Part 10

Now, as he revolved the meeting in his mind, he found that it was not in the least degree a surprise. Somehow, he had always expected that this girl would step suddenly into his life, with her ruddy hair and her gray eyes. It seemed to him to be something which the natural evolution of that life demanded. He had sounded every note in the gamut of emotions appropriate to a man in his position. He had had his serious, almost ascetic moods, his despondencies, his flights of folly, his impulses of stern ambition, his hours of morbid brooding and of reckless gayety. He could no longer number his love-affairs with any approach to accuracy. They were hopelessly jumbled in his memory, by very reason of their number and their triviality. Here and there, a face stood out from its fellows--the Baronne de Banis, Lady Mary Kaswellyn, Rosa de Mirecourt, or the Marquise de Baucheron--but none of these impelled him to regret. There were no entanglements, no uncomfortable circumstances to recall. Not a stone lay in the way of the gate of the future, as, in his imagination, it swung open before him. As we have said, the fates were kind to Lieutenant Eugène Drouin. The current of experience had borne his individual shallop over deeps and shallows safely and with a song, and, now that a sudden turn of the stream had shown him Natalie Tournadour waiting on the bank, it seemed to him to be the most natural thing imaginable,--something which intuition had taught him was inevitable, and, what was better, which experience told him was desirable. The event had found him ready and willing to make room for her beside him in the boat, and, so, continue the journey in her company, well content. He bowed to fate politely, with a graceful merci!

For forty-eight hours he watched, almost as if he had been a disinterested outsider, this pleasant fancy moulding the details of his future life. He reckoned his rentes anew, assigning a due proportion to a little hôtel in the Monceau quarter, to a villa at Houlgate, to horses, household expenses, his wife's allowance, servants, entertainment, a month at Aix, another at Nice, a third at Hombourg. He saw himself retired, and in the Chambre. And over all hovered, like a luminous presiding angel, the presence of Mademoiselle Tournadour--Madame Drouin!

So Sunday came, and, with it, breakfast at Armenonville with two fellow officers, and the growing exhilaration of the approaching race. Eugène was in his gayest mood--for was not Vivandière not only the winner of last year's Steeple Chase, but to-day in better form than she had ever been? But he allowed his good spirits to be touched, now and again, with a gentle, pleasurable melancholy, as the violins of the tziganes glided into the long, languorous swell of the Valse Bleue, and his handsome eyes clouded thoughtfully, and his fine mouth drooped, so that Gaston Cavaignac rallied him joyously upon the new affair, which alone could account for such tristesse. It lent an added zest, this. Eugène smiled, and was glad that in his denial of the charge rang so little of conviction.

The first race had been already run, as the three officers slipped through the main entrance of Auteuil, and made their way across the pesage, and past the betting booths, to the grass oval around which the horses, in charge of stable lads, were slowly circling. It was one of May's clearest and most brilliant afternoons. The gravel pathways and stretches of vivid turf were thronged with the best known men and women of the two great Parisian worlds of sport and fashion, and the air rang with gay gossip and spirited discussion. But Eugène had ears for none of this, and eyes but for two things,--Vivandière, blanketed, and swinging around the oval with her long, sure stride, and Natalie Tournadour, in a delicious gown of soft blue, standing at the side of Vieux César. Life, at that moment, was good to live. The chasseur drew a quick breath of pleased surprise. She was there, then, to see him win. He might have known!

A mixture of sudden, unfamiliar embarrassment and boyish vanity caused him to avoid her eye as he made a turn of the oval, consulting with his stable lad about the mare's condition; but he held himself very straight, and was pleasantly conscious that his tunic was new, and his boots a veritable triumph of Coquillot's. When he went back to his companions his eyes were glowing.

"Content?" asked Cavaignac.

"Je te crois, mon vieux!" he answered. "One never can say, but it is certain that no one has a better chance. She is perfection!"

"There is the white," put in Lieutenant Mors, dubiously.

Eugène vouchsafed the rival racer a brief, contemptuous glance. It was a lean, powerfully built brute, with an astonishing reach to even the leisurely stride with which he paced the oval. A trainer would have had something to say of those lithe shoulders, and that long barrel, dwindling along the flanks, and that easy swing of haunch and swathed hock. But Eugène was not a trainer.

"A fine animal," he observed, carelessly, "but there is no comparison. One has only to look at Vivandière."

"Tiens!" cried Gaston, "the saddling-bell! I am off to put five louis on you gagnant, and five placé. Bonne chance, vieux!"

In truth, the saddling-bell was jangling from the little pavilion to the left, and the officers hurrying forward to weigh in. As he passed into the enclosure, Eugène glanced over his shoulder. General Tournadour and his daughter were still standing at the oval-side, and he had a glimpse of Natalie clapping her hands and pointing, as the stable lad slipped the blanket off Vivandière. But he made no sign, even when, three minutes later, he mounted, within five metres of where they stood. Time enough, when the victory was won, to claim his reward in the gray eyes of which he had been dreaming. His heart leaped, nevertheless, as he gave Vivandière the rein. It was the voice of Vieux César, almost at his side:--

"Be not afraid, ma petite. There is no doubt that he is going to win."

No doubt, indeed, with her eyes upon him, and her heart praying for his success!

Once upon the course, he swept the vast enclosure with a glance, and his blood danced with the excitement of the moment, and the brilliancy of the scene. To the right the great tribunes of the pesage, and the chair-dotted turf in front, glowed with a shifting rainbow of spring gowns and vivid parasols, and sparkled with a myriad white waistcoats, drifting, like large, lazy snowflakes, to and fro; to the left lay the vast enclosure of the pelouse, flooded with dazzling sunlight, its thousands circling here and there like ants. Beyond, the race-course swept away, smooth and green, to the long rows of trees in their new foliage, banked along the route de Boulogne and the allée des Fortifications. It was a day of days, whether one stood inside the rail, straining for a glimpse of the horses, or swept slowly to the left, on the course itself, toward the starting point, with a thoroughbred's flanks quivering between one's knees!

As the horses circled about the start, getting into position, Eugène's keen, handsome eyes were busy with trivial details, dwindled by distance to mere specks,--two men, leaning far over the rails, signaling bets to each other across the track, a gleam of orange from the finish flag, the starter rocking toward him on a ridiculously fat pony. Then, in an instant, every faculty came taut like a stretched string, and they were off, in a thunder of hoofs and a whirl of flying sod. He saw a red flag fluttering stiffly in the breeze as he swept past, and heard, in the distance, the whirr of the signal gong from the judge's stand. It was a fair start. He touched Vivandière lightly with his hand, and, at the signal, felt her lengthen under him into her long, magnificent gallop. The tribunes and the crowded pelouse rushed down upon him with a murmur of many voices. The long double line of faces at the rail slid past like white dots, and the dark green hedge of the water-jump sprang out of the track at his feet. Houp, ma belle! A whish of brushed twigs, a gleam of silver water passing under, a thud of hoofs on the soft turf beyond, and they were over, and away into the southern loop to the left!

As he swung to the north again, he saw the ants of the pelouse scurrying across to the rail along the transverse cut. Let them run, les drôles! They had need to if they would see the passing of Vivandière! Past the high hurdle--so much the better that one did not have to take it!--and down the transverse to the second water-jump. It was easy, that. The mare crossed it like a bird, and Eugène saw the tribunes again from the corner of his eye, and laughed at the shrill "Bravo!" of a little grisette in a red hat, who flew past him, leaning on the rail.

Vivandière was well into the left reach of the northern loop before Eugène fairly realized what that smooth, empty width of turf before him meant. He was leading,--had been leading from the very start! And somewhere, back there in the gay throng of the pesage, two gray eyes were watching him, straining to catch each movement of the blue tunic, each bound of the gallant mare. He threw back his head and laughed at the clear, wide sky. It was very good to be alive!

So, with a broad sweep to the right, into the home stretch, the last curve of the giant "8" he had described. It lay ahead, full and fair, cut by one low hedge. And then--

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The sound battered its way into the chasseur's understanding, and hurt as if it had been, in verity, that of blow on blow. He leaned forward, spurring the mare to her utmost endeavor. And she responded, but still the beat of following hoofs grew louder. For Vivandière was thoroughbred, and she had kept her maddest pace from the start. It was reserved for racers of ignobler spirit to hold their greatest effort for the end.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Once more pesage and pelouse rushed down upon him, not now with a murmur of voices, but with a mighty roar, that swelled, deafening, into his ears.

"Flambeau! Flambeau! C'est Flambeau qui gagne!"

There was a gasp of short-coming breath at his elbow, a gleam of white, tense neck, a flash of red breeches and of polished boots, and the Steeple Chase Militaire was run, with Vivandière second, and the lean, white Flambeau winner by a length.

The officers rode back slowly, past the applauding tribunes. Eugène saw dimly that it was a colonel of infantry who rode Flambeau, a metre ahead of him, but his thoughts were more for Natalie than for himself or his successful competitor. Poor little girl! She had been so anxious for his victory, and no doubt so confident, after the brave words of Vieux César. But, after all,--second! It was not so bad in a field of twelve. But he had been wrong not to speak to her before he mounted. Well, he would atone for that, never fear! Moreover, when once they were married, he would give her Vivandière--the cause of their first meeting--the reason of their present sympathy! It was a good thought.

Eugène did not find the general and his daughter readily in the vast throng in the pesage. Three times he made the circuit of the tribunes, scanning the tiers of seats, and threading his way through the little wooden chairs upon the turf in front. Once he passed Cavaignac and Mors, walking arm in arm, who swore at him picturesquely for his defeat. Vivandière had paid but seventeen francs fifty placé, and so they had only seventy-five to show for the five louis they had placed upon her gagnant. The privilege of calling her master tête de laitue was but trifling recompense, and they strolled on, surprised that one noted for his eloquence in this variety of obloquy did not deign to reply.

Finally, at the doors of the little refreshment pavilion, and talking with a colonel of infantry, he found the objects of his quest, and went up eagerly, saluting. Vieux César greeted him with heartiness.

"Ah, lieutenant! Our preserver of Friday--quoi? Natalie, see who is here--our preserver of Friday!"

The girl was radiant. Her cheeks were flushed, and the gray eyes shone with a brightness that set Eugène's heart pounding so hard that he felt its throbbing must be dimpling the breast of his tunic.

"What a magnificent race!" she said, giving him her hand. "You have cause to be proud of Vivandière. It is something to have ridden such a horse."

"It is always something to ride a good horse," said Eugène, looking into her eyes, "and it is something, also, to be second in a good race, but it is more to be first. And I had my reasons for wishing to be that, mademoiselle."

Natalie smiled.

"Ah, sans doute!" she answered. "But you must not call me mademoiselle, monsieur. You must know that since yesterday I am a serious married woman. And what is more, my husband rode Flambeau! Am I not a veritable mascotte?"

She laid her hand on the arm of the officer at her side.

"My husband, Colonel Montrésor," she added. "Paul, this is the officer of whom I spoke to you--who was so kind--Lieutenant"--

She turned to Eugène, blushing divinely, with an embarrassed little laugh.

"Oh, pray forgive me!" she said. "I am _so_ stupid--but--but--I have forgotten your name!"

Papa Labesse

UP on the Butte Montmartre life is a matter of first principles, and conventionality an undiscovered affliction. A spade is a spade, and the blacker it happens to be, the more apt it is to receive its proper appellation, and the less likely to be confused with the hearts and diamonds. That is why Papa Labesse had no hesitation in referring to Bombiste Fremier as a good-for-nothing,--a vaurien.

Just off the boulevard de Rochechouart, in the rue Veron, Papa Labesse kept a tiny joiner's shop, in which, in his velvet cap with a long tassel and his ample apron of blue denim, he might be seen daily, toiling upon various small orders for the quartier. But daily, also, when the light began to fail, he would discard his apron, and, locking his shop door, walk slowly up the long curving incline of the rue Lepic, and through the appropriately rural-looking rue St. Rustique, until he emerged upon the broad summit of the Butte. Here he would light his pipe, and, with his legs spread wide, stand motionless by the low wattled fence at the brink of the bluff, looking off across the city. In appearance Papa Labesse was not the type of man in whom one would be apt to look for sentimentality. He was short and very thin, with a hooked nose and a gray moustache turned up fiercely at the ends, and his skin was brown and deeply wrinkled, as if he had somehow shrunk or warped; but then, as Marcelle said of him, it is the rough and crinkled Brazil-nut that is as full as possible of sweet white meat.

Between these two there had always existed a firm bond of camaraderie. Marcelle was the daughter of Madame Clapot, who presided over a little dairy directly opposite the joiner's shop, and on the day when she first made the astounding discovery that small girls can stand upright and walk alone, as if by instinct she had made a bee-line for the doorway of Papa Labesse, and, staggering in, triumphant, had fallen headlong, with a gurgle of satisfaction, into a great pile of shavings. Thenceforward she came often and tarried long, and Papa Labesse built houses for her out of odds and ends of wood, and fashioned miniature articles of furniture in his spare moments, and had always a bit of sucre-candi or a little gingerbread figure tucked away in a certain drawer of his table, which she soon learned to find for herself.

It seemed to Papa Labesse but the week following her first plunge among his shavings when Marcelle came in, all in white, and with a veil like a little bride's, to parade her splendor under his delighted eyes, before going to her first communion. But when he put into her hand the small white prayerbook he had bought for this great occasion, she had forgotten all else, and thrown her arms about his neck, entirely regardless of her finery.

"After maman, thou knowest, Papa Labesse, I love thee best of all the world!"

And Papa Labesse was properly shocked at this recklessness and said, bon Dieu! that was a fine veil, then, made to be crushed against an odious apron covered with chips and sawdust--what? And, as Marcelle ran off to join Madame Clapot, who was waiting, consumed with mingled pride and impatience, across the way, the old man wiped his spectacles vigorously, shook his head several times, and then, suddenly abandoning his work, three hours before the accustomed time, betook himself to the Butte, and smoked three pipefuls of tobacco, looking off across the city.

It was at this time that two radical changes came into the life of Papa Labesse. First, on the very summit of the Butte they began to lay the foundations for the great church of Sacré-Coeur; and, second, Marcelle took it into her pretty little head to accompany him on his daily climb. At first he was disturbed by both these innovations. This curious afternoon communion of his with the wonderful wide city, which lay spread out before him like a great gray map, was akin to a religion. He loved Paris with a love so great that perhaps he himself was barely able to comprehend its proportions. He was never tired of standing there and watching her breathing at his feet, of picking out, in the gathering twilight, the faint white speck to the west that was the arc de l'Etoile, the domes of the Invalides and the Panthéon, Notre Dame, to the eastward, and the towers and spires of half a hundred minor temples and public buildings. He passed from one to the other in a kind of visual pilgrimage, saying the names over slowly to himself, and occasionally affecting an air of surprise, as if some one of the familiar piles had suddenly and unaccountably appeared in a new locality.

"La Trinité; Notre Dame de Lorette; La Bourse. Tiens! _St. Eustache!_"

At the outset, the serenity of this contemplative hour was seriously impaired by the creaking of derrick-pulleys and the loud chatter of wagon-drivers, and hardly less so by the eager questions of Marcelle, clinging to his hand, her eyes bright with excitement, as she looked out with him across Paris, or peered down into the vast pit when the masons were laying the foundations of the big church. But, bit by bit, Papa Labesse became accustomed to the new conditions; and every night, an hour before sunset, his high, dry voice summoned Marcelle from the dairy across the way, and the two set forth together up the long curving incline of the rue Lepic, and the old man would smoke his pipe by the low wattled fence at the brink of the bluff, while the child babbled of her little affairs. Papa Labesse no longer named the domes and spires now. His eyes rested alternately on the city and on the girl beside him, and often, when Marcelle was silent, looking off to where the thin, silver line of the Seine gleamed briefly between distant buildings, he shook his head several times, tapping the side of his inverted pipe-bowl against the palm of his hand, long after the ashes had fallen out.

When Marcelle was seventeen, Madame Clapot died suddenly, and the girl moved from the rue Veron to the home of her aunt, near by, in the rue Seveste. But the change made no difference in her friendship for Papa Labesse. All through the ensuing spring she called regularly for him each afternoon, and they climbed the Butte in company, as before. The old man would have been completely happy had it not been for Bombiste Fremier.

Bombiste was an employé of the state,--an humble one, to be sure, but, nevertheless, part and parcel of the great Administration which includes every one, from the President of the Republic to the street-sweeper on the rue Royale. In Fremier's case the employment was brief and not over-lucrative. He was engaged, for two months only in the twelve, to mow the grass on the fortifications and in parts of the Bois and the smaller parks of Paris. For the remainder of the year he lived none knew how, but he had always a few white pieces in his pocket, and was ready to treat a comrade at Le Cheval Blanc, the little wine-shop kept by Bonhomme Pirou at the corner of the boulevard and the rue Seveste. As regards the source of his income, it is probable that Amélie Chouert, called La Trompette, by reason of her loud voice, might have divulged some remarkable particulars. In any event, she was his constant companion, a sharp-featured, angular woman with snapping black eyes and a great mop of hair that came down to within an inch of her continuous line of eyebrow.

Fremier himself was as handsome as a brutal picture,--a giant in stature, with square shoulders, a thick neck, in which the muscles stood out like ropes, and the face of an Italian brigand. It is a type of masculine beauty which goes far in Montmartre, and to it was added a deep, melodious voice, that, whether in the heat of political argument or the more complicated phraseology of love, carried complete conviction. No one blamed La Trompette for her infatuation. As we have said, life on the Butte is a matter of first principles, and, in view of the manifest attraction, her position was entirely conceivable. Except to Papa Labesse.

He was a singularly rigid old man, who took no account of the remarkable beauty and the irresistible tongue of Fremier, but only of the fact that he was called Bombiste because he talked against the government at Le Cheval Blanc, advocating the use of dynamite, and only the bon Dieu knew what else beside. And if, as La Trompette alleged, he swung his scythe on the fortifications like a veritable demon, what of that? No, evidently he was a vaurien!

So it was, that when, one fine May afternoon, Papa Labesse, emerging from his little shop at the summons of Marcelle, caught a glimpse of Bombiste slipping around the further corner into the rue Lepic, his heart gave a sudden great bound and then seemed to stand still. He was very silent on the way to the Butte, for, moment by moment, the blackness of untoward premonition was settling upon him. He glanced, covertly, but again and again, at Marcelle, observing, with a strange, suddenly acquired power of perception, that she was already a woman. He had not seemed to notice, day by day, the change in her. Now it dawned upon him in a flash. No, it was no longer the baby who had fallen headlong among his shavings, nor yet the child going to her first communion, all in white and with a veil like a little bride's, nor even the slender girl who had peered down with him into the vast pit where the masons were laying the foundations of the big church. It was a woman who walked beside him, a woman very beautiful, with dark hair, coiled above a pale, pure face, and great eyes, like crushed violets swimming in their dew. Papa Labesse caught his breath: Bombiste Fremier!

But Marcelle saw nothing of her companion's preoccupation. She almost danced beside him up the long curving incline of the rue Lepic, chaffing, as she passed, the children playing in the gutters, and pausing continually to sniff at some flower-vender's fragrant wares, or peer into the window of a tiny shop. She was glowing with health and happiness: her cheeks dappled with color, her eyes shining. When, finally, they emerged upon the Butte, she ran to the little wattled fence, and with her hands clasped behind her head, looked out across the city. Even when Papa Labesse had come up to her side, she said no word for several minutes.