Part 31

"I am crying the loss of a bracelet, monsieur!"

"But who are you?"

"I am Aristide Pujol, and I play the drum, kettle-drum, triangle, cymbals, castagnettes and tambourine in the orchestra of the Tournée Gulland. And now, in my turn, may I ask to whom I have the honour of speaking?"

"I am the Mayor of Perpignan."

Aristide raised his hat politely. "I hope to have the pleasure," said he, "of Monsieur le Maire's better acquaintance."

The Mayor, attracted by the rascal's guileless mockery, laughed.

"You will, my friend, if you go on playing that drum. You are not the Town Crier."

Aristide explained. Père Bracasse was ill, suffering from rheumatism, bronchitis, fever and corns. He was replacing him. The Mayor retorted that Père Bracasse being a municipal functionary could not transmit his functions except through the Administration. Monsieur Pujol must desist from drumming and crying. Aristide bowed to authority and unstrung his drum.

"But I was enjoying myself so much, Monsieur le Maire. You have spoiled my day," said he.

The Mayor laughed again. There was an irresistible charm and roguishness about the fellow, with his intelligent oval face, black Vandyke beard and magically luminous eyes.

"I should have thought you had enough of drums in your orchestra."

"Ah! there I am cramped!" cried Aristide. "I have it in horror, in detestation. Here I am free. I can give vent to all the aspirations of my soul!"

The Mayor mechanically moved from the spot where they had been standing. Aristide, embroidering his theme, mechanically accompanied him; and, such is democratic France, and also such was the magnetic, Ancient Mariner-like power of Aristide--did not I, myself, on my first meeting with him at Aigues-Mortes fall helplessly under the spell--that, in a few moments, the amateur Town Crier and the Mayor were walking together, side by side, along the Quai Sadi-Carnot, engaged in amiable converse. Aristide told the Mayor the story of his life--or such incidents of it as were meet for Mayoral ears--and when they parted--the Mayor to lunch, Aristide to yield up the interdicted drum to Père Bracasse--they shook hands warmly and mutually expressed the wish that they would soon meet again.

They met again; Aristide saw to that. They met again that very afternoon in the café on the Place Arago. When Aristide entered he saw the Mayor seated at a table in the company of another prosperous, red-ribboned gentleman. Aristide saluted politely and addressed the Mayor. The Mayor saluted and presented him to Monsieur Quérin, the President of the Syndicat d'Initiative of the town of Perpignan. Monsieur Quérin saluted and declared himself enchanted at the encounter. Aristide stood gossiping until the Mayor invited him to take a place at the table and consume liquid refreshment. Aristide glowingly accepted the invitation and cast a look of triumph around the café. Not to all mortals is it given to be the boon companion of a Mayor and a President of the Syndicat d'Initiative!

Then ensued a conversation momentous in its consequences.

The Syndicat d'Initiative is a semi-official body existing in most provincial towns in France for the purpose of organising public festivals for the citizens and developing the resources and possibilities of the town for the general amenity of visitors. Now Perpignan is as picturesque, as sun-smitten and, in spite of the icy tramontana, even as joyous a place as tourist could desire; and the Carnival of Perpignan, as a spontaneous outburst of gaiety and pageantry, is unique in France. But Perpignan being at the end of everywhere and leading nowhere attracts very few visitors. Biarritz is on the Atlantic coast at the other end of the Pyrenees; Hyères, Cannes and Monte Carlo on the other side of the Gulf of Lions. No English or Americans--the only visitors of any account in the philosophy of provincial France--flock to Perpignan. This was a melancholy fact bewailed by Monsieur Quérin. The town was perishing from lack of Anglo-Saxon support. Monsieur Coquereau, the Mayor, agreed. If the English and Americans came in their hordes to this paradise of mimosa, fourteenth century architecture, sunshine and unique Carnival, the fortunes of all the citizens would be assured. Perpignan would out-rival Nice. But what could be done?

"Advertise it," said Aristide. "Flood the English-speaking world with poetical descriptions of the place. Build a row of palatial hotels in the new part of the town. It is not known to the Anglo-Saxons."

"How can you be certain of that?" asked Monsieur Quérin.

"Parbleu!" he cried, with a wide gesture. "I have known the English all my life. I speak their language as I speak French or my native Provençal. I have taught in schools in England. I know the country and the people like my pocket. They have never heard of Perpignan."

His companions acquiesced sadly. Aristide, aglow with a sudden impudent inspiration, leant across the marble table.

"Monsieur le Maire and Monsieur le Président du Syndicat d'Initiative, I am sick to death of playing the drum, the kettle-drum, the triangle, the cymbals, the castagnettes and the tambourine in the Tournée Gulland. I was born to higher things. Entrust to me"--he converged the finger-tips of both hands to his bosom--"to me, Aristide Pujol, the organisation of Perpignan-Ville de Plaisir, and you will not regret it."

The Mayor and the President laughed.

* * * * *

But my astonishing friend prevailed--not indeed to the extent of being appointed a Petronius, arbiter élegantiarum, of the town of Perpignan; but to the extent of being employed, I fear in a subordinate capacity, by the Mayor and the Syndicat in the work of propagandism. The Tournée Gulland found another drum and went its tuneful but weary way; and Aristide remained gloriously behind and rubbed his hands with glee. At last he had found permanence in a life where heretofore had been naught but transience. At last he had found a sphere worthy of his genius. He began to nourish insensate ambitions. He would be the Great Benefactor of Perpignan. All Roussillon should bless his name. Already he saw his statue on the Quai Sadi-Carnot.

His rise in the social scale of the town was meteoric, chiefly owing to the goodwill of Madame Coquereau, the widowed mother of the Mayor. She was a hard-featured old lady, with a face that might have been made of corrugated iron painted yellow and with the eyes of an old hawk. She dressed always in black, was very devout and rich and narrow and iron-willed. Aristide was presented to her one Sunday afternoon at the Café on the Place Arago--where on Sunday afternoons all the fashion of Perpignan assembles--and--need I say it?--she fell at once a helpless victim to his fascination. Accompanying her grandmother was Mademoiselle Stéphanie Coquereau, the Mayor's niece (a wealthy orphan, as Aristide soon learned), nineteen, pretty, demure, perfectly brought up, who said "Oui, Monsieur" and "Non, Monsieur" with that quintessence of modest grace which only a provincial French Convent can cultivate.

Aristide's heart left his body and rolled at the feet of Mademoiselle Stéphanie. It was a way with Aristide's heart. It was always doing that. He was of Provence and not of Peckham Rye or Hoboken, and he could not help it.

Aristide called on Madame Coquereau, who entertained him with sweet Frontignan wine, dry sponge cakes and conversation. After a while he was invited to dinner. In a short space of time he became the intimate friend of the house, and played piquet with Madame Coquereau, and grew familiar with the family secrets. First he learned that Mademoiselle Stéphanie would go to a husband with two hundred and fifty thousand francs. Aristide's heart panted at the feet of Mademoiselle Stéphanie. Further he gathered that, though Monsieur Coquereau was a personage of great dignity and importance in civic affairs, he was as but a little child in his own house. Madame Coquereau held the money-bags. Her son had but little personal fortune. He had reached the age of forty-five without being able to marry. Marriage unauthorized by Madame Coquereau meant immediate poverty and the testamentary assignment of Madame Coquereau's fortune to various religious establishments. None of the objects of Monsieur Coquereau's matrimonial desire had pleased Madame Coquereau, and none of Madame Coquereau's blushing candidates had caused a pulse in Monsieur Coquereau's being to beat the faster. The Mayor held his mother in professed adoration and holy terror. She held him in abject subjection. Aristide became the confidant, in turn, of Madame's sour philosophy of life and of Monsieur's impotence and despair. As for Mademoiselle Stéphanie, she kept on saying "Oui, Monsieur" and "Non, Monsieur," in a crescendo of maddening demureness.

So passed the halcyon hours. During the day time Aristide in a corner of the Mayor's office, drew up flamboyant circulars in English which would have put a pushing Land and Estate Agent in the New Jerusalem to the blush, and in the evening played piquet with Madame Coquereau, while Mademoiselle Stéphanie, model of modest piety, worked pure but nameless birds and flowers on her embroidery frame. Monsieur le Maire, of course, played his game of manilla at the café, after dinner, and generally came home just before Aristide took his leave. If it had not been for the presence of Mademoiselle Stéphanie, it would not have been gay for Aristide. But love gilded the moments.