When Valmond Came to Pontiac: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

On one corner stood the house of Monsieur Garon the avocat; on another,
the shop of the Little Chemist; on another, the office of Medallion the
auctioneer; and on the last, the Hotel Louis Quinze. The chief
characteristics of Monsieur Garon's house were its brass door-knobs, and
the verdant vines that climbed its sides; of the Little Chemist's shop,
the perfect whiteness of the building, the rolls of sober wall-paper, and
the bottles of coloured water in the shop windows; of Medallion's, the
stoop that surrounded three sides of the building, and the notices of
sales tacked up, pasted up, on the front; of the Hotel Louis Quinze, the
deep dormer windows, the solid timbers, and the veranda that gave its
front distinction--for this veranda had been the pride of several
generations of landlords, and its heavy carving and bulky grace were
worth even more admiration than Pontiac gave to it.

The square which the two roads and the four corners made was, on
week-days, the rendezvous of Pontiac, and the whole parish; on Sunday
mornings the rendezvous was shifted to the large church on the hill,
beside which was the house of the Cure, Monsieur Fabre. Travelling
towards the south, out of the silken haze of a mid-summer day, you would
come in time to the hills of Maine; north, to the city of Quebec and the
river St. Lawrence; east, to the ocean; and west, to the Great Lakes and
the land of the English. Over this bright province Britain raised her
flag, but only Medallion and a few others loved it for its own sake, or
saluted it in the English tongue.

In the drab velvety dust of these four corners, were gathered, one night
of July a generation ago, the children of the village and many of their
elders. All the events of that epoch were dated from the evening of this
particular day. Another day of note the parish cherished, but it was
merely a grave fulfilment of the first.

Upon the veranda-stoop of the Louis Quinze stood a man of apparently
about twenty-eight years of age. When you came to study him closely, some
sense of time and experience in his look told you that he might be
thirty-eight, though his few grey hairs seemed but to emphasise a certain
youthfulness in him. His eye was full, singularly clear, almost benign,
and yet at one moment it gave the impression of resolution, at another it
suggested the wayward abstraction of the dreamer. He was well-figured,
with a hand of peculiar whiteness, suggesting in its breadth more the man
of action than of meditation. But it was a contradiction; for, as you saw
it rise and fall, you were struck by its dramatic delicacy; as it rested
on the railing of the veranda, by its latent power. You faced incongruity
everywhere. His dress was bizarre, his face almost classical, the brow
clear and strong, the profile good to the mouth, where there showed a
combination of sensuousness and adventure. Yet in the face there was an
illusive sadness, strangely out of keeping with the long linen coat,
frilled shirt, flowered waistcoat, lavender trousers, boots of enamelled
leather, and straw hat with white linen streamers. It was a whimsical
picture.

At the moment that the Cure and Medallion the auctioneer came down the
street together towards the Louis Quinze, talking amiably, this singular
gentleman was throwing out hot pennies, with a large spoon, from a tray
in his hand, calling on the children to gather them, in French which was
not the French of Pontiac--or Quebec; and this refined accent the Cure
was quick to detect, as Monsieur Garon the avocat, standing on the
outskirts of the crowd, had done, some moments before. The stranger
seemed only conscious of his act of liberality and the children before
him. There was a naturalness in his enjoyment which was almost boylike; a
naive sort of exultation possessed him.

He laughed softly to see the children toss the pennies from hand to hand,
blowing to cool them; the riotous yet half-timorous scramble for them,
and burnt fingers thrust into hot, blithe mouths. And when he saw a fat
little lad of five crowded out of the way by his elders, he stepped down
with a quick word of sympathy, put a half-dozen pennies in the child's
pocket, snatched him up and kissed him, and then returned to the stoop,
where were gathered the landlord, the miller, and Monsieur De la Riviere,
the young Seigneur. But the most intent spectator of the scene was Parpon
the dwarf, who was grotesquely crouched upon the wide ledge of a window.

Tray after tray of pennies was brought out and emptied, till at last the
stranger paused, handed the spoon to the landlord, drew out a fine white
handkerchief and dusted his fingers, standing silent for a moment and
smiling upon the crowd.

It was at this point that some young villager called, in profuse
compliment: "Three cheers for the Prince!" The stranger threw an accent
of pose into his manner, his eye lighted, his chin came up, he dropped
one hand negligently on his hip, and waved the other in acknowledgment.
Presently he beckoned, and from the hotel were brought out four great
pitchers of wine and a dozen tin cups, and, sending the garcon around
with one, the landlord with another, he motioned Parpon the dwarf to bear
a hand. Parpon shot out a quick, half-resentful look at him, but meeting
a warm, friendly eye, he took the pitcher and went round among the
elders, while the stranger himself courteously drank with the young men
of the village, who, like many wiser folk, thus yielded to the charm of
mystery. To every one he said a hearty thing, and sometimes touched his
greeting off with a bit of poetry or a rhetorical phrase. These dramatic
extravagances served him well, for he was among a race of story-tellers
and crude poets.

Parpon, uncouth and furtive, moved through the crowd, dispensing as much
irony as wine:

       "Three bucks we come to a pretty inn,
        'Hostess,' say we, 'have you red wine?'
             Brave! Brave!
        'Hostess,' say we, 'have you red wine?'
             Bravement!
        Our feet are sore and our crops are dry,
             Bravement!"

This he hummed to the avocat in a tone all silver, for he had that one
gift of Heaven as recompense for his deformity, his long arms, big head,
and short stature, a voice which gave you a shiver of delight and pain
all at once. It had in it mystery and the incomprehensible. This
drinking-song, hummed just above his breath, touched some antique memory
in Monsieur Garen the avocat, and he nodded kindly at the dwarf, though
he refused the wine.

"Ah, M'sieu' le Cure," said Parpon, ducking his head to avoid the hand
that Medallion would have laid on it, "we're going to be somebody now in
Pontiac, bless the Lord! We're simple folk, but we're not neglected. He
wears a ribbon on his breast, M'sieu' le Cure!"

This was true. Fastened by a gold bar to the stranger's breast was the
ribbon of an order.

The Cure smiled at Parpon's words, and looked curiously and gravely at
the stranger. Tall Medallion the auctioneer took a glass of the wine,
and, lifting it, said: "Who shall I drink to, Parpon, my dear? What is
he?"

"Ten to one, a dauphin or a fool," answered Parpon, with a laugh like the
note of an organ. "Drink to both, Long-legs." Then he trotted away to the
Little Chemist.

"Hush, my friend!" said he, and he drew the other's ear down to his
mouth. "Now there'll be plenty of work for you. We're going to be gay in
Pontiac. We'll come to you with our spoiled stomachs." He edged round the
circle, and back to where the miller his master and the young Seigneur
stood.

"Make more fine flour, old man," said he to the miller; "pates are the
thing now." Then, to Monsieur De la Riviere: "There's nothing like hot
pennies and wine to make the world love you. But it's too late, too late
for my young Seigneur!" he added in mockery, and again he began to hum in
a sort of amiable derision:

          "My little tender heart,
          O gai, vive le roi!
          My little tender heart,
          O gai, vive le roi!
          'Tis for a grand baron,
          Vive le roi, la reine!
          'Tis for a grand baron,
          Vive Napoleon!"

The words of the last two lines swelled out far louder than the dwarf
meant, for few save Medallion and Monsieur De la Riviere had ever heard
him sing. His concert-house was the Rock of Red Pigeons, his favourite
haunt, his other home, where, it was said, he met the Little Good Folk of
the Scarlet Hills, and had gay hours with them. And this was a matter of
awe to the timid habitants.

At the words, "Vive Napoleon!" a hand touched him on the shoulder. He
turned and saw the stranger looking at him intently, his eyes alight.

"Sing it," he said softly, yet with an air of command. Parpon hesitated,
shrank back.

"Sing it," he insisted, and the request was taken up by others, till
Parpon's face flushed with a sort of pleasurable defiance. The stranger
stooped and whispered something in his ear. There was a moment's pause,
in which the dwarf looked into the other's eyes with an intense
curiosity--or incredulity--and then Medallion lifted the little man on to
the railing of the veranda, and over the heads and into the hearts of the
people there passed, in a divine voice, a song known to many, yet coming
as a new revelation to them all:

          "My mother promised it,
          O gai, rive le roi!
          My mother promised it,
          O gai, vive le roi!
          To a gentleman of the king,
          Vive le roi, la reine!
          To a gentleman of the king,
          Vive Napoleon!"

This was chanted lightly, airily, with a sweetness almost absurd, coming
as it did from so uncouth a musician. The last verses had a touch of
pathos, droll yet searching:

          "Oh, say, where goes your love?
          O gai, rive le roi!
          Oh, say, where goes your love?
          O gai, vive le roi!
          He rides on a white horse,
          Vive le roi, la reine!
          He wears a silver sword,
          Vive Napoleon!
          "Oh, grand to the war he goes,
          O gai, vive le roi!
          Oh, grand to the war he goes,
          O gai, vive le roi!
          Gold and silver he will bring,
          Vive le roi, la reine;
          And eke the daughter of a king
          Vive Napoleon!"

The crowd--women and men, youths and maidens--enthusiastically repeated
again and again the last lines and the refrain, "Vive le roi, la reine!
Vive Napoleon!"

Meanwhile the stranger stood, now looking at the singer with eager eyes,
now searching the faces of the people, keen to see the effect upon them.
His glance found the faces of the Cure, the avocat, and the auctioneer;
and his eyes steadied to Medallion's humorous look, to the Cure's puzzled
questioning, to the avocat's bird-like curiosity. It was plain they were
not antagonistic (why should they be?); and he--was there any reason why
he should care whether or no they were for him or against him?

True, he had entered the village in the dead of night, with many packages
and much luggage, had roused the people at the Louis Quinze, the driver
who had brought him departing before daybreak gaily, because of the gifts
of gold given him above his wage. True, this singular gentleman had taken
three rooms in the Louis Quinze, had paid the landlord in advance, and
had then gone to bed, leaving word that he was not to be waked till three
o'clock the next afternoon. True, the landlord could not by any hint or
indirection discover from whence his midnight visitor came. But if a
gentleman paid his way, and was generous and polite, and minded his own
business, wherefore should people busy themselves about him? When he
appeared on the veranda of the inn with the hot pennies, not a half-dozen
people in the village had known aught of his presence in Pontiac. The
children came first, to scorch their fingers and fill their pockets, and
after them the idle young men, and the habitants in general.

The stranger having warmly shaken Parpon by the hand and again whispered
in his ear, stepped forward. The last light of the setting sun was
reflected from the red roof of the Little Chemist's shop upon the quaint
figure and eloquent face, which had in it something of the gentleman,
something of the comedian. The alert Medallion himself did not realise
the touch of the comedian in him, till the white hand was waved
grandiloquently over the heads of the crowd. Then something in the
gesture corresponded with something in the face, and the auctioneer had a
nut which he could not crack for many a day. The voice was musical,--as
fine in speaking almost as the dwarf's in singing,--and the attention of
the children was caught by the rich, vibrating tones. He addressed
himself to them.

"My children," he said, "my name is--Valmond! We have begun well; let us
be better friends. I have come from far off to be one of you, to stay
with you for awhile--who knows how long--how long?" He placed a finger
meditatively on his lips, sending a sort of mystery into his look and
bearing. "You are French, and so am I. You are playing on the shores of
life, and so am I. You are beginning to think and dream, and so am I. We
are only children till we begin to make our dreams our life. So I am one
with you, for only now do I step from dream to action. My children, you
shall be my brothers, and together we will sow the seed of action and
reap the grain; we will make a happy garden of flowers, and violets shall
bloom everywhere out of our dream--everywhere. Violets, my children,
pluck the wild violets, and bring them to me, and I will give you silver
for them, and I will love you. Never forget," he added, with a swelling
voice, "that you owe your first duty to your mothers, and afterwards to
your country, and to the spirit of France. I see afar"--he looked towards
the setting sun, and stretched out his arm dramatically, yet such was the
eloquence of his voice and person that not even the young Seigneur or
Medallion smiled--"I see afar," he repeated, "the glory of our dreams
fulfilled; after toil and struggle and loss: and I call upon you now to
unfurl the white banner of justice and liberty and the restoration."

The women who listened guessed little of what he meant by the fantastic
sermon; but they wiped their eyes in sympathy, and gathered their
children to them, and said, "Poor gentleman, poor gentleman!" and took
him instantly to their hearts. The men were mystified, but wine and
rhetoric had fired them, and they cheered him--no one knew why. The Cure,
as he turned to leave, with Monsieur Garon, shook his head in
bewilderment; but even he did not smile, for the man's eloquence had
impressed him; and more than once he looked back at the dispersing crowd
and the quaint figure posing on the veranda. The avocat was thinking
deeply, and as, in the dusk, he left the Cure at his own door, all that
he ventured was: "Singular--a most singular person!"

"We shall see, we shall see," said the Cure abstractedly, and they said
good-night.

Medallion joined the Little Chemist in his shop door and watched the
habitants scatter, till only Parpon and the stranger were left, and these
two faced each other, and, without a word, passed into the hotel
together.

"H'm, h'm!" said Medallion into space, drumming the door-jamb with his
fingers; "which is it, my Parpon--a dauphin, or a fool?"

He and the Little Chemist talked long, their eyes upon the window
opposite, inside which Monsieur Valmond and Parpon were in conference. Up
the dusty street wandered fitfully the refrain:

          "To a gentleman of the king,
          Vive Napoleon!"

And once they dimly saw Monsieur Valmond come to the open window and
stretch out his hand, as if in greeting to the song and the singer.

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