"The father of the boy you have seen!"
"How wonderful!"
"Much more wonderful things happen every day. It's much more wonderful
that I can tell you this now: that I ever grew out of my love. For I
loved him--ah, how deeply!"
There was a long silence.
Here was a curious thing. If any profane eye had lighted on the
group--the young girl kneeling at Madame's feet in the green coolness of
the elm; that profane eye would have got the impression that here were a
mother and daughter closely linked in some common sorrow, and clinging
to each other for mutual consolation. In one sense that impression would
have been the right one; but in one sense only. Their thoughts were
worlds apart. Madame was remembering the days when she was Lucy Pryor,
the daughter of the vicar of Otford. The great Lord Otford was Lord of
the Manor, and his son, the Honourable John Sayle, being a delicate lad,
was studying desultorily with the Vicar. The Vicar was more interested
in butterflies than in Greek roots, and the boy and girl spent most of
their time in the great vicarage garden. Thus the lad had grown strong
and well set up. He was gazetted into the Army, and sent to America,
where the war had just broken out. There he stayed five years. Lucy
treasured the dearest memories of her playfellow, and when he came back,
a splendid lieutenant, it is hardly necessary to say that they fell
seriously in love. Their love was patent to everyone except the vicar
and the old Lord. When the latter discovered it, his fury was
indescribable. He drove the vicar out of his living, and had him
transferred to a miserable parish in the East-end of London, where there
was n't a single butterfly; and he sent his son, who had retired from
the army, on the Grand Tour. The lovers parted, vowing to be faithful;
but young Sayle very soon forgot his vows in the excitement of travel.
At Rome he met the Honourable Mabel Scott, daughter of Lord Polhousie,
and, to cut a long story short, he married her, without a thought for
poor Lucy, whom the shock nearly killed. Nor did he ever know the blow
he had inflicted, nor ever hear from her, or of her, again. She was lost
in the wilderness of London. A few years later he had succeeded his
father, and was sent as Ambassador to Vienna. In the same year his son
John--our Jack--was born, and his birth was closely followed by the
mother's death.
Marjolaine, too, was thinking hard. All sorts of new ideas, new
conceptions, were looming on her horizon. They came as angels,
certainly, but angels with flaming swords. It seemed that great
happiness could be inextricably interwoven with great misery, so that a
simple human being could not tell where the one began and the other
ended. It seemed that a man could say one thing and mean another: that
he could look like the Archangel Michael and yet not mean what he said.
It seemed that you could be wounded in all your finest and most
sensitive nerves just for looking at a man. It seemed also, that your
pride was of no use to you whatever, but deserted you when it was most
needed, or, rather, turned against you, and helped to hurt you. This
must be enquired into.
"Mere, cherie," she whispered.
"What, my darling?" asked Madame, coming out of her dream.
Marjolaine pressed her hand to her heart. There was an actual physical
pain there, as if an iron band were crushing it. "Is this--is what I
feel--love?"
"Ah!" cried Madame, "I have betrayed myself. I did not mean you to know.
I am afraid it was going to be--love."
"Going to be! But it is! Or else, this ache? What is it?"
"Crush it now!" Madame was distressed. She would not allow Marjolaine's
young life to be blighted as her own had been. "Crush it now!
Fiercely! ruthlessly! and it will be nothing. You have only seen him
once--"
"Does that make any difference?"
What could one answer to such a question? One could only ignore it.
"You must be very brave; very determined; and put the thought of him
away."
Marjolaine shook her head sadly. How could she put the thought of him
away? It was in her. It filled her. It was she herself. And did she
want to put it away? Would she put it away if she could? It seemed to
her that if the thought were withdrawn now, she would be left a hollow
husk of a thing, with no thought at all.
Madame saw she had gone too far too quickly. "Dear, I know. It took me
a long time, because I had been happy so long; but at last, when your
father came, I was able to put my hand in his, and look straight into
his eyes."
Here was a new mystery for Marjolaine. So good and beautiful a woman as
her mother could love twice, then?
"Mother," said she, with grave enquiry, "did you love my father as much
as you had loved Jack?"
However good and blameless we may be, it is a very uncomfortable
experience to be cross-examined by utter, single-minded innocence.
"Listen," said Madame, "life is long, and nature merciful. I recovered
very slowly; but I tried to be brave; I tried to take an interest in the
life around me: the sordid, sunless life of the very poor, so much
sadder than my own. Then Jules Lachesnais came to live with us--with my
father and me--in order to study the English language and our political
institutions. A great friendship sprang up between us. When my father
died, Jules urged me to marry him. I was utterly alone in the world; I
felt a deep affection for him; and I consented."
She waited for Marjolaine to say something; but Marjolaine was silent.
"He took me to France, where you were born. We went through the horrors
of the Revolution side by side. He played an active part in those
horrible days; always on the side of justice and moderation. The aim of
his life was to see his country under a constitutional government, such
as he had learnt to admire during his stay in England. The excesses he
was forced to witness disgusted him, and he resisted them with all his
might." Madame was lost in her reminiscences. "Ah, yes! You were too
young to know; but we all ran grave risks of falling victims to the
guillotine. Your father hailed Napoleon as a deliverer; but when
Napoleon began to usurp power, he foresaw the dawning tyranny; still
more when Napoleon was made consul for life. He retired more and more
from public affairs, thereby incurring the tyrant's anger and again
endangering his life. When Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor your father
protested publicly--think of the courage! He was expelled, and he died
disappointed and heartbroken. He was a brave, true man, faithful to his
ideals. I was very proud of him; very happy and contented. And I _am_
very happy and contented now," she added defiantly,--"or I shall be,
when I see you have won the victory!"
But Marjolaine was merciless. This was all very well, as far as her
mother was concerned. "But what became of poor Jack?" she asked.
"Poor Jack!" Madame laughed bitterly. "Poor Jack had married some great
lady!"
At once poor Jack had lost all Marjolaine's sympathy. She muttered
between her teeth, "Caroline Thring."
"I tell you," protested Madame--and perhaps she protested just a shade
too strongly--"I ceased to think of him. I forgot him."
Marjolaine's brow was puckered in thought. Could one forget? "But,
mother," she said, very simply, "if you had forgotten him, why did you
swoon when you heard his name?"
Down went the cloak of self-deception Madame had so carefully wrapped
round herself. She took her daughter's face in both her hands and looked
at her sadly. "Ah! my little girl is become a woman indeed! The
innocence of the dove, and the guile of the serpent!--Well! Think over
what I have told you. Come, now, cherie, you promise to fight?"
"Yes," said Marjolaine, without conviction.
"You promise to conquer?"
"I promise to try."
"At least you see there can be nothing between Lord Otford's son and my
daughter?"
"Yes." Oh, what a hesitating yes!
Madame folded her in her arms. "Try to lighten someone else's sorrow,"
she said, kissing her tenderly, "then you will forget your own, and the
roses will bloom in your cheeks again."
The Walk was beginning to show signs of life. The Eyesore came
slouching back, and resumed his fishing with a lack-lustre eye. The
early housekeeping having got itself done, the ladies of the Walk were
showing themselves at their windows, tending their flowers or dusting
their ornaments. Miss Ruth Pennymint came bustling out of her door,
with needlework. She looked up at the overcast sky and held up the back
of her hand.
"Ah," said Madame, catching sight of her. "Coming into the fresh air to
work, Miss Ruth?"
Miss Ruth was evidently not in the best of tempers. "Of course it's
going to rain," she snapped.
"Oh, not yet," said Madame, conciliatorily.
"Do you mind if I sew here?" said Miss Ruth. "It's so lonesome in the
house, when Barbara's locked up with that precious bird!"
What could be the matter? The word "precious" was uttered in a manner
which conveyed an exactly opposite meaning. Madame said soothingly,
"That is so touching!" And Ruth snorted. There is no other word. She
snorted. Madame and Marjolaine glanced at each other, and both moved
towards the house. But Miss Ruth had no intention of being left alone.
"Marjory!" she called. Marjolaine came back; and Madame went into
Number Four alone.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*CONCERNING A GREAT CONSPIRACY*
[Illustration: Chapter VIII headpiece]
Now Marjolaine did not want to talk to Miss Ruth just at that moment,
and it says much for her sweetness of character that she came back
docilely. "Marjory," said Miss Ruth, looking at her searchingly, "you
haven't had a singing-lesson this week."
Marjolaine was confused, and a little angry. She had just exhausted the
subject with her mother, and it was too bad to be thrust into the midst
of it again by this comparative stranger. So she answered rather
coldly, "I have n't been quite myself."
"So I saw," said Miss Ruth, examining her over her spectacles. A hot
flush rose to Marjolaine's cheeks. Had she really been wearing her
heart on her sleeve, and showing the whole Walk the state of her
feelings? She must be more careful in future.
"Anything the matter?" asked Miss Ruth.