Where first the wave, in long unrest
Rolled from the glamour of the West,
Breaks with the voice of Fate along
The shores of Legend and of Song.
The sea was beating into unbroken foam at the foot of the towering
cliff--an uninterrupted front of granite, quite unscalable except at
narrow clefts four and five miles apart, which nobody would attempt
except at low water, when a precarious path of shingle is laid bare
between that grim rampart and the lip of the tide. A summer storm had
raged for two days and nights along this terrible coast, and now,
although the leadenness of the sky was thinning here and there to
patches of faded turquoise, the waves, still savagely churned by the
wind, were piling beds of semi-solid spume far above the ragged
margin of the inner Bay of Plenhöel.
From the stone terrace of the Castle the sight would have been
awe-inspiring to any but its inhabitants, hardened through generation
after generation to such spectacles and such sensations. To the right
of the fortress-like building a wall of spindrift whirling up an
embayment of the _falaise_ shut off all view of the coast to the
eastward; to the left and in front chaos reigned supreme in a
fathomless gulf, while behind it miles of pine forest stretched to
the crest of the table-land in endless tossing manes of somber green.
Five hundred feet of sheer cliff about which thousands of gulls flew
screaming in and out of the roaring gusts of the gale, and down-shore
the intermittent boom of a _souffleur_ overtoning by many cavernous
notes the great voices of sky and sea.
The library at Plenhöel is one of the most pleasing places imaginable.
Long ago it had been a guard-room, where the officers of the garrison
watched the offing from the tunnel-like window-embrasures, and the
pikes of halberdiers resounded upon the granite-flagged floor. Some
time after the Chouan wars it was transformed into an eminently
“living” apartment, paneled in carved oak, book-lined on three
sides, and pierced by many tall French windows that open upon a
broad balcony of wonderfully wrought stone.
In one of the aforesaid embrasures that tempestuous morning the
still, gracile silhouette of Marguerite de Plenhöel was outlined
against the background of sea and cloud. She had grown a little since
a year, but it seemed evident that she would never be either a tall
or an “imposing” woman. But what could one not forgive in so lovely a
little creature who, with her square shoulders and slim, round waist,
looked wholesome and strong as any sand-poppy; whose delicately oval
face was so full of happy life, from the deep-set blue eyes to the
tender mouth, the patrician arch of the nose, and the obstinate
little chin dented by a tantalizing _fossette_? The crinkly silkiness
of her hair--that crowning beauty of hers--now piled upon her head in
rebellious masses, shone even in the fog-dimmed light as she bent
forward to gaze fervently through the panes, breathing on and rubbing
them again and again to free them from their misted opaqueness.
She had been home for good a couple of weeks only, and greeted the
convulsions of nature as a treat especially prepared for her; for now
and then she clapped her hands and sketched a merry jig-step or two
on the polished floor, evidently in applause of so stirring a scene.
So absorbed, indeed, was she in her contemplation, her lovely face
flattened now against the glass, that she did not hear a door unclose
and shut behind her. She was counting aloud for the seventh fateful
wave that all true-born ocean folk hold in so profound a respect.
“One, two, three, four, five, six ...” she called, as if summoning
the crowning surge in unconquerable impatience.
“Seven!” said a voice immediately at her side, and she whirled about
on one toe to find herself confronted by a very tall man who was
smiling amusedly.
“Basil!” she exclaimed. “Cousin Basil! Where did you jump from?”
“From the cliff path, which I don’t recommend as a peaceful choice
of promenade just now,” he replied, calmly; but his fine gray eyes,
nevertheless, held a suggestion of the pleasing battle he had just
fought against the tempest.
“Why didn’t you call me?” she reproached, with an adorable pout. “I
would have liked so much to come with you.”
“Little girls, my cousin,” he answered, gravely, “should not be
risked on the edge of draughty precipices.”
The “Gamin” frowned. She was too young as yet to enjoy being called a
little girl, and the riposte came at once.
“Where old gentlemen are safe, younger people may surely go!” she
said, mischievously.
“Old gentleman ... hummm ... m! That’s rather hard on me, isn’t
it, dear cousin mine?”
“Hard, why?” she retorted. “How old are you, anyhow?” And, standing
on the very points of her tiny slippers, she pointed at his temples
with two accusing fingers.
“One, two, three, four, five, six ... silver threads among the
bronze,” she misquoted.
“And seven!” he coolly admitted, looking smilingly down at her.
“Seven or more, what matters? I am thirty-four, you know, my little
cousin.”
“What matters indeed! You have enough privileges already, without
expecting to remain always young.”
“Privileges! You surprise me!”
“Certainly,” she insisted. “Aren’t you a great Prince, a
Serene-Highness--just as in the fairy-tales? Haven’t you huge, big
estates in Russia and the Crimea, villas in the south of France,
_fortins_ in the Caucasus, mines in Siberia, besides loads and loads
of money, jewels, picture-galleries, a private band of musicians,
acres of hothouses, horses, stud-farms? A regular Marquis de Carabas,
that’s what you are!”
She paused for lack of breath, and once more he laughed.
“You overwhelm me, _ma cousine_,” he mocked; “but since I am old,
quite an old gentleman, you see ... what are these manifold gifts to
me?”
“Old! Oh, not so very old, after all!” she suddenly contradicted.
“Fortunately you are handsome, and very, very tall. Whew ... ew! You
are tall! I love that! I despise small men. They’re always barking
and fussing, like black-and-tans. Don’t you think so?”
“Your knowledge is indeed extensive, ‘Gamin,’” he praised. “Yet
it is scarcely necessary to be a giant in order to possess a kindly
temper. I have met--”
“Never mind what you have met,” she interrupted. “I know that you are
good-tempered, and six foot four inches. That’s enough proof of
what I said just now.”
“Thank you!” he began, dryly. But in one clean bound she cleared the
space between the window and a ponderous oaken bench, upon which she
perched herself, her feet ten inches from the immense rug covering
all the middle of the room. “And now,” she stated, “I must be
reasonable, and grown-up, and all the rest of it, so that the person
who first exhorted me to listen to reason may not find me lacking in
that desirable quality.”
“Is there really a person bold enough to preach reason to _you_?” he
commenced; but she silenced him by an eminently peremptory gesture.
“Listen!” she admonished. “Do you hear wheels?”
“Wheels?” he questioned, sincerely astonished. “In this storm?”
“And why not? Why shouldn’t people travel in a storm when they are
not imprisoned, as I am?”
“You are a prisoner?” Prince Basil asked, with amazement.
“Of course I am. Papa--the dear Saints of Brittany bless him--has
decreed--decreed, you understand--‘_J’ai décrété_’ was what
he said--he loves such sentences--that he would go alone to fetch
_my_ Loris at the station. You will agree with him, I am sure,
‘little girls’ should always be left at home. Eh?”
“What is ‘your Loris,’ if I may be so indiscreet as to ask,
_petite cousine_?”
“What? You mean _who_, I suppose. She is the most beautiful girl in
the world--an English ‘professional beauty,’ they say. She was at
the Sacré-Cœur with me, and she loved me--yes, she loved me, though
she played me a mean trick once; but it wasn’t her fault, poor
dear! I’ve never seen her since. And just imagine, her ogres of
uncle and aunt have condescended to let her spend a month with us
here--a whole month--thirty days--no, thirty-one, as this is the last
day of June.”
“This promises to be interesting,” Basil remarked. “A gloriously
beautiful maiden oppressed by avuncular ogres, and coming all the way
from perfidious Albion to charm the natives of ancient Armorica! It
sounds very well, when one comes to think of it!”
The “Gamin,” who had pulled from the pocket of her white serge frock
a handful of hazelnuts, and was joyously cracking them one after
another between her short white teeth, laughed and nearly choked
herself.
“You have,” she asserted, as soon as she could speak, “a funny way of
expressing yourself, Cousin Basil. Why don’t you add that a
handsome Prince Charming came from much farther off yet, to do
likewise?”
“Again? _Vous y tenez décidément, ma cousine!_ Handsome is as
handsome does, you know, and as yet I am not conscious of having
behaved in any very remarkable way since my arrival!”
Marguerite raised her shoulders to the level of her ears, threw a
handful of nut-shells in the bronze waste-paper holder at her side,
and jumped from her lofty seat.
“It must be nearly eleven,” she cried in sudden alarm. “We’ll miss
it all if we don’t go down-stairs now, at once. Come quick.”
“Miss what?” the impassive Prince demanded, slowly rising from the
deep arm-chair where he had established himself.
But she had already glissaded to the head of the stairs, and it took
all he could accomplish with his long legs to overtake her before she
had quite succeeded in breaking her pretty nails, in endeavoring to
open one of the tall windows giving on the north terrace.
“Leave that to me. The wind is straight against it. Wait, won’t
you, _please_?” he pleaded, his hand over both of hers, for she was
still struggling manfully with the complicated fastening.
“I’m very strong,” she panted. “I’ve done it lots of times.”
Evidently she was very strong, for the window suddenly gave way and,
had it not been for Basil’s weight, would have knocked her flat.
But little did she care for such slight contretemps. With a ringing
war-whoop she raced out, her hair--instantly blown from its
restraining combs by the whistling blast--streaming in clouds behind
her, her skirts flying back from her slim ankles, and danced wildly
toward the carven parapet.
Basil, hastily securing the window from the outside, ran after her,
afraid that she would really be whirled by the back-draught over the
balustrade to the causeway below. He was laughing helplessly at the
extraordinary antics of this queer little being who bewitched him,
but when he caught up with her he took firm hold upon her arm.
“You imp!” he shouted, for the hurly-burly was such that he could not
hear his own voice, nor her reply, for that matter; but it was not a
very decorous one, to judge by the roguish sparkle of her eyes.
However, she did not shake off his hand, which quite surprised him,
and soon they were leaning side by side against a beautiful mediæval
gargoyle hewn from the stone wall of the terrace, and at that moment
disgorging the downpour of the morning hours.
Following her excited glance, he saw, away down at the foot of the
causeway, a four-in-hand, fiercely beaten by the wind as it labored
up the steep incline.
“_Les voilà! Les voilà!_” Marguerite shrieked, quite beside herself
with delight. “They’ll be here in ten minutes.”
The words were flung in Basil’s teeth by the tempest. But he had
already recognized--his sight being unusually keen--his cousin de
Plenhöel handling the ribbons, and seen that a slender feminine
form, tightly cloaked and hooded, was sitting beside him. Far behind
the equipage a _fourgon_ was following, with the maid and luggage.
“Oh, look at the horses’ manes!” shrieked Marguerite, pointing to
the drag, now almost immediately beneath. “They are blown all
sideways. Oh dear! How funny!”
“And what about yours?” Basil laughed, vainly attempting to capture
in both hands the flying silk of her glorious hair; but with another
of her acrobatic bounds she darted from his side, turned the corner
like a blown feather, and disappeared into the _Cour-d’Honneur_,
where he hastened to join her, bullied by the wind and with less
decorum than was his wont.
Great black clouds were once more piling up in the sky, and as the
horses turned into the wide paved space a few enormous drops of rain
began to fall.
Fortunately here there was some shelter from the storm, and it became
possible to reassume some dignity of demeanor, if one felt so
inclined. Marguerite, however, had no such cares, and as soon as her
father--_Le Beau_ Plenhöel, known since his early youth by the
eminently unpretentious sobriquet of “Antinoüs”--had accomplished a
masterly turn around the central fountain and brought his mettlesome
team to a stand at the foot of the _perron_, she had clambered on the
near wheel and, lifting herself to the box, was hugging Laurence
Seton like a bear.
The Marquis de Plenhöel burst into hearty laughter and glanced
indulgently at Basil, standing ready to help the two girls down. The
grooms had jumped to the horses’ heads, where they now remained,
like twin wax figures incapable of movement or expression, under the
pelting shower.
“_Mais, mon ‘Gamin,’_ let her get down!” Plenhöel called.
“We’ll all be drenched to the bone.” And then only Marguerite
regretfully leaped into his arms, making it possible for Basil to
assist Laurence to the ground. Under such circumstances the
introduction was necessarily quite unconventional, and, driven
indoors by the rain now flooding in torrents from the leaden gutters
overhead and ricochetting in the liveliest fashion from the steps,
Marguerite and Laurence ran off without further ado.
Pulling off his long mackintosh and soaked driving-gloves, Plenhöel
turned to his cousin:
“A dramatic _entrée_!” he said, grinning, and displaying under his
blond mustache teeth of a whiteness and regularity worthy of a boy of
twenty. “With the ‘Gamin’ one can always expect something
unforeseen,” he added, leading the way to his den. “Here, have a dash
of cognac, Basil. You look almost as pumped as I am!” And he pushed
the tantalus toward his relative. “It will sharpen our appetites for
luncheon, too.”
Basil quietly possessed himself of a very easy chair, and, declining
the spirits by a gesture, lighted a cigarette.
“Who and what is that ethereal apparition who is throwing our
‘Gamin’ into such convulsions of joy?” he asked, lazily following
with his eyes a ring of smoke floating toward the caissoned ceiling.
“Hum-um!” “Antinoüs” replied, setting down his little glass and
drying his mustache on his handkerchief. “A very beautiful person, as
you may have seen.”
“I did not see. She was cowled like a monk, and, save for a bit of
resolute chin and the gleam of an interesting pair of eyes--”
“Oh, she’s beautiful; no doubt about that, my boy; but as far as I
have been able to judge--which is not much, I admit--she is scarcely
the sort I would have accused the ‘Gamin’ of turning into an
idol.”
“Accuse is severe!” Basil remarked, knocking the ashes from his
cigarette with the tip of his little finger. “What’s amiss with
her? You don’t mean that she’s a dark filly?”
“No....” “Antinoüs” hesitated. “No--but hard in the mouth, and a bit
sultry in temperament, I should say. Of course it is hard to judge,
where the Anglo-Saxon ‘Miss Independence’ is concerned; but this
one has been admirably brought up by our good ladies of the
Sacré-Cœur; and moreover I understand that all her life she has
been pruned, and prismed, and molded, and clipped by a dragon of an
aunt--an ex-beauty--now rather long in the tooth, who, it appears, is
not often inclined to joke. But still the finished product of her
labors inspires me with no extravagant amount of confidence.”
Basil gazed thoughtfully at his kinsman. He knew him to be a
connoisseur, and a fastidious one, at that, for all the women of his
family were, or had been, renowned for their loveliness. Moreover,
married at twenty-two to one of Brittany’s fairest daughters, he
had been left a widower fourteen months later, when Marguerite was
born. Be it said to his praise, he had never dreamt of giving his
dear “Gamin” a stepmother; but when all was said and done he was now
barely thirty-eight, extraordinarily good-looking, and eminently
disinclined by nature to keep his eyes closed when beauty was about.
“Not bridle wise?” Basil smiled up at Antinoüs. “According to your
lights, at least?”
“Bridle wise! Who d’you take me for?” the Marquis protested. “You
don’t fancy I’d try to flirt”--he said “_fleureter_”--“with a
damsel under my protection, do you? Besides,” he added, naïvely,
“she’s not my style ... not a bit of it!”
“Heaven be thanked, then,” Basil gravely replied. “We can henceforth
rest in peace!”
Plenhöel burst out laughing and clapped his cousin on the back.
“There’s the bell. Let’s to table, unbeliever!” And he drew back
to let Basil pass out of the room before him.
A surprise awaited Basil in the dining-room as he came down, after
hurriedly brushing his hair to an admirable smoothness. By the
opposite door Marguerite and Laurence were entering, and for the
first time in his affectionate acquaintance with the “Gamin” he
completely forgot her presence, for the lithe figure beside her and
overtopping her by half a head almost took his breath away. Graceful
as it is granted but few to be, “Miss Independence,” as “Antinoüs”
had called her--was, outwardly, at least, perfection. Her long hazel
eyes had that slight droop at the outer edges of the lids which
makes so much for beauty and expression; her small, well-cut mouth
and high-bred features, the oval of her jasmine-white face, and her
coronal of warmly auburn braids, made up an altogether uncommon
_ensemble_. Clad in vaporous lace-incrusted batiste of a creamy tint,
melting into that of her exquisite skin, a knot of deep-red
carnations carelessly thrust in her softly folded satin belt was the
only touch of color about her, and Basil’s eyes very nearly
transgressed the dictates of good form as he looked at her. Truly,
Plenhöel was difficult to please, he thought, taking his seat beside
“the Marvel,” as he already inwardly named her.
The poor “Gamin,” although her rebellious tresses were now as neat as
Laurence’s own, her crumpled serge replaced by a pale-pink linen of
irreproachable chic, remained during the entire meal unobserved by
her big cousin; but she, nevertheless, filled her place as mistress
of the house excellently well, and with a little air of importance
that sat very prettily upon her extreme youthfulness. However,
“Antinoüs,” always immensely proud of his daughter, seemed lost in
contemplation of this charming _vis-à-vis_, so that at first the
conversational ball rolled uninterruptedly between the two others;
but as a matter of fact he was thinking of some retrievers that
were coming from England that week to add the charm of their
thoroughbredness to his kennels--already too expensive, for, in the
modern sense of the word, at least, he was not what is termed a very
wealthy man.
After luncheon, the storm having not as yet abated, the little party
went to what is called at Plenhöel the _Galerie des Ancêtres_--a
particularly attractive apartment in which to spend a wet afternoon.
Hung with ancient tapestries and decorated with armor of the best
period, with an antique banner drooping here and there along the
paneling above a row of knights’ stalls of heavy carven wood,
this, together with a succession of splendid family portraits,
preserved there the touch of the long ago, for the rest of the
furnishings were amusingly heterogeneous. The great room terminated
at both ends in monumental fireplaces. Fronting one of these was a
huge billiard-table, balanced by a Pleyel grand piano, and opposite,
to one side of the other chimneypiece, a large-sized organ was
flanked by enormous palms in bronze tubs, while the rest of the
thirty-odd yards of space was most variously occupied--tables great
and small, loaded with albums, books, magazines, and flower-filled
vases; a collection of sofas, pouffs and piled-up cushions; and many
arm-chairs and benches, ranging from angular Gothic shapes to the
most approved and lazy forms of to-day.
Here one could smoke, read, nap, or play games of all sorts without
let or hindrance, since, besides the billiards, a set of graces, a
game of bagatelle, a chess-board, a Dutch top flanked by its
individual paraphernalia, and even a _jeu de petits chevaux_ were
ready to hand.
To-day, however, a strange and unaccustomed atmosphere seemed to
pervade this home-like and delightful retreat. Basil, perhaps
exhausted by his unwonted loquacity at lunch, had fallen silent, and
stood near one of the windows, gazing dreamily at the soupy gravel
drive and the dripping trees. Antinoüs, sunk to the shoulders into
the mellowness of a brocaded smoking-chair, pulled pensively at his
mustache, his eyes idly wandering over the pages of a two-days-old
number of the _Gazette de France_, and neither of them said a word.
Still, Marguerite and her guest, sitting side by side on an ottoman
placed in a far-off embrasure, made up for it by chattering like
magpies--but _sotto voce_, so that their “confidences” should not be
overheard. In truth, their “confidences” had so far remained
completely one-sided. Laurence spoke in a sufficiently lively
fashion, but revealed nothing of her own doings and thoughts. That
she was drawing out the “Gamin” with superior skill would have been
patent to a less simple little soul than Marguerite’s.
“But,” Miss Seton said at last, “you never told me that you have
Russian relatives.” And her eyes slid a furtive glance in the
direction of Prince Basil.
“Didn’t I?” Marguerite laughed. “I never thought of it in our
convent days. You see, I did not know my cousin Basil then quite as
well as I do now. It is like this. My grandfather’s sister, Anne de
Plenhöel, married Pierre Palitzin, and became Basil’s grandmother.
Am I expressing myself clearly?”
“Very clearly. And is Prince Basil an only child?” Laurence spoke in
the tone of one who desires, out of mere politeness, to keep up a
rather boring dialogue.
“Oh dear, no! He has the most exquisite sister. She married another
relative of ours, Jean de Salvières. It’s quite a mixed affair,
those family ties of ours, like a Neapolitan ice, pink, and green,
and mauve, and lemon, in stripes.”
“De Salvières.... The Duke?” mused Laurence, aloud.
“Yes! The Duke, of course! Do you know him, Laurence? He has a
château on the Normandy cliffs--_the_ château--_le plus beau
château de France_, I believe honestly; and so picturesque, with its
machicolations, its keep, its dungeons, and turrets and towers! It
looks as if Gustave Doré had built it. Also Basil has two
brothers--the youngest, who is in the _Corps-des-Pages_ of the Czar,
and then André, an officer in the _Chevaliers-Gardes_, all white and
gold and silver, and taller even than Basil, with big blue eyes, a
yellow mustache, a complexion as rosy as a baby’s, a--”
“He must be lovely,” interrupted Laurence, “and look as if he had
rolled about on a rainbow, your cousin André.”
Marguerite stared. The tone rather than the words surprised her. This
quaint little being, still at the tender age of easy laughter and
easy tears, hated mockery when it was directed toward what she loved
and honored. Her slangy childish tongue, so apt to speak at random,
never gave its assistance to unkind sayings, and for the second time
since they knew each other Laurence felt that she had struck a false
note. Indeed, the “Gamin” looked at that minute like a small
game-cock of ruffled plumage and sparkling eyes.
“I beg your pardon. I did not know a harmless joke could offend you,”
Laurence apologized.
“It did not offend me!” stoutly declared Marguerite. “But--I don’t
know why--I can’t bear to have my people laughed at.”
“Your people! You are so excessively and exclusively a Bretonne, that
one cannot realize your claiming kin with Muscovites.”
“When I say my people I mean all who belong to me, which includes, of
course, the Palitzins.”
Again Laurence, not quite at her keenest on this occasion,
overstepped the bounds of prudence, certainly those of Breton
delicacy--which are finely drawn--for, piqued at Marguerite’s
plainness of speech--perhaps at something else, too--she quickly
retorted:
“I am inclined to believe that you are in love with Prince Basil!”
Marguerite’s blue eyes widened, her pretty lips straightened, and
she rose to her feet.
“I am sure papa must be fainting with ennui,” she said in a level
voice. “Let’s go and challenge him to a game of billiards. It is
his hour for play!” And she glided off with the lithe grace which
betrays great strength concealed in satin softness.
“The cut direct!” Laurence muttered, following her, and smiling in a
fashion that strove, quite unsuccessfully, to be pleasingly
indulgent. “Bother these Breton prudes! I’ll have to mend my paces
here, it seems,” she muttered, as she crossed the gallery.