McCall's Magazine/Monsieur of the Rainbow/Part 1
MONSIEUR BON COEUR trod the boulevard. His iron-grey head was well up, the summer sun of the West Coast country, silvering the flowing locks that covered it, softening the myriad lines that limned his face.
He carried his shoulders back as befitted one who had welcomed heroes by the Arc de Triomphe in a far-off day and land.
The stick in his slender, blue-veined hand was but a branch of an humble way-side tree, but it might have been of malacca from the airy fashion in which he used it, now tapping the pale asphalt in time to his step, now twirling it with neat precision between the taps.
A soft, sweet wind came out of the south, laden with the breath of many flowers, the incomparable perfume of blossoming alfalfa. It kissed him kindly. that meek small wind—kissed him on cheek and brow and eager old blue eves, for Monsieur carried his hat in his hand the better to enjoy its dear caress. The thin locks blew back from the temples, sunken a bit with age; the sweeping mustache quivered slightly, the neat Vandyke was just the least bit ruffled from its erstwhile irreproachable arrangement.
It fluttered, too, the banners of his low estate, the rags that clothed his limb, the tails of the ancient coat flipped behind him jauntily. For Monsieur stepped with a sprightly grace, a lightsome ease of carriage that many a man among his betters might have envied, since it had its impulse in that best of all possessions—happiness.
For Monsieur Bon Coeur was happy.
He was nearly always happy.
Why should he not be? Had he not the unfathomable blue of California skies, the shadows of clouds upon the rolling hills, the friendly shade of eucalyptus trees that waved him greeting from every little rise? Had he not the perfume of the gentle winds, the far-flung gold of poppies spread like a blanket on suave slopes?
Had he not the shining ribbon of the asphalt roads, run to everywhere? Had he not the pick-and-choose of tropic Border, of snow-capped Line, the fruit-lands and the sea?
These were his treasures and he took of them largely, tasting their flavour like an epicure, storing their beauties in the secret vaults of his soul against the day when he must give them up forever.
Not that Monsieur ever put that thought in concrete form. Rather it was an uneven, unacknowledged darkness of the future, like the half-conscious knowledge that after the glorious day must come the night. But the night had stars—just so. And Monsieur laid up memories, a Milky way of them—for who knew? Perhaps—just perhaps—le bon Dieu might permit one to carry them behind the Veil.
So Monsieur smiled to the sweet wind's kiss, looked upon the pleasant land with joy and walked briskly on his urgent journey to—nowhere in particular. He had just come down from Oregon.
There he had had word of many things—of the strikes in Pittsburgh, in the mines of Colorado, of a bread-line in the north, even so early, and of how his old friend Montana Mike was “doing time,” owing to a miscalculation in distance and wind. This last piece of jetsam news saddened Monsieur a trifle. Why, he wondered, must one step so far aside in questionable ways as to be deprived of the priceless trove of freedom? There was always work, now, be it even the humble tasks that old men do, whereby one might provide for the insignificant needs of the body. He shifted the narrow blanket-roll that hung at the proper angle from his shoulder and thought of the five long, fine, redwood shingles which reposed therein. He had gotten them from the foreman of a sawmill on the Klamath river, and he had spent a few odd hours in polishing their pink faces with fine sandpaper.
When he reached a place where he felt that he had time to stop for any length of days he would set himself to a task he loved—namely the carving of their satin surfaces into pictures. But he had not yet found the place or the time. He was fastidious about this, since the pictures-to-be would take of the nature of the spot in which he made them—perhaps a slant of sidehill with tall pines touching the drifting clouds above, a trickle of stream and the shy antlers of an August buck questing from the fern beyond—or maybe a flight of geese along the Colusa rice-fields—or again the tide-land levels of Marin with little grain-boats floating grotesquely up along the narrow waterways that were hidden in the tules, their sails to all appearance, carrying them across the land. But Monsieur, with the touch of the artist, would show the mouth of tide-land and slough at the shingle's lower corner. And when these works of art were quite finished, even to the cord of braided grass, Monsieur would stand bowing some city's street and sell them one after the other at a dollar each.
Just so. The shining reward of a labor of love.
And then, alas! the old feet in their shabby shoes would carry Monsieur into those secret places where, since the passing of a certain law, one might purchase liquid splendor at a price—at such a price!
Into these days we will not pry. Enough for us to meet Monsieur again upon the boulevard—to look with sorrowing eyes upon the slim old figure drooped under its blanket-roll, the unwonted disarray of the silvery locks, the shamed blue eyes intent upon the endless ribbon of the winding roads.
For Monsieur Bon Coeur—Mister Good Heart—named by a lumberjack in the distant north, was eaten to his bones' marrow by the sin which had set his life to the measure of pointless steps upon the open way, which had put off his day of achievement to the illusive future, which had hidden the past behind a mist of vintages—the green of absinthe far away and long ago in France, the amber of champagne a trifle later, the glowing colorful stuff in the California wine-vats in more recent years; and now, once more alas, that nameless bastard liquor which made mad the brains of those who drank it.
The return of Monsieur from these sordid depths was always an epic, a thing of gallantry and pathos touched with a certain wistful beauty; for Monsieur was a firm believer in the inalienable right of each day to be new, a clean slate for the writing of the soul.
And in the long and aimless life that lay behind there were many separate narratives attesting to the great depth and tenderness of the gentle heart that beat beneath the old man's ragged coat.
By a thousand water-tanks, beside a thousand wayside fires, Monsieur Bon Coeur was known for a rare kindliness, a courtesy of manner than which there was none finer to be found in France.
Ah, France! La Belle France!
With its memories that burned and glowed, memories whose very bitterness was such because they were so sweet.
He did not think of France when he could help it.
Sometimes, once a year perhaps, at a certain important city in the United States, he spent the proceeds of one of his carvings on a sheet of paper and an envelope on which he wrote a letter in a script as fine and delicate as the fretwork of his etchings—a pitiful letter of pride and prevarication, a chronicle of staid success, restrained yet breathing heavy cares in every line, the sort of letter written by a business man, a magnate, who takes time to acquaint one with his welfare!
Monsieur, returning to that city on or near a certain date thereafter, invariably called at the general delivery window of the overbearing and supercilious building which lent itself to the service of the international post, and received an answer.
These letters were written in French and a woman's hand, addressed him as “my dear brother,” bore a high embossed crest in one corner, and were sent to “Villa-des-Trianon-in-America”—for Monsieur, French and colored with deathless romance, did nothing by halves!
Alas! the piteous deception!
It had gone on for years; it was an institution now.
The reading of these epistles sent to him from France was an event and was prepared for accordingly—always out in a country beyond the city, sometimes in a grove beside a stream, sometimes on a sunny hill, but always after rigorous ablutions that left nothing to be desired of cleanliness, neither as to the person of the little old man himself, nor the apologetic garments which clothed him.
Washed, sun-dried, and wrinkled Monsieur was ready, his hat upon the earth beside him, his stick with its bundle of worldly possessions neatly crossing his blanket-roll, his accordion topping the whole.
Upon these occasions the blue-veined old hands shook a trifle, the eager eyes were a bit too much excited to see the best in the world, but at length the precious letter would be devoured to the last small word, and Monsieur knew how the writer lived these days, how the heart-attacks which had troubled her of late were none too easily endured, and how the young Comte de Bourvenaise was the pride and hope of his mother's inmost soul. Ah, the Comte de Bourvenaise! Monsieur Bon Coeur had never beheld his face but he adored him with a white fire of worship.
The young Comte de Bourvenaise!
Twenty years of age straight, blonde, a swordsman, a horseman with all the honor of his prideful race before him!
He was good, his mother wrote, a man of honor, even so young.
He had been a wonderful child, according to his mother, a straight upstanding lad, eager and laughing. His eyes were blue, something like Monsieur's had been in those days so far away. Alas! the writer grieved for families so torn asunder by the dividing seas, but of course one must make one's fortune. * * * Hers had been made by her marriage. * * She had been happy. * * but he did long to see her only brother again before they both should die * * Did Monsieur think he would some day return to France, for just the flying visit, perhaps?
The old blue eyes clouded at this and Monsieur laid his silken white head down upon his blanket-roll and wept. A little later he wiped his face with the kerchief whose tips showed always a trifle above the pocket on his left breast, and went on with the reading.
His Eyes Had Never Lost Their Eagerness
So.
Life—and its strange doings.
He was wont to put these letters slowly back in the covers—the thick and scented satiny covers which bore the name of him who dwelt in the dim and shadowy splendor of “Villa-des-Trianon-in-America”—not Bon Coeur, far from it!—and, depositing them deep in the blanket-roll, carry them until the next one came.
He was wont to read them over and over by the light of lonely fires, especially those parts which spoke of the tall young Comte.
That is, he had been—nine, ten years agone, before that nameless horror had swept the world. Since then the running script of the letters had seemed to waver; there was the ache of tears in every line and they spoke of the Comte de Bourvenaise now in the past tense, but with what sad glory! what stern pride!
The Comte de Bourvenaise fighting for France—his plane tumbling down from a serene blue sky one summer day—the Croix de Guerre given humbly by a grateful country to his mother!
With that particular letter, heavily embossed with black, something had gone from Monsieur which nothing could ever bring back, neither the long roads running between green fields, nor the tops of free mountains shining white against the mauve horizon, nor all the wine-vats in the world hospitably open.
He had aged too, since then, a trifle faster, so that this day when he stepped the boulevard he was a very thin and delicate old man, the straight form lost away in its rags, the temples beneath the flowing locks sunk to the hollow bone, the cheeks above the neat Vandyke lean and lined. Only his eyes were young, very young. They would never be old. They had never lost their eagerness, their hope of seeing a rainbow around each corner. And they had seen many rainbows, odd as it may seem to you, knowing Monsieur now!
They were looking for one today. Not that their owner really expected one, but one never can tell, you know.
So he swung the blanket-roll again a trifle farther over and stepped briskly on. He felt hungry, a most delightful sensation. One cannot eat sparingly for forty years and lose those two marvelous possessions, appetite and digestion, especially when he sleeps in the open three-fourths of the year.
He contemplated happily the two onions in the kerchief tied to the accordion's strap, the clove of garlic. These had been given him by an Italian gardener because he had played so excellently the quartette from Rigoletto, sitting under a bank by the river, unconscious of the gardener's presence. Also there was in the blanket-roll the half of a loaf of bread and a goodly piece of roast beef got from the lady back at a farmhouse for splitting the loveliest piece of fir-wood into kindlings.
By A Thousand Water-Tanks, Beside A Thousand Wayside Fires, Monsieur Bon Coeur Was Known For A Rare Kindliness, A Courtesy Of Manner Than Which There Was None Finer To Be Found In France. With Its Memories That Burned And Glowed
Thinking pleasantly of the onions and the flavorsome roast-beef he sighted now a clump of green ahead and made for it with swinging stride. Here he unslung roll and instrument and was at home—safe inside the walls of the universe!
He removed his coat and hung it on a near-by bush, shaking it first with meticulous care, laid the accordion lightly down beside it and built a little fire.
From the blanket-roll he took a little pot, filled it at the irrigation ditch and set it to simmer on two stones above the fire. Into it he put the enions and the garlic clove, carefully peeled, the piece of meat cut finely.
Then, sitting down beside his wayside hearth, he took the accordion and began to play.
Now this little shabby box was nothing much to look at, being worn and shiny with age, and it had cost Monsieur the modest stipend of four-bits on the Oakland water-front, the sailor who offered it being not quite so drunk as he wished to be, but under the hands of one who loved it it could speak with a golden tongue. A windy soul lived in its emptiness—a soul which had lived.
So you see the accordion was a gifted thing, do you not?
Now it spoke happily of fields, and teams at work, and children playing in humble dooryards and Monsieur swayed above it.
Where a clump of young growth sprouted from a parent bole a little farther on something stirred and listened.
An evil face, matted with beard, rose up from the dry earth where it had rested and peered from the shielding leaves. A hand, very much the worse from long contact with primordial elements, thrust aside the branches and presently a figure followed out into the peaceful day. It was huge and slouching, its unkempt head thrust forward.
It stood regarding Monsieur until the music ceased and the maker thereof rose to stir the delectable contents of the singing pot.
Then it came forward, shuffling its ragged feet among the ribbons of fallen bark beneath the trees.
“Hello, bo,” it said.
Years ago, three-quarters of a life ago, Monsieur had welcomed guests beneath tall trees, coming down marble steps to do so, bowing over white ringed hands, his raiment above reproach, the kerchief in high breast pocket perfumed, his gloves immaculate.
Now he whirled upon the instant, his face alight; he had felt somehow, you will recall, that there were rainbows abroad today, and greeted this guest cordially.
“Welcome, M'sieu!” he said, “déjeunner ees about to be serve'!”
The newcomer stood in insolent pose, hands in sagging pockets, and his bleared eyes took in every detail of the simple camp—the stew upon the fire, the spread-out roll, the walking stick of eucalyptus and the shiny old accordion.
Monsieur took a bright tin spoon from among his prized possessions and tasted the decoction in the pot.
It was delicious! It was tasty to the last degree, just enough salt, the onion and the garlic clove having given their very souls on the altar of flavor! Monsieur smacked his lips.
“Have you, perhaps, ze private cup, M'sieu?” he asked.
“Never mind th' manners, bo,” the other said, “I'll take th' pot.”
He reached out a huge hand and took the pot deliberately, even making use of Monsieur's small rag kept for the purpose that he might not burn his fingers.
“Here,” he said, “hold yer cup.”
Into it the stranger poured a niggardly portion, barely half its capacity, and walking over, picked up the piece of bread. He broke off a bit the size of an apple which he handed to Monsieur. Then taking the rest he sat down to eat, a hulking heap of selfishness and injustice.
Monsieur Bon Coeur was hungry, but he was a gentleman. Therefore he sat quietly down and ate his scant meal in silence, with the dignity and restraint of epicures at great tables.
Not so this self-invited guest of his. He ate with gusto and the smacking of lips loud in the summer stillness, and he was finished with his heartier portion long before Monsieur had done with his, so that the small eyes under their shaggy brows had ample time to see all there was to see.
Had Monsieur been watching he might have seen the look of craft which crossed them, the inception of decision.
He was not watching, however, and when the other rose and began swiftly to rope the blankets and all their contents into the slender roll, he looked up in astonishment.
“You' pardon, M'sieu,” he said apologetically, “I had thought to camp here for ze night.”
The other did not speak. Instead he swung the roll to his back, kicked aside the polished walking stick and leaning down, reached for the accordion.
Now Monsieur Bon Coeur was not slow in the up-take, no matter what he was in other matters, and with the lift of the blankets he knew he was being robbed. A flush rose in his thin face, his blue eyes filled with distress. His blankets! His possessions! They were precious to him as gold!
But when the dirty hand reached for the little old box, ah, then did Monsieur flame with indignation! Had he been young and in a better day he would have reached for a sword at hip, would have fought like a gentleman. He was old, however, and delicate with poverty, but there was a spirit in him. He was up in an instant, his white locks flying and before one could divine his purpose he was upon the giant like a fury.
Alas for the gallant figure in its waving tatters! The other put him aside as a matter of small moment, put him aside again, and yet once more, for Monsieur was roused to the bottom.
“Damn yer hide!” said the tramp at last, exasperated, “will I have t' croak yuh?”
He set down the box and took his two brutal hands to its owner, went to work in earnest.
And Monsieur Bon Coeur, fighting for his humble lares and penates, battered himself against the flailing fists with an abandon worthy of a greater cause.
At the height of this pin-wheel fireworks a car went by on the boulevard.
It was a monster of a car, long and bright with scarlet paint, the great dome of its hood thunderous with its roaring engine.
As it shot by its lone occupant, a young man in smart driving leathers, cast a glance at the wayside spectacle. He looked again, turned his auburn head and looked back, and, with a low word of surprise, stamped his foot on the brake. With a mutter and a whir the monster stopped, tore backward like a giant beetle affrighted in its progress. Just as Monsieur Bon Coeur, caroming from a dirty fist, performed an eccentric arc, the bronze-haired boy leaped from the low seat and landed in the fray. He took the bully from behind and in a matter of moments did things to him which sent him wabbling north along the highway at an erratic run.
Then he turned to where Monsieur was getting to his feet.
“Hello, bo!” he said, “do you know me?”
One of the old man's eyes was gently closing but the other still shone with the light of battle. It rested eagerly on this his deliverer for one brief moment. Then its owner wavered forward, hands outstretched in welcome.
“Oui! Yes! Certainement! I'll inform ze worl'!” he squeaked in joyous astonishment, “M'sieu le Guy de la Gasoline!”
“No one else but!” said the other, pumping the reaching hands, “No one e'se but!”
And they were so glad to see each other that they shook hands over and over again, forgetting they had done so.
A million questions were swelling behind Monsieur's tongue, a thousand eager hopes.
“How long?” he cried eagerly. “How long has it been, M'sieu?”
“Four years ago the seventeenth of June,” said the other frankly, “but I'd know you in hell, my friend. I've never forgotten you for one day.”
“Four years! An' you were zen nineteen—so yo'ng!—an' ze four years now—you are at present twenty-three! A trifle more yo'ng zan ze Comte de Bourvenaise had he not been—”
Monsieur raised his right hand in a stiff salute.
He did not finish the sentence. He never finished those sentences which had to do with that young hero, French ace, whose shining career had spiralled down that sunny day above Flanders fields.
Gravely the boy before him answered that salute.
“You—and—the Comte de Bourvenaise,” he said hesitating, “I have to thank for—for a better day. I served two years for the theft of that big lizzie, and I had lots of time for thinking. I never forgot your kindness in the thicket, the sight of you trying to master the gear-shift of the car, nor the way you tried to make the bulls think you stole it, my great aunt Jane!” the speaker laughed with a little break in his young voice.
“And, Monsieur Bon Coeur,” he went on, grave again, “I never forgot what you said about the 'stuff of heroes'—a French ace falling for his country, or a thief who couldn't let an innocent old man go to jail for him. I thought a lot of those things in—in those two years—and I wanted, how much no one will ever know! to be like, a little like, that young Comte de Bourvenaise. I thought of the freedom of the world, too, which you bequeathed to me when you thought you were going with the cops instead of me, of the hills and the valleys and the stars at night, and—and how you asked me to 'use them with honor.' I want to say, Monsieur,” he went on earnestly, “that I have done so, as best I could. I have walked a chalk-line since I came out.”
“Ze field of honor!” he cried happily, “an' yo'ng feet set therein! How small a line between ze paths, M'sieu! Even ze mention of a dead boy—a gallant, gallant boy like * * *.”
“Come,” said the other, “I'm driving south. The red bird yonder is the fastest thing on wheels. Let's go.”
Monsieur surveyed this red wonder with mounting excitement while his friend, the Gasoline Guy, deposited his possessions in a cavernous pit behind the seat.
He, Monsieur Bon Coeur, was about to charge the very wind upon its back, to hurtle down the ribbon of the shining asphalt road like any potentate!
“M'sieu,” he said gladly, “show me ze pep of ze lizzie. Step on her, I beg you.”
Show me ze pep of ze lizzie!
They were Monsieur's exact words of that day four years ago, and the boy in the trim garments winced while he laughed. Then he set his foot on the throttle and the next instant Monsieur Bon Coeur had shot back full in the seat, his white locks streaming, as the high-powered car leaped ahead like a racer.
The bronze-haired boy was stepping on her in earnest and after a while he glanced sidewise at his passenger.
The modest and apologetic old tramp was gone.
Another man was in his place, a man who sat as near upright as possible against the pressing hand of speed, who surveyed the world from great heights, whose face was glorified with joy. A man who, after long sojourn among the lowly, had re- turned to grandeur! * * *
For the matter of two hours the big car rolled and bumped along the country road which began at last to rise toward eastern hills,
They talked of a thousand things but neither touched on their destination. To the chauffeur it had not occurred to mention it, to Monsieur it did not matter.
But presently, as the sun was swinging low along the west and all the gorgeous veils of color were falling down upon the quiet earth, they began to see a city on the fringes of the hills' skirts. It was a strange city, to be sure, teeming with life and colorful as Bagdad.
Its tents were spread close beneath a California cliff, but camels squalled and bubbled at their picket pins, two elephants swayed contentedly over their piles of hay, while horses and mules, dogs and long-haired Persian cats made Bedlam of the scene.
Brown Bedouins in flowing robes walked among the tents, chieftains and beggars, potentates and kings, while beautiful women in outlandish clothes came hurrying down from the cars that had just driven in.
Sane citizens, too, it seemed, were there, men in soft shirts with the sleeves rolled up, riding clothes and puttees, women in the same attire, others in silks and satins, street wear and hiking outfits.
Here and there a youth came carrying on his shoulder a spindle-legged monster with a sinister one-eyed head—cameramen careful of their charges.
Upon all of this Monsieur looked with wonder, though with an ancient grace of pure politeness he refrained from comment.
His companion however explained as they drew near.
“This is 'location',” he said, “selected by the Supercraft Pictures Corporation from Hollywood. Making 'Kings of the Khyber' with Mara Thail, the famous star of the films. And that brings me to myself: I'm no longer the Gasoline Guy, Monsieur, except between you and me. For six months now I've been driving for Miss Thail, and I'm known as Brown, Hudson Brown, chauffeur. It's a quiet name.... Here we are.”
The red monster rolled up among the tents and stopped before an improvised garage. The boy got out and taking Monsieur's scant possessions from the pit, bade the old man follow.
The boy stopped before a tent, raised the flap and holding it aside, beckoned him in, followed and laid down his burden.
“Monsieur,” he said, “I'll get another cot moved in. Hang your music box to the ridge-pole. You're my guest, and the tent's yours. The supper gong'll be ringing in twenty minutes. I'll be back as soon as I've reported to Miss Thail.”
The twilight of the West Coast country painted the landscape in mysterious and indescribable beauty. From the rocky ram parts of the foothills where the camp was pitched the world went down in a gentle slant toward the west. The vast bosom of the Sacramento Valley lay open to the tender skies, placid with well-being, sweetly bedizened in jewels of fertility.
Brown the chauffeur ran a slim hand through his auburn hair and smiled with appreciation of it all as he went toward the big square tent set aside for the star of the production, Mara Thail.
At its door he met her coming in, clad like a Queen of the desert, a woman of wonderful beauty, of amazing personal charm, an artist of the nth degree, heady with the romance of her calling, a fortunate daughter of the modern gods, swiftly climbing the magic ladder of success.
Her long hair, blue-black and live, hung down across her breast in two thick braids. Her dark eyes smiled beneath level brows. Her mouth was beautiful with the curves of passion, possessed a trick of closing that spoke plainly of restraint. Her cheeks were lovely as the round sides of a perfect pearl.
In all her inner self there was no dark spot of unhappiness. She was clear with that light of joy which youth radiates, and yet she was twenty-seven, had seen more of life than many twice her age, and worked very hard to earn her fame.
It was that clarity, that wholesome inner joy, which, coupled to her ability to play upon the human heart in her acting, caused the entire entourage to call her The Marvelous Mara.
[Continued in July McCall's]