Summer Will Show

by Sylvia Townsend Warner

  For she found herself entirely impartial, even able to relish the smell of gunpowder as though this were a Blandamer shooting-party, and her natural instinct to take charge of any catastrophe was frozen in her. More accurately than she had known, it seemed, her mind had listened to that conversation overnight. So far, everything had fallen out according to plan. Here were the children, and the Rembrandtesque shadows, the peaceable procession, as it were a picnic, and the provoked volley from the soldiers. Even the building — she recognised it now — was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I will wait, she said to herself, for the dray.

  The sediment of peaceful-minded had fallen out of the crowd and it seemed that she was the only person there who was not armed, who was not angry, and who had not a great deal to say. An uncomfortable neutrality. Pinned against the wall she could not but be aware that each glance that fell on her was more disapproving, more antagonistic, than the last. As though challenging her silence a dishevelled young man, glaring under an operatic helmet, enquired of her if it had not been vilely done, this attack on peaceful citizens; and getting no answer, he drove his elbow into her breast as he shoved himself onward. But already his gilded crest was out of sight, and her look of rage now lit upon a countenance so pale with hunger, so wasted with intellectual melancholy, so burning with indignant idealism that she had to catch back an apology. If he had seen her, though, he had not noticed her; and in a moment he was gone, carrying his strange flame with him, as much a solitary in that crowd as I, she thought, her imagination diving after the image which had sunk so deeply and instantaneously into her consciousness. But one cannot meditate in a crowd; and pinned under the light, her conspicuousness of stature and complexion and expensive mourning apparel placarded by her immobility and non-currence, she became aware with annoyance that her position was becoming increasingly dangerous.

  If I am not torn in pieces, she reflected, I suppose I shall be shot by accident. For now shots were being exchanged as well as shouts; and it was strange to hear in this earnest and with these town-bred echoes, the sound so reminiscent of peaceful autumn mornings, of the motionless tawny bulk of the woodlands, of all the virgilian romance and dignity of the landscape in which the English landed gentry go out to shoot pheasants. A life rooted in that life, nourished in the pure leaf-mould of land-owning and fenced round with the Game Laws, does not easily let go its hold. In her worst frustration and weariness of soul Sophia had never contemplated death as a consolation; and to have travelled to Paris and taken her room at the Meurice in order to be killed in the boulevard des Capucines was a turn of Fate which had nothing to commend it. With all of her reason and with half of her heart she would have given away the other half in order to do what was the obvious and sensible thing — to extract herself from this unpleasant and dangerous turmoil, walk off to the hotel and go to bed. But the other half of her heart, the half which had landed her in this situation, held firm, and kept her there.

  A sudden acclaiming clamour of rage and emotion swelled out, and like the chord in a progression of music which with its strong gesture tilts the melody from one key into another, turned the weight of mob-feeling into a new and deeper channel. What it was that had called out this cry Sophia could not see, nor could those immediately around her; but for all that their exclamations tuned in with that other, so that it seemed natural and ordained that presently the mob should divide, pressing itself into mournful hedgerows, leaving, as for a procession of something royal or holy, a space down which the raw-boned cart-horse, its white blaze showy in the gas-light, could be led. The dray it drew forward was heaped with bodies, dead or subsiding into death, and marching beside it, and after it, in silence, with solemn, showmanly looks, were children carrying torches, were the patriots, grimed and bloodied, and women over whose furious faces the tears ran down.

  The blood, the tears, the dead and dying bodies were real, as real as the dramatic talent which had organised this clinching raree-show. Real too, though by a momentary inattention compromising the dramatic effect, was Gaston, walking arm in arm with Minna among the mourners, deep in conversation.

  To see the pair of them so ridiculously trivial, gabbling with their noses together like a couple of schoolgirls, was the last straw to Sophia’s patience. Empowered by rage she wrenched herself out of the crowd, darted upon Minna, and catching her by the shoulder tweaked her away from her companion and out of the procession, and hauled her into a doorway.

  “The whole thing has been engineered! It is nothing but a cold-blooded farce, it is beyond my comprehension how you can lend yourself to such ... to such goings-on,” she concluded, lamely and violently, and in English. “Can you deny it, dare you deny it?”

  Because in Minna’s fixed and mournful stare she seemed to detect a look of pity her rage became even more arrogant.

  “Fortunately it is no affair of mine how you manage your glorious triumphs of liberty.

  “How will you get back to the rue de la Carabine? Will one of your friends see you home?”

  It was the last blow that landed. Wincing from it, putting up her hand to her cheek as though a real blow had struck her, Minna said,

  “I can go home alone, Sophia.”

  “Good!”

  But still the crowd kept them where they stood; and if moral loss of temper and the deeper rage of disillusionment could have allowed Sophia to feel any pity she must have felt it then, if only for that pilloried embarrassment. Her hand, like a policeman’s, still gripped Minna’s shoulder, having left it so long she must keep it there still, for so unnaturally vital was the tension between them that a movement towards convention would only make things worse. Under that grip Minna stood passive and resigned, as though to be held in custody, bullied and abused, were nothing out of the way to her. She made no attempt to speak, her glance, suppliant and patient, wandered to Sophia’s face and wandered off again, watching the crowd that surged past them. These fawning, persecuted Israelites, thought Sophia, whetting her resentment on that sure stone.

  On the twenty-fourth of February Louis Philippe abdicated, hastening through the gardens of the Tuileries on foot and under an umbrella, for it was raining pretty smartly. His wife, weeping and indignant, hung on his arm, and at the little gate of the Pont Tournant he was glad to climb into the cab which was in waiting there. The cab took the route towards Neuilly. There was no attempt to follow it.

  A little later his daughter-in-law made her way to the Chamber of Deputies, taking her child with her. She was given a chair, and sat on it for some hours, unnoticed. A few polite voices had mentioned a regency, but no one had time or inclination to attend to her, though it was generally admitted that she had shown great courage and female dignity, besides being a mother, which is always venerable. At length, compelled by the calls of nature, she retired as inconspicuously as possible to the Invalides.

  Meanwhile a provisional government of the left was proposed and agreed on; and other provisional governments were agreed upon with equal enthusiasm and unanimity at the offices of two newspapers, the National and the Réforme. The adherents of each government, everything being settled so satisfactorily, joined their triumphal processions before the Hôtel de Ville, where there was a vast scene of rejoicing and fraternity.

  All this Sophia heard from the valet who brought dinner to her room. He was a young man, and he admitted himself to be moved, saying that the slaughter had been frightful, and would have been worse if it had not been for the refusal of the National Guards to take any part in it, sticking nosegays in the muzzles of their guns to show the harmlessness of their intentions. To-morrow, he said, a new era would begin.

  She listened with exasperation. And yet when he had left the room she could have wished him and his babble back again; for to spend a whole day alone in a hotel bedroom, with the noise of a revolution sounding beneath one’s window, is an ordeal which will fray the most resolute nerves. She would receive no one, she had said. No one had come. She was still in the vilest of tempers, footsor
e, and sour with sleeplessness, for the noise which had gone on all night made sleep impossible, and the slumber on the pink sofa seemed to have taken place in another world, so far removed was it. The day of confidences on that same sofa seemed as unreal, as far forgotten. Had there been any life left in the recollection it must have perished under her will’s heel.

  To-morrow a new era would begin, and she would leave Paris. No, she would not. She would stay, order new clothes at the dressmakers, and visit great-aunt Léocadie. There she would find reason, dignity, and routine — everything that is dear to a womanof good sense who has dismissed her husband, lost her children, discarded the sentimental enthusiasms of youth which sit so ill on a woman of twenty-eight. It would be interesting and consoling to hear what Léocadie had to say about the Revolution. This was her third.

  Curious how affinity of character could abolish differences of age, race, and tradition! Though Sophia had been a child, and great-aunt Léocadie installed in old age, taking as her due an arm to lean on, hot rum, and a chair with ears; though she had insisted on being spoken to in French and revised every faltering sentence, in her company Sophia had enjoyed an intimacy of confidence never known before, an intimacy lifting her from the discomforts of childhood, setting her among the ranks of women grown. How much pleasanter to be great-aunt Léocadie’s Sophie than Mamma’s Sophia, what satisfaction in those interminable games of picquet! Mamma’s Sophia was praised with faint condolence upon being such a good little girl with the old lady. The praises were accepted, and spat out privately, as one spat out a mawkish lozenge; it would not do to disclose to the one woman that one liked the other quite as well. Better, indeed. Sophia much preferred Léocadie, enjoying her smell, so richly ambered, her cold dry hands, her rather flat voice, loftily unmodulated, and admiring with relief a head which never ached, a back which never tired, an imperious digestion which, for all that extravagant greed and extravagant palate, had never met its match.

  I must certainly improve on my bonnet, thought Sophia, stalking about the room in long-limbed nakedness, the London bonnet held out at arm’s length. Great-aunt Léocadie had attained her third revolution, the least tribute one could pay would be a bonnet in the highest and latest fashion. Warming herself before the hearth Sophia recollected how great-aunt Léocadie had praised her for those long legs; how, coming into the nursery, she had insisted upon viewing them naked, to make sure that there was no trace of rickets. In the nursery also there had been a blaze of logs, and the child had strutted to and fro, holding up her shift, pleased to be shocking the nursemaids, proud of her legs, so long and fine, and the narrow knee-joints which would be in time, so great-aunt Léocadie said, one of her beauties. Léocadie had spoken praises in her flat voice, the nursemaids had clucked like hens, and the child had strutted up and down, lording it over that poultry-yard. Now once more it was a pleasure to warm her legs at the fire, to be free and naked, and to hold that expensive bonnet in her hand, deciding that it would not do. Since she had freed herself of Frederick nakedness was again a pleasure. Mrs. Frederick Willoughby, sharing a great bed with Mr. Frederick Willoughby, or hearing him splashing and crashing in his dressing-room, had been as shy as a nymph, as disobliging as a virgin martyr, armouring herself in great starched dressing-gowns voluminous as clouds.

  She tossed the bonnet across the room, and looked at the bed. Abruptly and absolutely, as though a strain of music had been broken off, her mood of excited self-satisfaction was snapped through. A bonnet, a she-septuagenarian ... it was not for these that she had come to Paris. Everything, everything was over, henceforth she would have nothing better to do than to toss over such trivialities. There was no purpose, no savour in her life, and yesterday she had made a fool of herself.

  Another procession was approaching, a procession with drums and singing and a brass band. To those thumps and brazen pantings she despatched herself to bed, settling rigidly between the cold sheets, forcing down her eyelids.

  Yet however trivial these trivialities, she must keep to them, or go altogether to pieces; and hunting a new bonnet presented difficulties enough for the overcoming of them to raise her spirits a little. Every shop was shut, it was not until after midday that she had at last contrived to get herself admitted to a milliner’s by a side door. There, in semidarkness behind the shuttered windows, a trembling hand pinned bows and snatched at the English gold. “Gold is always gold, is it not?” With that voice, mingled of hope and doubt, in her ears Sophia remembered an aspect of the Revolution which might well concern her, and went to Daly’s Bank. The bank was shut.

  Gold is always gold. It was extraordinary to see how already a pious respect for property had manifested itself, as though Paris had said, “It is true that yesterday we sacked two palaces, havocked every nest where golden eggs are laid, broke, burned, and plundered. But see how scrupulously we are preserving the ruins.” Wherever she turned Sophia saw pickets and sentinels, cockaded or badged with red, armed and accoutred like comic-opera bandits, but behaving with the utmost decorum. Outside the Tuileries stood several furniture vans, and into these the Polytechnic students were packing pictures, ornaments, chandeliers, wine, and kitchen utensils. On the felled and mangled trees along the boulevards an official hand had scrawled in chalk, Property of the Republic. Citizens, respect it! And when a small handcart passed her, conveying a harmonium, Sophia was not astonished to see that its bearers were accompanied by an escort of two gentlemen, their substantial overcoats girded by sword-belts, red cockades in their top-hats. Indeed, it needed a certain adroitness to avoid incurring an escort for herself, so universal was the helpfulness and good feeling through which she picked her way as she scrambled over barricades or waded through the mud where pavements had been.

  All this behaviour was most sensible, most praiseworthy. Every countenance beamed with goodwill, every official placard breathed peace and respect for property, never in her life had she read such a quantity of elevated adjectives. Nor could therebe any doubt but that this smugness was, for the moment at any rate, perfectly sincere. It was a shock to encounter amidst this respectable hubbub the unchanged indifferent countenance of the river, as though amidst the fuss and clatter of a philanthropic meeting one were to meet a large snake threading its way among the boots and petticoats. However much blood might flow into that river, no tincture, no composition, could possibly result. Blood would not mix with that cold vein of Nature. And leaning on the balustrade, Sophia thought how, through every city, some river flows, bearing its witness against the human delusion, discouraging as the sight of a snake. Only a romantic charlatan, speaking for effect, could pretend, as Minna had done, that the sight of a river could bolster up ideas of liberty. Turn our captivity, O Lord, as the rivers in the South! Turn our metaphors, O Lord, refresh our perorations! And in her fancy Sophia took firm hold of Madame Lemuel, holding her down under that cold tide, keeping her there until, soused and breathless, she had revised her notions about rivers. A silly and dangerous woman. Yes, dangerous, as this moment could prove. For even now, leaning against the balustrade, watching the river which she must presently cross, Sophia found herself thinking how, in setting foot on the Left Bank, she would be entering Minna’s territory. What patent nonsense! The Left Bank was as much great-aunt Léocadie’s territory as Minna’s. But the thought of great-aunt Léocadie would not spread this sensation of excitement through one’s limbs, call out this faint cold sweat of anticipation, knock so heavily on one’s heart.

  The dangerous woman must indeed have endangered her wits, laid some spell on her common sense. Only now did it occur to her that to arrive, without a word of warning, in great-aunt Léocadie’s drawing-room, on the heels of a revolution, would demand rather more pretext than a new bonnet could supply. I came to Paris to extort a child from my husband. That would hardly do; though great-aunt Léocadie would see the force of it, might even approve of the expediency, she could never tolerate the statement. I came to Paris to buy a bonnet. That, on the other hand, was too
feeble an excuse. Bonnet-buying, however necessary, would be preceded by a letter, one did not pounce after bonnets like a hawk or cattle-raider. Some good reasonable reason must be invented, for at all costs Léocadie must be preserved from supposing that the real reason was, I heard that there was a revolution and came to look after you. That unmerited insult must never be suggested, could never be forgiven.

  Sophia was still framing the pretext which might decently wrap her appearance when the thought came that great-aunt Léocadie, so capable of looking after herself in any difficulties, might have treated this revolution as she had done others, turning her back upon it. Perhaps even now she was arriving at Blandamer. That was why she had come in 1830. Mamma had said, “Your poor Aunt Clotilde’s mother is coming to live with us for a little while. We must all be very kind to her, poor old lady. She has had so many sorrows.” And Papa, adding that respect would be quite as much called for as kindness, explained that there had been another deplorable revolution. The King of France had been obliged to fly to England. England was, etc.

  Not even the shades of the guillotine could do much to ennoble the coming shadow of Madame de Saint Gonval. Aunt Clotilde had been a very washy character; she had had a baby, and died, the baby had died too, and Uncle Julius Rathbone had become a disconsolate widower and married again. The mother of a dull dead aunt promised little to the ten-year-old Sophia. She came, and remained for a year. Sophia learned to play picquet, learned to speak French, learned to admire her long legs, learned what it was to love some one of her own sex. Till then she had loved only Papa and animals. To love great-aunt Léocadie demanded the same respectful application as the performance of a difficult piece of piano-music. There must be the same agility, the same watchfulness, the same attention to phrasing and expression-marks, and simultaneously one must sit well upright, keeping the shoulders down, the elbows in, the wrists arched, the knuckles depressed. Moreover, even in the most taxing passages, one must breathe through the nose and preserve a pleasing and unaffected smile. Exercised daily in loving great-aunt Léocadie, Sophia, by the year’s end, loved almost without a flaw in execution and deportment. Never since then had she loved so well; and though with course of time her love for great-aunt Léocadie had been put aside, as one puts aside a piece of piano-music, the well-learned was still with her, she could still play it by heart.