“Oh, how beautiful,” she said, softly. “Am I to read this in the square?”
“I will give you a franc to read it, Jacqueline.”
“No, no — only — oh, do let me come in and see the heavenly wonders! Would you, monsieur? I — I cannot pay — but would — could you let me come in? I will read your notice, anyway,” she added, with a quaver in her voice.
The flushed face, the eager, upturned eyes, deep blue as the sea, the little hands clutching the show-bill, which fairly quivered between the tanned fingers — all these touched and amused me. The child was mad with excitement.
What she anticipated, Heaven only knows. Shabby and tarnished as we were, the language of our hand-bills made up in gaudiness for the dingy reality.
“Come whenever you like, Jacqueline,” I said. “Ask for me at the gate.”
“And who are you, monsieur?”
“My name is Scarlett.”
“Scarlett,” she whispered, as though naming a sacred thing.
The mayor, who had toddled some distance ahead of us, now halted in the square, looking back at us through the red evening light.
“Jacqueline, the drum is in my house. I’ll lend you a pair of sabots, too. Come, hasten little idler!”
We entered the mayor’s garden, where the flowers were glowing in the lustre of the setting sun. I sat down in a chair; Jacqueline waited, hands resting on her hips, small, shapely toes restlessly brushing the grass.
“Truly this coming wonder-show will be a peep into paradise,” she murmured. “Can all be true — really true as it is printed here in this bill — I wonder—”
Before she had time to speculate further, the mayor reappeared with drum and drum-sticks in one hand and a pair of sabots in the other. He flung the sabots on the grass, and Jacqueline, quite docile now, slipped both bare feet into them.
“You may keep them,” said the mayor, puffing out his mottled cheeks benevolently; “decency must be maintained in Paradise, even if it beggars me.”
“Thank you,” said Jacqueline, sweetly, slinging the drum across her hip and tightening the cords. She clicked the ebony sticks, touched the tightly drawn parchment, sounding it with delicate fingers, then looked up at the mayor for further orders.
“Go, my child,” said the mayor, amiably, and Jacqueline marched through the garden out into the square by the fountain, drum-sticks clutched in one tanned fist, the scrolls of paper in the other.
In the centre of the square she stood a moment, looking around, then raised the drum-sticks; there came a click, a flash of metal, and the quiet square echoed with the startling outcrash. Back from roof and wall bounded the echoes; the stony pavement rang with the racket. Already a knot of people had gathered around her; others came swiftly to windows and doorsteps; the loungers left their stone benches by the river, the maids of Paradise flocked from the bridge. Even Robert the Lizard drew in his dripping line to listen. The drum-roll ceased.
“Attention! Men of Finistère! By order of the governor of Lorient, all men between the ages of twenty and forty, otherwise not exempt, are ordered to report at the navy-yard barracks, war-port of Lorient, on the 5th of November of the present year, to join the army of the Loire.
“Whosoever is absent at roll-call will be liable to the punishment provided for such delinquents under the laws governing the state of siege now declared in Morbihan and Finistère. Citizens, to arms!
“The enemy is on the march! Though Metz has fallen through treachery, Paris holds firm! Let the provinces rise and hurl the invader from the soil of the mother-land!
“Bretons! France calls! Answer with your ancient battle-cry, ‘Sainte-Anne! Sainte-Anne!’ The eyes of the world are on Armorica! To arms!”
The girl’s voice ceased; a dead silence reigned in the square. The men looked at one another stupidly; a woman began to whimper.
“The curse is on Paradise!” cried a hoarse voice.
The drummer was already drawing another paper from her ragged pocket, and again in the same clear, emotionless voice, but slightly drawling her words, she read:
“To the good people of Paradise! The manager of the famous American travelling circus, lately returned from a tour of the northern provinces, with camels, elephants, lions, and a magnificent company of artists, announces a stupendous exhibition to be held in Lorient at greatly reduced prices, thus enabling the intelligent and appreciative people of Paradise to honor the Republican Circus, recently known as the Imperial Circus, with their benevolent and discerning patronage! Long live France! Long live the Republic! Long live the Circus!”
A resounding roll of the drum ended the announcements; the girl slung the drum over her shoulder, turned to the right, and passed over the stone bridge, sabots clicking. Presently from the hamlet of Alincourt over the stream came the dull roll of the drum again and the faint, clear voice:
“Attention! Men of Finistère! By order of the governor of Lorient, all men—” The wind changed and her voice died away among the trees. 178
The maids of Paradise were weeping now by the fountain; the men gathered near, and their slow, hushed voices scarcely rose above the ripple of the stream where Robert the Lizard fished in silence.
It was after sunset before Jacqueline finished her rounds. She had read her proclamation in Alincourt hamlet, she had read it in Sainte-Ysole, her drum had aroused the inert loungers on the breakwater at Trinité-on-Sea. Now, with her drum on her shoulder and her sabots swinging in her left hand, she came down the cliffs beside the Chapel of Our Lady of Paradise, excited and expectant.
Of the first proclamation which she had read she apparently understood little. When she announced the great disaster at Metz in the north, and when her passionless young voice proclaimed the levée en masse — the call to arms for the men of the coast from Sainte-Ysole to Trinité Beacon — she scarcely seemed to realize what it meant, although all around her women turned away sobbing, or clung, deathly white, to sons and husbands.
But there was certainly something in the other proclamation which thrilled her and set her heart galloping as she loitered on the cliff.
I walked across to the Quimperlé road and met her, dancing along with her drum; and she promptly confided her longings and desires to me as we stood together for an instant on the high-road. The circus! Once, it appeared, she had seen — very far off — a glittering creature turning on a trapeze. It was at the fair near Bannalec, and it was so long ago that she scarcely remembered anything except that somebody had pulled her away while she stood enchanted, and the flashing light of fairyland had been forever shut from her eyes.
At times, when the maids of Paradise were sociable at the well in the square, she had listened to stories of the splendid circus which came once to Lorient. And now it was coming again!
We stood in the middle of the high-road looking through the dust haze, she doubtless dreaming of the splendors to come, I very, very tired. The curtain of golden dust reddened in the west; the afterglow lit up the sky once more with brilliant little clouds suspended from mid-zenith. The moorland wind rose and tossed her elf-locks in her eyes and whipped her skirt till the rags fluttered above her smooth, bare knees.
Suddenly, straight out of the flaming gates of the sunset, the miracle was wrought. Celestial shapes in gold and purple rose up in the gilded dust, chariots of silver, milk-white horses plumed with fire.
Breathless, she shrank back among the weeds, one hand pressed to her throbbing throat. But the vision grew as she stared; there was heavenly music, too, and the clank of metal chains, and the smothered pounding of hoofs. Then she caught sight of something through the dust that filled her with a delicious terror, and she cried out. For there, uptowering in the haze, came trudging a great, gray creature, a fearsome, swaying thing in crimson trappings, flapping huge ears. It shuffled past, swinging a dusty trunk; the sparkling horsemen cantered by, tin armor blazing in the fading glory; the chariots dragged after, and the closed dens of beasts rolled behind in single file, follow
ed by the band-wagon, where Heaven-inspired musicians played frantically and a white-faced clown balanced his hat on a stick and shrieked.
So the circus passed into Paradise; and I turned and followed in the wake of dust, stale odors, and clamorous discord, sick at heart of wandering over a world I had not found too kind.
And at my heels stole Jacqueline.
XI
IN CAMP
We went into camp under the landward glacis of the cliffs, in a field of clover which was to be ploughed under in a few days. We all were there except Kelly Eyre, who had gone to telegraph the governor of Lorient for permission to enter the port with the circus. Another messenger also left camp on private business for me.
It was part of my duty to ration the hay for the elephant and the thrice-accursed camel. The latter had just bitten Mr. Grigg, our clown — not severely — and Speed and Horan the “Strong Man” were hobbling the brute as I finished feeding my lions and came up to assist the others.
“Watch that darn elephant, too, Mr. Grigg,” said Byram, looking up from a plate of fried ham that Miss Crystal, our “Trapeze Lady,” had just cooked for him over our gypsy fires of driftwood.
“Look at that elephant! Look at him!” continued Byram, with a trace of animation lighting up his careworn face— “look at him now chuckin’ hay over his back. Scrape it up, Mr. Scarlett; hay’s thirty a ton in this war-starved country.”
As I started to clean up the precious hay, the elephant gave a curious grunt and swung his trunk toward me.
“There’s somethin’ paltry about that elephant,” said Byram, in a complaining voice, rising, with plate of ham in one hand, fork in the other. “He’s gittin’ as mean as that crafty camuel. Make him move, Mr. Speed, or he’ll put his foot on the trombone.”
“Hô Djebe! Mâil!” said Speed, sharply.
The elephant obediently shuffled forward; Byram sat down again, and wearily cut himself a bit of fried ham; and presently we were all sitting around the long camp-table in the glare of two smoky petroleum torches, eating our bread and ham and potatoes and drinking Breton cider, a jug of which Mr. Horan had purchased for a few coppers.
Some among us were too tired to eat, many too tired for conversation, yet, from habit we fell into small talk concerning the circus, the animals, the prospects of better days.
The ladies of the company, whatever quarrels they indulged in among themselves, stood loyally by Byram in his anxiety and need. Miss Crystal and Miss Delany displayed edifying optimism; Mrs. Horan refrained from nagging; Mrs. Grigg, a pretty little creature, who was one of the best equestriennes I ever saw, declared that we were living too well and that a little dieting wouldn’t hurt anybody.
McCadger, our band-master, came over from the other fire to say that the men had finished grooming the horses, and would I inspect the picket-line, as Kelly Eyre was still absent.
When I returned, the ladies had retired to their blankets under their shelter-tent; poor little Grigg lay asleep at the table, his tired, ugly head resting among the unwashed tin plates; Speed sprawled in his chair, smoking a short pipe; Byram sat all hunched up, his head sunk, eyes vacantly following the movements of two men who were washing dishes in the flickering torch-light. 182
He looked up at me, saying: “I guess Mr. Speed is right. Them lions o’ yourn is fed too much horse-meat. Overeatin’ is overheatin’; we’ve got to give ’em beef or they’ll be clawin’ you. Yes, sir, they’re all het up. Hear ’em growl!”
“That’s a fable, governor,” I said, smiling and dropping into a chair. “I’ve heard that theory before, but it isn’t true.”
“The trouble with your lions is that you play with them too much and they’re losing respect for you,” said Speed, drowsily.
“The trouble with my lions,” said I, “is that they were born in captivity. Give me a wild lion, caught on his native heath, and I’ll know what to expect from him when I tame him. But no man on earth can tell what a lion born in captivity will do.”
The hard cider had cheered Byram a little; he drew a cherished cigar from his vest-pocket, offered it to me, and when I considerately refused, he carefully set it alight with a splinter from the fire. Its odor was indescribable.
“Luck’s a curious phenomena, ain’t it, Mr. Scarlett?” he said.
I agreed with him.
“Luck,” continued Byram, waving his cigar toward the four quarters of the globe, “is the rich man’s slave an’ the poor man’s tyrant. It’s also a see-saw. When the devil plays in luck the cherubim git spanked — or words to that effec’ — not meanin’ no profanity.”
“It’s about like that, governor,” admitted Speed, lazily.
Byram leaned back and sucked meditatively at his cigar. The new moon was just rising over the elephant’s hindquarters, and the poetry of the incident appeared to move the manager profoundly. He turned and surveyed the dim bivouac, the two silent tents, the monstrous, shadowy bulk of the elephant, rocking monotonously against the sky. “Kind of Silurian an’ solemn, ain’t it,” he murmured, “the moon shinin’ onto the rump of that primeval pachyderm. It’s like the dark ages of the behemoth an’ the cony. I tell you, gentlemen, when them fearsome an’ gigantic mamuels was aboundin’ in the dawn of creation, the public missed the greatest show on earth — by a few million years!”
We nodded sleepily but gravely.
Byram appeared to have recovered something of his buoyancy and native optimism.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “let’s kinder saunter over to the inn and have a night-cap with Kelly Eyre.”
This unusual and expensive suggestion startled us wide awake, but we were only too glad to acquiesce in anything which tended to raise his spirits or ours. Dog tired but smiling we rose; Byram, in his shirt-sleeves and suspenders, wearing his silk hat on the back of his head, led the way, fanning his perspiring face with a red-and-yellow bandanna.
“Luck,” said Byram, waving his cigar toward the new moon, “is bound to turn one way or t’other — like my camuel. Sometimes, resemblin’ the camuel, luck will turn on you. Look out it don’t bite you. I once made up a piece about luck:
“‘Don’t buck
Bad luck
Or you’ll get stuck—’
I disremember the rest, but it went on to say a few other words to that effec’.”
The lighted door of the inn hung ajar as we crossed the star-lit square; Byram entered and stood a moment in the doorway, stroking his chin. “Bong joor the company!” he said, lifting his battered hat. 184
The few Bretons in the wine-room returned his civility; he glanced about and his eye fell on Kelly Eyre, Speed’s assistant balloonist, seated by the window with Horan.
“Well, gents,” said Byram, hopefully, “an’ what aire the prospects of smilin’ fortune when rosy-fingered dawn has came again to kiss us back to life?”
“Rotten,” said Eyre, pushing a telegram across the oak table.
Byram’s face fell; he picked up the telegram and fumbled in his coat for his spectacles with unsteady hand.
“Let me read it, governor,” said Speed, and took the blue paper from Byram’s unresisting, stubby fingers.
“O-ho!” he muttered, scanning the message; “well — well, it’s not so bad as all that—” He turned abruptly on Kelly Eyre— “What the devil are you scaring the governor for?”
“Well, he’s got to be told — I didn’t mean to worry him,” said Eyre, stammering, ashamed of his thoughtlessness.
“Now see here, governor,” said Speed, “let’s all have a drink first. Hé ma belle!” — to the big Breton girl knitting in the corner— “four little swallows of eau-de-vie, if you please! Ah, thank you, I knew you were from Bannalec, where all the girls are as clever as they are pretty! Come, governor, touch glasses! There is no circus but the circus, and Byram is it’s prophet! Drink, gentlemen!”
But his forced gayety was ominous; we scarcely tasted the liqueur. Byram wiped his brow and squared his bent shoulders. Speed, elbows on the
table, sat musing and twirling his half-empty glass.
“Well, sir?” said Byram, in a low voice.
“Well, governor? Oh — er — the telegram?” asked Speed, like a man fighting for time. 185
“Yes, the telegram,” said Byram, patiently.
“Well, you see they have just heard of the terrible smash-up in the north, governor. Metz has surrendered with Bazaine’s entire army. And they’re naturally frightened at Lorient.... And I rather fear that the Germans are on their way toward the coast.... And ... well ... they won’t let us pass the Lorient fortifications.”
“Won’t let us in?” cried Byram, hoarsely.
“I’m afraid not, governor.”
Byram stared at us. We had counted on Lorient to pull us through as far as the frontier.
“Now don’t take it so hard, governor,” said Kelly Eyre; “I was frightened myself, at first, but I’m ashamed of it now. We’ll pull through, anyhow.”
“Certainly,” said Speed, cheerily, “we’ll just lay up here for a few days and economize. Why can’t we try one performance here, Scarlett?”
“We can,” said I. “We’ll drum up the whole district from Pontivy to Auray and from Penmarch Point to Plouharnel! Why should the Breton peasantry not come? Don’t they walk miles to the Pardons?”
A gray pallor settled on Byram’s sunken face; with it came a certain dignity which sorrow sometimes brings even to men like him.
“Young gentlemen,” he said, “I’m obliged to you. These here reverses come to everybody, I guess. The Lord knows best; but if He’ll just lemme run my show a leetle longer, I’ll pay my debts an’ say, ‘Thy will be done, amen!’”
“We all must learn to say that, anyway,” said Speed.
“Mebbe,” muttered Byram, “but I must pay my debts.”
After a painful silence he rose, steadying himself with his hand on Eyre’s broad shoulder, and shambled out across the square, muttering something about his elephant and his camuel.
Speed paid the insignificant bill, emptied his glass, and nodded at me.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 182
