CHAPTER V
Armistice Day in Paris
It was shortly before eleven o’clock on the morning of November eleventh when the bells of Paris began pealing.
The following instant a group of young American girls who had been seated about a tiny fire in a large, bare room, jumped hurriedly to their feet.
“It has come at last, the Germans have signed the armistice! Vive la paix!” one of them exclaimed.
Her words were almost drowned in the noise of the firing of guns, the thunder of cannon, noises to which Paris had been listening for the past four years in bitterness, but which she now heard with rejoicing.
“Let us start out at once, Aunt Patricia, to take part in the celebration before the streets become too crowded,” Peggy Webster suggested. “What luck to be in Paris today! I should rather be here than in any city in the world at the present time, for surely the city which has suffered most through the war must rejoice most!”
As she finished speaking, Peggy walked over to a window and flung it open. Already they could hear the sounds of cheering. Below Peggy could see people running into the street, windows of other houses being thrown open. Voices were calling, vive, vive everything, except, “la guerre.”
“Isn’t it a pity Tante is not with us? We shall miss her more than ever today,” Bettina added. “Yet I am glad she is not too ill to feel the deepest thankfulness even if she cannot take part in the celebration and we may manage to see her later this afternoon. Aunt Patricia, do you feel equal to going with us? The crowds may make you overtired. Don’t worry, we promise to be as careful as possible, but do let us hurry. I feel as if I could scarcely bear the four walls of a house ten minutes longer. I want to shout, weep, laugh over victory. Glorious France, how much she has suffered and how much she has won!”
“Nevertheless, Bettina Graham, there is no reason to talk in such a high-flown fashion,” Miss Patricia Lord returned, “as if you were making a speech on one of the boulevards. I think we had better be saying our prayers. Just the same please be quiet a moment while I try to think; the noise outside is sufficient without your increasing it. I am afraid it will not be safe for you Camp Fire girls to go out into the streets for at least another twenty-four hours. But most certainly I shall go, however, I will return as promptly as possible to let you know what I have seen.”
At this instant Miss Patricia removed the large horned spectacles, through which she had been reading the morning paper, and wiped the moisture from them carefully. She then wiped her eyes, but entirely unconscious of what she was doing.
Nevertheless, she may have remained unaware of the expressions upon the faces of the half dozen girls who were her present companions.
At this moment an arm encircled her waist.
“Really, truly, Aunt Patricia, you don’t think we can stay indoors when all the rest of Paris is rejoicing? You wouldn’t be so cruel as to ask it of us, you who have preached courage in the time of war, would not have us turn cowards with the approach of peace?”
And Mary Gilchrist looked imploringly into Miss Patricia’s fine eyes, wise enough not to appear to notice their unusual moisture.
“You come with us, Aunt Patricia, and I think we shall manage to keep together and not to lose either our heads or our way. Remember we made a safe retreat to Paris when the Huns believed they were soon to follow after us and take possession of the city.”
As Mary Gilchrist had just announced, it was true that a number of months before, after an arduous retreat, first from their farmhouse on the Aisne and later from the Château Yvonne, the Camp Fire girls and their guardians had arrived safely in Paris. During the following summer months they had lived in a French pension not far from the Place de la Concorde, while the long range German guns vainly endeavored to frighten the city with a sense of her impending doom.
At present neither Mrs. Burton nor Sally Ashton was with their Camp Fire group in the pension. Soon after their arrival, not having recovered sufficiently from her wound to endure the long strain and fatigue of the retreat, Mrs. Burton had again been seriously ill. By her surgeon’s advice she had been removed to a hospital nearby, where she had been for the past few months, and although by this time a great deal better, she had not yet rejoined her friends.
Sally Ashton, without appearing to be actually ill and indeed always denying every suggestion of illness, had never from the day of the retreat from the farmhouse been like her former self. Six weeks before, influenced more by Miss Patricia’s wish than the doctor’s orders, she had departed for rest and quiet to a little house in the country a few hours journey from town.
At this moment, following Mary Gilchrist’s words, the Camp Fire girls formed an imploring circle about their chaperon, Miss Patricia Lord, who, in Mrs. Burton’s absence, had no one to dispute her authority.
Never to appear actually to oppose Miss Patricia, the girls had learned to be the better part of wisdom, therefore the present moment was fraught with danger. To disobey Miss Patricia’s wish, which might at any moment be translated into a command, would be disagreeable and perchance succeeded by uncomfortable consequences. However, not to see Paris in her carnival of joy and to share in the celebration was not to be considered.
And in all probability Miss Patricia had always appreciated this fact.
“Oh, very well,” she conceded with unexpected suddenness, “and do get ready as soon as possible. I have only to put on my bonnet. In truth I have been prepared for this moment ever since our arrival in France. Have I not always insisted that victory was always a mere question of time!”
A few moments later the throngs in the streets of Paris were increased by the presence of the half dozen American Camp Fire girls and Miss Lord.
Perhaps not much more than a half an hour had passed since the announcement of the signing of the armistice and yet already a multitude had appeared out of doors. Paris was happy and expressing her happiness as only Paris can.
The air was filled with cheers, with snatches of songs, not so frequent the “Marseillaise,” as “Madelon,” the song of the poilus, since it was the French soldier who had brought victory to glorious France.
Through the crowds Miss Patricia engineered the way, Yvonne Fleury clinging to one arm, Mary Gilchrist to the other, while behind them followed Vera Lagerloff and Alice Ashton and next came Bettina Graham and Peggy Webster.
As the crowd in their neighborhood was moving toward the Place de la Concorde there was no choice but to move with it.
In the Place de la Concorde, filled with statues commemorative of French history, the girls observed a vast mass of waving flags. Here all the trophies of war had been placed. Soldiers and young girls were climbing on the big guns, shouting, laughing, kissing one another.
Save for Miss Patricia’s leadership the Camp Fire girls would never have moved on with so little difficulty. Like a happy grenadier she marched with her head up and her old eyes flashing. France had no greater admirer than the elderly American spinster.
A French soldier, leaning over to kiss Mary Gilchrist, who was gazing upward and unconscious of him, found Miss Patricia’s hand suddenly interposed between his lips and Mary’s face. Being a Frenchman, he had the grace gallantly to kiss Miss Patricia’s hand and then to march off laughing at the joke on himself.
Finally the little group of Americans found themselves in a temporary shelter near the statue of Alsace-Lorraine in the Place de la Concorde. From the close of the Franco-Prussian war this statue of an heroic figure of a woman, representing the lost provinces, had been draped in mourning. Today the mourning had been torn away and the statue smothered in flowers.
It chanced that Bettina Graham and Peggy Webster were crowded close against the railing surrounding the statue.
“Peggy,” Bettina whispered, “I want to add my little tribute to France’s victory after forty years of waiting for the return of her provinces. I have nothing to offer but this little bunch of violets I have been wearing all morning. And certainly they are a faded tribute! Still there is no chance of getting any other flowers today.”
“Oh, never mind, it is the sentiment after all, isn’t it, Bettina? The tribute is no tinier than the effort we Camp Fire girls have been making in the last year to help France. It is simply that we have given all we had to give,” Peggy returned.
While she was speaking, Bettina had unfastened a large bunch of Roman violets, which she was wearing at her waist, and was leaning over the railing trying to find a place for her small bouquet. At the same instant a hand, holding an enormous bunch of red and white roses encircled with deep blue forget-me-nots, was thrust above her head.
Flushing at the contrast, Bettina hurriedly dropped her violets and glanced upward.
Behind her was a young man, evidently an American, although not a soldier, as he was not wearing a uniform.
“I beg your pardon, I hope I have not interfered with you,” an American voice apologized.
But before Bettina was able to do more than shake her head, there was an unexpected movement in the crowd and she and Peggy were again pushed onward.
A few feet ahead Miss Patricia was looking back and signaling. They could see that a girl had been lifted on the shoulders of two soldiers. The crowd was now following them.
When the girl began singing, the crowd became quieter. Her voice was clear and beautiful; she was singing the “Marseillaise,” then snatches of Allied songs.
Evidently the girl, whom the soldiers were bearing along in triumph, was some celebrated artist, who was giving the best she had to give to the people as her tribute to France. And the crowd now and then sang with her, whatever words of whatever national song they knew.
Finally toward dusk, the Camp Fire girls and Miss Patricia found themselves returning to the neighborhood of their pension. Lights were beginning to shine along the boulevards, when Paris until tonight had been in darkness for nearly four long years.
At a street corner where the crowd had thinned, Miss Patricia waited with Yvonne and Myra until the other four girls had caught up with them.
“You girls, can make your way home from here alone, can’t you?” she inquired. “I really must see Polly Burton before this day is past. I must say a few words to her else I shall never feel the day’s celebration has satisfied me.”
“Of course, Aunt Patricia, but since we all feel exactly as you do, why not let us go with you?” Peggy answered.
Soon after the Camp Fire girls and Miss Lord found Mrs. Burton seated by a window in her hospital bedroom, holding a little book in her hand and, except that she was pale from the excitement of the day, looking extraordinarily well.
“Oh, I never, never, never have been so glad to see people before!” she cried, jumping up and embracing Miss Patricia. “If you only knew what it has meant to stay here in a hospital with my nose glued against the window pane, when all the world is going mad with joy, you would be truly sorry for me. I think I should have tried to make my escape, if my doctor had not telephoned me I was not to think of going out for a moment. I suppose, Aunt Patricia, you managed to telephone him this instruction last night because you imagined the armistice would be signed today. But please everybody tell me at once just what you have seen and done.”
A quarter of an hour later, when the Camp Fire girls had grown silent through sheer fatigue, Miss Patricia said with unusual gentleness:
“Well, Polly, I am sorry you could not be with us today, although I did tell the doctor that he was not to allow you to go out for a moment under any circumstances. What have you been doing with your time?”
Mrs. Burton held up her book.
“Perhaps you could never guess! I have been reading a one-act play by France’s great Premier, Clemenceau. Did you know the old warrior statesman was a poet as well? His play is called ‘Le Voile du Bonheur,’ ‘The Veil of Happiness.’ It is the story of an old blind Chinese poet who is happy in the love of his wife and son and the devotion of his friends. I wish I knew French sufficiently well to be able to act in it. One day the old poet’s poems are recognized by his Emperor and he is told he may have any gift. He asks for the release of a friend who is a prisoner. Then the old man falls asleep and in his sleep his sight is restored. He wakens to find the friend he has released from prison trying to rob him, his wife loving some one else and his son mocking at his affliction. And in the end the poet prays to have his blindness restored that he may return to happiness. It is a melancholy little play. I have been hoping all day the world may never wish to be blind again.”
Getting up Mrs. Burton began walking up and down her little room, and a moment later, coming up behind Miss Patricia, suddenly put both hands on the older woman’s shoulders, resting her cheek on her hair.
“Aunt Patricia, none of us can leave France now the armistice is signed until peace is declared. Surely all of you feel as I do; we who have seen France in her suffering must remain here during her great release. I presume the peace commission will hold its sessions in Paris; no other city is apt to be chosen.”
Miss Patricia nodded.
“For once in my life, Polly my dear, I agree with you. Indeed ever since there has been a possibility of an armistice I have been thinking over what you have just said! We may be making a mistake, nevertheless, I am reasonably sure that Paris will be chosen as the place of meeting for the Peace delegates. Under the circumstances I have just rented a furnished house in Versailles for the next six months. Paris will soon grow too crowded to contain unnecessary women. Moreover, Versailles is near enough to Paris for us to enjoy whatever takes place here and will also be better for our health and our nerves.”
CHAPTER VI
Versailles
On an afternoon in February, two months later, two girls were walking together in the most beautiful and perhaps the most historically romantic garden in the world, the garden of Versailles.
They had followed the long avenues known as the “Avenues of the Seasons” and in French, as Allée de l’Été, Allée de l’Automme, Allée de l’Hiver and Allée du Printemps, and were now seated on a small bench at the end of the Allée du Printemps, facing a fountain.
The fountain was not playing at the present time, and yet it must have been in action not long before. A little fringe of ice appeared at the edges of the great basin, while the clumps of reeds, from which the spray usually issued, were encrusted with tiny jewels of frost.
“Do you really prefer going home without me, Sally? I don’t feel I should allow you to go alone and yet you look tired. I suppose we should not have walked so far. I have promised to wait near the Little Trianon until Peggy and Ralph Marshall join us. This is Ralph’s first visit to Versailles and I am afraid if we are not there when he and Peggy arrive they will wait on indefinitely, expecting us to appear. You will take the tram just as I explained to you and go directly home. I should have remembered you had been ill.”
The younger of the two American girls shook her head impatiently.
“Please give up that fallacy, Bettina; I have not been ill, I have never been seriously ill in my life. I simply spent six weeks in the country to satisfy Aunt Patricia and to enjoy being as lazy as I wished. Some day perhaps I may tell you what made me unhappy after our retreat to Paris, but not now. At present I am going to desert you not so much because I am tired as because Peggy Webster and Ralph Marshall in their present engaged state bore me. Goodby, I know the way to our new home perfectly and will have no difficulty in reaching there alone. If you are late I will make your peace with Tante. It is enough that we should have one invalid in the family!”
And with a wave of her hand Sally Ashton departed, walking toward one of the nearby gates which led from the great park into the town of Versailles.
Delayed in Paris longer than she had anticipated, it was only ten days before that Miss Patricia Lord had managed to move the Camp Fire girls and Mrs. Burton from their pension in Paris to her furnished house at Versailles. But no one of them had regretted the delay, having in the interval witnessed President Wilson’s brilliant welcome by the city of Paris and the opening of the Allied Peace Conference.
Yet this afternoon, as Bettina waited in the famous garden for the coming of her friends, she was glad to have escaped from the turmoil and excitement of Paris into the comparative quiet of Versailles.
All her life, except for the few persons to whom she gave her devoted affection, Bettina had cared more for books than for human beings, which may have partly explained her lack of interest in the social life of Washington to which her parents’ positions entitled her.
At this moment she opened a book she had brought with her, a history of Queen Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. Down the long avenue she could see the outlines of the stately palace, which had been started as a hunting box for Louis XIII, transformed into its present magnificence by the great Louis XIV, and been the home of the last days of the ill-fated Louis XVI and his Queen.
Closer to where Bettina was at present seated was the Little Trianon, the pleasure palace presented to Marie Antoinette by the King, and it was here under a group of the famous Louisiana cypress trees that Bettina had agreed to meet Peggy and Ralph.
She did not wish to be late for her appointment; only a few days before Ralph had arrived in Paris on his way home to the United States and this was his first visit to the park at Versailles. No one could say how long he would remain in France before his orders to sail, but at least he and Peggy had the satisfaction of having their engagement formally acknowledged, although their marriage, because of Peggy’s youth, was still indefinitely postponed.
Bettina did not share Sally’s attitude toward her friends. Since her earliest girlhood she and Peggy had been singularly devoted to each other, and although she did not believe the old friendship could continue after Peggy’s marriage with the same degree of sympathy and affection, nevertheless she meant to make the best of a three-cornered friendship.
It was still too early for her engagement, yet Bettina, after reading only a few chapters, closed her book and got up. It was growing a little cold and she would walk on toward the Little Trianon and wait in some more sheltered place for Ralph’s and Peggy’s arrival.
As she had plenty of time she strolled along down the Avenue de Trianon, studying the details of her surroundings with even more interest than usual.
A little path led away from the avenue to a high stone wall.
Never before had Bettina seen either the path or the wall in her frequent wanderings about the great Park of Versailles. A little aimlessly she now followed the path, discovering that the wall was about six feet in height and oval in shape with long tendrils of winter vines partly hiding it. Strange that she had never noticed this particular wall which might conceal some place of special interest! Yet the Park was so immense and held so many objects of beauty and value that one might spend half a lifetime without seeing all its treasures.
Circling the stone wall Bettina noticed a narrow opening just large enough to permit one person to enter.
There was no one near. At the present time no visitors were allowed to explore the great Park at Versailles without a special permit from the French authorities. The Camp Fire girls owed their privilege to the kindness of Monsieur Georges Duval, the French Senator who was Mrs. Burton’s friend.
Bettina stepped up to the opening in the wall and glanced in. Inside was an enclosed garden. In the winter time one could see that the garden was an old and carefully tended one, which in the spring or summer would be a place of rare loveliness.
This was probably a portion of the English garden of Queen Marie Antoinette, about which Bettina had read. It must have also been a secret garden, for the opening in the wall was scarcely a gateway, a narrow section of stone had been removed, which could be restored and leave no sign.
Without reflecting or considering whether she possessed the right to gratify her curiosity, Bettina slipped inside the little garden.
The grass was still green, the paths carefully tended and free from weeds. In the large flower beds the plants were covered from the winter frosts.
The garden held a remarkable variety of shrubs and trees.
Overhead branches of the trees intertwined like long bare arms. Heavy vines of roses formed dim canopies above white pergolas, which with the coming of spring and summer would be bowers of flowers.
Close against the oval stone wall were carefully trimmed evergreen trees, their eternal green a restful background for the riot of color which the garden must offer in its seasons of blooming.
Bettina wandered farther along the footpaths which led deeper and deeper inside the enclosure. The garden was larger than she had first believed and more fascinating.
Finally she entered a maze, made of closely trimmed box hedge which she had never seen in France. Some of the designs were squares, others oval or triangular in shape. At last she came to the central design, where the hedge had been so trimmed that the grass enclosure was in the shape of a large heart.
Smiling Bettina stopped at this point. How romantic the little garden appeared, shut away from the outside world of long tumult and strife!
Then suddenly she appreciated that it was growing late for her engagement and she must cease from her romantic dreaming.
Bettina now turned and began to retrace her steps with the idea of leaving the secret garden as soon as possible.
So absorbed had she been by her unexpected discoveries and her own reflections that she had evidently remained longer than she intended. Even now Peggy and Ralph were probably awaiting her. However, they would probably not mind being alone for a little longer time.
On some other occasion, if she were allowed, Bettina felt she would like to show them this tiny, enchanted garden. How strange to recall that Marie Antoinette had often wandered in these same paths! And also that with the execution of Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI, France had begun her long struggle for liberty and equality, a struggle which the great European war had only continued on a more worldwide scale.
But Bettina now discovered that she was not making her way out of the labyrinth so easily as she had entered it. Twice she found that she had wandered through the maze only to arrive again at the heart-shaped design in the center.
Nearly a quarter of an hour Bettina expended before she reached the path which led to the opening in the stone wall through which she had entered into the secret garden.
Yet at the end of this path, Bettina decided that she must have made a second mistake. The path led directly to the wall, yet there was no opening to be seen, no sign of any gateway.
Retracing her steps she followed another path, but with the same result. Finally she attempted to walk around the entire wall inside the garden, searching for an opening in every available space.
It was impossible to climb the wall, the surface was too smooth and steep, nevertheless, several times Bettina made futile attempts. Then she tried calling for help, although recognizing the difficulty of attracting any one’s attention.
The winter twilight was beginning to close in and in ordinary times tourists were not permitted inside the Park after dark. Whoever had charge of the little garden must have closed the gate and gone away for the night.
Finally Bettina concluded that she must expect to remain inside the secret garden for the night. There was nothing to do save to accept the situation philosophically. She would be cold and hungry and lonely, but many persons had lived through far greater misfortunes. The worst of her present situation was the anxiety her failure to return home would occasion her friends.
During the long hours before morning she must amuse herself by peopling the little garden with the picturesque ghosts of its past.
A little after eight o’clock, having by this time decided that she could not hope for rescue until the next day, Bettina searched until she found the best possible shelter for the night on a little bench within a clump of evergreens.