Number 57 Golden Square was dark when Joyselle's cab stopped in front of
it, and he, after tenderly depositing his violin-case under the little
portico, assisted Brigit to alight. "They are, of course, in the
kitchen," he remarked as he paid the cabby. "Come, _ma belle_."
She followed him as if she were in a dream, watching him open the door
with a latchkey, after a frantic search for that object in all his
pockets, tiptoeing after him as, a finger to his lips, a delighted,
boyish smile crinkling his eyelids, he led her down the narrow,
oilclothed passage.
"Why are they in the kitchen?" she asked, as excited as he.
"It is nearly eight; she is busy with supper."
Even in the dim light of the single gas burner Brigit caught at once the
predominating note of the house: its intense and wonderful cleanliness.
The walls, painted white, were snowy, the chequered oilcloth under her
feet as spotless as if it had that moment come from the shop, and the
slender handrail of the steep staircase glanced with polish, drawing an
arrow of light through the dusk.
Putting his violin-case on the table, Joyselle took off his hat and with
some difficulty pulled his arms out of his greatcoat sleeves. Then,
taking his guest by the arm, he very softly opened the door leading to
the basement, and started down the stairs, soft-footed as a great cat.
Could it possibly be she, Brigit Mead, creeping stealthily down a
basement staircase, her arm firmly held by a man to whom she had never
spoken until that afternoon?
The stairs turned sharply to the left half-way down, and at the turning
a flood of warm light met them, together with a smell of cooking.
"Ah, little mother, little mother," Théo's voice was saying, "just wait
till you _see_ her."
Joyselle's delight in the artistic timeliness of the speech found vent
in his putting his arm round his companion's slim waist and giving her a
hearty, paternal hug. Her whole face, in the darkness, quivered with
amusement. She had never in her whole life been so thoroughly and
satisfactorily amused. Then, having gone forward as far as his now
simply restraining hold would let her, she looked down into the kitchen.
It was a large room, snowy with whitewash as to walls and ceiling,
spotless as to floor. At the far end of it, opposite a pagoda-like and
beautiful but apparently unlighted modern English stove, was a huge,
deep, cavernous fireplace, unlike any the girl had ever seen. It was, in
fact, a perfect copy of a Norman fireplace, with stone seats at the
sides, an old-fashioned spit, and the fire burning lustily on the floor
of it, unhemmed by dogs or grate. On a long, sand-scoured table in the
middle of the room sat Théo, in his shirt-sleeves, deftly breaking eggs
into a big, green-lined bowl, while before the fire, gently swinging to
and fro over the flames a saucepan with an abnormally long
handle--Madame Joyselle. Her short, dark-clad figure, half-covered with
a blue apron, showed all its too-generous curves as she bent forward,
and when, at Théo's remark, she turned to him with a smile, she showed a
round, wrinkled, rosy face and small blue eyes that wrinkled with
sympathetic kindness. "She is beautiful, my little bit of cabbage?"
Théo broke the last egg, sat down the bowl, and got down from the table.
"Tannier--you remember him? The man who painted everybody last
winter--said she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen." The
pride in his voice was good to hear.
"_Tant mieux!_ Beauty is a quality like another. And--_voilà mon petit_,
give me the eggs--she loves you?" As she put the question she took the
bowl and began beating the eggs violently yet lightly with a whisk. She
had turned the mixture into her hot saucepan and was holding it over the
fire before the young man answered. He stood, his hands in his
trousers-pockets, his head bent thoughtfully. Then he spoke, and his
words mingled with the hissing of the omelet. "I think she must," he
said with a certain dignified simplicity, "or she would not have
accepted me. But--not as I love her. That could not be, you know."
The eavesdroppers started apart guiltily, and for a second Brigit wanted
to rush up the stairs and out of the house. She had heard too much.
But Joyselle, gently pushing her out of his way, ran down the steps and
with a big laugh threw his arms round his boy and kissed him.
"_Voyons l'amoureux_," he cried, "show me thy face of a lover, little
boy, who only yesterday wore aprons and climbed on my knees to search
for sweets in my pockets!"
Madame Joyselle turned quietly, after having, with a dexterous twist of
her frying-pan, flopped her omelet to its other side. "Victor! And what
brings you back, my man?"
Her pleasant, placid face was a great contrast to his as he rushed at
her and kissed her hot cheek.
"_Va t'en_--you will make me drop Théo's omelet."
Joyselle took Théo's hands in his and looked solemnly at his son. "My
dear," he said, "my very dear son, God bless you and--her."
Again Brigit longed to flee, but she knew that if she tried, Joyselle
would be after her like a shot, and, she realised with an irrepressible
little laugh, probably pick her up and carry her down to the kitchen.
"Are you hungry, my man?" asked Madame Joyselle, slipping the omelet
onto a warmed platter, "there is some galantine de volaille truffée, and
this, and some cold veal."
Joyselle patted her affectionately on the back.
"_Oui, oui, my femme_, I am hungry. But--Théo--to-night I am a wizard. I
will grant you any wish you may have in your heart."
"Any wish----"
"_Pauvre petit_, tell him not that, Victor, my man. What would the poor
angel desire but the impossible?"
Théo stood silently looking at them. He was evidently in no mood for
farce, but as evidently he adored this noisy big father who towered
above his slender height like a giant, and tried to force himself to his
father's humour. "Dear papa," he murmured, "it is good that you have
come. I am so happy."
Joyselle seized the opportunity, such as it was, and turning to the open
door, called out in a voice trembling with pleasure and mischief, "Fairy
Princess, come forth."
And the disdainful, bored, too often frankly ill-humoured Lady Brigit
stepped out of the darkness into the homely light of the simple scene.
For a moment Théo plainly did not believe his eyes, and then as she
advanced, scarlet with a quite unusual embarrassment and sense of
intrusion, he gathered himself together and met her, his hands held out,
his face glowing.
"Victor--oh, Victor--this is terrible," Madame Joyselle burst out,
scarlet with shyness, all her serenity gone. "You should not have
brought her to the _kitchen! Mon Dieu, mon Dieu_, a countess' daughter!"
But Théo led his _fiancée_ straight to his mother, and his instinctive
good taste saved the situation. "Mamma--here she is. Lady Brigit, this
is my mother--the best mother in the world."
The little roundabout woman wiped her hand on her apron, and taking the
girl's in hers, looked mutely up at her with eyes so full of timid
sweetness that Brigit, touched and pleased, bent and kissed her.
"_Voyons, voyons_," cried Joyselle, rubbing his hands and executing a
few steps by the fire, "here we are all one family. Félicité, my old
woman, is she not wonderful?"
Madame Joyselle, the flush dying from her fresh cheeks, bowed. "She is
indeed. And now--Théo, call Toinon--we must go to the dining-room."
Nobody else, even Brigit, who had never beheld that cheerless apartment,
wished to leave the kitchen, but Madame Joyselle's will was in such
matters law, and the little party was soon seated round the table
upstairs. And the omelet was delicious.
* * * * *
An hour later Brigit found herself sitting in a big red-leather
armchair, in a highly modern and comfortable, if slightly gaudy
apartment--Joyselle's study. There was a small grate-fire with a red
club-fender, a red, patternless carpet, soft, well-draped curtains, and
tables covered with books and smoking materials.
There was also a baby-grand piano, covered with music, and a huge grey
parrot in a gilded and palatial cage.
It was Joyselle's translation of an English gentleman's room, even to
the engravings and etchings on the wall. One thing, however, the girl
had never before seen. One end of the room was glassed in as if in a
huge oak frame, and the wall behind it was literally covered with signed
photographs.
"Most of 'em are royalties," Joyselle explained with a certain naïf
pride, "beginning with your late Queen. I used to play Norman folk-songs
to her. There is the Kaiser's, the late Kaiser's, the Czar's, Umberto's,
Margarita's, who loves music, more than most--and _toute la boutique_.
Then there are also those of all the musicians, and--but you will see
to-morrow."
He had brought his violin-case upstairs, and now opened it and took out
his Amati. "I will play for you, _ma chère fille_," he declared.
And he played. Brigit watched him, amazed. Where was the rowdy,
loud-voiced, amusing and almost ridiculously boyish middle-aged man with
whom she had come to town?
This man's face was that of a priest adoringly performing the rites of
his religion. His head thrown back, his fine mouth set in lines of
ecstatic reverence, he played on and on, his eyes unseeing, or rather
the eyes of one seeing visions.
He was a creature of no country, no age. His grey hair failed to make
him old, big unwrinkled face failed to make him young. And as he
played--to _her_, she knew--years of imprisonment and sorrow seemed to
drop from the girl; she forgot all the bitterness, all the resentment
that had spoiled her life hitherto, and she felt as she leaned back in
her chair and listened as if she had at last come to a haven and found
youth awaiting her there.