CHAPTER XXIV
PEACE BEFORE STORM
The 18th of March dawned clear and bright, the wind still a little chill, but the whole land, as we looked down upon it from our Gobelet watch-tower on the front of St. Andre's hill, tinted white and pink with blossom, almond, peach, pear, plum, and cherry. It was wonderful to see them running up, as it were scrambling over fence and rock scarp, till they broke in a sunshiny spray of hawthorn blossom against the grey walls of the lycée of St. André.
Never was there a quieter day nor one that seemed filled with more happy promise. For the first time Linn and Alida had resumed their old understanding. For there is no doubt that Linn had been somewhat jealous of the absorbing commerce between the house of Deventer and the cottage in the laurel bushes beyond the garden of Gobelet.
Keller had gone to Aramon, Linn said. He might be away all night, for he had it in his mind to push as far as Marseilles. I knew of the Bey's absences from Autun, and so thought no more of the matter. Linn, put in good humour by having Alida to herself (for me she did not count), talked freely of the beauties of their installation. The Basse Cour and the poultry especially delighted her, and she had already prepared a ruled book which was to show in parallel columns the cost of feeding as compared with the result in chickens and eggs.
All that day no one crossed over the bridge from Château Schneider and the time was blessed for Linn. She knew very well that it was for just such companionship that Alida had come to Aramon. She had herself supported the necessity for change, even against her husband. But all the same, now when she got her Princess a day to herself she made the most of it, falling back into her old caressing habits and ready to treat Alida as the little girl who long ago had been put in her hands with all a queen's habits of command and the sweet waywardness of a child.
I helped when I could and fetched huge stuffed buffets and cushions, so that Alida could install herself beside my father at the fishpond, and then I left him to make his usual conquest. He was smiling and tranquil as I remember, but with an unwonted eagerness in his eye, which did not by any means come from the anticipation of a morning with Alida. I remembered afterwards that he had had an interview the night before with Keller Bey in which they had talked much Arabic, and early this morning he had dispatched Saunders McKie over the water with a letter to Dennis Deventer. But these things did not fall into place in my mind, at least not till long afterwards.
We had a happy day among the sunflecked glades of Gobelet—that is, Alida, my father and I. When they two were alone, they talked Arabic, but ceased as soon as I joined them.
Conscious of the awkwardness Alida renewed her offer to teach me colloquially if my father would put me in the way of learning the grammar, while I regretted bitterly having wasted my time at St. André. Finally to change the subject we fell to talking over the Montmorencies and their Tour Carrée on the heights of Aramon le Vieux. Here at hand, where the Tessiers slept at the far side of Dennis Deventer's flying bridge of steel, was their gateway tower, still pitted by the balls of Mazarin's troops. For a Montmorency of those days, probably held in leash by his wife, had taken the popular side in the wars of the Fronde.
Down there on that islet in the reign of Louis XII (said my father) a great tournament was held in which the knights of France, light and lissom, overwhelmed the weightier champions of Burgundy.
If we had been more watchful as we talked, we might have seen the smoke die out of the tall chimneys of Aramon-les-Ateliers, the blast furnaces withdraw their crowns of pale flame, and an unnatural quiet settle down upon the busy city.
But our minds were bent wholly on giving pleasure to Alida. She must be taken through this glade, climb this steep path, and see the marvellous spectacle of the Rhône delta with its wide wastes wandered over by fierce cattle, its sinuous waterways blocked by the only beavers remaining in Europe, and far away beyond it the violet-blue bar of the Midland Sea.
We did indeed conduct Alida from admiration to admiration, and she had what I fear Rhoda Polly would have called "the time of her life." It did strike me several times how strange it was that since my father had sent his morning message to Dennis Deventer, we had had no news of the household at Château Schneider.
I sounded Saunders on the subject, but he knew nothing, or at least would tell nothing.
"The letter? Oh, Maister Dennis just read it and put it in his waistcoat pooch. Syne, says he, 'Saunders, will ye drink?' 'No,' says I; for if I did, when I gaed hame I micht smell! So he gied me yin o' thae French sovereigns as easy as puttin' a penny in the plate. Oh, a grand man is Maister Deventer when ye get the richt side o' him, but as they tell me the very deevil and a' when his monkey is up. Do you ken, Maister Aängus, he was just trying me on, by asking me to drink? For if I had ta'en as muckle as a sup frae his hand, I micht hae whistled for the wee French sovereign—whilk is only barely worth saxteen shillings when a' is said and done!"
Nevertheless in the full bliss of ignorance we idled away the day while about us the flowers grew as we looked at them, so keen an edge was on that spring day. Linn ranged her napery cupboards to her most perfect content, not that she could do it better than Mrs. Deventer had done, but simply for the satisfaction of, as it were, expressing her mind and doing it differently.
The shadows passed steadily across the sundial. The underneath inscription became more strongly incised as the sun dipped westward. The rock plants on the little island in the pond fell into shadow and some closed up their petals for the night. And still in the midst of a great silence we moved and smiled and were happy. Aramon le Vieux drowsed beneath us. The good wives at their doors were out gossiping their hardest, but in undertones which must not pass from one group to another. Cats sunned themselves in window sills beyond the reach of the prowling cur, and the majestic river, so soon to be split and worried into a hundred waterways, étangs and backwaters, passed noiselessly in front of us in one noble rush, level, calm, and swift.
I think it was about three o'clock in the afternoon when Professor Renard, coming from the post office, where the telegraph had been recently installed, brought tidings.
"There is a revolt in Paris," he said, "the soldiers and the National Guard have expelled the Government. That is the news they have received, but no one knows whether it is false or true."
Nor in the midst of our quiet park with the fruit trees in blossom everywhere could we have any guess at the turmoil, the riding of orderlies, and the hasty ordering of official carriages in Paris.
Indeed, the talk passed to other matter and on the surface, and the tidings seemed to affect us little. So having left Linn still busy with her linen, Alida and I took our way to the look-out summer-house above the aerial swing of the suspension bridge, leaving the elders talking very soberly together.
"Surely there is no danger here?" the girl asked when we had seated ourselves. She spoke not from any fear but that she might contrive means of helping her friends the Deventers if they needed it.
"Not that I know of," I answered, "but the workmen of Aramon are always fiery and hard to handle. We have had battles and sieges, yet things were smoothed over and the works went on as before—the men who had been busily shooting each other down talking over details of work and taking orders from one another as if nothing had happened."
"How long ago was that?"
"Only about two months," I explained, "but you need expect nothing of that kind on this side. The workmen never cross the bridge save when on pleasure bent, or when our July fair-time fills the green yonder with the din of booths, circuses, and penny theatres."
Nevertheless, Alida's face continued to express trouble.
"But Rhoda Polly, her mother, and the others—are they in danger?"
"Not, I think, for the moment. The more serious the news from Paris, the less will the men think of their grievances against the Company and the Company's manager. Last time the siege was bitter and determined on both sides. Many were killed. Yet it was no more than a trade dispute which Mr. Deventer could have settled in half an hour if the men had brought their grievances directly to him, instead of trying to wreck the works for the safety of which he is responsible."
"We must go and see for ourselves," said Alida imperiously. "If there is danger for my friends, I must be there to share it."
"You must not do anything of the kind," I cried, "you do not understand the fierce blindness which comes upon men at such times. I shall go, if necessary, and you shall stay with my father and Linn in the refuge which those who love you have chosen for you."
"Then if I let you go, you will come back and tell me all—remember, do not put me off with lies such as they tell to ordinary women."
I promised, and as we stood looking across the glistening waters I saw for the second time in my life the tricolour flutter down from its staff, and after a pause the shining "Tatter of Scarlet" of the red revolution blow out on the valley wind.