A Tatter of Scarlet: Adventurous Episodes of the Commune in the Midi 1871

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XVII

  A DESERT PRINCESS

  We occupied the two big gable rooms looking east on the second floor ofthe Kellers' house in the market square of Autun. This suited usadmirably, though we were obliged to keep quiet so as not to disturbAlida, who had the corresponding suite on the first floor below. Wefound that the room in the entresol where we had slept the first nightwas the proper bedroom of Keller and Linn his wife.

  But as a matter of habit, neither of them appeared to care very much fora regular night's rest. You would catch them, indeed, closing their eyesafter dinner over a newspaper, or when Alida was practising on her noblegrand piano, the chief pride and luxury of the Keller house.

  But Hugh and I, who slept with our door of communication open in orderto talk to one another in case of sleeplessness, could hear Keller andLinn moving about at all hours of the night down in the silence of theground floor--sometimes advertising their presence by a little silveryrattle of glass set on a tray, the dull fall of a log on the chimney andirons, or the curious slip-shuffle of Linn's walk. Sometimes, too, weheard voices, but that not often. Once about the end of the first week,when I could not sleep, I slipped down for a stroll about the town. Itwas half-past two of a black February morning, and the snow swirls werewaltzing like spinning tops all about the market square. But there inthe archway, his back to the carven lintel, stood Keller Bey, calmlysmoking his pipe and looking out on the black turmoil as though it hadbeen the cool of an August evening. Linn heard us talking, and camequickly to see who was there. Even at that hour she was in her ordinarydress, and she dried her hands composedly on a long sheath apron of blue_toile nationale_.

  "Why are you not asleep?" she demanded sharply. "Keller, you areteaching this young man bad habits."

  His wife's accusation only made Keller wag his head wisely. Instantly Itook all blame upon myself. I had not been able to sleep, I said, I wasashamed to disturb Deventer by my restlessness.

  "You drank too much of that black coffee last night, Monsieur Auguste"(thus had Angus gone wrong). "I must ration you in future, so that youcan get your natural sleep as young folks should."

  I hastened out into the night with Keller's huge "pellerine" cast aboutmy shoulders, and the hood reaching my ears. It was a comfortablegarment of some unknown African cloth, rough as frieze and warm as wool.The sudden dashes of snow swooping upon me were turned victoriouslyaside by its formidable brown folds, and I felt as I wandered in theblack of the streets with the buildings towering dim and shadowy aboveme, like one who in a storm has by some magic carried his house alongwith him.

  No soldiers were bivouacking in the streets that night. The squares werevoid of bonfires. All the red shirts and blue breeches had alike foundshelter, for the superfluous regiments were now quartered upon theneighbouring villages, or had marched to their head-quarters at Dijon.

  Back and forth I tramped, from the Mairie clock with its dim one-candlepower illumination of face to the dark mass of the towers of the HolyTrinity, I patrolled the town from end to end.

  It was perhaps an hour or a little more that I wandered so, tiringmyself for sleep, my face beaten upon pleasantly by the fierce gusts ofsnow charging down from among the chimney-pots, or driving level acrossthe open spaces. At last I turned my face towards the market square,which I entered by the little dusky street of the Arches, and so camesuddenly upon the Keller house at the angle opposite to the mayoralbelfry.

  I had expected Keller in the same position waiting for me, but when Isheltered in the archway, no Keller was in sight. Behind me, however,the door stood open, and as I stood dusting down and shaking out thethick folds of Keller's pellerine, I was conscious of a stir behind me.I turned my head in doubt, and was just in time to see the man himselfwhisk upstairs with the curious enamelled iron water-jug in his hand,which is known through all the South as a "bouillotte."

  The fire had newly been made up in the kitchen, and glowed warmly. Thekettle sang shrill, and even the German stove, used on the occasions ofgreat feast, had hastily been put into commission.

  Feeling sure that something was gravely wrong, I took off my boots todry slowly on the high bar alongside those of Keller and Hugh. I tiptoedupward, hoping to gain my room without running across any one. But onthe first floor the door of the sitting-room stood wide open, and allwas bright within. I saw Alida sobbing bitterly, Linn kneeling besideher with bottles of Cologne water and smelling-salts. She was murmuringsomething evidently designed to be comforting. The girl's long dark hairfell around her in loose masses, overspreading and almost inundating thelow canary-coloured divan of soft Oriental silk on which she wasreclining. Keller hovered helplessly about the couch, or proffered asuggestion, to be swept off the scene with a sharp word from Linn whichsent him to the far end of the room, only to begin again a stealthyapproach.

  I promise you I was passing the door as cautiously as might be, andgiving myself no small credit for my excellent management of thebusiness, when suddenly I heard my name called as only one in the housecould speak it.

  "Auegoos Cawdori--Auegoos, I want you--I want to tell you!"

  Alida, leaning on her elbow, had caught sight of me, and I could seeLinn's gesture of something like despair, which I took tomean--"There---the secret is out. We can never stop it if once shespeaks."

  She bent forward and spoke earnestly into Alida's ear. But the girlmerely signed to Linn to retire. The gesture was made unconsciously, butwith all the dignity of a princess accustomed to be unquestioninglyobeyed.

  "Let Monsieur Cawdori come hither at once. I must speak with him. Hisadvice is good. You and Keller Bey are old and speak as the old. AuegoosCawdori is young as I am young, but he has the wise heart. So much Ihave seen from the first."

  She spoke in French, but with a curious redundancy and largeness ofphrasing unnatural to a language which is an exact science. In allmoments of agitation Alida seemed to be translating from another andmore copious tongue.

  Obedient to her command I entered the sitting-room where she was lyingamong the cushions of the yellow divan. The room was fitted up with acertain barbaric splendour, and the only touches of modern life to beseen were a bookcase of prettily bound books--red, green, and gold--setin a corner, the big Steinway Grand with its cabinets of music ready tohand, and the piano-stool upon which Alida often amused herself byspinning round and round, her tiny feet in their heelless slippers ofgolden brocade showing beneath the flutter of her light silk robe.

  As she lay on the divan, I could see that she wore under herdressing-gown a blouse of white silk flowered with gold, and an abundantpair of trousers of the same gathered close about her ankles by a buttonand a knot of golden cord.

  "I will speak," she cried. "This young man is worthy of my confidence,and you know it, Linn. If my father had wished me to go with Said AliMohammed, the slave prince, he would not have committed me to you. No,he would have sent me to nibble sweetmeats among the women behind theveil. But I am not a woman of the harem. I am free and French. Obey Ishall not. I would rather die!"

  She suddenly threw off a slipper, reached out a bare brown footexquisitely moulded, deftly picked up a letter from the floor with hertoes, and handed it to me. It was in Arabic, and at the sight of thecharacters I shook my head.

  "My father could read it, but not I," I said mournfully, wishing that Ihad spent less time on Greek and Latin at the _Lycee_ St. Andre.

  "Then you must learn--you must--I shall teach you to speak, and yourfather shall drill you in the verbs. Listen, Auegoos Cawdori, I am not,save in love and in the kindness which not even my life could repay, thedaughter of these best and dearest folk in the world. No, parents arenot so kind as Keller and Linn. They are more selfish, though God forbidthat I should speak so of my father. He was, ever since I can remember,a prisoner of war--even the great Emir Abd-el-Kader himself. I am thedaughter of his one Queen, his first wife--no child of the 'Smala,' buta princess, the daughter of a princess. Abd-el-Kader, thinking himselfnear his end, committed me to the care o
f his old officer and his wife,instructing them that in all things I should be brought up as a maidenof the Franks. This they have done. You Linn, and you Keller, have keptwatch about me day and night. The God who is the God of Jesus and ofMahomet reward you, as surely he will. I am a European girl in thatwhich I have learned. I have chosen a profession in which I can behappy, here in this little town among the hills, till I seek largerfields and try my fate in other cities."

  She paused in her tale and smiled. The tears were falling steadily downLinn's face, and she seemed suddenly to have aged a quarter of acentury. But Keller Bey, no longer restless, stood stiffly at attentionas if he had been listening to the commands of his master, the greatEmir. Alida looked from one to the other. Then lightly as a cat leapingfrom the floor to a window-sill, she sprang to her feet and embracedthem tenderly.

  "I am your true daughter always. Do not forget it. I owe everything toyou, and I shall never quit you if you will let me stay."

  She sat down again, and taking her letter, she began:

  "This is from my father, Abd-el-Kader, presently living at Brousse inSyria on the road to Damascus. He is old, he says, and he desires to seeme about him in his latter days. All is good in Syria. The water ofBrousse is sweet, and the French Government gives him much money. He hasfound a husband for me, a prince royal of Egypt, though not of Arabrace. Sidi ben Mohammed is his name, the man whom he sends with a letterthat I may see him, upon receipt of which his servant Keller Bey and hiswife will hasten to bring me to Brousse under the protection and escortof this Prince of Egypt. Upon my arrival the solemn rites shall beobserved, and I shall be the first wife of Ali Mohammed the Prince, aworthy man and one of great power in his own country.

  "So it is written, and my father signs and seals, but whether it waswritten for him or by him, I cannot tell. At any rate he has made hissignature with the flourish which none can mistake, and an order is anorder. What say you, Auegoos Cawdori? Must I obey, and become the chiefwife of this coffee-coloured fellah, no Arab of my father's race, saythe Egyptians what they will?"

  Alida sat among the scatter of cushions regarding me fixedly.

  "Tell me," she said, with a pitiful little gesture of appeal, "must Iobey my father? _They_ think so, though I know well it will break theirhearts as it would mine. Rather would I use this little toy" (she showeda dainty pair of golden scissors, with which the high born of her peoplesometimes open their arteries in a bath) "than I would go to Brousse towed the brown man with the skin greasy like that of a toad--A-ae-ae-ch!"

  She shuddered and flung herself back on the cushions.

  I stood there in my stockinged feet as if I had been in a mosque, but noone remarked my bootless condition.

  "Now," said Alida, "you have heard the letter of the Emir, myfather--what am I to reply to him? Tell me and I shall say it. You arethe gift of God. The messenger with the message. I knew as much when Isaw you passing the door. You have come out of the darkness to bring melight."

  It was a difficult position for my father's son. I was conscious of nomessage from heaven. But on my spirits preyed the same disgust as hadfallen on her own. It was a thing impossible that this delicate girl,educated, well-read, accomplished, should mate with an African brute,with his Oriental ideas of the servitude of woman.

  "Princess Alida," I began, but she cried out instantly, "Alida--justAlida the music mistress--no princess at all!"

  "Well, then," I acquiesced, "Alida be it. You ask for my opinion. I willgive it you. But I warn you that perhaps I am not the best of advisers,for having a good father after his ideas (which are not mine) I have notobeyed him very well, nor, indeed, has he asked me to obey.

  "But it seems to me that your father, by making you over to Keller Beyand Linn there--by ordering you to be brought up as their daughter, byallowing and encouraging you to acquire the tastes and arts of theWestern people--has now no right to summon you back to a life whichwould be worse to you than death. I should refuse now and always. Ifnecessary I should make good my French citizenship, and claim theprotection of the Government. The mere threat of the loss of his greatpension would be sufficient for Abd-el-Kader!"

  The delicious little brown head was bent low, and Alida's fingers pullednervously at the gold threads on the sleeve of her long dressing-gown.She was carefully considering my advice, but I could see that sheflushed her brightest scarlet at my words about her father. The proudlittle spirit within her spoke freely of the Emir, but resented thespeech of others. I regretted that I had been so plain, but it was mymanifest duty (so at least I regarded it) to save this daintiest ofhuman creatures from the pollution and mental death of a harem,surrounded with evil-talking slave girls and sweet-sucking, moon-facedconcubines. Alida was a product of the West, in spite of her ancestry.The whole business appeared ludicrous and impossible. I seemed to belistening and talking in a dream from which I would presently awaken.Alida would don her smart walking dress, and with her brown leathermusic roll under her arm would set off to give the Sous-Prefet's youngwife her daily music lesson, Linn stalking majestically beside her likea great Danish hound on guard.

  At last she spoke, but without looking at me.

  "Though I agree that the thing itself is impossible--that I cannot marryAli Mohammed the slave and slave's son--tell me what is to be done? Ishall ruin these good people whom I love, who are paid to take care ofme. Or if I do not ruin them, I shall be obliged to live on their scantysavings, for I know that they have spent the moneys they received fromthe Emir on my education."

  Linn gave one look at Keller, and flung herself down beside the girl.

  "Whatever we have is yours--we shall do very well. Everyone is pleasedwith you. Your professors prophesy great things for you. Keller, youdumb dog, tell her we shall manage very well, and that she shall neverknow the difference!"

  "If she decides to disobey her father," said Keller Bey, "we must do asthings will do with us. But I wash my hands of the responsibility."

  For the first time I saw the flash in Linn's eyes.

  "Wash your hands of the responsibility, will you, Keller? So did Pilate.But I cannot hear that much good came of that! You and I must standbetween, and prevent a Calvary for our Alida--or a Golgotha, for shewill never marry that man alive!--I know her--I brought her up, and Inever mastered her once. No more shall her father by one letter broughtby a brown thick-lipped prince in a frock coat and glossy hat!"

  "Let us say no more about it," murmured Alida. "I will send away theslave's son to-morrow. I shall write to my father also. Doubtless hewill be angry, but then--surely it is true that he and those about himare imagining a vain thing. He should have kept me veiled andcloistered, without a book, without music, without a mind. Then I mighthave been fit for the plaything of an idle man, but that time is past. Iam a woman of the Occident, fitted to carry out my life alone, to earnmy living, and to be the mate of some man who shall be altogether mine!"