“YOUR LOVER IS EVER IN A BAD WAY WHEN THE OTHER WOMAN APPEARS.”
THE May came and waned, and so did the early and late summer, and Roger
Egremont’s days so melted one into another that the Sundays seemed only
a day, instead of a week, apart. In spite of that kind promise of the
Queen’s that he should not be forever driving a quill, there was much
writing to do. Roger solaced the long hours he spent listening to the
droning voice of the King dictating to him, by the thought that in the
autumn there would be an invasion of England; and if not in the autumn,
in the winter; and if aught should prevent in the winter, certainly the
spring would see the King at Whitehall, and himself at Egremont. One of
the recompenses he promised himself for his three years’ imprisonment,
and for his present poverty,--living frugally on the scanty pay of one
of the King’s gentlemen-at-arms,--was that of kicking his half-brother
out of the hall door of Egremont. For it was not enough for this
hot-blooded and very faulty Roger to dispossess his brother of a stolen
estate; he longed, with a strenuous longing, to feel his hand on Hugo’s
collar, and the sole of his well-made foot trampling Hugo’s prostrate
form.
It sometimes came to him, as he steadily covered reams of paper, that
William of Orange could no more be written out of England than he
could be sung out, as Mademoiselle d’Orantia had said. The same thought
haunted many of the great multitude of exiles, who waited and waited
for they knew not what. Except the King’s secretaries, never had people
as much time as these dwellers in a foreign land. Men must be doing
something, and most of them killed time in either a trivial or an evil
way. Roger and Berwick spent a good many hours taming a squirrel for
the little Prince of Wales. These two men, entertaining themselves with
a child and a squirrel, looked uneasily into each other’s eyes. Roger
said quietly,--
“As well be doing this as anything else;” to which Berwick gravely
nodded. It was quite as well as spending long days, as Berwick often
did, at Marly-le-Roi, only two miles away, where Louis le Grand, grown
pious, held his court.
Roger too had a sight of Marly,--going there in company with
Berwick,--and was neither pleased nor edified with what he saw there:
a tedious ceremonial, a King who majestically ate and drank, dressed
and undressed in public, and a horde of place and pension hunters after
a snivelling hypocrite of a woman, as Roger truly esteemed Madame de
Maintenon to be. As, however, all the people at St. Germains, from the
King down to the kitchen scullions, lived upon the bounty of Louis le
Grand, which was, it cannot be denied, very nobly given, Roger felt
rather a painful sense of obligation. The pay he received monthly for
his services in the corps, the little packet of money gently put into
his hand by King James, saying, “Mr. Egremont, take this little sum
to buy you a horse,”--all--all--came from the coffers of the French
King, and were wrung from those toiling peasants in the fields and
vineyards. The dead and gone Florentine who said,--
“Salt is the savor of another’s bread,
And weary are the feet which climbeth up
The stairs of others.”
might have looked into the hearts of the people at St. Germains for his
words.
Yet they bore their hard fortune bravely and meekly, as became
gentlemen. They had some alleviations; there was the hay-making in
the harvest time, when all the fine ladies and gentlemen, whose hay
in England other folks were making, turned in and made the King’s hay
for him. Roger Egremont had two great consolations,--the friendship of
Berwick, and the possession of the horse which poor James Stuart had
scraped up the money to give him. The horse was a beast of considerable
merit, and named Merrylegs, after his worthy predecessor; for Roger
Egremont had in him a deep vein of sentiment, and just as he every
night put under his pillow his little bag of earth from Egremont, so
he swore he would ever have a horse named Merrylegs, in honor of the
faithful creature given him by Diccon the ploughman.
The friendship of Berwick he reckoned to be the greatest good fortune
of his life. There was a sort of manly perfection in Berwick; he
was, in every bone and fibre, a man and a gentleman, just, merciful,
nobly forgetful of injuries, and showing forth even then that great
and robust genius which afterward ranked him as great in war as his
uncle John, Duke of Marlborough, and infinitely greater in all that
makes a man. Well might Berwick be called “the great, tall devil of
an Englishman who must have everything his own way,” as Madame de
Beaumanoir had said. Berwick’s way was commonly superior to anybody
else’s way. He was not only the right hand of the King, but of the
gentle, courageous, and sad-faced Queen. And nothing was prettier
than the sight of Berwick with his little half-brother, the Prince of
Wales,--the tall, grave elder brother walking in the gardens and on the
terrace with the little Prince’s hand in his, listening seriously to
the child’s chatter, carrying him when tired and sleepy, and always his
favorite playfellow. Roger could find but one fault in Berwick,--that
strange insensibility to the stain upon his birth, which was the
more singular in a man of the nicest and most delicate honor; an
insensibility which Monsieur le duc de St. Simon remarks upon in those
pungent memoirs which it was known he was engaged in writing; and which
was always a subject of amazed comment. Roger hated bastards so that he
never quite understood or forgave Berwick this idiosyncrasy; but, apart
from that, he loved Berwick with a manly and noble love.
Among the few letters to England which Roger wrote in his own proper
person, was a long and grateful one to Bess Lukens, describing all his
adventures after being taken from Newgate, and all which had befallen
him at St. Germains, except the most important of all,--that he had
fallen deeply and madly in love with a lady as far above him as he was
above poor Bess. He had not once seen Michelle since that night at
Madame de Beaumanoir’s, and, not daring to ask what had become of her,
was at last enlightened on that point by Madame de Beaumanoir.
“Gone to the convent of the Scotch Benedictines in Paris--and for
what, in the name of God, think you? To study the German language! She
could have had a master here, but she says she cannot be as studious
here as she would wish, and she likes the quiet and retirement of the
convent, where she lives as sedately as any nun. And she a beautiful
young woman! I warrant I spent not my youth that way. She is greedy of
knowledge, and, hoping and longing as she does to play a great part,
she wants to know all about everything.”
“And when does Mademoiselle d’Orantia return to St. Germains?” Roger
Egremont ventured to ask, adding a gruesome joke,--“I hope before we
all depart for England.”
“Surely. You need not be packing your portmanteau yet awhile, Mr.
Egremont. Well, my niece will come back in time for the hay-making
in August, for that is one of the few amusements my lady condescends
to,--that, and taking long rides a-horseback with nobody but François
for an escort.”
After this, Roger watched the hay-fields with a learned and critical
eye, knowing, as he did, all the lore of growing crops. And on a fair
day in August it was given forth that on the next day all the ladies
and gentlemen would assemble at noon to make the King’s hay for him.
Be sure that Roger Egremont was in the meadow long before the
procession of hay-makers started from the old palace, and walked the
length of the terrace to the low-lying fields. It was a glorious
midsummer day, and never were the prospects of King James better in the
way of haying. The hay-makers, bearing the proudest names of England,
Scotland, Ireland, and France, were dressed as peasants, but their
costumes were made of silken stuffs such as no peasant ever wore. The
dress of the exiles, both ladies and gentlemen, was a little shabby;
their old brocades and laces brought from England were showing signs of
wear and tear. They all carried gilded hay-forks, and rakes tied with
ribbons, except Berwick, who did nothing by halves, and was worth two
ordinary day laborers in haying time; he carried an iron hay-fork and
rake, borrowed from a gardener.
Roger Egremont, loitering amid the cherry trees in Madame Michot’s
orchard, came out and joined the merry crew when it reached the meadow.
He was dressed as a peasant, in true peasant’s clothes, borrowed from
Jacques Michot, but clean and well fitting, as became the work of
Madame Michot’s fingers. The shirt, open at the neck, showed the white
column of his throat, as fair as a duchess’s, next the manly tan and
sunburn of his face. His hat, also borrowed from Jacques, was trimmed
with the field poppies and the blue cornflower. His eyes sought but one
figure, and there she was, walking daintily along, near the end of the
procession,--Michelle, Princess d’Orantia. She was dressed as a true
peasant maiden, in a gown of white linen, and her hat was bound with a
wreath of wild roses.
Then, to the singing of harvest songs, they fell to work. The hay had
been cut early in the morning; it was their business to rake and stack
it.
Roger Egremont in some way divined that to work well was a way to win
Michelle’s favor; so he fell to work with an intelligent energy that
fairly rivalled Berwick’s. And--oh, joy!--Michelle raked the hay for
him to cock! She too as far surpassed the ladies in work as Roger
surpassed all the men except Berwick. She seemed as insensible to
fatigue as he was, and making hay in August is no merry jest. Roger
thought he had never seen so fascinating an employment for a graceful
woman,--raking and tossing the hay, lightly, yet with strength, every
motion revealing the grace of her figure, and the beauty of her arms
and her dainty feet, and bringing a flush, deep yet delicate, to her
usually colorless face. She worked even when Roger rested, mercilessly
prodding him with her hay-fork until he resumed his work, rated Berwick
soundly for not making his hay-stack as well as usual, and was easily
the star of the hay-field.
All through the golden afternoon they worked. Roger tried in vain to
engage Michelle in conversation about other matters than haying, to
which she gave her undivided attention.
“Mademoiselle, you have been much missed at St. Germains since your
departure for Paris,” he ventured.
“I should have truly been missed had I been absent from the hay-field
to-day, for I never saw the King’s hay more lazily attended to,” she
replied tartly. “There is more singing than work.” For just then a song
was being trolled forth by Captain Ogilvie, the Irish gentleman who
composed such beautiful songs, all about--
“Que ne suis-je sans vie,
Ou sans amour.”
“I agree with you, mademoiselle, that we sing too much at St.
Germains,” said Roger, significantly; and Michelle’s reply to this
was,--
“Pray, Mr. Egremont, attend to your work. If you do not better, I shall
ask the King not to pay you your wage;” at which Roger went furiously
to work, declaring he could not afford to lose so much.
At five o’clock the King and Queen descended the great flight of two
hundred stone steps from the terrace, and calling the hay-makers about
them, proceeded to inspect their work and give them their dole of
money,--a few pence each, which were treasured, as even the smallest
gifts of royalty are. So pleased were their Majesties with the two
hay-cocks made by Roger and Michelle--none of the rest had made more
than one, except Berwick--that they were each given an extra coin. To
this, great complaint was made by Berwick, but the King declined to pay
him more.
And then, in the purple twilight, the whole party turned homeward,
walking along with their forks and rakes upon their shoulders, singing
chansons that floated through the mellow air, fragrant with the
new-mown hay. Roger walked by Michelle’s side, and sang with her the
song that echoed sweetly over fields and woods:
“Come, maids and swains, to join our summer greeting,
Youth and the summer time are ever fleeting.
Returns the summer time,
Not so youth’s golden prime;
It cometh not again,
It cometh not again!”
He felt as in a dream; and the spell seemed over Michelle too, for when
the party separated he found himself walking alone with her in the
dusk, along the road, under over-arching trees, that led through the
park to the château. They were still singing softly, and Roger, without
knowing why or even when he did it, held out his hand, and she laid
hers within it, and so, like a shepherd and shepherdess, they passed
along together. What sweet and peaceful thoughts, like birds nesting
in the trees after the day’s work, were theirs! All the world was left
behind and out of sight. They were Corydon and Amaryllis returning
to their cot at eve. Not one whole day had they ever spent in each
other’s company, yet had their souls rushed together when first they
found themselves alone.
They had begun with acting a little part of shepherd and his
shepherdess, but now it seemed quite real; they had quite forgotten
the every-day world. Michelle’s eyes were softly gleaming. At first
they had been merry and full of quiet laughter; now they smiled at
each other but no longer laughed. Presently they came to an open spot,
before which stood the great gates and porter’s lodge of the château.
Instinctively both stopped, and Roger raised Michelle’s hand to his
lips; it seemed the simplest and most natural thing in the world.
She stood still for a while, and there was a pause--the sweetest
pause--filled in with the faint and musical sounds of evening. They
came back slowly and gently to the every-day world, but the world about
them was so beautiful that it seemed rather a continuation of their
dream.
“I shall not forget this day as long as I live,” said Roger.
Michelle looked at him a moment with startled eyes, and then replied:
“I love these haying-days. I would not miss one if I could help it.”
“Would that every day in summer were a haying-day,” cried Roger, “and
that you and I--”
“Good-night, Mr. Egremont,” was Michelle’s reply.
Her figure melted away in the darkness under the trees, but Roger’s
keen eyes saw her turn and look back at him, standing still where she
had left him.
When she was out of sight Roger turned homeward, through the forest. He
was glad to be alone, he disdained any other company after Michelle’s.
He was in a kind of ecstasy, and his spirit was as light as a lark
upon the wing. The forest was wrapped in the silence of the coming
night and the owls were beginning to hoot. The harvest moon, a great,
golden, smoky lamp, shone through the trees, but the west still held
a faint glory of crimson and green and gold. The dusk of evening was
descending fast, when Roger noticed, approaching him from a side
avenue, a person, apparently a young and slender man, wrapped in a
black cloak, with a black hat drawn down over the eyes. By the time
Roger had made out the outlines of this figure, they were face to face;
and then the stranger suddenly whipped out a sword from the folds of
his cloak, and pointed it straight at Roger. It did not take Roger a
second to seize the blade deftly in his left hand and wrench it away,
while with his right he caught the stranger by the throat,--a throat
as white as milk, and from which came gurgling sounds of laughter; and
the hat falling off, he saw the laughing, upturned face of Bess Lukens,
with her curly, reddish hair falling about her shoulders.
Not the appearance of Satan himself could have disconcerted Roger
Egremont more at that moment than the sight of the woman whom he justly
called his best friend. Like a blaze of lightning in a murky night,
he saw in one flash all the difficulties of the case, the chiefest of
which would be to make the little world of St. Germains believe in the
perfect honesty of Bess’s character. He felt acutely for the shame the
girl might suffer, and when he thought of Michelle, he likewise felt
acutely for himself. But he was man enough to greet Bess warmly, after
the first momentary astonishment, to kiss her hand--ah, it was not
like kissing Michelle’s hand an hour ago!--and to lie to Bess like a
gentleman.
“Dear Bess, how glad I am to see you!” he cried, and then he noticed,
as she threw aside her cloak, that she was dressed in a man’s
riding-suit. “And why this disguise?”
“Because,” said Bess, taking him by the arm affectionately, but not
familiarly, “I an’t a bad-looking girl, and some of the mounseers might
have bothered me, and I, not knowing the lingo, shouldn’t have known
what to say. So I bought me this suit in Dover, and also this sword;
’tis nothing but a brass-handled thing, but it went well with the
breeches. And I called myself Mr. Wat Jones. I don’t believe a soul on
the vessel suspected me. I got here from a place they called Calais,
by riding in country wagons and walking. Nobody troubled me, because
they thought I was a poor young gentleman, driven out of England by
the Whigs, and coming to my King at St. Germains, and I didn’t have
anything in sight worth stealing,--maybe that’s why the mounseers was
so honest; so that’s how I got here. I went to a tavern where the wagon
stopped that I made the last stage by, and I determined to hang about
the town until I could get private speech of you, for I came yesterday.
I held my tongue about you, but I kept both eyes open. This afternoon I
heard about the hay-making in the meadow--what queer things gentlefolks
do by way of pleasure! I was afraid to go near the meadow, for fear
you might see me, and cry, ‘Oh, Lord!’ or something of the sort; so I
walked about the place they called the terrace, and saw you making hay
in the meadow with a young lady. She wasn’t so beautiful; there were
others comelier, I thought. Then, when you all started home, I walked
toward the forest, and then into it; and it was growing so dark that I
thought I should have to go back to the tavern. And then I saw you,
and the devil put it into my head to stick this sword at you, but you
didn’t flinch;” and Bess concluded by putting herself in an impossible
attitude, and flourishing her sword with a kind of awkward gracefulness
under Roger’s nose.
And Roger, gallantly fulfilling his obligations as a gentleman, lied
and lied again.
“However you come, Bess, and whenever, I must ever be glad to see you;”
and then he told the truth for a change: “and I, and all I have--not
much of the last--are at your disposal.”
Being a gentleman, he did not ask her the question that disquieted
him,--what she had come for,--but Bess relieved him by telling him.
“Thank you, Roger, but I hope I sha’n’t be any great bother to you. I
have some money, near forty pound, and that will last me till I can get
work. You see, my uncle got married again, the old fool, and there was
no room for me and a step-aunt. And I saw the chance I’d been longing
and praying for of getting away from Newgate gaol. I found I had some
little money my daddy had left me, besides some I had made myself, and
I went to my uncle and made him give it me: he warn’t very anxious to
do it. His minx of a new wife was so glad to get rid of me, though,
that neither of ’em asked me any questions about where I was going.
But, Roger, _I_ knew where I was going. I was going somewhere that
nobody would know I was the niece of old Lukens, the turnkey; and that
place was France, where I knew there were a plenty of English, and my
King and my best friend among ’em. I left my own country with a light
heart, and if ever I go back there, ’twill be as something people won’t
point their thumbs at and say, ‘There goes the turnkey’s girl!’ And
if I starve and freeze in this country, I reckon it won’t be any worse
than starving and freezing in England; and besides, I’m a Jacobite, I
am. I hate them common, vulgar Whigs, and all their doings; and when
King James goes back, Miss Lukens will go along with him!”
Roger could not forbear laughing at Bess’s politics, but the coolness,
courage, and readiness with which she had carried out the plan she had
devised so cunningly gave him ease about her; Bess Lukens could take
care of herself anywhere. Excellent, however, as all her motives were,
there was an uncomfortable haunting feeling in Roger’s mind, that all
of those reasons would have applied equally to any country where he
could be found.
“Well, then,” said Roger, cheerfully, “let us now determine what is
best to be done for you. But first put that damned sword of yours out
of the way, else you will run me through the body before you know it.”
Bess restored the sword to its scabbard, and turning with Roger, they
walked under the trees at the edge of the forest. It was an odorous
summer night, and the nightingales were singing. Bess was very happy,
and Roger was wretched and uncomfortable beyond description; but he hid
it manfully.
“I have other clothes than these,” said Bess, “and working people can
find work the world over; so you need not be unhappy about me. Only let
me get decent quarters, and I’ll not be afraid.”
“True, Bess; but you are a girl of sense, and you must see that if I
would not be your worst enemy, I must be careful how I befriend you.
So, my girl, be not doubtful of me if I shall seem not to seek thy
company. This is an evil-thinking world.”
“I know it,” Bess cut in. “You can’t tell me anything about this ugly
old world. One doesn’t see the pretty side of it, fetched up as I
was. But I think ’twill be brighter for me if I can live free from
that everlasting, tormenting, hideous ghost, which walked after me in
England,--‘Red Bess, the turnkey’s niece.’ I hope I’ve left the shade
on t’other side of the water.”
“I hope so, too, Bess. And now go we back to your inn, and you stay
there the night, and I will write you a letter in the morning.”
They turned and walked toward the town, Bess talking happily, and Roger
acting his part with perfect success, but with a sinking heart. It is
ever an evil time with your lover, when the other woman turns up.
Leaving Bess at the entrance of the little lane that led to her humble
inn, Roger made great strides toward Madame Michot’s. He met Berwick
coming out.
“Return with me,” cried Roger; and taking him up into his large room
under the eaves, Roger poured out the whole story of Bess Lukens.
Berwick laughed a little. Roger’s chagrin was comical; and when Berwick
asked him the point-blank question, “Now, since you say the girl is
good and honest and beautiful, and yet you are not in love with her,
can you tell me whether she is in love with you, or not?” Roger changed
countenance so quickly that Berwick laughed aloud.
“I swear,” cried Roger, “I never knew--I never asked. Hang it, man, the
devil take you and your questions.” Berwick laughed more than ever at
this.
“Come,” said he, “let us consult our good friend Madame Michot. I am
but mortal, and I know not how to advise a man concerning a handsome
girl whom he has seen daily for three years, who, he declares, has been
his best friend, and he does not know whether she is in love with him
or not!”
So they put out in search of Madame Michot, whom they found in her
usual place on the platform, with the lights from the common room
shining through the iron grille, and making fantastic shadows on the
table before her.
“Madam,” said Berwick, in his most seductive voice, and with his finest
bow, “we have come to you as our help in time of trouble;” and then,
seating himself close to Madame Michot, on the right, while Roger
planted himself on the step at her feet, these two artful creatures
told the good woman all they thought it expedient for her to know
concerning Red Bess,--not mentioning, as Roger had warned Berwick, her
ignoble condition in England. And as for the poor landlady, what chance
had she against the machinations of two of her favorite customers? She
succumbed at once.
“There is always much washing to do at an inn,--sheets and towels and
table-cloths,--and I could easily give her three days’ work out of
the week,” said Madame Michot, with her finger on her lip. “The young
person may be above that, though.”
“No, indeed she is not,” cried Roger, earnestly; “and besides, being
a girl of sense, she sees how necessary it is that she shall have
respectable surroundings, and to be employed by you, madam--with the
very great respect which you command--”
“’Twould establish the poor girl’s character forever,” said Berwick,
decisively, bringing the point of his sword down on the floor.
“Employed by Madame Michot, who could say a word against her?”
“You may send her to-morrow morning,” replied Madame Michot, with the
greatest amiability.
“What a wonderful woman is Madame Michot!” exclaimed Roger. “But for
that one little word ‘send’ I should have brought Bess Lukens myself,
and thereby set every wicked tongue in St. Germains wagging. But I
cannot be too careful not to do that poor girl the slightest harm,
because she stood my friend when most I needed friends.”
Next morning, about nine o’clock, Bess, having heard from Roger,
presented herself at the inn of Michot. Madame Michot was in the
orchard near which the sparkling river made a bend, and where the
weekly washing was taking place, when the vision of a tall and
beautiful young woman, stepping with careless grace over the grass,
presented itself before her. It had not occurred to Roger to mention
Bess’s sumptuous beauty, and when Madame Michot saw it, a thrill of
fear ran up and down the good woman’s backbone. She had not meant
to take the responsibility of a girl as heavily handicapped with
beauty as Bess was. Why, Jacques might-- However, Madame Michot, by
an inspiration, glanced at Bess’s hands. They were well shaped, and
not large for her size, but they bore the unmistakable marks of toil.
A load was lifted from Madame Michot’s shoulders--Bess had lived by
honest toil.
Bess proceeded to introduce herself, and Madame Michot met her
advances kindly, replying in broken but intelligible English to her,
but understanding fully all Bess had to say. And Bess, then and there
rolling up the sleeves of her linen gown, fell to work with such
ferocious energy and despatch that Madame Michot was astounded and
delighted. Twenty-four hours made both her and Jacques enthusiastic
supporters of Bess Lukens. For whatever Bess turned her hand to, she
did so capably and so rapidly that it was a marvel; and Madame Michot,
with her shrewd French common-sense, was the very woman to be impressed
by Bess’s undeniable talent for work.
That night Roger was detained at the palace. Many despatches had come
in from England, and replies had to be sent at once; so he worked in
the King’s closet all day, and then, after a hurried supper in the
mess-room, returned and worked until late in the evening. It was near
midnight before he left the palace and crept up the stairs to his room
at the inn, fearful of being caught by the roysterers in the common
room; and he was in no mood for roystering. That sweet, delicate spell
that had been cast over him by the twilight walk with Michelle the
night before had been rudely broken. Since then he had scarcely a
moment in which to recall the sound of her charming voice as she spoke,
the velvety blackness of her eyes, the sweet, sweet thought that she
too had lapsed into the dream which had enthralled him. He had leisure
now, and when the merry crowd below had gone off singing roundels in
French and English, Roger, like a true lover, hung out of his one great
window, watching the stars, and trying to believe that he could catch a
glimpse of the roof under which Michelle slept, far across the meadows
and the woods. And when he laid himself upon his bed, it was to live
over in his dreams that enchanted walk.
The sun was high in the heavens next morning when Roger was awakened by
a far-off sound of singing. Down in the orchard, Bess Lukens had begun
her day’s work; and as she beat the linen, her rich, untrained voice
soared in a simple English ballad. Roger lay and listened, half in
pleasure, half in rage, and calling himself a base, ungrateful villain
to this girl, who had befriended him in his darkest hour.
He rose and dressed quickly, and went down to the orchard. There, under
the dappled shade of the cherry trees in the bright morning, was Bess
at work alone. She had curtly dismissed all her assistants, and by
that time was hanging out the linen upon the lines strung between the
trees. Madame Michot, who had come to give her some directions, was
watching her with admiration. Bess wore the usual dress of girls of her
class,--a short brown skirt, a white linen bodice, with the sleeves
rolled up, showing her shapely arms, and a spotless white cap. Her
reddish hair was plaited and tied with a black ribbon, and little curls
rested upon her forehead and the white nape of her neck.
The most interested listener to her untutored singing was, however, a
little old man quite unseen by any one, at the window of a house whose
garden was separated from the orchard only by a wall with a door in it.
This little old man, with his nightcap awry, and a dressing-gown around
his shoulders, listened intently, drumming on the stone window-sill
with his fingers to mark time.
“Good-morning, madam,” cried Roger, advancing, hat in hand, the August
sun shining on his fair, curling hair, “and good-morning, Bess; what an
excellent singer you are, and ever were!”
“’Tis not much, Master Roger,” replied Bess, who had sense enough not
to call Roger familiarly by his name in the presence of others. She
smiled and colored with pleasure, however, at his praise.
Madame Michot in her awkward English began to praise the singing too,
but finding it insufficient, burst into a torrent of French, describing
the wonderful capacity for work there was in Bess.
“What is she saying about me?” asked Bess suspiciously; and while
Roger was trying to make the two ladies intelligible to each other,
the little old gentleman, who had been listening at the window and
had disappeared, was seen coming through the garden door. He was a
benevolent-looking old gentleman, and evidently wildly excited about
something. He seemed to have jumped into his clothes in such haste that
it was a wonder he had not got into them inside out. His waistcoat was
loose, though his coat was buttoned over it; his shoes were unbuckled,
and he carried his peruke and his garters in his hand, and he had
forgotten to remove his nightcap. Bess had paused for a moment from
hanging out table-cloths and napkins, and stood with one white arm
on her hip, while with the other she shaded her eyes; and the old
gentleman, approaching her, made a profound bow.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, “you are truly one of heaven’s favorites. That
glorious voice of yours is fit for the choir of angels; nay, more,--it
is worthy of the King’s Opera.”
“Tell him,” said Bess, turning to Roger, “that I don’t understand his
lingo.”
Roger translated this, as follows,--
“Sir, Mademoiselle Lukens desires me to say to you that she highly
appreciates your admiration of her voice, and begs to explain that she
cannot yet understand or converse in the French language.”
With another profound bow, the old gentleman said,--
“Monsieur, I have the honor to introduce myself. I am Monsieur Mazet,
one of the directors of the King’s Opera; and wherever I go--on my
little journeys for pleasure, or my expeditions for business, by
day or by night--I am on the lookout for good voices. I have been
an enraptured listener this morning to this young woman’s singing.
And I beg of you to say to her that, if she wishes to study under my
direction, and is willing to pay the dole of labor which art exacts, I
can promise her great success, great fame--all, all that a beautiful
voice can bring to a beautiful woman.”
Here Madame Michot interrupted vigorously. “Now, Monsieur Roger, don’t
put any such notions in the girl’s head. Don’t I know what becomes of
poor girls who go to Paris? She will rue it the longest day she lives.
I have seen them go, and, oh, my God! I have seen them return,--a sorry
sight. So tell her, instead, that she had much better remain here. I
will give her a good home if she will work and behave herself; and I
have little doubt that she does both work well and behave well.”
Monsieur Mazet heard this with a sniff of scorn. He threw a whole
volume of expression in his face as, with a grimace indicating the
utmost distaste for Madame Michot, he waved his long arms about. Madame
Michot, on her part, gave him a look of contemptuous pity, as much as
to say, “Poor creature!”
Monsieur began hostilities by saying,--
“Madame, perhaps, does not understand the feeling for art which--”
“No, I don’t,” vigorously replied Madame Michot, “but I know, as I tell
you, what waits for a girl like this, poor and handsome and ignorant,
in Paris, and--”
“My position madam, as director--”
“My profession, sir, of keeping an inn, has taught me to know human
nature.”
The altercation grew warmer, Bess and Roger remaining silent. At
last, when Madame Michot’s usually placid voice rose to a high key,
and Monsieur Mazet used some ugly words, Roger interfered politely,
and proposed to lay the two propositions before Bess. This was agreed
to by both combatants, upon condition that he offered no advice.
Bess listened gravely while he explained to her in English all that
Monsieur Mazet and Madame Michot had been saying, and then she replied
promptly,--
“Would I rather go to Paris and learn to be a singer in the King’s
Opera, or would I rather stay here and wash linen? Why, Master Roger, I
would rather go to Paris; and if Madame Michot or that gentleman thinks
I can’t take care of myself, show you them that scar I left on your
skull.”
“But I would not advise you to go until you learn something of the
French tongue,” said Roger, pledged not to advise, but eager to protect
her.
“Right. I always said you had some brains under your curly hair. Now
say to them that I will stay here and work for a couple of months,
until I learn to know what people are saying to me; and after that, if
the gentleman will come and fetch me, I will go to Paris and learn to
sing in the King’s Opera.”
This Solomonic decision had the uncommon effect of pleasing both
parties to the controversy.
Madame Michot considered, if she saved the brand for two months from
the burning, she could save it altogether; while Monsieur Mazet had no
doubt whatever that two months’ experience of the drudgery of a village
inn would secure his prize for Paris. Roger, too, was pleased with
the decision, which showed the strong good sense that Bess usually
displayed in practical affairs.
Madame Michot invited them all to breakfast with her and Jacques; and
they all accepted. The table was spread in the orchard, and the proud
Roger Egremont enjoyed very much this meal with the director of the
King’s Opera, the landlady and her son, and the turnkey’s niece. They
were a very merry party. Bess was in the highest spirits; here at last
was that chance, so longed for, to rise into a respectable sphere of
life,--for Bess did not count the gaoler’s trade as respectable. And
singing was so easy! She could not keep from doing it if she tried. She
supposed there would be some hardships, but she knew the ugly face of
hardship too well to be frightened at it, and perhaps Roger--here Bess
sternly checked her vagrant imagination. The others did not know, and
she earnestly hoped might never find out, the story of her childhood
and youth; but Roger knew it, and could never forget it.
That day and for some days afterward, there was much carolling to the
accompaniment of a crazy clavichord in Monsieur Mazet’s lodgings; for
he was to remain some days at St. Germains, and immediately began
Bess’s musical education. Bess took to music and singing with ardor
and intelligence; she had a strong frame and was never tired, although
everybody within hearing, except Monsieur Mazet, got a little weary
sometimes of her incessant trilling. On the third day, after meeting
with Monsieur Mazet, she found an instrument more to her liking than
Monsieur Mazet’s clavichord. This was Dicky Egremont’s fiddle.
On that afternoon, Bess, who was always provided with knitting, was
sitting on a bench in the orchard, her fingers flying. Monsieur Mazet,
having thrummed and strummed the whole morning on the clavichord,
teaching his apt pupil, was taking a rest in his lodgings. Madame
Michot and Jacques were at the inn. Madame Michot noticed with approval
that Bess showed no inclination to hang about the inn, but when her
work was over went off to the orchard, or to the little closet of
a room she had, to spend her leisure. It was not possible that the
presence of a girl so handsome, and lately from England, should not
be known to the merry gentlemen who frequented Madame Michot’s common
room; and had not Bess kept out of the way she could easily have made
herself a toast, and likewise a subject of gossip, among those same
merry gentlemen. But Bess had learned prudence in a hard school, and
had learned it well, and, her ideas of the chivalry of men having been
formed upon those who dwelt in Newgate, she had by no means a high
opinion of the sex in general. Therefore, when she saw approaching her
in the pleasant August afternoon a young man in the black dress of a
seminarian, she quickly determined that the orchard would not very long
be large enough for both. And having heard bad accounts of papists and
papistry in general, the fact that the young man wore a monkish dress
set her still more against him. Presently he came near, and bowed and
smiled and blushed,--for Dicky Egremont seemed always blushing,--and
Bess could not for the life of her keep from returning his friendly
glance.
“’Tis Mistress Bess Lukens I have the honor of addressing,” said Dicky
in his sweet and youthful voice.
Bess rose and dropped a courtesy, trying to scowl, but failing.
“Pray let me introduce myself. I am Mr. Richard Egremont, a cousin of
Mr. Roger Egremont.”
“Are you Dicky?” cried Bess, surprised out of herself, and then
coloring at her inadvertence.
“I am Dicky to Roger,” replied Dicky, “and naturally you never heard
him speak of me by any other name. Know, Mistress Bess, Roger has told
me of all your goodness to him while he was in prison, and for that
reason, when I came to the inn just now and heard you were here, I
ventured to come and pay you my respects. For all who are good to my
cousin, Roger Egremont, are friends of mine.”
“Thank you, Mr. D--I mean Mr. Egremont. ’Twas little I could do for Mr.
Roger, but I had the best will in the world.”
Dicky had seated himself at the other end of the garden bench, and Bess
had resumed her knitting. The afternoon sun sifted down upon her great
plaits of auburn hair, bringing out all the red and gold in it, and
the tawny depths in her brown eyes. Dicky noticed what Madame Michot
had,--the evidences of hard work on Bess’s hands, and he thought he
knew her to be, from Roger’s description, one of the best women in the
world.
“Madame Michot told me, just now in the house, that you had a mighty
pretty voice, and would go to Paris some time before long, to study for
the King’s Opera,” he began, by way of making acquaintance.
“Yes,” replied Bess, her face lighting up with pleasure at the mere
mention of her becoming a singer. “I think I must be the fortunatest
poor girl that ever lived. A kind gentleman here, Mr. Mazet, heard me
singing, and offered to teach me at Paris, and Mr. Roger thinks it all
right that I should go. They all tell me ’twill be hard work, but I
can’t think singing hard work; ’twould be hard work for me to keep from
singing.”
“Yes,” said Dicky, gravely, “’Tis monstrous hard work for me to keep
from fiddling. At the seminary where I am studying to be a priest, I
am not allowed to fiddle all I want; and my superiors are right. For
the hours fly when I have the bow in my hand, and my fingers dancing
upon the strings; and often, when I think I have been playing but a few
minutes, ’tis a whole hour.”
For the first time Bess found some one who could talk and feel as she
did about music, and she replied eagerly,--
“So ’tis with me! So ’tis with me!”
“Only those who love music can understand it,” continued Dicky, as
eager as Bess. “’Tis life and light and joy and hope and solace--”
“And meat and drink and coals,” responded the practical Bess.
And then their talk drifted to Roger. Every moment Bess felt more and
more drawn to this frank, boyish Dicky, and insensibly she adopted
Roger’s attitude of superior age. Dicky was really only a little
younger than Bess, but she felt as if he were born yesterday, and
she were as old as the Pharaohs by comparison. As for his monkish
religion, she looked on it as she did on Roger’s--as a departure from
the ordinary, like children who are born with six toes--singular, but
harmless. And then something inspired Bess to give Dicky her confidence
about that black spectre of her past--her life in Newgate.
“Mr. Di--I mean, Mr. Egremont, I don’t believe you are the man to do
an ill turn to a poor girl, or a child, or a dog, or anything that’s
not very strong,” she burst out presently, “and I want you to do me a
kindness. I hate worse than pi’sen the notion that people should know
that--that--I am the niece of a gaoler and turnkey. ’Twas that which
chiefly made me seek my fortune in France; and will you please to
promise to keep it to yourself?--for I know that Master Roger must have
told it you.”
“Truly, I will keep your secret, Mistress Bess. No one shall ever hear
anything of you from me, except that you befriended Roger in prison,
and nobody knows how you did it.”
“My uncle’s calling was the sorest thing to me in the world, Mr.
Egremont. It sickens me to think how much I learned of wickedness
in that dreadful prison the seven years I lived there. But knowing
wickedness only made me hate it the more. I swore I would never be as
most of the creatures were there, and the hatred of evil, more than the
love of good, has kept me in the straight path. Madame Michot, and that
good, industrious, lame Jacques do not know about the gaol, and I think
not the grand gentleman, the Duke of Berwick, who helped Mr. Roger to
get me in this place; but I am not sure,--I dared not ask Mr. Roger if
he had told him. _You_ knew it, though, and it takes a great load off
my heart to know you’ll not tell it abroad.”
“Indeed I will not. And--and--Mistress Bess, I have my fiddle within.
Could we not have some sweet music together?”
“Yes,” cried Bess, delighted, and Dicky, running toward the house,
presently returned with his fiddle. He tuned up, and Bess asking if
he could play “Green Sleeves,” her sweet, strong voice, and the soft
and thrilling strains of the violin rose in harmony. The summer sun
was near setting, and the shadows were long in the orchard. The birds
ceased their twittering to listen to the music, that rose, full and
strong and rich, and melted away in the darkening blue of the sky. They
both stood, Dicky drawing his bow, slowly and softly, and bringing
the tenderest melody forth, and then quickly changing to the merriest
laughing, dancing measure, and Bess, with her heart in her eyes, her
glorious voice following and intertwining and melting into the sweet
strains of the violin. It was as if their two souls met and sang
together. One song succeeded another, and so absorbed were they that
Bess, for once, actually forgot she had work to do. Nor was it possible
for the music to remain unheard at the inn. Presently Bess realized
that figures were stealing into the orchard, from which the afternoon
light was fading.
A loud clapping of hands after Bess had sung “Drink to me only with
thine eyes” broke the spell. All the idlers from the inn had strolled
out to listen. A handsome Scotch gentleman was for singing with Bess,
but she, curtly declining, curtseyed and walked toward the inn.
“An ungracious jade,” said the Scotch gentleman, turning on his heel.
“The girl has sense,” muttered Monsieur Mazet, who was listening and
watching from his window, overlooking the orchard.
And in that orchard, singing those simple English songs, was made the
beginning of a friendship between an Egremont and the turnkey’s niece
that was to last until life ended.