Disaster
Vitalis had to be buried the next day, and M. Acquin promised to take me to the funeral. But the next day I could not rise from my bed, for in the night I was taken very ill. My chest seemed to burn like poor little Pretty-Heart’s after he had spent the night in the tree. The doctor was called in. I had pneumonia. The doctor wanted me sent to the hospital, but the family would not hear of it. It was during this illness that I learned to appreciate Etiennette’s goodness. She devoted herself to nursing me. How good and kind she was during that terrible sickness. When she was obliged to leave me to attend to her household duties, Lise took her place, and many times in my delirium I saw little Lise sitting at the foot of my bed with her big eyes fixed on me anxiously. In my delirium I thought that she was my guardian angel, and I would speak to her and tell her of all my hopes and desires. It was from this time that I began to consider her as something ideal, as a different being from the other people I met. It seemed surprising that she could live in our life; in my boyish imagination I could picture her flying away with big white wings to a more beautiful world.
I was ill for a very long time. At night, when I was almost suffocating, I had to have some one to sit up with me; then Alexix and Benny would take turns. At last I was convalescent, and then it was Lise who replaced Etiennette and walked with me down by the river. Of course during these walks she could not talk, but strange to say we had no need of words. We seemed to understand each other so well without talking. Then came the day when I was strong enough to work with the others in the garden. I had been impatient to commence, for I wanted to do something for my kind friends who had done so much for me.
As I was still weak, the task that was given to me was in proportion to my strength. Every morning after the frost had passed, I had to lift the glass frames and at night, before it got chilly, I had to close them again. During the day I had to shade the wall flowers with straw coverings to protect them from the sun. This was not difficult to do, but it took all my time, for I had several hundred glasses to move twice daily.
Days and months passed. I was very happy. Sometimes I thought that I was too happy, it could not last. M. Acquin was considered one of the cleverest florists round about Paris. After the wall flower season was over other flowers replaced them.
For many weeks we had been working very hard, as the season promised to be an especially good one. We had not even taken a rest on Sunday, but as all the flowers were now perfect and ready for the approaching season, it was decided that, for a reward, we were all to go and have dinner on Sunday, August 5th, with one of M. Acquin’s friends, who was also a florist. Capi was to be one of the party. We were to work until four o’clock, and when all was finished we were to lock the gates and go to Arcueil. Supper was for six o’clock. After supper we were to come home at once, so as not to be late in getting to bed, as Monday morning we had to be up bright and early, ready for work. A few minutes before four we were all ready.
“Come on, all of you,” cried M. Acquin gayly. “I’m going to lock the gates.”
“Come, Capi.”
Taking Lise by the hand, I began to run with her; Capi jumped around us, barking. We were all dressed up in our best, and looking forward to a good dinner. Some people turned round to watch us as we passed. I don’t know what I looked like, but Lise in her blue dress and white shoes was the prettiest little girl that one could see. Time passed quickly.
We were having dinner out of doors when, just as we had finished, one of us remarked how dark it was getting. Clouds were gathering quickly in the sky.
“Children, we must go home,” said M. Acquin, “there’s going to be a storm.”
“Go, already!” came the chorus.
“If the wind rises, all the glasses will be upset.”
We all knew the value of those glass frames and what they mean to a florist. It would be terrible for us if the wind broke ours.
“I’ll hurry ahead with Benny and Alexix,” the father said. “Remi can come on with Etiennette and Lise.”
They rushed off. Etiennette and I followed more slowly with Lise. No one laughed now. The sky grew darker. The storm was coming quickly. Clouds of dust swirled around us; we had to turn our backs and cover our eyes with our hands, for the dust blinded us. There was a streak of lightning across the sky, then came a heavy clap of thunder.
Etiennette and I had taken Lise by the hands; we were trying to drag her along faster, but she could scarcely keep up with us. Would the father, Benny and Alexix get home before the storm broke? If they were only in time to close the glass cases so that the wind could not get under them and upset them! The thunder increased; the clouds were so heavy that it seemed almost night. Then suddenly there was a downpour of hail, the stones struck us in the face, and we had to race to take shelter under a big gateway.
In a minute the road was covered with white, like in winter. The hailstones were as large as pigeon eggs; as they fell they made a deafening sound, and every now and again we could hear the crash of broken glass. With the hailstones, as they slid from the roofs to the street, fell all sorts of things, pieces of slate, chimney pots, tiles, etc.
“Oh, the glass frames!” cried Etiennette.
I had the same thought.
“Even if they get there before the hail, they will never have time to cover the glasses with straw. Everything will be ruined.”
“They say that hail only falls in places,” I said, trying to hope still.
“Oh, this is too near home for us to escape. If it falls on the garden the same as here, poor father will be ruined. And he counted so much on those flowers, he needs the money so badly.”
I had heard that the glass frames cost as much as 1800 francs a hundred, and I knew what a disaster it would be if the hail broke our five or six hundred, without counting the plants and the conservatories. I would liked to have questioned Etiennette, but we could scarcely hear each other speak, and she did not seem disposed to talk. She looked at the hail falling with a hopeless expression, like a person would look upon his house burning.
The hurricane lasted but a short while; it stopped as suddenly as it had commenced. It lasted perhaps six minutes. The clouds swept over Paris and we were able to leave our shelter. The hailstones were thick on the ground. Lise could not walk in them in her thin shoes, so I took her on my back and carried her. Her pretty face, which was so bright when going to the party, was now grief-stricken and the tears rolled down her cheeks.
Before long we reached the house. The big gates were open and we went quickly into the garden. What a sight met our eyes! All the glass frames were smashed to atoms. Flowers, pieces of glass and hailstones were all heaped together in our once beautiful garden. Everything was shattered!
Where was the father?
We searched for him. Last of all we found him in the big conservatory, of which every pane of glass was broken. He was seated on a wheelbarrow in the midst of the débris which covered the ground. Alexix and Benjamin stood beside him silently.
“My children, my poor little ones!” he cried, when we all were there.
He took Lise in his arms and began to sob. He said nothing more. What could he have said? It was a terrible catastrophe, but the consequences were still more terrible. I soon learned this from Etiennette.
Ten years ago their father had bought the garden and had built the house himself. The man who had sold him the ground had also lent him the money to buy the necessary materials required by a florist. The amount was payable in yearly payments for fifteen years. The man was only waiting for an occasion when the florist would be late in payment to take back the ground, house, material; keeping, of course, the ten-year payments that he had already received.
This was a speculation on the man’s part, for he had hoped that before the fifteen years expired there would come a day when the florist would be unable to meet his notes. This day had come at last! Now what was going to happen?
We were not left long in doubt. The day after the notes fell due—this sum which was to have been paid from the sale of his season’s flowers—a gentleman dressed all in black came to the house and handed us a stamped paper. It was the process server. He came often; so many times that he soon began to know us by name.
“How do you do, Mlle. Etiennette? Hello, Remi; hello, Alexix!”
And he handed us his stamped paper smilingly, as though we were friends. The father did not stay in the house. He was always out. He never told us where he went. Probably he went to call on business men, or he might have been at court.
What would the result be? A part of the winter passed. As we were unable to repair the conservatories and renew the glass frames, we cultivated vegetables and hardier flowers that did not demand shelter. They were not very productive, but at least it was something, and it was work for us. One evening the father returned home more depressed than usual.
“Children,” he said, “it is all over.”
I was about to leave the room, for I felt that he had something serious to say to his children. He signed to me to stop.
“You are one of the family, Remi,” he said sadly, “and although you are not very old, you know what trouble is. Children, I am going to leave you.”
There was a cry on all sides.
Lise flung her arms round her father’s neck. He held her very tight.
“Ah, it’s hard to leave you, dear children,” he said, “but the courts have ordered me to pay, and as I have no money, everything here has to be sold, and as that is not enough, I have to go to prison for five years. As I am not able to pay with my money, I have to pay with my liberty.”
We all began to cry.
“Yes, it’s sad,” he continued brokenly, “but a man can’t do anything against the law. My attorney says that it used to be worse than it is.”
There was a tearful silence.
“This is what I have decided is the best thing to do,” continued the father. “Remi, who is the best scholar, will write to my sister Catherine and explain the matter to her and ask her to come to us. Aunt Catherine has plenty of common sense and she will be able to decide what should be done for the best.”
It was the first time that I had written a letter, and this was a very painful one, but we still had a ray of hope. We were very ignorant children and the fact that Aunt Catherine was coming, and that she was practical, made us hope that everything could be made right. But she did not come as soon as we had hoped. A few days later the father had just left the house to call on one of his friends, when he met the police face to face coming for him. He returned to the house with them; he was very pale; he had come to say good-by to his children.
“Don’t be so downcast, man,” said one of them who had come to take him; “to be in prison for debt is not so dreadful as you seem to think. You’ll find some very good fellows there.”
I went to fetch the two boys, who were in the garden. Little Lise was sobbing; one of the men stooped down and whispered something in her ear, but I did not hear what he said.
The parting was over very quickly. M. Acquin caught Lise up in his arms and kissed her again and again, then he put her down, but she clung to his hand. Then he kissed Etiennette, Alexix and Benny and gave Lise into her sister’s care. I stood a little apart, but he came to me and kissed me affectionately, just like the others, and then they took him away. We all stood in the middle of the kitchen crying; not one of us had a word to say.
Aunt Catherine arrived an hour later. We were still crying bitterly. For a country woman who had no education or money, the responsibility that had fallen upon her was heavy. A family of destitute children, the eldest not yet sixteen, the youngest a dumb girl. Aunt Catherine had been a nurse in a lawyer’s family; she at once called upon this man to ask his advice, and it was he who decided our fate. When she returned from the lawyer’s, she told us what had been arranged. Lise was to go and live with her. Alexix was to go to an uncle at Varses, Benny to another uncle, who was a florist at Saint-Quentin, and Etiennette to an aunt who lived at the seashore.
I listened to these plans, waiting until they came to me. When Aunt Catherine ceased speaking, and I had not been mentioned, I said, “And me?…”
“Why, you don’t belong to the family.”
“I’ll work for you.”
“You’re not one of the family.”
“Ask Alexix and Benny if I can’t work, and I like work.”
“And soup, also, eh?”
“But he’s one of the family; yes, aunt, he’s one of the family,” came from all sides.
Lise came forwards and clasped her hands before her aunt with an expression that said more than words.
“Poor mite,” said Aunt Catherine, “I know you’d like him to come and live with us, but we can’t always get what we want. You’re my niece, and if my man makes a face when I take you home, all I’ve to tell him is that you’re a relation, and I’m going to have you with me. It will be like that with your other uncles and aunts. They will take a relation, but not strangers.”
I felt there was nothing to say. What she said was only too true. I was not one of the family. I could claim nothing, ask nothing; that would be begging. And yet I loved them all and they all loved me. Aunt Catherine sent us to bed, after telling us that we were to be parted the next day.
Scarcely had we got upstairs than they all crowded round me. Lise clung to me, crying. Then I knew, that in spite of their grief at parting from one another, it was of me that they thought; they pitied me because I was alone. I felt, indeed, then that I was their brother. Suddenly an idea came to me.
“Listen,” I said; “even if your aunts and uncles don’t want me, I can see that you consider me one of the family.”
“Yes, yes,” they all cried.
Lise, who could not speak, just squeezed my hand and looked up at me with her big, beautiful eyes.
“Well, I’m a brother, and I’ll prove it,” I said stoutly.
“There’s a job with Pernuit; shall I go over and speak to him to-morrow?” asked Etiennette.
“I don’t want a job. If I take a job I shall have to stay in Paris, and I shan’t see you again. I’m going to put on my sheepskin and take my harp, and go first to one place and then to another where you are all going to live. I shall see you all one after the other, and I’ll carry the news from one to the other, so you’ll all be in touch. I haven’t forgotten my songs nor my dance music, and I’ll get enough money to live.”
Every face beamed. I was glad they were so pleased with my idea. For a long time we talked, then Etiennette made each one go to bed, but no one slept much that night, I least of all. The next day at daybreak Lise took me into the garden.
“You want to speak to me?” I asked.
She nodded her head.
“You are unhappy because we are going to be parted? You need not tell me; I can see it in your eyes, and I am unhappy, too.”
She made a sign that it was something else she wanted to say.
“In fifteen days I shall be at Dreuzy, where you are going to live.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t want me to go to Dreuzy?”
In order for us to understand each other, I made more progress by questioning. She replied either with a nod or a shake of the head. She told me that she wanted to see me at Dreuzy, but pointing her finger in three directions, she made me understand that I must first go and see her brothers and sister.
“You want me first to go to Varses, then Esnandes and then Saint-Quentin?”
She smiled and nodded, pleased that I understood.
“Why?”
Then with her lips and hands, and above all with her eyes, she explained to me why she wished this. She wanted me to go and see her sister and brothers first, so that when I reached Dreuzy I could tell her news of them. They had to start at eight o’clock, and Aunt Catherine had ordered a cab to take them, first of all to the prison to say good-by to their father, and then each, with their baggage, to the different depots where they had to take their trains. At seven o’clock Etiennette, in her turn, took me in the garden.
“I want to give you a little keepsake, Remi,” she said. “Take this little case; my godfather gave it to me. You’ll find thread, needles and scissors in it; when you are tramping along the roads you’ll need them, for I shan’t be there to put a patch on your clothes, nor sew a button on. When you use my scissors, think of us all.”
While Etiennette was speaking to me, Alexix loitered near; when she left me to return to the house, he came up.
“Say, Remi,” he began, “I’ve got two five franc pieces. Take one; I’ll be so pleased if you will.”
Of the five of us, Alexix was the only one who cared very much for money. We always made fun of his greed; he saved up sou by sou, counting his hoard continually, he was always very proud when he had a brand new piece. His offer touched me to the heart; I wanted to refuse, but he insisted, and slipped a shiny silver piece into my hand. I knew that his friendship for me must be very strong if he were willing to share his treasure with me.
Benjamin, neither, had forgotten me; he also wanted to give me a present. He gave me his knife, and in exchange he exacted a sou, because he said “a knife cuts friendship.”
The time passed quickly. The moment had come for us to part. As the cab was drawing up at the house, Lise again made a sign for me to follow her into the garden.
“Lise!” called her aunt.
She made no reply, but ran quickly down the path. She stopped at a big Bengal rose tree and cut off a branch, then, turning to me, she divided the stalk in two; there was a rose on either side. The language of the lips is a small thing compared with the language of the eyes; how cold and empty are words compared with looks!
“Lise! Lise!” cried her aunt.
The baggage was already in the cab. I took down my harp and called to Capi. At the sight of my old suit, he jumped and barked with joy. He loved his liberty on the high roads more than being closed up in the garden. They all got into the cab. I lifted Lise onto her aunt’s lap. I stood there half dazed, then the aunt gently pushed me away and closed the door. They were off.
Through a mist I watched Lise as she leaned out of the window waving her hand to me, then the cab sharply turned the corner of the street and all I could see was a cloud of dust.
Leaning on my harp, with Capi sprawling at my feet, I stayed there looking absently down the street. A neighbor, who had been asked to lock up the house and keep the key, called to me:
“Are you going to stay there all day?”
“No, I’m off now.”
“Where are you going?”
“Straight ahead.”
“If you’d like to stay,” he said, perhaps out of pity, “I’ll keep you, but I can’t pay you, because you’re not very strong. Later I might give you something.”
I thanked him, but said no.
“Well, as you like; I was only thinking for your own good. Good-by and good luck!”
He went away. The cab had gone, the house was locked up.
I turned away from the home where I had lived for two years, and where I had hoped always to live. The sky was clear, the weather warm, very different from the icy night when poor Vitalis and I had fallen exhausted by the wall.
So these two years had only been a halt. I must go on my way again. But the stay had done me good. It had given me strength and I had made dear friends. I was not now alone in the world, and I had an object in life, to be useful and give pleasure to those I loved.