Christmas 2012 - There is but one...

The First Foot
by Oliver Onions –

a Christmas story presented by
Paul Brazier & Juliet Eyeions
for Christmas 2011

?THE men who had been hauling up the boats were ascending to the village again; and the grey ice-particles had so crusted and collected on their knitted casquettes, their woollen jerseys three and four thick, and their boots as big as brandy-kegs, that they resembled great cocoons of garments out of which human eyes peered. The tempest was at their backs; when one spoke it was to shout into the ear of his neighbour through a funnel that he made with his hands; and the sun – though no sun had been visible to the eye that day – had gone down at four o’clock, to light the world no more that year.
    They were almost on the village before its lights appeared through the storm; and there was no need to make funnels of their hands to shout the next question. They moved in a body towards the inn of the Mère Pintel. There they would rattle the dominoes and tilt the little finger under the glass for an hour, before returning to their homes pour ses défaire – to unwind themselves as the cocoons are unwound. Then, bringing their wives and daughters back with them, they would return to the Mère Pintel’s to celebrate in the long barn the eve of the New Year.
    At the door of the inn there was a mighty stamping and slapping of chests as they freed themselves from the grey ice-particles; and, as they entered, the wind in the chimney scattered the embers on the hearth. The sparks scurried out over the stone floor, and the Mère Pintel looked up from her occupation in the chimney corner.
    “Nay, but close the door, Etienne – Pierre – Charles! One would say it was the month of May, and this wind but a zephyr!” she cried, her plump hands gesticulating, and her raspberry mouth a-pucker. “And do not tramp so over the very middle of the floor, for my knees are like the knees of camels with the scrubbing I have given it, for the last time this year!” The bearded man addressed as Etienne, the Mère Pintel’s brother-in-law, kissed the patronne on both cheeks, and a tall wingy-built young blonde tossed his cap neatly to a peg ten feet away, placed his hand upon his breast, and made a low bow, to imaginary applause of his dexterity.
    “Bigre, but the New Year’s candle will gutter to-night, ma mère!” he cried. “May one take merely a peep into the long barn, to see the decorations Alessandrine is putting up?”
    “The decoration is finished, Charles, and Alessandrine is in her chamber,” the Mère Pintel replied.
    “Then it is the chamber she now decorates,” said the young man, advancing to where the Mère Pintel worked. “Hold – you are setting that franc-piece too tightly – it is buried in the very wick.”
    In a brass stick on the table before the Mère Pintel stood a tall unlighted candle of sperm wax. A smaller candle, lighted, stood by its side, and in the flame of this second candle the Mère Pintel was heating the edges of certain silver coins. She was then setting the heated edges into the wax of the tall unlighted candle, where they stuck. Half a dozen franc and half-franc pieces, beginning at the top, already made the candle ragged with silver.
    “Do you teach me to deck the New Year’s candle – I who did so before you were born?” said the Mère Pintel, setting another coin. “Stick to your letter-bags, Charles. Your long legs are good enough to carry letters, but I would not give an egg for your judgment.”
    “Judgment, parbleu!” exclaimed the gallant. “The way you are setting that candle it will burn at least twelve minutes after midnight!”
    “It will be extinct precisely at midnight; and it is well to set the coins somewhat deep, when such fellows as thou cannot pass the candle in dancing without stamping the foot and bringing all down together.”
    “But at least set a greater interval between this coin and the next, that it may burn longer – for I purpose to dance that dance with Alessandrine.”
    “I will not have thee glancing at Alessandrine as thou hast glanced at every maid on the coast since thou wast appointed facteur. More, for a young man thou glancest a thought too often at the cognac-bottle,” said the Mère Pintel.
    “At which, nevertheless, I will glance once more,” said the letter-carrier. “For warming of the lips and heart together there is but one thing better, and she is in her chamber.—Pass thou the dominoes, Etienne, while I save the Mère Pintel the trouble of filling.”
    From the rack of bright-coloured bottles he selected the fine and brought glasses. The shuffle and rattle of the dominoes broke out. Four men played; the others, a-straddle of chairs or leaning with their stomachs on the table, watched. The Mère Pintel continued to set the coins in the candle, and now and then one or other of the men addressed her.
    “To thee, ma mère,” one of them called, raising his glass, “and to the First-foot, that brings luck for the year. Who is he this year?”
    “The little Paul, Henri’s son yonder.”
    “Dark-headed as a sweep, like his father; that is good fortune. Not for a crown would I have such a colour as this Charles first set foot over my threshold. There are those who laugh and call it fantasy,” he continued garrulously, “but let them laugh who will. It is ever the dark man who brings the luck. I remember the year that that Jean Mar—”
    The speaker was kicked under the table by the bearded Etienne, the Mère Pintel’s brother-in-law. He checked himself suddenly. Etienne’s eyes had risen to something that swung from the beams over the Mère Pintel’s head.
    It was a model of a rigged boat, and it also had swung in the blast that had scattered the embers on the hearth. The name painted on its miniature bows was the “Trois Maries” and it was exactly a year since the other “Trois Maries”, young Jean Martin’s boat, had failed to return at her appointed time. For days together she had been watched for at the jetty-heads; only a piece of a stove-in barrel, with part of her name on it, had ever been found.
    And all the village knew that Charles Leroux, the new letter-carrier, intended that, as soon as might be, his own fair head should occupy the place on Alessandrine Pintel’s shoulder that Jean Martin’s dark one would never occupy.
    Charles Leroux was looking back and forth from the dominoes in his palm to those on the table; suddenly he gave a smothered exclamation. His eyes had risen to the doorway that led to the apartments upstairs. Alessandrine Pintel stood there.
    Her dark eyes had a brightness that seemed unnatural, and a mechanical and conscious smile was on her lips; but that at which the men, pausing in their game, gazed, was her attire. About her small head was bound a kerchief of brilliant red silk; over one shoulder was flung a bright figured shawl; and the petticoat from under which a pair of yellow slippers peeped forth was of gay flowered chintz.
    The Mère Pintel, looking up also, allowed the last coin to cool in her fingers. “Nay, child, why are you dressed thus?” she cried.
    And Charles Leroux, unable to remove his eyes from the apparition, muttered, “Bigre! But she has indeed decorated the chamber!”

The long barn was noisy with calls and laughter, and two fiddles and a bassoon played little restive snatches of music, in which voices, equally impatient to begin, joined from time to time. Now and then girls clapped their hands, and knots of young men had several times stamped in concert on the floor and broken into rhythmic calls of “Mère–Pintel! Mère–Pin–tel!” The barn was lighted with candles that stood on brackets and sconces; the whitewashed walls were decked with evergreens; a great bunch of holly hung at one end of the room; and at the other, on a wooden block, stood the tall candle set with coins, and not yet lighted.
    “Come, light, Mère Pintel, and let us begin!” they cried, clapping and stamping again.
    Charles Leroux had put on his new corduroy trousers and whitest shirt, and about his waist a bright and broad scarlet sash was wound. His fair hair was brushed back from his brow, and already he had made several visits to the kitchen, where the older men again played dominoes. His eyes, roving, ever came back to the figure with the chintz kirtle and the brilliant red kerchief over the black hair.
    “Yes, it is in my mind to settle this to-night,” he murmured to himself.
    Near the fiddles and the bassoon the bearded Etienne talked in a low voice with his sister-in-law. He also had watched Alessandrine, with an anxious brow.
    “What ails her?” he asked abruptly. “For months she has scarcely smiled – and look at her now with Jacques and Marcelline!”
    The Mère Pintel puckered her raspberry mouth. “She is but a little wild, as used to be her way. It is time she ceased to grieve,” she said.
    “Thou dost not understand her; she ever resembled my brother more than thee. She last wore that attire a year since to-night.”
    “She is dazzling in it,” said the complacent mother.
    “Too dazzling. I will go and speak to her.”
    But Charles Leroux was beforehand with him. He had advanced, and was making a handsome leg.
    “Mademoiselle,” he said, “have I offended in permitting myself to wear your colours?” He glanced at her kerchief, and placed his hand upon his own scarlet sash.
    She gave him a darkling, half-lidded look; and her voice, as she replied, was a little over-loud.
    “Monsieur has then come, not to look, but to be looked at?” she said.
    “Monsieur has come at this moment to ask of you the first dance, the last one, and certain dances in between,” he answered gaily.
    She tossed her head carelessly, and again gave him the half-veiled look.
    “For the first dance I cede you to my mother. For the last one, I shall not dance it. For the certain dances in between, I will be asked when they come,” she replied.
    He was about to speak when suddenly she gave a short laugh and turned her back on him.
    There was a general clapping of hands; one of the fiddlers gave a couple of hollow taps on his fiddle with the bow; and the Mère Pintel, on the arm of Charles Leroux, set flame to the coin-studded candle. The music broke out; outside the storm howled; and the festivities began.
    From one coin to the next marked the duration of each dance, and presently there was a laughing scuffle among those who chanced to be near the candle. From the softened wax a coin had rolled out. A man rose with it, held it triumphantly in the air, and with a bow handed it to his partner. There was a general running for seats.
    Alessandrine was sitting under the bunch of holly. Again Charles Leroux sought her.
    “The first dance is over, the last one you do not dance; for the present one, Alessandrine—”
    She inclined her head. He took a place by her side. When the music began she rose without a word and placed her hand on his arm. They slid into the dance.
    Half way round the room he had thought of his compliment. All things considered, a simple one would serve.
    “Alessandrine,” he murmured, “you are superb!”
    She withdrew her ear from what was all but contact with his lips.
    “Monsieur finds me so?” she said indifferently.
    “You are ravishing – I adore you!” he breathed.
    “That kerchief is a scarlet poppy, of which your head is the black centre. Never were your eyes so bright, but your hand in mine is cold – it does not answer to my pressure.”
    “Perhaps Monsieur—”
    “Ah, not ‘Monsieur,’ Alessandrine—‘Charles’.”
    “Perhaps Charles has not the secret to make it do so.”
    “Tell me, then, that secret!” he whispered ardently. “Listen to me, Alessandrine. To-night, after a year of hodden grey, you bloom again. It is right. The past is past; enters now the New Year. Alessandrine, I love you. Let me speak to your mother. We will be betrothed at once, and married at Pentecost.”
    For a little while she was silent; then, “Monsieur desires—?” she began.
    “Charles desires,” he amended in a soft voice.
    “Charles desires a reply during the present tour of the room?” she queried.
    His eyes devoured her face, to see whether she mocked him.
    “Oh, you are glorious!” he said in a smothered voice.
    “Sufficiently glorious even for so glorious a Monsieur?” she said, looking elsewhere.
    Inwardly raging, he made a little exclamation; but before he could reply there came again the noisy laughing scuffle from over by the candle. As the music ceased his lips were again at her ear. “Must you necessarily sit there, by the holly?” he cajoled her, his eyes making a little suggestive movement towards the door.
    “Nothing compels me; I merely wish it,” she replied, withdrawing her hand from his arm.
    It was there, a dazzling figure under the dark holly, that her uncle presently found her. He sat down by her side, and for some minutes did not speak. When he did so it was in a troubled voice.
    “Alessandrine!”
    “Yes, my uncle?” she answered lightly.
    “Why do you behave thus?”
    Once more her voice was a little over-loud. “How, thus? For a year you have entreated me to be gay. I am now gay; and I am asked why I behave thus.”
    “It is true that one does not mourn for ever; but neither does one break out like this.”
    He had taken her cold hand. She withdrew it. It was with an alteration of tone that she next spoke.
    “This is not kind of you, my uncle,” she said in a low voice.
    “Nor of you, to cause your uncle’s heart to ache.”
    “I have hoped; for a year I have hoped; and now the year is over.”
    “Hope still, rather than this.”
    “Am I not hopefully attired?”
    “Your attire does not deceive me.”
    For one moment she dropped her head. A little convulsive movement shook her back. But when again she lifted her eyes they were dry.
    “Yet for this one night – it eases me, eases me, eases me,” she said in a kind of moan.
    He sought to persuade her, but she only shook her head, repeating that it eased her.
    “To-night I must have ease or die,” she said. “To-morrow…”
    And with a heavy sigh, Etienne left her.
    Dance followed dance, and presently she ceased to dance with any save Charles Leroux the facteur. Her apathy seemed to leave her; thence she passed to raillery, and from raillery to wildness. The scarlet splash on her head became disarranged. She did not alter it; and one would have said that she, like her blonde partner, was under the influence of the cognac. Outside, the tempest continued to howl, and one by one the coins dropped from the New Year’s candle.

III

“My windblown poppy!” he murmured ardently, as, wild with the desire of her, he once more danced with her strained closely in his arms. “It must be to-night that you say ‘Yes’.”
    His lips were again almost at her ear. With a quick abandoned movement she pressed the ear to them, keeping it there a moment. He drew in his breath, and seemed as if, regardless of all, he would clasp her there and then. She withdrew the ear.
    “They are regarding us, Charles.”
    “I care not. Then that is to say ‘Yes’?”
    “Wait until the last dance.”
    “You have said you will not dance it; but you will sit in your place under the evergreens. One by one they will quench the lights; the New Year’s candle will sink; and the bells will chime. In that moment there will be one by your side whose lips will seek yours.”
    “Perhaps the hand will be warmer too,” she said, her breath coming quickly from her parted lips.
    Outside, the storm but increased in fury, as if it would have swept away with the Old Year all the cares it had brought – its frustrated hopes, its unforeseen calamities, Jean Martin and the loss of the “Trois Maries” and all.
    Dance after dance she danced with him, until even her complacent mother besought her to moderate her mood. It was time, unless she courted an attack of hysteria. Only three coins remained in the candle. Once more Charles Leroux proffered his arm. This time she declined it.
    “No more,” she said. “There is Marcelline, who does not dance. Go to her.”
    “Remember – under the evergreens, when the candle goes out,” he whispered, his hand seeking hers under her shawl.
    “Go to Marcelline.”
    He obeyed her. His glance, seeking her presently, saw that her place under the evergreens was empty. After that dance he danced no more, but took the empty place.
    The last coin was a two-franc piece, and already it had sunk in the soft wax and was resting on the flange of the candlestick. The laughing couples passed the candle lingeringly, with jests and jostlings, and when forced away by those behind completed the circuit quickly, to be back in time for its falling. Men stamped, to bring down the coin; they kicked the table with their feet in passing; and Charles Leroux watched, smiling, from where he sat.
    Suddenly cries and “Ohs!” broke out. Among the skirts of the girls a dozen men scrambled on the floor. One of them sprang up with a shout.
    “Voilà!” he cried, holding the coin on high; and all the room broke into a bustle.
    “Now to quench the lights – and let none but the old folk occupy the dark corners!” somebody cried; and men sprang to the benches that lined the walls. They began to extinguish the candles in the sconces and brackets; the whitewashed barn became dim; the domino-players came in from the kitchen, and only the New Year’s candle burned to its end on the block.
    They awaited the arrival of the First-foot, the little Paul, Henri’s son, whose dark head would bring good fortune for the coming year.
    To an accompaniment of suppressed laughter, giggles and love-making, the candle sank. Its wick tilted; the flame became a little blue licking on the surface of a tiny pool of melted wax and the clock in the kitchen struck twelve. But the clock in the kitchen was always kept in advance, and still they waited for the church bells at the other end of the village.
    All had become quiet. Without a leap, the candle went out. Then a man’s voice was heard to mutter, “Listen – there they are! Well measured, Mère Pintel!”
    It was the chiming of the bells through the storm.
    “A Happy New Year, Mère Pintel – and you, Etienne – and you, Henri – and you, Jules—!”
    They kissed and congratulated one another. A man, entering from the kitchen with a light, began to re-kindle the candles on the sconces and brackets.
    “And hark – yonder comes the little Paul!” somebody cried, as a knock was heard at the door. “But be sure it is the lad—”
    Etienne had advanced to the door. “Is that thee, Paul?” he cried, with his lips to the keyhole.
    “Yes!” came a lad’s voice.
    “Then open, Etienne,” said the Mère Pintel.
    But even as Etienne’s hand was placed upon the latch, he stopped. Behind him had sounded a general checked exclamation, followed by a dead silence. He turned.
    Alessandrine stood in the other doorway, but not the Alessandrine who had danced with Charles the facteur. Over her head fell a heavy shawl of black; her black hair was loosed, and the rest of her habiliments might have been donned to stand at the side of a grave.
    And at the same moment a cry sounded outside in the storm – a lad’s shrill cry. It was followed by a single knock. Mechanically Etienne opened.
    The First-foot stood there.
    But it was not the little Paul. Only the blanched face of the little Paul showed, behind a taller figure, enwrapped, as the fishermen had been wrapped, in a cocoon of garments, grey and glistening with the ice-particles. The stranger’s face could not be seen, and none recognised his form.
    None, that is to say, but one; and it was with some other sense than that of her eyes that she distinguished her lover. She made a little stumbling run forward, and half-way down the room her voice cracked.
    “Jean!” she cried, and reeled.
    Of all those who sprang forward to catch her as she fell, the First-foot was first. She sank to the floor, and they crowded round her. The Mère Pintel babbled inconsequentially. “Art thou a dark head? Art thou a dark head? Art thou—”
    The stranger cast aside the cap from his coal-black head, and Etienne stared at him stupidly. “Is it thou, Jean Martin?”
    “It is I, Etienne. What, you have not had my letters?”
    “Whence, your letters? We had no letters. There have been no letters.”
    “I wrote letters. You should have had letters. Is Robert the facteur, then, dead?”
    “We have a new facteur, but there have been no letters.”
    “This is a strange thing, that must be looked into; but here is something that must be seen to first.”
    He set the glass that somebody had brought to Alessandrine’s lips.
    And when, presently, Alessandrine having opened her eyes again, Jean Martin looked up, it was to see figures that stole noiselessly away, leaving them alone.

T H E E N D

A WORD OF EXPLANATION

For the past three years, we have tried and I have failed to produce our regular story-card. I was determined this would not happen but, once again, we have begun a story which is not finished. So I have invoked Plan B.
   Earlier this year I began work on a critical monograph and bibliography of Oliver Onions. This involves obtaining and reading all of his books, some of which are hard to find (I am still missing three). “The First-foot” appears in his collection Draw In Your Stool, which was published in 1909. As far as I know, it has not been reprinted since and so is out of copyright.
   For me, it epitomises his strengths: his elegant, long opening sentences and paragraphs which set the mood of his stories so perfectly; his dour wit; his careful focus on the lives of ordinary people in out-of-the-way places which at once reveals details of a long-lost way of life and moves his story along; and his ability to surprise with an unexpected ending.
   Add to that the seasonal but non-Christmas setting and I felt I had the perfect story for our card. I do hope you agree and that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you. Next year, back to normal – I hope.

— PB

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