyone who chooses to come is welcome. Though I wouldn't say but what some are more welcome than others.... Brecqhou and Herm have dealings together, you understand," she murmured presently. "That is how this youngster finds himself here—Bernel, they call him. The old one is much away and the young one does his business hereabouts. And see the airs he puts on! One would think the Island belonged to him, and he hasn't had the grace to come and say how d'ye do to me yet. For myself—"
"For yourself, Aunt Jeanne?"
"Eh b'en!" with a twinkle. "One likes one's own calves best, oui gia!" and I felt like kissing the little old brown hand.
Young Torode had joined the others, and was laughing and joking with the girls, though it seemed to me that the men received him somewhat coldly. Then some remark among them directed his attention to Jeanne Falla and myself in the corner behind the dresser, and he came over at once.
"Pardon, Mistress Falla!" he said,—I think I have said before that Aunt Jeanne was more generally called by her maiden name of Falla than by her married one of Le Marchant, and she preferred it so,—"I was wondering where you were. You have given us a most charming surprise,"—with a nod towards the flower-decked green-bed. "But why is the goddess condemned to silence?"
"Because it's the rule. And, ma fé, it is good for a girl's tongue to be tied at times." Then, in answer to the enquiring looks he was casting at me, she said, "This is Phil Carré of Belfontaine, whom some folks thought dead. But I never did, and he's come back to show I was right. This is M. Bernel Torode of Herm, Phil, mon gars."
And young Torode and I looked into one another's eyes and knew that we were not to be friends. What he saw amiss in me I do not know, but to me there was about him something overmasterful which roused in me a keen desire to master it, or thwart it.
"You are but just home, then, M. Carré?" he asked.
"This evening."
"From—?"
"From Florida last by way of New York."
"Ah! Many ships about?"
"Not many but our own."
"There will be no bones left to pick soon," he laughed, "and the appetite grows. And what with the preventive men and their new powers it will soon be difficult to pick up an honest living."
"From all accounts M. Torode manages it one way or another," I said.
"All the same it gets more difficult. It's a case of too many pots and not enough lobsters."
And then Jeanne Falla, who had gone across to the others, suddenly clapped her hands, and Nicholas Grut's hungry bow dashed into a quick step that set feet dancing in spite of themselves.
And Carette sprang up from her seat and stepped out of her bower, and her face, radiant at her release, had in it all the loveliness of all the flowers from among which she came. The roses clung to her white gown as though loth to let her go, and strewed the ground as she passed, and no man's heart but must have jumped the quicker at sight of her coming towards him with welcomes in her eyes and hands.
She came straight across to us, and the other girls watched eagerly to see which of us she would speak to first—for Midsummer Eve is as full of signs and omens as Aunt Jeanne's gâche of currants.
She gave a hand to each of us, the left to me and the right to young Torode, and the left is nearer the heart, said I to myself.
"Phil, mon cher," she cried joyously. "It is good to see you alive and home again. And some foolish ones said you were gone for good! And you are bigger and browner than ever—" and she held me off at arm's length for inspection. "And when did you arrive?"
"I reached home just in time for supper."
"Ah, how glad your mother would be! She and Aunt Jeanne and I were the only ones who hoped still, I do believe."
"May I beg the first dance, mademoiselle?" broke in young Torode, for the couples were whirling past us and he had waited impatiently while we talked.
"I must go and tie up my hair first. It looks like a tangle of vraic," she laughed, and slipped away by the sides of the room and disappeared through the doorway. And young Torode immediately took up his post there to claim his dance as soon as she returned.
I was vexed with myself for giving him first chance. But truly my thoughts had not been on the dancing, but only on Carette herself, and I would have been content to look at her and listen to her all the evening without a thought of anything more.
Young Torode's visible intention of keeping to himself as much of her company as possible put me on my mettle, however, and when he dropped her into a seat after that dance, I immediately claimed the next.
I could dance as well, I think, as any man in Sercq at that time, but I felt myself but a clumsy sailorman after watching young Torode. For his easy grace and confidence put us all into the shade, and did not, I am afraid, tend to goodwill and fellowship on our part.
The other men, I noticed, had but little to say to him or he to them. He danced now and then with one or other of the girls, and they seemed to regard it more as an honourable experience than as matter of great enjoyment. And the man with whose special belle-amie he was dancing would sit and eye the pair gloomily the while, and remain silent and sulky for a time afterwards.
But, except for such little matters as that, we had a right merry time of it. Aunt Jeanne saw to that as energetically as though the hospitality of Beaumanoir had had doubts cast upon it, a thing that never could have happened. But Aunt Jeanne was energetic in all things, and this was her own special yearly feast. And, ma fé, one may surely do what one likes with one's own, and though one cannot recover one's youth one can at all events live young again with those who are young.
The lively spirits of the younger folk worked so upon their elders, that Uncle Henry Vaudin, who was seventy if he was a day, actually caught hold of Aunt Jeanne, as she was flitting to and fro, and tried to dance her into the whirling circle. But the result was only many collisions and much laughter, as the youngsters nearly galloped over them, and Aunt Jeanne and her partner stood in the centre laughing, till that dance was over.
Then she immediately challenged him to the hat dance, as being less trying to the legs and requiring more brain, and calling on Carette to make their third, they danced between three caps laid on the floor, in a way that earned a storm of applause.
Then two of the men danced the broom dance—each holding one end of the broom and passing it neatly under their arms, and over their heads, and under their legs, as they danced in quick step to the music.
And, in the intervals of such hard work, we ate—cold meats, cunningly cooked, and of excellent quality because Aunt Jeanne had bred them herself; and the best made bread and the sweetest butter in Sercq, and heaps of spicy gâche, all of Aunt Jeanne's own making. And we drank cider of Aunt Jeanne's own pressing, and equal to anything you could get in Guernsey. And now and again the men-folk smoked in the doorway, and if the very excellent tobacco she provided for them was not of her own growing, it was only because she had not so far undertaken its cultivation, and because tobacco could be got very cheap when you knew how to get it.
And then we danced again till the walls spun round quicker than ourselves, and even Uncle Nico's seasoned arms began to feel the strain. And still—"Faster! Faster!" cried the men, and the girls would not be beaten. And the ropes of flowers above the green-bed swung as though in a summer gale, and the roses leaped out and joined in the dance, till the smell of them, as they were trampled by the flying feet, filled all the room.
Then, while we lay spent and panting, the men mopping themselves with their kerchiefs, and the girls fanning themselves with theirs, Aunt Jeanne, who had had time to recover from her unwonted exertions with Uncle Henry Vaudin, recited some of the old-time poems, of which she managed to carry a string in her head in addition to all the other odds and ends which it contained.
She gave us "L' R'tou du Terre-Neuvi oprès San Prumi Viage"—
"Mais en es-tu bain seu, ma fille?
Not' Jean est-i don bain r'v'nu?
Tu dis qué nou l'a veu en ville,
I m'étonn' qu'i n'sait déjà v'nu"—
eighteen long verses, full of tender little touches telling of the hysterical upsetting in the mother's heart at the safe return of her boy from the perils of the sea.
And to me, who had just seen it all in my own mother's heart, it struck right home, and came near to making me foolish in the matter of wet eyes. And, besides, Aunt Jeanne would keep looking at me, as she reeled it off in her sharp little voice, which was softer than I had ever heard it before, and that made Carette and all the other girls look at me also, till I was glad when she was done, I was getting so uncomfortable.
Then, when at last the poor sailor-boy in the story was so full that he could not take another bite—not even a bite of pancake on which his mother in her upsetting had sprinkled salt instead of sugar—that poem came to an end, and by way of a change Aunt Jeanne plunged headlong into—
"Ma Tante est une mênagère
Coum je cré qu'i gn'y'en à pouit"—
hitting off in another twenty long verses the strong and weak points of an old and very managing Auntie, not unlike herself in her good points, and very unlike her in her bad ones. And we joyfully pointed them all back at the managing Auntie in front of us, good and bad points alike, and laughed ourselves almost black in the face at the most telling strokes; all except young Torode, who laughed, indeed, but not heartily like the rest,—rather as though he thought us an uncommonly childish set of people for our ages. And so we were that night, and enjoyed ourselves mightily.
Then young Torode sang "Jean Graïn d'orge," in a fine big voice, and Carette sang "Nico v'nait m' faire l'amour," in a very sweet one, and I was sorely troubled that I had never learned to sing.
Then to dancing again, and it was only then, as I leaned against the door-post watching Carette go round and round with young Torode, in a way that I could not help but feel was smoother and neater than when my arm was round her, that a chance word between two girls sitting near me startled me into the knowledge that I had been guilty of another foolishness, and had overlooked another most important matter that night. You see, I had been in a flutter ever since I reached home, and one cannot think of everything.
"Oh, Father Guille has promised him his horse, and so—" said the girl, between giggles and whispers, and it hit me like a stone to think how stupid I had been. And after a moment's thought I slipped away and ran quickly down the lane to La Vauroque, calling myself all manner of names through my teeth, and thumped lustily on George Hamon's door.
He was in bed and fast asleep, and it took much thumping before I heard a sleepy growl in the upper room, and at last the window rattled open and Uncle George's towsled head came out with a rough—
"Eh b'en, below there? What's afire? Can't you let a man—"
"It's me, Uncle George—Phil Carré. I'm sorry—"
"Phil!... Bon dou! Phil come back alive!" in a tone of very great surprise. And then very sternly—
"Tiens donc, you down there! You're not a ghost, are you?"
"Not a bit of a ghost, Uncle George. I got home this evening. I'm up at Jeanne Falla's party at Beaumanoir, and I've only just remembered that I haven't got a horse for to-morrow."
"Aw, then—a horse for to-morrow! Yes—of course!" and he began to gurgle inside, though bits of it would come out—"A horse! Of course you want a horse! And who—?"
"Can you let me have Black Boy—if you've got him yet?"
"I'll come down, mon gars. Wait you one minute;" and very soon the door opened, and he dragged me in, gripping my hand as if it were a rudder in a gale, so that it ached for an hour after.
"And you're all safe and sound, mon gars?—"
"As safe and sound as Sercq, Uncle George. Can you let me have Black Boy?"
"Pergui! But it's a happy woman your mother will be this night. She never would give you up, Phil. It's just wonderful—"
"'Tis, sure! Can you spare me Black Boy?"
"Aw now, my dear, but I'm sorry! You see, I'd no idea of you coming, and the young Torode came along this very afternoon and begged me to lend him Black Boy, and I promised, not knowing— But there's Gray Robin. You can have him. He's a bit heavy, maybe, but he's safe as a cart, and Black Boy's got more than a bit of the devil in him still. Will you be crossing the Coupée?"
"I suppose so."
"Well, take my advice, and get down and lead over. It's more than a bit crumbly in places. I've made young Torode promise not to ride Black Boy across."
"All right! When can I have Gray Robin?"
"Now if you like."
"I'll be back at four. May I have some of your roses, Uncle George?"
"All of them, if you like, mon gars. Bon dou, but I'm glad to see you home again!"
"I'd like a few to trim Robin up with."
"I'll see to it. It's good to see you back, Phil. Your mother didn't say much, but she was sore at heart, I know, though she did put a bold face on it."
"I know.... You won't mind my running away now, Uncle George? You see—"
"Aw, I know! Gallop away back, my boy. And—say, Phil, mon gars,—don't let that young cub from Herm get ahead of you. He's been making fine play while you've been away." And I waved my hand and sped back to the merrymaking.
A QUIET LANE. "The quiet gray lane, with its fern-covered banks and hedges of roses and honeysuckle."