Authors: Marjorie Bowen
But when he reached the foot of the stone stairway that led to the terrace he met the second visitor, a little girl wearing a pale blue cloak and a wide straw hat tied under her chin. She said in French (which he knew as well as his own language):
‘Oh, you are Edward? Madame said I would find you here.’
She gave him her hand and the boy put it on his own and kissed the fingers as he had seen his father and Mr. Ogilvie do when presented to ladies.
‘What would you like to do, Mademoiselle?’ he asked.
The child reflected a second.
‘I was told that we might go and pick some peaches, but I — I prefer nectarines.’
‘We have some nectarines, too,’ he replied. ‘Come with me before it gets too dark for me to see which are the ripest.’
She put her hand through his arm, and with an engaging air of confidence walked beside him through the gloom. They reached the long, deep, pink-coloured brick wall of the fruit gardens where pears, nectarines, peaches and apples in espalier were nailed, facing southwards. The fruit was warm and luscious behind the curling leaves protected by fine net.
‘Will you have a nectarine or a yellow plum? Or one of these pears which I don’t know the name of, but which are supposed to be very rare?’
‘I would like a nectarine, please.’ He stepped across the border which was set with tufts of basil, thyme and rosemary and putting his hand under the net he picked one, two, three, and placed them in the folded arms of the little girl.
‘What is your name, Mademoiselle?’
‘Louise.’
She fingered the fruit curiously, delicately. ‘They are quite warm from the sun.’ She offered him one and they ate silently.
Edward felt in complete sympathy with her, he longed to tell her all his most secret thoughts, even about the Negro on the tapestry in the Orangery. He looked at her very keenly. Young as she was she had much character in her face, and at the corner of her mouth was a small brown mole.
She was a very serious little girl, but not in the least timid or shy. She began to talk of herself, how she was being taught to embroider and to play the harp. She was often in Paris, but liked the country, where she had a pony, better. When she grew up she meant to have a cabriolet with a white horse.
Then she listened with interest while the boy told her of himself, of his lessons with Mr. Ogilvie whom he loved so much, his desire to become a soldier, of his brothers and sisters.
They turned slowly back towards the house, and as they neared the terrace they heard a voice call:
‘Louise. Louise.’
‘It is my mother. It is time I went. Some day you must come and see us. We too have a garden and I would like to show you our still-room. I am allowed to make things there myself sometimes. Comfits, you know, from violets and rose petals. You put them in the hot sugar —’
‘Louise, Louise,’ came the voice of her mother.
‘Oh, don’t go,’ implored the boy, ‘please stay, there is so much I want to ask you. When shall I see you again?’
She shook her head with a child’s vagueness.
‘Soon,’ he insisted.
‘Oh, yes. I like you very much. I must come again soon.’ Then she turned, and obedient to the insistent call, ran away. He saw her little figure in the blue cloak pass rapidly up the steps to the terrace and then become lost behind the balustrade and the vases of flowers.
She had gone.
He found the large rooms with the windows open on to the terrace empty except for the servants who were lighting the candles in the girandoles before the mirror and on the side tables. Presently his mother came into the room. He did not speak to her about Louise, because of some deep reserve that he did not himself understand. He did not ask where she had gone, or what was her name, or if she might come back again, although he wanted to know these things.
His mother kissed him and told him that it would soon be time for his bed. Mr. Ogilvie came in and stood by the bookshelf, turning over a volume with his long fingers. The child watched the gleaming table being set with silver, blue and white china, glasses that had a gilt line round the rim, and napkins of shining linen with an edge of thick lace. Some one sang outside, quite a distance away, but the voice came clearly through the open window into the silent company.
‘Mother, what song is that?’
‘It is an Irish sing; do you like it?’
‘What is the name of it?’
‘Oh, it is just some ballad, dear, that the peasants sing.’
‘You are not Irish, are you?’
‘No, Neddy, darling, I’m English.’
‘And Mr. Ogilvie isn’t Irish?’
‘No, sweetheart, he is Scotch.’
‘And I?’
‘Oh, you are Irish.’
‘I see. Then the song belongs to me.’
‘Why, yes, if you like to put it like that.’
He thought again, then asked seriously:
‘Mother, are there slaves in Ireland?’
The lady was a little confused by this. ‘Well, dear, there are slaves if people bring them. A few blacks from the plantations of America.’
‘The people, the Irish themselves, they are not slaves, are they?’
‘Why, no; what made you think of it?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied hastily, suddenly fearful of betraying his secret about the man in the tapestry.
Mr. Ogilvie looked up from his book. With the serenity of a member of a nation that has been, from time immemorial, free, both from domestic and foreign tyranny, he said quietly:
‘I’m afraid, Neddy, there are slaves in Ireland, though they may not have that name. They are a misgoverned, oppressed people. You may be able, when you are older, to do something about that.’
The boy reddened so suddenly that his mother was alarmed and thought he had had a flush of fever. He saw himself rushing to the slave in the arras, saving him from his abject position, freeing him, and with him would be Louise offering her sun-warm nectarines. ‘Shall I?’ he asked eagerly.
‘Why, certainly,’ said Mr. Ogilvie, closing his book. ‘There’ll be a great deal that you will be able to do, Edward.’
His mother kissed his hot cheeks. She did not care to think of the future when he would be no longer a child.
‘Never mind about that, now; you must go to bed — you are very late, you know.’
The young man looked round the hotel bedroom with curiosity. He had laughed and talked all the way up the wide stairs, speaking of his experiences during his journey from Dublin: a rough crossing in the overcrowded packet, trouble with passports and papers, the difficulty of obtaining food at wayside inns, the expense of all accommodation! But he made no complaint; he seemed to have found the whole of the journey a delightful adventure.
It was the hotel-keeper who accompanied him to the large room with the balcony that looked upon the Rue de Richepanse. He was a nondescript individual, as reserved as the traveller was loquacious, and merely remarked, ‘I have a lighter chamber, but it is let to another citizen, also an Englishman.’
‘I am not English.’
‘Eh?’
‘No, I am Irish.’
The Frenchman shrugged as if the distinction was unimportant.
‘The citizen will take this room? It will be thirty francs a week.’
‘That is very expensive, is it not?’
‘I could not let it go for less. Everything is dear in Paris just now, and the citizen should have understood —’
But it seemed that the question of money really held very little interest for the newcomer.
‘Thirty francs or what you will,’ he agreed cheerfully. ‘And I do not know how long I shall stay.’
He went to the window and found himself gazing down on a street that had been smart, but had lately become shabby.
‘This has been a private house?’ he asked.
‘Yes, citizen. You no doubt marked “
National
Property
” written across the front.’
‘Yes, indeed. It has been confiscated?’
‘Yes, citizen.’
‘And this, I suppose,’ remarked the young man thoughtfully, ‘was one of the family’s bedrooms?’
‘A lady’s bedroom, citizen.’
‘Ah, yes.’
A slight uneasiness clouded the open features of the Irishman. ‘A lady’s bedroom, and only a little while ago! That is not very pleasant, is it? Did you say you had no other chamber?’
‘None, citizen, unless the Englishman cares to change with you, but you must arrange that yourself.’
And with a slight impatience the landlord moved towards the door.
‘Well, it doesn’t do to be fussy. I will take the room,’ smiled the Irishman, but he thought to himself: ‘It is rather dreary; it looks as if the place had been sacked.’
The apartment was large, but it seemed gloomy because of the height of the ceiling. A Chinese wallpaper with a green and blue pattern was damaged considerably and patched here and there with another fabric. The bed was old-fashioned, with four pillars, but entirely devoid of curtains or hangings. The furniture was covered with a light violet brocade, which seemed in many places to have been recently scrubbed. A mirror between the two windows was cracked, and a table by the bed, though richly gilt, had a broken leg. The curtains at the windows were of cheap grey drugget, and the whole room was stark and bleak
But it was very difficult to find accommodation in Paris at all, and the young man had been particularly recommended to this hotel as being much the cleanest and most reasonable in price and most reputable in the company entertained. So he took the room and asked if his luggage might be brought up and if he might have a cabinet or closet for his servant.
Without replying, the landlord opened a door in the wall by the bed, which led into a small closet with silver silk panels on the walls. Sunk in the floor was an alabaster bath and above it a basin in the shape of a cockle shell was set in the wall. The faucets were of silver in the shape of fishes’ heads. This incongruous elegance surprised the Irishman.
‘The lady’s
cabinet
de
toilette
, you perceive,’ said the landlord. ‘But the citizen’s Negro’ — he would not use the word servant — ‘can sleep there very well.’
‘What was the name of the family who had this hotel — of the lady who used this room?’
‘Aristocrats.
Émigrés
. What does it matter? They can be of no interest to the citizen or to me. I have to attend to my dinner.’ And he added, taking a step back into the room, ‘It is not possible the citizen is interested in aristocrats and
émigrés
?’
‘No,’ replied the Irishman, not out of fear but because it was the truth. ‘I have come to Paris because I am interested in the new methods of government adopted after your glorious revolution.’
‘You will like the Englishman, then,’ said the landlord who appeared a little mollified by this declaration. He brought out the thin book he carried under his arm and opened it:
‘The citizen’s name, age, trade or business and purpose for being in Paris?’ he added.
The traveller took the book, and placing it on the broken table by the bed, while the Frenchman held the candle, he filled in:
‘Edward Fitzgerald, of Leinster House, Dublin. Age, twenty-nine years. Gentleman, of independent means.’
This was not sufficient for the Frenchman.
‘The police want to know more than that,’ he said, peering over his guest’s shoulder. So with slight reluctance, the Irishman added: ‘In the parliament of Ireland for the county of Kildare. Son of James Fitzgerald, Duke of Leinster and of Amelia Lennox, Duchess of Leinster. Captain in His Majesty’s nineteenth regiment of foot.’
‘There, is that enough for you and your police?’
He handed the book to the Frenchman, who looked at it with a dry curiosity.
‘Your business in Paris? The citizen has forgotten to put that.’
‘The citizen does not know it,’ was the reply. ‘I will, if you please, interview your police, your generals, your deputies, what you will, myself, and explain to them that I am here to observe for myself the condition of affairs that is so variously reported in England.’
This silenced the Frenchman, who wrote the date, ‘Brumaire 23rd, 1st year of the Republic,’ at the top of the page and withdrew, saying, ‘The ordinary is served in half an hour; if the citizen comes below he will find plenty of good company.’
When Edward Fitzgerald was alone he made a further inspection of the apartment, which, in a way he could not account for, repelled him. He thought: ‘To-morrow, I will look for something else. There must be some old coffee houses, or hotels or furnished rooms to be had for very little — after all, though the
émigrés
are in the wrong, one cannot help pitying those who have lost everything. A woman’s room.’
His Negro, Tony, entered with the baggage, followed by a servant who brought a pallet and some blankets to make up a bed in the
toilette
closet.
‘It is not a very cheerful place, Tony,’ said Fitzgerald, ‘I think we will move to-morrow, but to-night we must make the best of it.’
He looked at the Negro with that profound compassion with which he never failed to regard him. The poor creature, who had saved his life during the American war, was hideous. Only the look of love and goodness in the dark eyes gave any charm to this grotesque face.
Fitzgerald kept the Negro with him out of gratitude and charity. He valued, and, in a sense, loved Tony, who was also involved with some half nightmare dream of his childhood, with the figure of a crouching slave that he had once observed in a tapestry, in France, he thought, very long ago, when the terror of the slave had seemed to enter into his own soul, terrifying him, and he could seldom look at Tony without recalling in some measure a touch of that past horror.