Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  In the midst of a tumult of drums and bugles, salvos of artillery and Communistic cheers, the last vote was cast into the urns, and the Hussars of Death closed in around the polls. The result was a foregone conclusion. Ninety-four members of the Commune were elected, each ward naming members according to its population. Almost without exception all the present members of the Commune were re-elected.

  The miserable city shuddered.

  Next day Landes, sitting in his garden with his sketching easel before him, heard a loud ringing at the outer gate, and presently Joseph came through the ivy-covered alley followed by an officer of the Commune in full uniform. It was Wilton, and Landes rose hastily to meet him.

  “Philip,” he said, refusing with a gesture the proffered seat, “I only came to tell you to look out. My battalion is ordered to the Fort of Issy to-night and a new battalion will replace us here at the barricade in your street. I don’t know who is in command or what the battalion is, but it will be more necessary than ever for you to remain here out of sight because domiciliary visits have begun and Raoul Rigault is filling the prisons.”

  “I hear from Joseph that he has been confirmed as Chief of Police and Procureur-Général of the Commune. Is it so, Wilton?”

  “Oh yes. General Duval insisted. He’s installed in the Préfecture of Police with a gang of his creatures who have nothing to learn in ferocity from Modoc Indians. It’s a shame. Ferré and Henri Verlet are his fellow Public Accusers, Vermersch, Humbert, and Villiaume are his familiars. Sarre and Weser do his dirty work along with that miserable creature, Pilotell.”

  “Pilotell, the caricaturist?”

  “Yes. You know him, — without talent, cowardly and dissipated. He arrested Monsieur Polo, editor of the ‘Eclipse’ yesterday, and Rigault says he will have him shot. As far as I can make out, Monsieur Polo’s crime consists in not having accepted Pilotell’s tenth rate caricatures for his paper. Pilotell boasts that he found three thousand francs on Monsieur Polo which he kept for the ‘Commune.’ Bah! I am getting sick of this Commune!”

  Landes drew him into a seat and spoke earnestly. “Give it up Archie, resign and leave the city. You can’t be mixed up with such a crowd of ruffians as this! Is it too late to get out?”

  “Yes, old chap, I should be shot. I am going out of the city anyway, where I hope we will have some fighting. The Versailles people are threatening the village and Fort of Issy, and, if I’m not mistaken, the music will begin there. I shouldn’t want to miss the fighting, but I’m sick of the Commune as it is here in Paris.”

  He walked the length of the garden once or twice, his head sunk on his breast, his gloved hands clasped nervously behind him. Philip watched him in silence.

  “How is Mademoiselle de Brassac?” said Wilton, abruptly, coming up beside the easel and glancing at the sketch.

  “Well,” replied Philip,—” I must try to find a way to get her to Chartres.”

  “You had better stay here quietly for awhile,” said Wilton. “Is she very impatient to go?”

  “No, she is very patient and reasonable, but of course I know how she feels. It’s no kind of a position for a young girl to be in, cooped up alone with a man—”

  “It might have been worse,” said Wilton, gravely; “she can thank her lucky stars that you are here. Is that a sketch of Mademoiselle de Brassac?”

  “Yes,” said Philip, glancing critically at his canvas; “she was good enough to pose for me on the edge of the fountain there. She went in about half an hour ago to do some sewing. What do you think of the sketch, Archie?”

  “Well, as an officer I should say it is first rate. Remember I have lost my right to criticise you as a brother artist.”

  “Nonsense! — I think that the color is very decent, but it doesn’t compose as well as it might.”

  “It will when you have worked more on the figure. Why don’t you put that cat in?” Landes turned. Tcherka sat staring at them from behind a lilac bush.

  “Perhaps I will,” said Landes, smiling, “only don’t you think her color would rather knock out the scheme?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, you were always a better colorist than I was. I don’t know much about color except in uniforms. How do you like mine?”

  “You asked me that before,” laughed Philip. “I like it, but I must say I don’t care for the dark breeches with that orange-red stripe. The red breeches of the Line are much handsomer I think. The soldiers of the Commune are gotten up rather regardless though.”

  “Oh,” laughed Wilton, “you should see the Polish cavalry and the Hussars of Death. Well, I’m going. Good-bye, old chap.”

  He held out his hand and Landes grasped it. “Good-bye, Archie, I hope you will come out of this all right. Don’t be rash. Imprudence isn’t bravery.”

  “I might say the same to you, old fellow,” said Wilton; “good-bye, and if you should see Ynès—” ‘“I’ll know what to say,” replied Landes. “Take care of yourself.”

  So Archie Wilton of New York City, twenty-one years of age, went away to command a mob of fanatics as dangerous to each other and to their officers as to the enemy; and Landes sat down to resume his sketch.

  As yet he had scarcely covered the canvas, but the effect was charming. On the edge of the low, circular stone basin Jeanne de Brassac was seated, one slender hand resting on the gray stone, the other dipping idly in the water. The background, almost conventionalized, was formed by the white wall of the garden flecked with shadows from the budding lilac bushes. The sketch was redolent of spring-time. Away up in one corner a strip of sky, robin’s-egg-blue, peeped between the almond-tree branches, the warm spring sunlight fell, dappling and spotting the path in the foreground.

  The figure of Jeanne de Brassac, beautifully drawn but not yet modelled, was the incarnation of youth and spring-time. Her bright curly hair was blown across her cheeks, and her eyes, her beautiful violet eyes, were raised with a half-veiled smile which made Philip’s breath come in catches when he looked at them.

  “It’s devilish good, by Jove!” he muttered to himself; “it will compose all right if I light up the path and swing it about a bit. But we won’t drag in the yellow cat,” he added, laughing to himself.

  Tcherka, who had been sharpening her delicate claws on the almond trees, came up to be caressed, and got a dab of crimson on the end of her tail from Philip’s palette.

  “What a nuisance you are,” laughed Landes, “keep your confounded tail out of my paints.” Tcherka started to lick: the color off, but Philip seized her with one hand and, picking up a rag, dipped it in the turpentine and attempted to remove the crimson lake. To his horror the turpentine spread the color half-way up the cat’s tail, dyeing the fur a brilliant crimson, and then, the turpentine reaching the skin, the cat sprang out of his arms with an indignant squall and flew to the top of the wall, where she made enormous eyes at him and switched her gaudy tail in fury.

  “What a shame! Is that how you amuse yourself when I am away, Monsieur?” said a clear, bantering voice behind him, and Jeanne de Brassac stepped to his side and pointed tragically at Tcherka’s brilliant tail.

  “I am very sorry,” said Landes, rising from his easel, “but she insisted on assuming the colors of the Commune. It will wear off in time. I thought you were going to sew?’

  “I have been sewing, and I am tired of it. I came to see what mischief you were engaged in.”

  “You are too late — the cat is a hopeless rebel. Heaven save her from Monsieur Thiers!”

  Jeanne looked up at Tcherka with a sigh. “My poor little Tcherka, my poor abused little pussy,” she said, “come down this minute and see your mistress!”

  But Tcherka turned a deaf ear to all persuasion and presently marched away to a sunny angle on the broad wall where she could survey the garden and keep an eye on the blackbird.

  Jeanne turned and looked at the sketch on the easel.

  “Do you approve?” asked Philip.

  “Very much,” she replied warmly.
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br />   “Then perhaps you will give me another sitting?”

  “When, now?”

  “If you will.”

  She went over to the fountain and sat down on the edge, looking at him over her shoulder with a faint smile. “As many as you wish, Monsieur,” she said.

  “Then I may begin other pictures of you?”

  “If you care to.”

  “Indeed I do!” he cried enthusiastically.

  “Is this the right position?”

  “Yes, — the head was a little more this way, — now — there — that is just right. Are you comfortable?”

  “Perfectly.”

  Then he began to paint, chatting with her and leaning back occasionally to get a glimpse of the ensemble.

  She watched him curiously when he stopped to reset his palette, and followed with her eyes each curling string of color as it coiled up in its place on the porcelain. First came a big blot of silver white, then in the order of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, in tints and shades of wonderful beauty.

  He placed the colors on the canvas with a single, quick, almost nervous touch, and she noticed that he did very little mixing on his palette, but painted in almost pure color, producing the tone he wanted by laying over the fresh color other colors as pure and unmixed.

  He chatted along all the time, and, noticing that she was interested in the mechanical part of the process, explained to her how it was that he had chosen to paint in a manner which would have brought tears of despair to an Academician’s eyes.

  “It’s the sunlight that I am so in love with, the sunlight playing on soft human flesh. You can’t get that by the dark muddy colors of the studio; you need all the hues and colors of the rainbow to form a light which is white and brilliant enough. In the open air shadows are not black, — they are transparent and gray, tinged with the colors of the sky and the surrounding objects. In the studio everything is dull and subdued and pitched in a calm, quiet key. In the open air, especially on a sunny day, the key of nature is pitched very high, and, with all the resources of the most brilliant palettes, we can only parody the limpid light of the sky and the depth of the sunshine. I do not paint as I learned to paint in the schools,” he said, smiling, “and many people think I am crazy on color.”

  “I do not,” replied Jeanne de Brassac, with a quick, sympathetic smile; “I think I understand your work perfectly. To me your color is wonderfully true and beautiful.”

  He glanced up delighted and somewhat astonished.

  “Tell me more about it,” she said.

  The light was still good but waning when Toodles fell into the fountain. He had been having one of his daily interviews with the goldfish. He tried to smell them and got water up his nose. They looked at him fixedly, and slowly sank to the bottom. He found their manner of doing this even more insulting than usual, and, barking wildly, stumbled over the edge and in. After he had been dragged out by Philip and gently slapped by his mistress, he tried to shake himself over the painter and his canvas. Foiled at that he had joyously rolled himself on the gravel-walk, grinding the dirt and sticks into his coat, and had then been picked up by the neck and soused again in the fountain.

  “Come,” said Philip, taking Toodles in one hand and his easel in the other, “the sun is too low for any more work. Shall we go in?”

  Laughing at the drenched puppy dangling limp from Philip’s hand, they ran up the steps into the studio.

  “You are a very bad dog, and will probably die of cold,” said Jeanne, kissing him and planting him before the fire, where he at once flopped over and rolled his eyes.

  Tcherka marched in presently and sat with her illuminated tail tucked under her flank. Joseph came and lighted the lamp, went out again, and, by the time he returned with the dinner, the early March twilight had deepened to a still black starless night.

  “Is there anything more I can do for Mademoiselle?” asked Joseph, when the table was cleared and he stood at the door waiting to say good-night.

  “Nothing, thank you, Joseph,” she replied.

  “Monsieur Philip?”

  “No; is there any news?”

  “No, Monsieur. I renewed my pass for the barricade.”

  “Very well — that is all.”

  “Alors, bon soir, Mademoiselle de Brassac, bon soir, Monsieur Philip, et bien le bon soir,” smiled Joseph, shuffling amiably out of the door.

  “Good-night, Joseph,” they called out together.

  When Joseph’s steps had died away down the alley the quiet seemed even more perfect than usual; neither felt like speaking. Presently Jeanne rose and walked to the great window overlooking the garden, pressing her face against the pane. Philip raised his head from his book and watched her. The fire burned dimly and he stooped to lift a stick across the andirons. A shower of crackling sparks whirled up the chimney, and presently the new log caught fire and blazed up in a sheet of yellow flame, which set the shadows trembling on wall and ceiling. Philip lay back in his chair, closed his book, and stared at the snapping sparks. He was thinking of Jeanne. What a fate had been hers! What had fate in store for her? Would he ever have a chance to cross the river and look for her diamonds in their naïve hiding-place? What a place to put them! — like a child playing Hide the Handkerchief! She was a child — almost. If the pistol had been examined and the contents removed, as was almost certain, then Jeanne de Brassac was nearly penniless. She would have to sell her home in Chartres and live somewhere very modestly. Those old chateaux brought little money when sold in 1871. Few people cared to buy or could afford to buy so soon after the war.

  He thought of his own snug little income, and flushed to realize how useless it must be to her. He remembered bitterly the money he had wasted, money which saved would have bought the Château de Brassac at a fair price. And then! He knew that she could not have accepted it from him in any case. He looked wistfully at her, standing silent with her face against the black window. How slim and young she seemed, how childlike her small head and the soft curve of her cheek.

  Her hands, loosely clasped behind her, gleamed white as marble in the dusk of the extension. He thought of the slender child’s hand as it lay on her mother’s shoulder that Christmas Eve so long ago. Then he thought of Victor, with his lovable nature and splendid talents, his fair hair and dark eyes, his pride and triumph as he cried, “Philip, I have won the Prix de Rome!”

  He turned to the fire with an impatient movement. “It’s only useless fools like me that live forever!” he said to himself. A lonely, desolate feeling had been slowly taking possession of him; blue devils settled down in swarms, and he did not resist.

  “What have I done that is any good?” he mused. “How do I know that I have any talent? I can paint — but my ideas of color may be all wrong.

  How do I know that I’m not making a fool of myself with my theory of light impinging on shadow and my vibrating color fad? And what sort of a man am I? I have no religion, no faith, no morals — if I live decently, it’s fastidiousness, not principle. And who is there in the world to care if I die? If I had a family — but I haven’t. Ellice would care. I’d give all I’m worth to know what has become of Ellice? Yes, he’d care. But he’d be playing billiards the next week. Faustine would care — I don’t want to think of Faustine. Archie Wilton would be sorry, — ten minutes, and Alain de Carette would remember me all his life — if he isn’t lying somewhere with a sabre bayonet in him. What am I snivelling and pitying myself about anyway? I’ve got all I deserve.” He shook himself and stood up with decision.

  “Jeanne,” he called, “isn’t it a bit cold over there in the dark?” She turned toward him, her face flushed, her eyes like violet stars. Then she came and sat down in the arm-chair before the blaze.

  “Don’t be unhappy, Jeanne,” he said almost timidly.

  “I, unhappy?” she asked; “why, I have been thinking how happy I am. I was thinking that I love the studio, Philip.”

  He was so completely
taken by surprise that he sat gazing at her until she laughed out. It was a sweet, innocent, childlike laugh, that chased all the gloom from his heart. His eyes cleared.

  “And you were not standing alone over there feeling terribly downcast?”

  “I was trying to realize that it is less than a fortnight since I came here, I feel as if I had known it all my life. Oh, do you ask me if I am unhappy here? I was taken by force to a dreadful place, insulted, threatened by brutal men, in expectation of death; — then you come and bring me here. It was like heaven when I first came, after those terrible days, — now it is like home.”

  Landes could not answer. He had never imagined anything so delightful as this.

  “There was one thing,” she went on, “that I thought about which was less pleasant.”

  “And that?” he asked anxiously.

  “That was the certainty that you must be bored, shut up so long here with no one to talk to but a girl.”

  “I have never been so happy in my life.”

  “Very well — I believe you for the present. But you will be bored very soon if you are not amused. I shall play to you, Monsieur,” she announced, rising and going to the piano.

  After all she sat so long looking at the keys without touching them that Philip was on the point of speaking when she began to prelude, and then, with a glance over her shoulder, she played the song of the blackbird. Playing by ear seemed a miracle to Landes, and he was very much astonished at what was really a very simple performance.

  ‘Our bird,” she said, with a little laugh. “What else shall I play, Philip?”

  “Play as you have been playing,” he said in a low voice.

  Her eyes questioned his an instant. “I understand,” she murmured.

  Under her touch the chords began to swell and sway like the waves of a tossing ocean. He heard the surf curling among the rocks, he heard the wind blowing over leagues of moorland, and then, as the wind died away, some strange sea-bird uttered a note, wild and monotonous.

  He heard rain falling on a vast grassy plain, dripping ceaselessly into the soft earth, or splashing on the bosom of shallow lakes. He heard a brook, hidden at first in subterranean depths, tinkling among rocks, welling up from the earth through bubbling spring pools, chattering away over pebbly reaches toward an ocean whose dull roar came from a distance.