LÉON
I would have our children taught, so far as teaching can go, to love and admire France, that glorious nation which has done so much and suffered so much for humanity.—William Archer, 1898.
We did not believe it possible that a boy of nine could wear high-buttoned boots, a pale blue sash, and long hair like a girl’s, and yet possess a character unaffected by these deplorable externals. That, in addition to this, he should be French, speaking that “nimini pimini” language with perfect ease; and, in further proof of his mental slipperiness, speak English almost equally well—but for a curious roll and rumble of the letter “r” in the back of the throat—was another serious stumbling-block in the way of our liking. It was not natural. Had he been puny, or sallow, or in any way physically “Frenchy” as we supposed it, we should have found him less bewildering. But he was sturdy, ruddy, and fair-haired; tall for his age, and of a frank cheerfulness that was rather engaging. Absolutely unashamed of his inferior nationality, unconscious, seemingly, of those elongated buttoned boots, he would shake back his tawny hair and look you squarely in the face with big blue eyes that smiled. He didn’t look a “Molly,” somehow, in spite of his hair; but we children were convinced that he “must be one, really,” and that what the twins called his “false French smile” was a sort of cloak for the innate cowardice of his disposition.
What induced Aunt Alice to marry a French officer, we could not think! That she and her husband were what mother called “devoted to one another” seemed to us an insufficient explanation. Not only did she marry this foreigner and desert her native land, but she became a Roman Catholic—nurse minded this most and called her a Papist—and she seemed perfectly happy in her exile. She was supposed to be a very beautiful person, but what most impressed us during her rare and brief visits was the quality and quantity of the sweets she brought us; sweets in gorgeous boxes which bore the mystic device Gouache. France was, we were convinced, a poor sort of place, but exception must be made in favor of her sweets.
In reflecting upon our general attitude toward France and the French at this time, I am reminded of the man who scornfully held up to ridicule a country so far left to itself as to speak of bread as “Pain.”
“But,” suggested a more tolerant friend, “we call it bread.”
“Ah! it is bread, you see.”
But to return to Léon. His father’s regiment had been ordered to some place in Africa, where they could not take Léon, and as Aunt Alice was going with her husband for at least six months, Léon was sent to us.
Eric and I decided that it was a bore. Jennie, who is queer and contradictory at times, said nothing. She adores Aunt Alice. The twins, who had just been doing the Battle of Waterloo in history, and were rampantly patriotic, expressed grave doubts as to whether it was quite loyal to Queen Victoria to receive Léon at all.
“No one likes to go about all day with a mountebank!” grumbled Eric.
“If only he’d had fewer clothes!” I sighed.
But even the most sanguine destroyer of garments could hardly hope that Léon would wear out the quantity of which he was possessed in less than six months.
The twins and Léon came toward us from the tennis lawn; the twins red and triumphant, Léon red and evidently perturbed. Jennie followed, lingering in the rear; she is lame, not a cripple, you know, but noticeably lame.
“England won!” shouted the twins. They always seemed to speak in a sort of chorus.
Léon sat down on the bank beside us and shook his hair back from his face. He evidently intended to appeal to Eric about something; but just as he opened his mouth to speak, he noticed Jennie.
“Come, my cousin,” he called, patting the bank beside him; “we shall have good fortune another time!”
“England won!” chanted the twins again. “We always do!”
“That is not so!” cried Léon angrily. “Why do you speak to despise my country? If you were in France, my guest, we speak not forever of Hastings?”
“Oh, that was ages ago,” said Eric judicially; “but you were not fairly matched.”
“Léon had me, you see,” put in Jennie.
“Not so, my cousin, your play was beautiful,” said Léon, and he took her hand and patted it. He had queer affectionate ways, and never seemed to mind showing that he liked people. “We beat them next time.”
“I wonder what makes Léon so chummy with Jennie?” I asked Eric half an hour later, as we rested after a hot “single.” “Do you think it’s because she’s the only one of us that couldn’t lick him?”
Eric raised himself on his elbows and stared at me.
“Well, of all the chuckle-headed ideas I ever heard! Really, for downright wrong-headedness, give me the average girl. Can’t you see, you silly, that it’s because she’s lame, and the little beggar’s sorry for her? He’s a good-hearted kid if he is Frenchy, and as to licking, just you wait——”
I felt very much snubbed and rather aggrieved, for only that afternoon Eric had grumbled about Léon’s clothes and called him a “mountebank.” Boys seem to keep things separate somehow, in a curious way.
One day Jennie and Léon had been sent to the Home Farm to fetch eggs. It was really the twins’ turn, but they hid so that they shouldn’t have to go, for it was a very hot afternoon. Eric and I went for a stroll through the fields in the same direction to look at a nest of young yellow-hammers in the big paddock. There’s a sort of hill in the big paddock, and we saw Jennie and Léon coming down the cart road from the farm; they went by the road because Jennie hates climbing gates—it hurts her. Léon was carrying the eggs and they came very slowly, because Jennie was tired. Toward them came one, Fred Oram, a village boy, not a nice boy at all. He hates us because the head groom gave him a thrashing when he caught him throwing stones at the thoroughbreds.
Fred Oram began to limp like Jennie, and called out:
“’Ullo, Frenchy! Shall I plait your ’air for ya?”
Eric, who happened to be at home because two-thirds of his school got measles and mother was nervous, began to run, and I ran after him; but we were a good way from the gate, and the hedge is too thick to get through. We ran alongside of it, and heard Léon say in his funny, stilted English:
“Please hold the eggs, my cousin!” Then, evidently to Fred: “How dare you to mock at my cousin and insult me?”
As we reached the gate Eric pulled me back.
“Let the kid alone!” he whispered. “He’s not afraid.”
It reminded me of old King Edward, and “Let the boy win his spurs.”
None of the three saw us. Jennie was standing on the grass at the side, looking very red and excited; Fred Oram was pulling Léon’s hair and dancing round him, making derisive remarks. Léon wrenched his head away, and with a bound stood in the middle of the road, facing his enemy. In spite of his buttony boots—in spite of his blue sash and his long hair—Fred seemed rather afraid of him, for Léon looked, and was, furious.
For about half a minute they stood looking at each other. Léon shouted, “Lâche! Lâche!”—he forgot to speak English, he was so excited—then, “En garde!”—and there seemed a thousand rs in that garde—and he sprang on Fred, who went down like a ninepin.
Eric vaulted the gate, yelling excitedly, “By Jove! the kid can box.”
Jennie laid down the eggs on the grass, and hid her face in her hands. But she looked through her fingers. I saw her.
In another minute Fred was upon his feet. He was bigger than any of us—even Eric. Léon went at him again, calling out what we supposed to be battle-cries in French, and I do believe that the French alarmed Fred as much as the pommelling. Anyway, down he went again, with Léon on the top of him.
“Time!” shouted Eric, picking upon Léon and wiping his face, which was hard to see, for his nose was bleeding and one eye was swollen.
But Fred got up and began to walk away, remarking with surly dignity:
“I don’t care for to fight with no French tiger-cats.”
Léon broke away from Eric, and ran after his late foe. Fred stopped and took up a defensive attitude, but Léon went up with his grubby right hand held out.
“Shake!” he cried. “We have foughten; it is over. Shake with me?” And Fred shook. “That was quite English?” asked Léon anxiously, as he came back to be cleaned.
Eric looked at him very kindly. “It was all right,” he said; and Léon squared his shoulders with modest pride.
“I never saw such a nose to bleed!” exclaimed Eric, ten minutes later, as the last available handkerchief had been reduced to a crimson, pulpy ball. “There’s one sash done for, anyway. I suppose the suit’ll wash, which is a pity.”
On the way home Eric carried the eggs, and Jennie walked hand in hand with Léon. They rather lagged behind, and presently I heard Jennie whisper—I have very sharp ears:
“Léon, am I so very lame?”
“My little cousin, I do not see you lame at all, except when you are fatigued; and we all of us walk badly when we are fatigued;” and he stopped and kissed Jennie on both cheeks.
I had often heard that the French say what is pleasant at the expense of what is true; but just then I wondered if it was always such a bad thing, for when I turned and looked at my little sister her face was perfectly radiant, and she was hardly limping at all.
“I’ll tell you what it is,” said Eric, when Léon had been carried off by the authorities to have keys put down his back, his eye bathed, and to be generally cleaned up; and we were all five sitting in solemn conclave on the largest wheelbarrow—the twins had joined us, much excited by recent events—“I’ll tell you what it is: you kids must drop that Waterloo business, and we must none of us mind his queer clothes any more. He’s a ripping good sort, and, after all, he can’t help being French!”
“And he wouldn’t help it if he could!” cried Jennie. “France is a great country.”
For a wonder nobody contradicted her. We were all busy readjusting preconceived ideas.