They said that love would die when Hope was gone
And Love mourned long, and sorrowed after Hope;
At last she sought out Memory and they trod
The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope,
And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears.
--TENNYSON.
M. Legros walked out backwards from the august presence of Monseigneur
the Archbishop of Paris with head reverently bent to receive the
benediction not altogether ungraciously given.
Through the close ranks of gorgeously attired, liveried servants he
passed, then across the courtyard and through the gilded gates out into
the street.
Then only would his sense of what was due to Monseigneur allow him to
give vent to his feelings. He sighed and shook his head and muttered
vague words of despondency.
Of a truth how different had been this interview to-day to that other
one a brief while ago, when with light elastic step, good M. Legros had
left Monseigneur's presence with his heart full of elation, of triumph
and of hope.
It had been November then; the kindly tailor remembered how cold had
been the night, with that penetrating drizzle which sought out the very
marrow of the unfortunate pedestrian who happened to be abroad. But M.
Legros had not heeded the cold or the wet then, his heart had been warm
with the joyful news which he was about to bring into his home. Now
the warm glow of a late September sun was in the air; not far away in
the gardens of the Queen Mother's palace the last roses of summer were
throwing their dying fragrance into the air even as far as the dismal
streets which Legros traversed, oh, with such a heavy heart!
Indeed, he paid no heed to the scent of the flowers, the last tender
calls of thrush and blackbird which came from the heavy bouquets of
the Luxembourg, and he almost shivered despite the warmth of this late
summer's afternoon. Monseigneur had not been encouraging; and even the
tailor's philosophical temperament had shown signs of inward rebellion
at the cold manner in which the Archbishop had received his just
plaint. Wherein had he sinned, either he or his wife? They had been
deceived, nothing more. Would not any one else have been deceived in
just the same way, by the soft words and grand manner of that splendid
blackguard?
And Rose Marie, the innocent lamb? Was it not a sin in itself even to
suggest that she had been to blame? Yet Monseigneur would not listen,
despite good M. Legros' entreaties. "You should have guarded your
daughter's honour more carefully," His Greatness had said very severely.
Prayers for help had been of no avail.
"I cannot help you now," Monseigneur had reiterated with marked
impatience; "the matter rests with your daughter's husband. My lord of
Stowmaries is the gravely-injured husband; he may choose to forgive
and forget, he may take his erring wife back to his heart and home,
but I cannot interfere; the Holy Church would not enforce her decree
under such circumstances. It would be cruel and unjust. If the law of
England will grant the suit of nullity, the Holy Father will not--nay,
he cannot, object. My lord of Stowmaries hath the right to his freedom
now, an he choose."
"But my child is as pure and as innocent as the Holy Virgin herself,"
M. Legros had protested with all the strength of his poor broken heart;
"will not the Church protect the innocent, rather than the guilty? My
lord of Stowmaries himself was a party to the infamous trick which--"
"Into this discussion I cannot enter with you, sirrah!" His Greatness
had interrupted with overwhelming severity. "The matter is one which
doth not concern the Church. What doth concern her is that my lord of
Stowmaries, who is a devout Catholic, hath asked for leave to appeal to
the civil courts of his country for a dissolution of his marriage with
a woman who no longer bears a spotless reputation. This leave under the
unfortunate circumstances and the undoubted publicity of the scandal
around your daughter's fame, the Holy Father hath decided to grant. I
can do nothing in the matter."
"Your Greatness, knowing the real facts of the case--" hazarded the
timid man rendered bold by the excess of his sorrow.
"I only know the facts of the case, such as I see them," interrupted
the Archbishop haughtily, "but since you are so sure of your daughter's
innocence, go and persuade my lord of Stowmaries to view it in the
same light as you do. Transcendent virtue," added Monseigneur, with a
scarce perceptible curl of his thin lips, "is sure to triumph over base
calumny. I promise you that I will do nothing to fan the flames of my
lord's wrath. My attitude will be strictly neutral. Go, seek out Lord
Stowmaries. Let your daughter make a personal appeal. My blessing go
with you."
M. Legros was dismissed. It had been worse than useless now to try and
force a prolongation of the interview. Monseigneur's indifference might
turn at any moment to active opposition. The tailor had made discreet
if lavish offers of money--alms or endowments; he would have given
his entire fortune to see Rose Marie righted. But either my lord of
Stowmaries had forestalled him, or the matter had become one of graver
moment beyond the powers of bribery; certain it is that Monseigneur had
paid no heed to vague suggestions and had severely repressed any more
decided offers.
No wonder, therefore, that despair lay like a heavy weight on the
worthy tailor's heart, as he made his way slowly along the muddy bank
of the river, crossed the Pont Neuf and finally turned in the direction
of the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie.
Now as then, a girlish hand opened the door for him, in response to
his knock; now as then a pair of confiding arms were thrown around his
neck. But it was a sigh which escaped his throat, and to the sigh there
was no response from those girlish lips turned grave in sorrow.
Maman, with unvarying optimism, insisted on hearing a full account of
the interview with Monseigneur; she weighed every sentence which was
faithfully reported to her, queried indefatigably and commented with
somewhat forced cheerfulness on what she heard.
Rose Marie sat--silent and absorbed--at her father's knee. She had
never harboured any hopes from this long-projected audience; the result
therefore in no way disappointed her.
Not even maman knew what went on in the girl's thoughts, nor how
complete and sudden had been the transformation from the child into
the woman. Rose Marie, when she returned home with her father on
that never-to-be-forgotten night in April, had gone to bed tired and
submissive. When she rose the next morning at her accustomed hour she
took up the threads of her former uneventful life, just as if they had
never been snapped by that strong and treacherous hand.
She studied her music, and delved deeply into her books, she read aloud
to her father out of holy books, and oft sang to him whilst playing
on the harpsichord. M. and Mme. Legros oft wondered exactly how much
she felt; for they loved her far too dearly to be deceived by these
attempts at indifference.
Something of Rose Marie's girlishness had gone from her, never again to
return, something of the bird-like quality of her voice, something of
the deer-like spring of her step. The blue eyes were as clear as ever,
the mouth as perfectly curved, but across the brow lay--all unseen save
to doting eyes--the ineradicable impress of a bitter sorrow.
But the child never spoke of those three weeks that were past, nor was
Michael's name ever mentioned within the walls of the old house in the
Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie. "Milor" had come and stolen the girl's heart
and happiness, wrecked the brightness of a home, and sown disgrace and
shame. And yet to all these three people who should so ardently have
hated him, his name seemed to have become through the intensity of that
grief which he had caused, almost sacred in the magnitude of his sin.
It was as, when to a fanatic, the name of Lucifer becomes as
unspeakable as that of God.
The news that the real lord of Stowmaries had appealed to His
Holiness for leave to contract a fresh marriage had not been long in
reaching the tailor's house. For the past five months now M. Legros
had exhausted every means of persuasion and of bribery to obtain an
audience of Monseigneur.
The Archbishop had been overbusy with grave affairs of state,
so the wretched man was invariably told whenever he tried--most
respectfully--to press his claim for an early audience. It was only
after the terrible news which came direct from Rome that at last
Monseigneur consented to see the stricken father.
Now that interview was over--on which so many feeble hopes had of a
truth been built--His Greatness had been haughty and severe, and the
only consolation which he had deigned to offer was advice which was
indeed very hard to follow.
At the first suggestion, somewhat hesitatingly put forward by Papa
Legros to his daughter, she rose up in revolt.
"Make appeal to my lord Stowmaries?" she said indignantly. "Never. How
could Monseigneur suggest such a course?"
Papa was silent, and even maman sighed and shook her head. Rose Marie
had gone to the window, and her cheeks aflame now, she was staring out
into the street.
"Are we beggars," she murmured, proudly defiant, "that we should be
bidden to sue for grace?"
From where she sat, could her vision but have pierced through the
forest of houses, and thence through the sunlit distance, she might
have beheld the forest of Cluny, and that silent pool whereon the water
lilies reared their stately heads. Here she had sat, just by this same
window, when with bitter words--cruel in that irresistible appeal which
they made to her heart--he had told her about that pool, the lilies
stained with mud, the slimy weeds that spread and girt the graceful
stems, the ineradicable smirch of contact with the infamies of this
world.
Even now his captivating voice seemed to ring in her ears. The blaze of
wrath fled from her cheeks, and the terrible, awful pain gripped her
heart which she knew would never find solace whilst she lived.
At the other end of the room her parents were conversing on the
ever-present topic.
Maman's hitherto indomitable optimism was at last giving way. She
had held up bravely throughout these five weary months of waiting,
hoping--almost against hope, sometimes--that everything would come
right in one audience with Monseigneur.
With unvarying confidence she waited for the summons for Papa Legros
to appear before His Greatness; once the Archbishop heard the truth he
would soon put the matter to rights, and His Holiness himself would see
that the child was righted in the end.
But now the long-looked-for audience had taken place, and it was no
longer any use to disguise the fact that the last glimmer of hope had
flickered out behind the gilded gates of Monseigneur's palace.
Maman, too, had felt indignant when first she heard the Archbishop's
callous advice to Papa Legros. Her mother's heart rebelled at the very
thought of seeing her child a suppliant; she would not add fuel to the
flames of outraged pride by showing what she thought on the matter, but
when Rose Marie rose in revolt with the indignant outcry of "Are we
beggars?" she, the mother, quietly went up to her stewpot and kept her
own counsels to herself, the while she stirred the soup.
Anon when the first wave of angry rebellion had subsided, when Rose
Marie sat quiescent by the open window, Maman Legros put down her
wooden spoon and went up to her husband, putting her heavy, rough hand
on his shoulder, with a motherly gesture of supreme consolation.
"Perhaps Monseigneur is right, Armand," she said with her own
indomitable philosophy; "why not make appeal to Lord Stowmaries, he may
not be a bad man after all."
"You have heard what the child said, Mélanie," replied M. Legros sadly.
"Are we beggars that we should be bidden to sue?"
A great sob rose in Rose Marie's throat. It was the sorrow, the
humiliation of these two dearly-loved folk that was so terrible to
bear. They had been stricken in what they held most dear, in their
integrity and in their child. Self-reproach, too, played no small part
in their grief, and they had not even a memory on which to dwell.
She--Rose Marie--had had her glorious three weeks of perfect happiness,
before she had known that the man she loved was a liar and a cheat.
For the sake of those few brief days of unalloyed joy, because of the
memory of that unclouded happiness, she had endured such an intensity
of pain, that at times she felt--nay! hoped that death or madness
would end the agony. But she had been happy! Remembrance brought an
overwhelming shame, but she had been happy!
Sometimes she thought that her whole soul must have become perverted,
her sense of virtue warped, for bitter as was the pain of it all, she
dwelt oft and oft in her mind on those three exquisite weeks of perfect
happiness.
Her heart, starved and aching, now lived on that memory. Her ears
seemed to catch again the timbre of his voice vibrating with passion,
her eyes rendered dull and heavy with all the unshed tears, seemed, in
closing, to see him there, standing near her with his arms held ready
to enfold her, and that burning, ardent look in his dark eyes which
had shown her visions of an earthly heaven, such as she had never
dreamed before.
Was it wicked to dwell on it all? Sinful, mayhap!--and surely not
chaste, for he had lied to her when he said--
And then an insidious spirit voice would interrupt this train of
thought and whisper in her ear: "No, he did not lie when he said that
he loved thee, Rose Marie!" and the girl--just a suffering woman
now--would in response feel such an agonizing sense of pain that she
cried to God--to the blessed, suffering Lord--to take her away out of
this unbearable misery.
But they--the dear old folk--had no such bitter-sweet memories on
which to dwell, nothing but blank, dull sorrow, with no longer now any
hope of seeing the load lifted. It would grow heavier and heavier as
the years went by. Rose Marie had noticed that the streaks of grey on
maman's smooth hair had become more marked of late, and Papa Legros
seldom rose from a chair now without leaning heavily on his stick, with
one hand, and on the arm of the chair with the other.
Yet maman still strove to be cheerful, even now she said with that new
touch of philosophy in her which seemed to have taken the place of her
former optimism:
"Ah, well, Armand! if the child will not go, we cannot force her,
poor lamb! but 'tis not saying that we are beggars and I cannot help
thinking that Monseigneur may be right in his advice after all."
Then as Papa Legros sighed and shook his head, staring in mute
depression straight out before him, Rose Marie rose from the window
seat and came close to where her parents sat. Kneeling beside the kind
father, whose every sigh cut into her heart, looking up at those
streaks of grey in her mother's smooth hair, she said simply:
"We are beggars, Father, Mother dear, beggared of happiness, of joy, of
pride. Father, we'll to England when you will. We'll seek out my lord
of Stowmaries and make appeal to him, that he may restore to us that
which in wantonness he hath taken away."
"The child is right, Armand," said maman, and like a true phoenix from
out the flames, her optimism rose triumphant:
"I do verily believe," she said cheerfully, the while she
surreptitiously wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, "I do
verily believe that the young man when he sees our Rose Marie will
repent him of his folly and will be joyful to take her to his heart."