A LITTLE FAMILY GATHERING

THE ladies reached the deck in a state of terror, and it was some time before they recovered their equilibrium.

“Oh, it’s frightful,” sighed Madame d’Artigues. “Did you hear them? Did you see them? I thought they were going to devour us.”

“And telling us that story,” said Mlle. de Valrieu, falling into a seat, “and trying to palm themselves off as....”

“Yes,” interrupted Mlle. de Fontainebleau, cutting her short, “that’s the most amazing thing of all.... Suppose it were true?”

“Look here, are you taking leave of your senses, dear lady?” broke in Robert Bourrelier.

“I say, do try to be civil. Anyway, you can say what you like but I can’t make out this Chéri-Bibi.... Did you recognize him, Mesdames? Come, his portrait was in the newspapers.... Was it anything like him?”

“Well,” said Madame d’Artigues, “between ourselves, the Captain is much more like him.”

“Exactly,” agreed Mlle. de Valrieu, with a shudder. “He is the very image of Chéri-Bibi.”

“You acknowledge it yourself.... Why, ever since lunch I’ve been saying to myself that it’s astonishing how the Captain resembles Chéri-Bibi.... Heavens, if it were true ... if it were true.... What would become of us?”

She was quite pale, and the three of them were trembling with apprehension. Robert Bourrelier was obliged to talk to them and make them listen to reason.

“Just like women,” he said, “you’re always the slaves of your imagination. To be shipwrecked is not enough, you must have a few adventures with convicts. Look here, really, have you lost your heads? Don’t look so scared. When the Captain comes I shan’t fail to tell him the reason of your fear so that we may have a little fun. A portrait in the newspapers!

“Come, let us consider the matter seriously. The Captain said himself that his portrait was printed beside Chéri-Bibi’s. You take the one for the other. You mix up the two characters. The Captain’s hair is cut short, and many sailors have their hair cut short like Chéri-Bibi’s, and thereupon you fly off at a tangent. If all the men with closely cropped hair were either going or coming out of prison, Paris, in summer time, would be a branch establishment of Cayenne, and one would imagine, in the height of the season, that the doors of all the departmental prisons had been thrown open!

“Come, be sensible. Consider the splendid discipline that exists on board. How cheerful the crew are. Remember how kindly you were received. If all these people were what you fear them to be, I daren’t even tell you what would have happened to you after you had set foot in this hospitable ship. Do you follow me so far?”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Madame d’Artigues, who in reality asked for nothing better than to be convinced. “We were silly....”

“Depend upon it, convicts wouldn’t mince matters.”

“The day is not over yet,” the nervous Carmen thought it well to observe.

“It is only beginning,” came from a voice behind them.

They turned round and found themselves confronted by three officers, who bowed with every mark of politeness.

The “old offenders,” now at liberty, had sent them the pick of the basket, which consisted of a forger of legal documents, a notorious poisoner, and a swindler who had misappropriated the funds of a religious society.

The ladies were agreeably impressed by the cut of the clothes, the white gloves, and the society manners of the three rascals.

The man who spoke first and possessed a pleasant voice went on:

“Yes, Mesdames, the day is only just beginning for us, seeing that the entertainment is to be graced with your charming presence. The Countess is waiting for you to open the ball. May we have the pleasure of dancing the first quadrille with you?”

The Countess! They had forgotten her. Yes, indeed, they must have been crazy. Had they for a moment remembered the charm and distinction of this great lady, who had taken them under her protection, they would certainly not have given such rein to their imagination. And they laughed at themselves, and Robert Bourrelier laughed with them. What could they have been thinking about? And then these young officers, such excellent fellows, so polite, so correct, expressing themselves with such good form. The ladies rose to their feet with a simper.

“The entertainment! Oh, please forgive us. We had forgotten it.... We hardly know if we dare come.... The Countess has doubtless dressed specially for it,” lamented the delightful Carmen de Fontainebleau.

“Not at all, not at all. The Countess, like all great ladies, loves simplicity. She came just as she was. And then, you know, it’s a little family gathering.”

The officers offered the ladies their arms. They did not need a second asking, and now, entirely reassured, they went off with their partners.

“I am told that there are no better dancers than sailors,” prattled the beautiful Madame d’Artigues.

The forger of legal documents, with a courtly inclination of the head, modestly protested.

“A poet said the same thing of German herdsmen.” And in careful and measured articulation he quoted the poem.

“Alfred de Musset! That’s Alfred de Musset. Oh, I love de Musset.”

“How very fortunate. I know him by heart.”

They reached the quarter-deck, which was artistically decorated, and where a crowd was quietly waiting for the first strains of the band. The Countess came forward to meet the ladies and thanked them warmly for their kindness and amiability. Facing the band was a somewhat roomy space, and here the first quadrille was danced. One might have imagined oneself in a dancing saloon, or rather in a casino--by the sea, of course.

Nevertheless, after the first polka, the newcomers could not help noticing the somewhat free and easy manner in which the men treated the women with whom they danced, and also the unconventional attitude of these women, who addressed each other in a language that the Marquis du Touchais’s friends did not always comprehend. They asked the Countess and their partners for a few explanations, and they were freely given.

The feminine element here, it was said, was chiefly represented by the wives of military overseers, who traveled with their husbands everywhere, and, of course, unfortunately became habituated to the use of slang, owing to their contact with convicts. Moreover, the manner in which they lived on board, the crowding between decks, had the effect of drawing this big family closer together, so that nearly all of them, men and women alike, addressed each other in tones of familiarity. As a matter of fact the men and women were extremely gay, and some rather coarse language was bandied from couple to couple.

Between the dances a general movement was made to the refreshment bars, which were stormed and plundered. The visitors noticed the liberality with which the Captain had provided a most varied assortment of drinks and liqueurs. Some of the persons present drank out of the bottles; and a struggle waged round the cases of champagne.

The band struck up again with renewed vigor, and the dancers entered the fray once more, skipping and pushing and shouting, while the expressions of drunken satisfaction on their faces were appalling. Moreover, the amazing intermixture of all ranks in an entertainment which tended to become more and more debauched “passed the comprehension” of the ladies. They had been longing to depart, but they were given neither the time nor the opportunity. They were always brought back to the middle of the elated crowd at the moment when they were endeavoring to escape out of the vortex.

And then they received invitations which they neither dared nor had the power to refuse. Carried away on the arms of those whom it would have been difficult to resist, they resumed their places in the eddying throng. The Toper had a way of pressing Madame d’Artigues to his heart which at length greatly alarmed her. Carmen de Fontainebleau and Nadège de Valrieu, who had at first enjoyed themselves, were amazed by certain familiarities.

The three of them, out of breath, asked permission to retire, and they could not understand why the Countess continued to dance with this rabble, and allowed herself to be roughly jostled by couples in an obvious state of intoxication without uttering a protest. The Countess, indeed, was an extraordinary person. She whirled round and round with a smile on her lips, nodding graciously to the women who by chance floated near her during the quadrilles. Did she not notice the awful faces around her? Was she not conscious that the whole business would “end in a row”?

Meanwhile, the naval officer who “knew de Musset by heart,” and who had started to recite “Rollo” to Madame d’Artigues during the first waltz, came up and informed the ladies that they could not be allowed to depart like that, for their grace and charm had won every heart, and the entertainment would be shorn of its attraction without them.

The Pick of the Basket continued to express himself in such choice language that the ladies could not pluck up the courage to refuse him anything. Nevertheless, the crush, the noise, the brutish clamor around them had assumed such proportions that they admitted to him that they “felt afraid,” and dared not stay longer. The men about them frightened them. Moreover, they were exhausted by the excitement of the shipwreck, and the crew ought really to have some compassion for them.

The forger of legal documents bowed and said:

“There is a way of allowing you to go, and that is, if those ladies,” and he indicated Carmen and Nadège, “will perform the items in the programme that they promised us. Until you’ve danced on the platform, as our men expect, they won’t hear of it. Dance at once and you may disappear afterwards. Do you wish me to announce you?”

Carmen and Nadège consulted each other with a glance. They took the plunge. Yes, they would appear on the platform, and afterwards, doubtless, they would be left alone.

“I shall recite ‘The Blacksmiths’ Strike,’” said Nadège.

“I shall dance my first two love waltzes,” said Carmen.

“And you, Madame?” inquired the Pick of the Basket, turning to Madame d’Artigues. “You will honor us with....”

“Oh, Monsieur, I am not an actress.”

“In any case, we should like you to appear on the platform as the men are relying on it.”

“Your crew, Monsieur, is really an extraordinary one.”

“Oh, you know, Madame, they treat everyone without ceremony, as the saying goes.... Obviously they are slightly lacking in reserve, but they are very decent fellows, I assure you.... They are merely a little malicious when they have drink in them, and that is why I advise you to give your performance soon.”

“Yes, let’s get it over as quickly as possible.... It’s inconceivable that they should be allowed to drink like this on board a ship in the French navy. The whole thing is incomprehensible. Look, look at their faces, and the way they stare at you. It’s shameful.”

“Come with me,” requested the Pick of the Basket.

He hurried them behind the band where the ship’s company of actors were dressing and making up for some extraordinary farce which they were to perform. A corner of an awning erected behind the scenes was placed at their disposal in case they desired to collect their thoughts, or to beautify themselves before going on the stage, from which the band had just been cleared. The instrumentalists took their places under the footlights, and the Top announced that the “performance was about to begin,” and that Mlle. Nadège de Valrieu of the Odeon Theatre, Paris, Mlle. Carmen de Fontainebleau of the Folies-Bergères Music Hall, Paris, and a society lady, an amateur, would at once appear in different parts.

Amid perfect silence Mlle. Nadège recited “The Blacksmiths’ Strike.”

The audience listened to the end without stirring, and when it was over, after applauding, shouted to Mlle. Nadège to give them a dance. There was no doubt that they preferred dancing to literature. To save the situation, Carmen appeared. In the ordinary way she danced her numbers very lightly clad, and with the assistance of a veil. In the circumstances she hastily threw over her costume a flowing robe which the Countess lent her.

The moment she began to dance she was encouraged by loud cheers and enthusiastic shouts in slang, which put her on her mettle. She wanted, above all, to get the dance over. She thus appeared to be all the more eager, and truth to tell, seized once more by the demon of her art, she flung herself wildly into her love waltzes, the popular airs of which were sung in chorus by the convicts, swayed by their emotions.

In the whirl of these pagan dances she showed her admirably formed legs, and her success was immense. She did not stop until she was completely exhausted, and she dashed behind the curtain amid shouts of applause and an almost frantic enthusiasm.

“Now, let’s go,” she said. “It’s none too soon. I thought at one moment they were going to rush on to the platform and carry me off.”

“Yes, yes, let’s slip away,” agreed Madame d’Artigues in a trembling voice. “Do you know what I heard just now while you were dancing, Carmen? One of the men, one of the men here with the abominable face of a convict, said to another like him, for they all resemble convicts, every one of them: ‘The little girl sets me on fire.... Of the three of them I should prefer her to fall to my lot.’”

“Well?”

“Well, what does a phrase like that mean? For my part I fear the worst from such men.... I’ve sent for the Marquis. Why isn’t he here?... And Robert Bourrelier ... and my husband?...”

“Yes, indeed, where are they? Why aren’t the men with us?” asked Carmen in increasingly anxious tones.

“And what’s become of the Captain?... If the Captain were here....”

“Not at all. The Captain frightens me more than anyone,” confessed Madame d’Artigues.

“Ah, there you are, you agree with me now,” said Carmen as she hastily finished dressing. “Quick, quick, let’s make off. Let’s go and lock ourselves in our cabins.”

“But how are we to get through now.... Hark.... It’s as though we were besieged.”

As a matter of fact the clamour became louder and louder. The audience wanted the artists to give an encore, and the Top and Little Buddha appeared.

“Don’t go out, whatever you do,” said Little Buddha. “Stay here if you wish to avoid trouble.... They are tipsy, you understand.... They all want to kiss you....”

“But how dreadful!...”

“Dreadful,” he grinned ominously.

At that moment they could hear the Toper making an announcement from the stage:

“Comrades, the ladies are tired and ask you to excuse them (yells). I beg of you to be reasonable and have a little patience. The _Bayard’s_ special company will continue the performance, and lots will be drawn immediately afterwards.”

The three women exchanged bewildered glances when they heard the last part of the announcement. They dared not impart to each other the feeling of dread which possessed them. Nevertheless, Madame d’Artigues, making an effort to appear calm, asked the officer:

“Are there many prizes in the raffle?”

“No, Madame,” replied the officer. “We haven’t very many prizes, but they’re splendid ones!”