The Merry Men, and Other Tales and Fables

  CHAPTER VII. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF DESPREZ.

  The Doctor's house has not yet received the compliment of a description,and it is now high time that the omission were supplied, for the house isitself an actor in the story, and one whose part is nearly at an end. Twostories in height, walls of a warm yellow, tiles of an ancient ruddybrown diversified with moss and lichen, it stood with one wall to thestreet in the angle of the Doctor's property. It was roomy, draughty,and inconvenient. The large rafters were here and there engraven withrude marks and patterns; the handrail of the stair was carved incountrified arabesque; a stout timber pillar, which did duty to supportthe dining-room roof, bore mysterious characters on its darker side,runes, according to the Doctor; nor did he fail, when he ran over thelegendary history of the house and its possessors, to dwell upon theScandinavian scholar who had left them. Floors, doors, and rafters madea great variety of angles; every room had a particular inclination; thegable had tilted towards the garden, after the manner of a leaning tower,and one of the former proprietors had buttressed the building from thatside with a great strut of wood, like the derrick of a crane. Altogether,it had many marks of ruin; it was a house for the rats to desert; andnothing but its excellent brightness--the window-glass polished andshining, the paint well scoured, the brasses radiant, the very prop allwreathed about with climbing flowers--nothing but its air of awell-tended, smiling veteran, sitting, crutch and all, in the sunnycorner of a garden, marked it as a house for comfortable people toinhabit. In poor or idle management it would soon have hurried into theblackguard stages of decay. As it was, the whole family loved it, andthe Doctor was never better inspired than when he narrated its imaginarystory and drew the character of its successive masters, from the Hebrewmerchant who had re-edified its walls after the sack of the town, andpast the mysterious engraver of the runes, down to the long-headed, dirty-handed boor from whom he had himself acquired it at a ruinous expense. Asfor any alarm about its security, the idea had never presented itself.What had stood four centuries might well endure a little longer.

  Indeed, in this particular winter, after the finding and losing of thetreasure, the Desprez' had an anxiety of a very different order, and onewhich lay nearer their hearts. Jean-Marie was plainly not himself. Hehad fits of hectic activity, when he made unusual exertions to please,spoke more and faster, and redoubled in attention to his lessons. Butthese were interrupted by spells of melancholia and brooding silence,when the boy was little better than unbearable.

  'Silence,' the Doctor moralised--'you see, Anastasie, what comes ofsilence. Had the boy properly unbosomed himself, the littledisappointment about the treasure, the little annoyance about Casimir'sincivility, would long ago have been forgotten. As it is, they prey uponhim like a disease. He loses flesh, his appetite is variable and, on thewhole, impaired. I keep him on the strictest regimen, I exhibit the mostpowerful tonics; both in vain.'

  'Don't you think you drug him too much?' asked madame, with anirrepressible shudder.

  'Drug?' cried the Doctor; 'I drug? Anastasie, you are mad!'

  Time went on, and the boy's health still slowly declined. The Doctorblamed the weather, which was cold and boisterous. He called in his_confrere_ from Bourron, took a fancy for him, magnified his capacity,and was pretty soon under treatment himself--it scarcely appeared forwhat complaint. He and Jean-Marie had each medicine to take at differentperiods of the day. The Doctor used to lie in wait for the exact moment,watch in hand. 'There is nothing like regularity,' he would say, fillout the doses, and dilate on the virtues of the draught; and if the boyseemed none the better, the Doctor was not at all the worse.

  Gunpowder Day, the boy was particularly low. It was scowling, squallyweather. Huge broken companies of cloud sailed swiftly overhead; rakinggleams of sunlight swept the village, and were followed by intervals ofdarkness and white, flying rain. At times the wind lifted up its voiceand bellowed. The trees were all scourging themselves along the meadows,the last leaves flying like dust.

  The Doctor, between the boy and the weather, was in his element; he had atheory to prove. He sat with his watch out and a barometer in front ofhim, waiting for the squalls and noting their effect upon the humanpulse. 'For the true philosopher,' he remarked delightedly, 'every factin nature is a toy.' A letter came to him; but, as its arrival coincidedwith the approach of another gust, he merely crammed it into his pocket,gave the time to Jean-Marie, and the next moment they were both countingtheir pulses as if for a wager.

  At nightfall the wind rose into a tempest. It besieged the hamlet,apparently from every side, as if with batteries of cannon; the housesshook and groaned; live coals were blown upon the floor. The uproar andterror of the night kept people long awake, sitting with pallid facesgiving ear.

  It was twelve before the Desprez family retired. By half-past one, whenthe storm was already somewhat past its height, the Doctor was awakenedfrom a troubled slumber, and sat up. A noise still rang in his ears, butwhether of this world or the world of dreams he was not certain. Anotherclap of wind followed. It was accompanied by a sickening movement of thewhole house, and in the subsequent lull Desprez could hear the tilespouring like a cataract into the loft above his head. He pluckedAnastasie bodily out of bed.

  'Run!' he cried, thrusting some wearing apparel into her hands; 'thehouse is falling! To the garden!'

  She did not pause to be twice bidden; she was down the stair in aninstant. She had never before suspected herself of such activity. TheDoctor meanwhile, with the speed of a piece of pantomime business, andundeterred by broken shins, proceeded to rout out Jean-Marie, tore Alinefrom her virgin slumbers, seized her by the hand, and tumbled downstairsand into the garden, with the girl tumbling behind him, still not halfawake.

  The fugitives rendezvous'd in the arbour by some common instinct. Thencame a bull's-eye flash of struggling moonshine, which disclosed theirfour figures standing huddled from the wind in a raffle of flyingdrapery, and not without a considerable need for more. At thehumiliating spectacle Anastasie clutched her nightdress desperately abouther and burst loudly into tears. The Doctor flew to console her; but sheelbowed him away. She suspected everybody of being the general public,and thought the darkness was alive with eyes.

  Another gleam and another violent gust arrived together; the house wasseen to rock on its foundation, and, just as the light was once moreeclipsed, a crash which triumphed over the shouting of the wind announcedits fall, and for a moment the whole garden was alive with skipping tilesand brickbats. One such missile grazed the Doctor's ear; anotherdescended on the bare foot of Aline, who instantly made night hideouswith her shrieks.

  By this time the hamlet was alarmed, lights flashed from the windows,hails reached the party, and the Doctor answered, nobly contendingagainst Aline and the tempest. But this prospect of help only awakenedAnastasie to a more active stage of terror.

  'Henri, people will be coming,' she screamed in her husband's ear.

  'I trust so,' he replied.

  'They cannot. I would rather die,' she wailed.

  'My dear,' said the Doctor reprovingly, 'you are excited. I gave yousome clothes. What have you done with them?'

  'Oh, I don't know--I must have thrown them away! Where are they?' shesobbed.

  Desprez groped about in the darkness. 'Admirable!' he remarked; 'my greyvelveteen trousers! This will exactly meet your necessities.'

  'Give them to me!' she cried fiercely; but as soon as she had them in herhands her mood appeared to alter--she stood silent for a moment, and thenpressed the garment back upon the Doctor. 'Give it to Aline,' shesaid--'poor girl.'

  'Nonsense!' said the Doctor. 'Aline does not know what she is about.Aline is beside herself with terror; and at any rate, she is a peasant.Now I am really concerned at this exposure for a person of yourhousekeeping habits; my solicitude and your fantastic modesty both pointto the same remedy--the pantaloons.' He held them ready.

  'It is impossible. You do not u
nderstand,' she said with dignity.

  By this time rescue was at hand. It had been found impracticable toenter by the street, for the gate was blocked with masonry, and thenodding ruin still threatened further avalanches. But between theDoctor's garden and the one on the right hand there was that verypicturesque contrivance--a common well; the door on the Desprez' side hadchanced to be unbolted, and now, through the arched aperture a man'sbearded face and an arm supporting a lantern were introduced into theworld of windy darkness, where Anastasie concealed her woes. The lightstruck here and there among the tossing apple boughs, it glinted on thegrass; but the lantern and the glowing face became the centre of theworld. Anastasie crouched back from the intrusion.

  'This way!' shouted the man. 'Are you all safe?' Aline, stillscreaming, ran to the new comer, and was presently hauled head-foremostthrough the wall.

  'Now, Anastasie, come on; it is your turn,' said the husband.

  'I cannot,' she replied.

  'Are we all to die of exposure, madame?' thundered Doctor Desprez.

  'You can go!' she cried. 'Oh, go, go away! I can stay here; I am quitewarm.'

  The Doctor took her by the shoulders with an oath.

  'Stop!' she screamed. 'I will put them on.'

  She took the detested lendings in her hand once more; but her repulsionwas stronger than shame. 'Never!' she cried, shuddering, and flung themfar away into the night.

  Next moment the Doctor had whirled her to the well. The man was thereand the lantern; Anastasie closed her eyes and appeared to herself to beabout to die. How she was transported through the arch she knew not; butonce on the other side she was received by the neighbour's wife, andenveloped in a friendly blanket.

  Beds were made ready for the two women, clothes of very various sizes forthe Doctor and Jean-Marie; and for the remainder of the night, whilemadame dozed in and out on the borderland of hysterics, her husband satbeside the fire and held forth to the admiring neighbours. He showedthem, at length, the causes of the accident; for years, he explained, thefall had been impending; one sign had followed another, the joints hadopened, the plaster had cracked, the old walls bowed inward; last, notthree weeks ago, the cellar door had begun to work with difficulty in itsgrooves. 'The cellar!' he said, gravely shaking his head over a glass ofmulled wine. 'That reminds me of my poor vintages. By a manifestprovidence the Hermitage was nearly at an end. One bottle--I lose butone bottle of that incomparable wine. It had been set apart against Jean-Marie's wedding. Well, I must lay down some more; it will be an interestin life. I am, however, a man somewhat advanced in years. My great workis now buried in the fall of my humble roof; it will never becompleted--my name will have been writ in water. And yet you find mecalm--I would say cheerful. Can your priest do more?'

  By the first glimpse of day the party sallied forth from the firesideinto the street. The wind had fallen, but still charioted a world oftroubled clouds; the air bit like frost; and the party, as they stoodabout the ruins in the rainy twilight of the morning, beat upon theirbreasts and blew into their hands for warmth. The house had entirelyfallen, the walls outward, the roof in; it was a mere heap of rubbish,with here and there a forlorn spear of broken rafter. A sentinel wasplaced over the ruins to protect the property, and the party adjourned toTentaillon's to break their fast at the Doctor's expense. The bottlecirculated somewhat freely; and before they left the table it had begunto snow.

  For three days the snow continued to fall, and the ruins, covered withtarpaulin and watched by sentries, were left undisturbed. The Desprez'meanwhile had taken up their abode at Tentaillon's. Madame spent hertime in the kitchen, concocting little delicacies, with the admiring aidof Madame Tentaillon, or sitting by the fire in thoughtful abstraction.The fall of the house affected her wonderfully little; that blow had beenparried by another; and in her mind she was continually fighting overagain the battle of the trousers. Had she done right? Had she donewrong? And now she would applaud her determination; and anon, with ahorrid flush of unavailing penitence, she would regret the trousers. Nojuncture in her life had so much exercised her judgment. In the meantimethe Doctor had become vastly pleased with his situation. Two of thesummer boarders still lingered behind the rest, prisoners for lack of aremittance; they were both English, but one of them spoke French prettyfluently, and was, besides, a humorous, agile-minded fellow, with whomthe Doctor could reason by the hour, secure of comprehension. Many werethe glasses they emptied, many the topics they discussed.

  'Anastasie,' the Doctor said on the third morning, 'take an example fromyour husband, from Jean-Marie! The excitement has done more for the boythan all my tonics, he takes his turn as sentry with positive gusto. Asfor me, you behold me. I have made friends with the Egyptians; and myPharaoh is, I swear it, a most agreeable companion. You alone arehipped. About a house--a few dresses? What are they in comparison tothe "Pharmacopoeia"--the labour of years lying buried below stones andsticks in this depressing hamlet? The snow falls; I shake it from mycloak! Imitate me. Our income will be impaired, I grant it, since wemust rebuild; but moderation, patience, and philosophy will gather aboutthe hearth. In the meanwhile, the Tentaillons are obliging; the table,with your additions, will pass; only the wine is execrable--well, I shallsend for some to-day. My Pharaoh will be gratified to drink a decentglass; aha! and I shall see if he possesses that acme of organisation--apalate. If he has a palate, he is perfect.'

  'Henri,' she said, shaking her head, 'you are a man; you cannotunderstand my feelings; no woman could shake off the memory of so publica humiliation.' The Doctor could not restrain a titter. 'Pardon me,darling,' he said; 'but really, to the philosophical intelligence, theincident appears so small a trifle. You looked extremely well--'

  'Henri!' she cried.

  'Well, well, I will say no more,' he replied. 'Though, to be sure, ifyou had consented to indue--_A propos_,' he broke off, 'and my trousers!They are lying in the snow--my favourite trousers!' And he dashed inquest of Jean-Marie.

  Two hours afterwards the boy returned to the inn with a spade under onearm and a curious sop of clothing under the other.

  The Doctor ruefully took it in his hands. 'They have been!' he said.'Their tense is past. Excellent pantaloons, you are no more! Stay,something in the pocket,' and he produced a piece of paper. 'A letter!ay, now I mind me; it was received on the morning of the gale, when I wasabsorbed in delicate investigations. It is still legible. From poor,dear Casimir! It is as well,' he chuckled, 'that I have educated him topatience. Poor Casimir and his correspondence--his infinitesimal,timorous, idiotic correspondence!'

  He had by this time cautiously unfolded the wet letter; but, as he benthimself to decipher the writing, a cloud descended on his brow.

  '_Bigre_!' he cried, with a galvanic start.

  And then the letter was whipped into the fire, and the Doctor's cap wason his head in the turn of a hand.

  'Ten minutes! I can catch it, if I run,' he cried. 'It is always late.I go to Paris. I shall telegraph.'

  'Henri! what is wrong?' cried his wife.

  'Ottoman Bonds!' came from the disappearing Doctor; and Anastasie andJean-Marie were left face to face with the wet trousers. Desprez hadgone to Paris, for the second time in seven years; he had gone to Pariswith a pair of wooden shoes, a knitted spencer, a black blouse, a countrynightcap, and twenty francs in his pocket. The fall of the house was buta secondary marvel; the whole world might have fallen and scarce left hisfamily more petrified.