Monsieur of the Rainbow (McCall's Magazine)/Part 5
THEY had stolen from John Buchannan the one possession left to him—the one thing in which he could put his faith, knowing that love would be returned. This was Palermino the superb yellow stallion which he himself had tamed. And now they were trying him for the murder of the movie star, Ensalez; merely because they knew that Buchannan had harbored a terrible hatred for that one, suspecting him to be in some way responsible for the theft of the horse. Then came the startling confession of Monsieur Bon Coeur—Vagabond Nobleman—confusing the court until the noose of suspicion hung puzzlingly above the heads of both men.
AND so came another day, another packed throng in the court-room; the judge upon his dais and the hounds of the law barking on another trail, seeking for motive beyond the simple statement of the new prisoner. Our friends were there, Mara Thail and Justin Sellard, and many others. And this was wonderful, this thing which was going forward, for the little old man with the eager eyes so blue and bright, was as elegant as a Petronius, as sure as Socrates.
Sure, serene, untroubled, he answered readily all questions, and he told one tale and none other, steadily, simply, incriminating himself completely. So sane and quiet was he about it all that by three o'clock he had convinced his hearers to a man. Judge and jury looked upon him as a monster, cold, pitiless; a monster who had killed a man for so small a reason as the unreasoning hatred of pique. To a man, did I say?
There were two under the sound of his voice who did not believe. Justin Sellard, leaning forward, his wise face alight with admiration, and Brown-the-Chauffeur.
“Great Glory!” thought the former, “he's lying—lying beautifully!—and what an actor he is! Oh, what an actor!”
The latter was seeing once again a willow thicket beside a shining road, hearing a lilting old voice saying “—yo'ng feet on ze field of honor. I am old, M'sieu—I give to you ze hills an' ze valleys, ze stars at night—” Brown felt the sting of tears beneath his lids. What Monsieur Bon Coeur had done for him in little, he was trying to do now for another to the last great limit. Aces, and heroes, and that Good God above who would make allowance for the hindering flesh. Little old Monsieur with his tatters, his pride, his piteous weakness for the hospitable wine vats, his playing on the little faded box with its windy soul—oh, little old Prince of the tribe of Failures!
Illustration: HE REMEMBERED HER IN ORIENTAL COSTUME
Hudson Brown, alias the Gasoline Guy, could stand no more. With the packed room swimming to his vision he got up to leave. Monsieur Bon Coeur, sitting in his tragic spot, saw the young form pass and a tender light came in his face.
So! It was one of his prized possessions, his, Monsieur's—a young life reclaimed and cleansed. He looked timidly down to that portion of the room a little to the left and back where a woman with a face of dawn sat hanging on his words.
He remembered her in oriental costume during the filming of the “Kings of the Khyber.” Her beauty had haunted him ever since. Old as M'sieu's heart was, he had felt a wondrous emotion at sight of her. And now, although Mara Thail was dressed in a more modern garb, he felt that same emotion flooding him again as he saw her face there among the horde of sensation-curious spectators which filled the court-room. Oui! If only he, Monsieur, had seen that face—say fifty years ago—in France! How quickly she had said to him from the shadows that night in the mimic city “Bravo, Player! The soul of France, keep it sacred.” He felt for the accordion with a gentle hand. It was there beside him where the officer had allowed him to place it, the most precious thing. The time was coming near when he would play it—that thrice sacred tune, the Marseillaise. Yes, once, somehow, he would feel the time when he should be worthy of its strains—perhaps the evening of that last day when he should see the stars between the high bars of the window. Of a surety. That would be the time. There would be few to hear—perhaps those other unfortunates. No, rather those unfortunates—along Death Row. He, Monsieur, would not be exactly of their number.
He was dreaming thus, hardly conscious of the voices of lawyers thundering their periods. He fell to thinking of the open roads, the eucalyptus trees waving their million hands in greeting to him, of the wayside fires at twilight with the mulligan steaming in its thousand pots, of the sound of trains roaring over bridges above, of the gossip of a continent passed about like neighborhood news among the drifters. He thought, too, of the sedate old collie, the little shepherd mother and her gangling pup. He wondered if Sarghan would care for them.
And then, just as he had come up that broad aisle with his burden of news to shock the court, so another was coming now. This was an ordinary young man who held in his hand a colored paper and who came quickly forward, spoke in low tones to an attaché of the court and gave over the paper. This was taken to the judge who opened it. That august dignitary dropped his jaw frankly as he read, for this is what he saw:
Radiogram received 2:37 p m Feb 24 1925 evening news from tramp schooner Martha Mead off southern California wish to announce strange happening on board this morning and which I feel will have grave bearing on sensational murder case now being tried in Los Angeles. Clearing yesterday from San Pedro took on last minute new cook one legged negro with strong English accent. Typical Jamaican. Seemed strangely unhappy morose and disturbed. This morning found him weeping in stern of boat. Investigating heard amazing confession witnessed by first and second officer. Says he killed Marculo Ensalez and threw across deck blood stained knife. Says it was because Ensalez had struck his master with a whip. Master's name David Buchannan on trial for crime. Upon completing confession negro rolled over rail and disappeared in sea. Stood by for hour dragging for body but unsuccessful. Will mail knife and officers' sworn statements at first port of call to chief police Los Angeles
Signed Charles B. Towner Captain.
The judge held the fateful radiogram for a long moment in a hand that trembled exceedingly. He looked over the rims of his glasses at the mass of humanity before him. His glance swept from David Buchannan at one side to Monsieur Bon Coeur at the other, and it was strangely puzzled. More, it was beginning to probe to undreamed depths.
“You,” he said to Monsieur, “stand up. And you,” he said to Buchannan, “stand up also.”
In a clear voice he read the message aloud. At its close a deep silence pervaded the court-room. Then the audience rose as one. A boy in the foreground flung up his cap and yelled “Whoopee for the little old liar!” and those behind him took it up. The room rocked and the judge's gavel was unheard.
David Buchannan was suddenly ashy white, the knees under him shaking with reaction. Justin Sellard was already moving toward the aisle, and Mara Thail with beating heart watched the prisoners both. And for the first time Monsieur Bon Coeur, realizing the astounding truth, looked into the eyes of his friend. In the drawing of a breath he, Monsieur, had lost the soul's pot of gold, the cloak of sacrifice, and for one moment he was sunk in sorrow.
Then, swift upon the heels of this sorrow, came the upsurge of hope, of happiness. Once more a rainbow of promise spanned the sky. This was a miracle! The hand of fate—of le bon Dieu!
Monsieur's heart was swelling. It felt as though about to burst. His veined old hands were fumbling at the edges of his coat. He moved upon his feet—and touched that which sat meekly by his chair. Ah, bien! Joy! And voila! The accordion! The old man stooped and picked it up. He flung it to place. He pulled its sides to their utmost capacity; and then, white head back, shoulders erect, Monsieur Bon Coeur played.
With one great swelling chord it struck upon the silence, the Marseillaise! Over the heads of the motley crowd it swept away, full, exciting, lifting, the martial strains which belonged with the sound of marching feet, and Monsieur was once again beside the Arc de Triomphe.
Justin Sellard was moving forward amid the throng, saying under his breath, “I've got to get to him! Can't lose him this time.” “Let me by please,” aloud. Mara Thail was holding hard to the rail before her. Out in the corridor Hudson Brown stopped in his pacing to listen.
IT was summer time again in California. Sweet winds swept the coast country, cool sunlight washed it. Beside the roads the eucalyptus trees fluttered their green banners. Along the land a thousand hoboes wandered, their fires aglow in jungle, thicket and city dump. Beneath a bridge on the S. P. Line, Montana Mike was talking to a group of his contemporaries.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “I got th' word a month ago, up in Wyoming. I ain't ben out o' Stir so long but what I'm still a bit o' all-wrong, peaked-like, an' no taste fer scoffin's—but th' news set me up immediate, an' I started comin' then. This week, it were, along this boulevard. So I'm a-waitin'.”
“Yeh—you'll wait, all right,” laughed a grizzly tramp across the fire. This was a huge, evil man, selfish and cruel, one who would take an old man's hospitality, the preponderance of his food, and even steal his blankets, his cup and his accordion.
But Montana Mike was serene in his faith.
“I'll wait,” he said, “an he'll come.”
TWILIGHT sifted down across the world of jumbled peaks, of wooded slopes and singing streams that was the High Sierras. Purple and mauve and rose, it bathed them in unspeakable beauty. A little wind came in through the Gap in the escarpment that rimmed a mountain meadow. It stirred the rings of dusky hair upon a woman's brow, blew soft across the face of a man whose cheek lay in timid adoration against her temple. They sat together on the rude bench beneath a cabin's window, and they were but a woman and a man, with station obliterated between them. They talked in low tones of a glorious future, and they were happy as only predestined mates can be happy. They built roads and bridges, and strange to say they had forgotten all the mimic world of pictures and their making!
The same little wind blew across the dead garden where David Buchannan could not walk without a sharp pain at his heart, the garden where Sarghan, the Jamaica negro, had worked so faithfully. There was much in the place that brought to the master this pain of pity and regret, the squirrels that frisked in the door-yard, the black-and-white camp-robbers, the familiar things of the cabin. But Mara Thail Buchannan put a soft hand on his face, and the ghost was laid.
So the little wind went on toward the meadow, where it lifted the long strands of creamy silken mane on Palermino's neck, gently fanned his great tail at his heels as he drowsed in evening peace. The cattle were there, too, sleek and quiet, and Billy the plodder browsed a little way beyond.
And so we leave them all, knowing that however far he may roam along the world, David John Buchannan, a man once more cleansed of his bitterness, blessed beyond his dreams, will home to his high meadow at intervals like the birds return to the place that gave them life.
AND now we come to Monsieur Bon Coeur—Mister Good Heart—he of the undying hope, the love, the faith.
On the morning of that golden California day we behold a group of men at work upon a building. It is a building strange among the Spanish houses that rim the world of Hollywood, a fine, prideful, foreign structure, a Petit Trianon in modest copy. It is well under way. In a matter of months it will be finished, its gardens spread around it like the skirts of a Pompadour. There will be fountains and flights of marble steps. There will be tall trees, for they are already there, standing like happy beggars in the sun, eucalyptus with their thousand banners waving. There will be within the house fine things, chief among them baths, many baths, tiled in the pale greens and blues and pinks of the open country in the spring. There will be also open doors of welcome, food for the asking to any who come to them. There will be within this enchanted little house, in short, the foot of a rainbow. That we know, knowing its future master. That master stands, rapt, before it now. Let me present him to you reader—Monsieur Bon Coeur, who bears another name now, but who will be to us always, and to many others, Monsieur Bon Coeur.
It is a grand figure which I show you, a slight figure, erect to the point of stiffness. There is about it a grace, a presence. The head with its flowing silver locks is poised well back, the hands with their blue-veined delicacy of line are folded on the head of a walking stick, and this time it is malacca. There is a coat upon the thin shoulders, a marvelous garment. Padded of shoulder, waspy as to the waist, its long lapels rolled to the proper button, its flaring tails reaching near to the wearer's knees. It is a faithful replica of its predecessor of the Kansas cornfield and the scare-crow—beneath the coat are visible the legs of trousers, wide trousers of indubitable peg-tops, tinted like the breast of a soft grey dove, their quality and texture above reproach. A hat which arrests attention tops the whole. Narrow and flat of brim it towers loftily, its crown narrowing smartly to a flat finish, and with a broad ribbon boasting a bow at the side. In all this finery we behold our friend—unchanged.
The great happiness in him is no finer polished than on that distant day when we saw him first upon the boulevard, stepping forth to the adventures of the morning. He is bound once more upon adventure, and his eager old blue eyes are watching the corners ahead for a rainbow, even though that ephemeral and lovely thing has come to rest its golden tip most literally in Monsieur's lap of life.
Adventure—yes. A little way apart, beneath the eucalyptus trees, there waits such a shining monster of the roads as the old man was wont to admire from a respectful distance, glad for those fortunate ones who rode therein. It belongs to Monsieur. In its insolently low-hung driver's seat sits Hudson Brown, the chauffeur. Its curved and hood-like half-top is laid opulently back and over the tonneau's edge appear three canine heads waiting with patient and adoring eyes fixed on Monsieur. Beside Monsieur stands Justin Sellard, smiling, quiet, his bald head bare to the morning sun, an amused indulgence in his eyes.
“An' you will see, M'sieu,” Monsieur is saying apologetically, “zat ze grass ees planted in ze gardens, ze water-pipes laid?—An' all thees working men—M'sieu, I grieve to trouble—bot may zey 'ave ze lemonade—ze san'wich—an' a so small rest in ze long afternoons? Thees Los Angeles sun—eet is warm—”
The director-producer laid a hand on the speaker's arm.
“Forget it all, Monsieur,” he said. “Let no thought trouble you.”
“An' w'en I return—then we shall, wat you say, M'sieu, about ze new picture, ze film—we shall 'shoot' eet?”
“Exactly,” said Sellard, “and now good-bye. Don't forget that you are the greatest sky-rocket, over-night-sensation, character actor in the old U. S. A., Monsieur; and that you belong head-neck-and-heels to the Supercraft corporation.”
Monsieur bowed. “Au revoir, mon ami,” he said with dignity. “I will not forget.”
Then he turned and marched away to where the monster waited by the eucalyptus trees. He entered, flourished once more the inimitable tails, sat gladly down on the opulent cushions.
“An' now, my frien',” he said gayly, “show me the pep of ze lizzie. Step on her. Eet is a long way to la belle France.”
Once out of the city Brown-the-Chauffeur “stepped on her” to the great delight of Monsieur, so that the wondrous day swept by on golden wings of enchantment. Thicket and bridge and wayside camp came up and passed. To each familiar spot their devotee gave loving cognizance. The towns strung out along the shining ribbon of the road dropped down along it like beads upon a thread.
By tacit consent they stopped at none. The friendly vats were long since dry, the dim doorways of the cities knew Monsieur no more. With the touch of the hand of le bon Dieu in the blessing of Aladdin-like fortune Monsieur Bon Coeur had forsworn his enemy as an unavoidable price. What had the Gipsy said under the river's bank?
“—your path of life runs low into the Vale. It reaches almost the bottom—not quite—then rises in a burst of light—of glory—of gold and honor.”
Honor—yes—even he, Monsieur, could regain that lost field on whose fair levels he had set so many younger feet. And gold. Ah, what could he not do with gold!
THE evening veils of rose and lavender and purple haze were drifting down upon the great Valley of the Sacramento. To the right the foothills of the High Sierras sloped up in rugged grandeur—and somewhere up there two hearts watched the pageantry of coming dusk. Monsieur thought of them happily. Young Brown-the-Chauffeur thought of them, too, and there was a wistful light in his brown eyes, the young lips were set tight together.
The note of the singing car came down a notch. The hand of the wind pressed a shade more gently. Ahead a bridge was coming up from the levels of distance. Beside it stood a figure, a grotesque figure, unshorn and fluttering. It leaned forward, intent upon the coming car. Then it flung up a hand—and Monsieur cried “Stop, M'sieu! Stop rapidly!”
As the giant slowed with a graceful halt he leaned from the tonneau, both hands outstretched.
“M'sieu Montana Mike!” he cried happily.
“Mongseer Bong Core!” cried the other. “I ben waitin'. Got th' underground in Wyoming. My blankets—”
“Nevaire mind ze blankets,” cried Monsieur grandly, “in ze nex' town zere will be a shop—an' we go—all of us—to Paree.”
Two minutes later the monster rolled away toward the north, and none of the three looked back to where a hulking bully of a hobo stared after them with hanging jaw and astonished eyes of recognition.
[The End]