The Rainbow Bridge

by Aubrey Flegg

  ‘Monsieur?’ she queried. Lucien’s jump was so violent that she started too, accidentally spilling some of her precious peas.

  ‘Oh, pardon, Mademoiselle… Je cherche Mademoiselle Margot?”

  ‘Margot est dans la cuisine,’ she said, indicating the door leading to the kitchen. He bowed nervously, thanked her, braced himself, and then proceeded with caution into the house. Colette wanted to see what would happen, but there were the peas to be picked up. She was still on her hands and knees when she heard the clatter of approaching hooves. Before she could rise, the noise reached a crescendo and a carriage hurtled through the arch into the yard, the coachman hauling back on the reins, and the horses’ shoes knocking sparks from the cobblestones. Almost before it had stopped, the carriage door flew open and a man emerged from its dark interior; he must have had the blinds drawn. He was wearing a wig and was dressed in an embroidered frock coat. Colette started up; here was someone who was prepared to take the risk of dressing in the clothes of an aristocrat.

  ‘Bar the gates!’ he shouted, as he threw the coat and the wig into the carriage. ‘I’ll hold the horses.’ The coachman hurried to close the gates; they were seldom used and protested loudly. Colette stared at the gentleman. He was a man of about forty but of athletic build, and he held the horses competently. He saw her as she stood up, clutching her rescued peas. For a moment their eyes met. His sparked with interest, but his immediate concerns came first. ‘You … maid. I need trousers – any trousers – working trousers, not these damned culottes.’ He waved down at his breeches. Colette, familiar with the voices and ways of the aristocracy, recognised the new arrival as the Count du Bois, but why this call for trousers? Colette rather liked being mistaken for a maid, so she bobbed him a curtsy in her best chambermaid imitation before turning towards the door. As she walked down the short passage that led into the kitchen, a burst of Margot’s richest invective exploded ahead of her, and her peas were nearly sent flying for a second time as Lucien, desperately protecting his stomach, backed into her. Margot, in a fit of righteous fury, was charging at him with her broom handle. Colette could only retreat ahead of them.

  ‘Oooof, my stomach! Margot, ma chérie… I have a letter… it’s urgent.’

  ‘So it wasn’t me you came to see – you hypocrite!’ They were all in the open now, where Margot could raise the broom above her head. As Lucien turned to run he saw Colette standing nearby.

  ‘Mam’selle,’ he shouted at her. ‘Excusez-moi… take this, it’s urgent, it’s for Monsieur Mort–’ His instructions were cut short as Margot’s broom handle came down with a crack across his shoulders and the note went flying.

  ‘What the hell’s going on over there? And where in the name of God are those trousers!’ Margot and Lucien, recognising the voice of authority, swivelled as one, frozen in mid-battle, and stared at the irate aristocrat. It was time for Colette to leave; she picked up Lucien’s note, dropped it into her bowl, and ran for the kitchen, where she almost bumped into Madame Morteau.

  ‘Where are you going, Colette – and where is la Margot?’ For one wonderful moment, Colette felt like throwing the bowl – peas, letter and all – over her benefactor, but Madame had her own authority. Colette controlled herself. She needed to think fast; she mustn’t get Margot into trouble. Then she remembered the Count and his demand for clothes.

  ‘Madame … it is the Count … he has no trousers!’ she exclaimed. If Colette had wanted to stop Madame Morteau in her tracks, she could not have arranged it better. For the first time ever she saw her benefactor at a complete loss for words. She even groped for a chair and sat down.

  ‘The Count … has arrived?’

  ‘Oui, Madame.’

  ‘And he has no trousers?’

  ‘Oui, Madame… non, Madame. He has asked me to get some for him.’

  ‘What then is he wearing?

  ‘Culottes, Madame.’ To Colette’s amazement a flicker of amusement crossed the stern face.

  ‘Well, thank God for that. To have found you in the company of two trouserless men in one day would have been too much.’ She was smiling now. She held up a hand. ‘Come, my dear, give me a kiss.’ Amazed and pleased, Colette kissed the upturned cheek. ‘Gaston has explained what happened earlier, but now we have work to do. First we must find out why the Count needs trousers.’ At that moment there was a clatter of wooden-soled sabots in the passage and Margot burst into the kitchen; the brief moment of harmony was gone.

  ‘Au secours! Help, Madame! Madame, there is a mob! They are coming for us. We can’t escape.’ Margot looked around the room frantically, as if searching for somewhere to hide.

  ‘Calm down, Margot. Now, tell me, who is coming for us? What do they want?’

  ‘It’s the mob, Madame; they are demanding blood.’ Margot rolled her eyeballs so that only the whites showed. Colette felt sick. Her legs gave way and she fell into a chair where she sat, curled up and shaking, as waves of terror swept over her. She could hear the noises from outside now, angry voices raised in disharmony. How could she have mistaken it for the sound of the sea? She dared not close her eyes in case she let in the contorted faces of her dreams. But she sensed when the Count came in – his kind disturbed the air. Madame took control, sending Margot off to get trousers. Where was Monsieur Morteau, she fumed? Why was he never there when there was a crisis? Hazily, Colette recalled the letter that Lucien had been so anxious to deliver. What had she done with it? Fighting back another wave of terror, she remembered, and reached for it from on top of the peas.

  ‘Madame,’ she whispered, holding up the note. ‘This was brought up by Lucien from the mill. I believe it’s for Monsieur–’ A hand reached over her shoulder and snatched the note. From the strong scent of pomade she guessed it was the Count.

  ‘Show me that!’ He scanned the note quickly. ‘Sacré Dieu! Damn it! It’s that damned miller, Brouchard; he is threatening me. He calls me a viper! Confound the man. If I had brought a sword …’

  ‘Non … non … non … swords make for bad pruning,’ said Monsieur Morteau, who had come in quietly and was stepping out of his shoes at the door. He offered the Count his hand.

  ‘Alors, bonjour Monsieur le Comte,’ he said, greeting the Count as he fished in his pocket for his glasses. ‘Now, let me see this threatening letter.’

  While his vigneron read, the Count paced and turned, jabbing at the note each time he passed. ‘He says I’m a snake in the grass and demands me to declare my patriotism. I’ll have his mill off him for this!’

  Monsieur Morteau held up a hand for silence and began to read aloud:

  For the attention of the Count du Bois.

  Citoyen … As chairman of the Revolutionary Committee it is my duty to identify and expose such vipers as pose a threat to our community, and then either destroy them or draw out their poison. At the moment of your arrival it appears that just such a viper has appeared in our midst.

  ‘You see, he means me!’ snapped the Count. ‘The damned cheek – a viper!’

  Monsieur Morteau raised his hand again. ‘We should not be too hasty. Perhaps he was afraid that this note might be intercepted. I think it is a warning, not a threat. As Brouchard would say, “look at the flour between the grains.”’

  ‘Well, it sounds like a threat to me,’ the Count blustered.

  Monsieur Morteau read on:

  Today the citizens gathered for the Summer Festival will march on the winery. You will hear many voices and many demands. I order you not to try, under any circumstances, to buy safety for yourself by offering bribes of land. Neither should you yield to the temptation to curry favour by bribing the people with wine from your cellars.

  ‘What rubbish! I’d shoot the lot of them before I did that; where are my pistols?’

  ‘My dear Count, that is precisely what Brouchard is warning you against. Listen to what he says:

  You must realise that it is not your wine but your blood that stands at issue. If you value your lives you will aw
ait my command and then declare your patriotism, speaking out for the Revolution and for France.

  Yours etc, Jean Brouchard.

  ‘He means that the viper is out there?’ The Count asked. There was a surge of shouting outside.

  ‘Precisely, Monsieur le Comte. Listen to them, I think we should go and do what he says. We are all in danger.’

  ‘I still don’t like being ordered around by my miller,’ protested the Count.

  At that moment Gaston spoke from near the door. ‘My father is right, we had better go,’ he said. ‘They will force their way in if we don’t.’

  They stood immobilised, not by Gaston’s words, but by his appearance. To Colette it was as if a peacock had suddenly spread its tail. Even in the relative dark of the room, he glowed, a glorious splash of colour. His trousers were cherry-red, his dolman blue and silver, colours that were repeated in his pelisse, and the shako, which he carried under his arm. His sabre hung low against his sabretache, trailing the ground. Colette blinked.

  ‘Come on, everybody out onto the steps,’ the Count ordered, taking command again, hitching his borrowed trousers and busily hiding the lace of his cuffs by rolling up his sleeves. ‘I’ll give them patriotism!’ His hair was short and spiked from the effects of wearing a wig but there was no hiding his authority. As he strode towards the door he grabbed a bottle of wine and a glass from the table, and thrust them into Gaston’s hands. Colette followed them in a daze, her feet obeying where her mind failed. There was a howl of derision as the Count led the way out of the door onto the three broad steps before the house. Colette would have turned back if Gaston had not put an arm reassuringly across her shoulders. As the family mustered behind the Count, Gaston moved forward to stand beside him.

  ‘Hurrah for the toy soldier!’ someone shouted. Colette, unable to look at the mob, fixed her attention on Gaston’s back. Her mind oddly detached, she counted the bands of braid on his back while the leader of the crowd raved. His words meant nothing to her but there was something in their tone that intrigued her. Then she understood; this was how she would have sounded if she had succeeded in using Margot’s vulgar language this morning. The man was trying to sound common, but he was no commoner. The crowd was getting bored with his ranting; a coarse voice started calling for wine, and others took up the call. Suddenly a louder voice cut through the clamour.

  ‘Declare yourself, Citizen. Are you a traitor or are you not?’

  ‘It’s Brouchard, my miller. Damn him!’ Colette heard the Count exclaim. Even the rabble was impressed at the miller addressing his own overlord like this. If the Count had difficulty in swallowing his pride, he didn’t show it. On cue, he took a step forward and threw up his arms. He had a deep voice, a strong voice, and he knew how to use it. He also had centuries of authority behind him, just as the listeners, many of them his tenants and labourers, had centuries of subservience. As he spoke, his voice swelled and what he had to say quelled their clamour. He told them about the Prussian invasion that, at that very moment, was taking place on French soil.

  ‘And you,’ he said, ‘you have the audacity to stand there calling for wine!’ He turned to Gaston, who handed him the glass and then filled it to the brim. The Count raised the glass high in front of him. The mob stared up at him, mouths open, as if anticipating some pagan sacrifice.

  ‘This, my comrades, is the blood of Frenchmen. This is the blood of France that at this very minute is being spilled for you and for your country.’ He tipped the glass and after the first splash, let a slow thin stream of wine, red as blood, curve from the rim to spatter on the stone steps at his feet. ‘And what are you doing for France, what are you doing for the Revolution at this time of danger? I tell you, you are clamouring for wine so that you can wallow in it like pigs until you are insensible.’ With that, the Count dashed the last of the wine at their feet. He handed the empty glass to Gaston who stepped to one side and put it and the bottle down.

  Exposed by Gaston’s sudden move, Colette found herself looking out over the mob, her eyes blurred in denial. The mass swayed like headland corn in a breeze, a motley of fuzzy colours. Here and there were bright splashes of poppy red, the bonnets rouges, the caps worn by the Jacobins. Instinct told her that the day still hung in the balance. This was no benign field of corn she was seeing, it was a mob; at a nod it could advance and sweep them all off the steps. She could sense their energy building again, like a dammed stream ready to break its banks. Poor Father, she thought. Is this how he had felt? She wanted to close her eyes, but now Gaston had stepped forward. She stretched out feebly to stop him. He had been so proud of his new cadet’s uniform, and now it and he were going to be torn apart.

  Brouchard’s deep voice rang out again. ‘Come on, Toy Soldier. Tell us who you will be fighting for.’

  Colette’s eyes were riveted on Gaston. The shout was all the encouragement he needed. His head came up, he forced his shoulders back, and the boy became a man. He swept his arms wide, as if he wanted to gather the whole company together as one.

  ‘Allons, enfants de la Patrie! Come, children of the Nation.’ He shouted. ‘I will tell you who I will fight for!’ A tingle of excitement ran down Colette’s spine. She could feel the fine hairs on the outside of her arms beginning to rise. Then Gaston began to sing, and she heard for the first time the words of the tune he had been trying to remember all morning. His was a young voice, strong and true, and there was a passion behind it that moved them all.

  ‘Allons, enfants de la Patrie! Le jour de gloire est arrivé …’

  Gaston, head back, called on the children of the nation, telling them that their day of glory had arrived, and Colette’s heart swelled till it nearly burst.

  Her fears dissolved and she dared to look down at the mob … but where was the mob? The amorphous, threatening mass had dissolved. These were just ordinary country folk. Among the upturned faces she saw villagers that she knew by sight. Each and every one of them seemed to be reaching up to draw the song down into themselves. There was Nicole from the Boulangerie, and Jean and Luc, two friends who were employed in the winery. That red flag was none other than George Chélon, the blacksmith, delightedly waving his bonnet rouge on the end of a pike – the only weapon in sight. Now the tune was changing to the last glorious lines:

  ‘Aux armes, Citoyens! Formez vos bataillons!

  Marchons, marchons!…’

  Gaston had won their hearts. Grown men mopped their eyes as the boy soldier sang the song through again; they were already mouthing the words, groping to follow the tune. ‘Let us march, let’s march …’ they wanted it yet again, but Gaston knew when to stop. There was a hesitation, and then a cheer rang out.

  ‘Vive la France… Vive la République… Vive notre petit Hussar!’ roared Jean Brouchard, and the whole crowd joined in. Gaston, laughing and blushing, saluted them and, turning to go back into the house, came face to face with Colette. For one long moment their eyes were locked in pure shared happiness, a look that struck deep into both of them. Colette would remember it and treasure it. Gaston would not. In a few hours he would set out into the world to prove himself as a man and as a hussar. He would put away childish things; his romance now was with France. But unknown to him, a tiny shard of that shared moment would remain, lodged deep inside him, where it would act like the grain of sand that provokes an oyster to make a pearl.

  Not surprisingly, both the celebratory dinner and Gaston’s departure had been delayed. But Gaston was in no hurry, as he planned to spend the night with a friend and had only a few miles to travel. The Count left as soon as dinner was over, saying that he had to see Jean Brouchard. After his departure Colette began to feel more and more of an outsider. This was a time when the family would want to be on their own. So she took a basket, bid Gaston a formal farewell and announced that she was going up to see if the mulberries were ripe. Gaston, who knew the tree, looked up from the saddlebag he was buckling and said that he would wave to her as he passed.

  The August
sun shed its heat and sank slowly into the western haze, growing huge as it did so. At the edge of the vineyard, under the gnarled and ancient mulberry tree that looked down on the road that Gaston would take, Colette sat waiting.

  In the winery the moment of departure came; Gaston kissed his parents an emotional goodbye and swung himself unsteadily into his saddle. Father had opened his 1789 vintage and Gaston was in a pleasant daze. ‘Allons, enfants de la Patrie!’ he sang as he rode north.

  He never looked up.

  The Count called at the mill, ostensibly to thank M. Brouchard for the note he had sent, but really to find out what direction the Jacobin had taken once the riot had broken up. Having established that the man had left, on foot, and was heading south, he laughed and said he was going that way himself and would give him a piece of his mind if he saw him. Working on a hunch, he sat up on the box beside his coachman, looking left and right for anywhere that a coach might have been driven off the road. He guessed that the man was not used to walking in sabots, and was soon proved correct. Tracks showed where a coach and horses had drawn off into the shade of a large oak tree. Leaving his carriage on the road, the Count walked over and found his recent adversary sitting on the coach step, massaging his feet.

  ‘Don’t get up,’ said the Count pleasantly. ‘I know, those sabots are damned uncomfortable.’ He bowed. ‘Count du Bois at your service, Citoyen. Or is it “Comte” perhaps? Or “Duc”?’ He held up a hand. ‘No, don’t apologise. It is just that I have a feeling that we have certain things in common. Perhaps I can learn from you. Perhaps you also can learn a little from me. Would we be more comfortable, do you think, if we sat in the privacy of your coach?’