It is pleasant to wake to the sound of exquisite--and sufficiently
distant--music. It is also pleasant to wake to the odour of good--and
sufficiently distant--coffee.
The morning after her remarkable arrival in Golden Square Brigit Mead
awoke to both these pleasant things. Somewhere downstairs someone was
playing a simple, plaintive air on a violin, and still further away
someone was making coffee--delicious coffee.
The girl for a moment could not remember where she was; the room, with
its dark-grey paper and stiff black-walnut furniture, was
foreign-looking, so were the coloured pictures of religious subjects on
the walls. On the chimney-piece stood two blue glass vases filled with
dried grasses, and the lace curtains flaunted their stiff cleanliness
against otherwise unshaded windows.
Where was she?
And then, as the music broke off suddenly, she remembered, and smiled in
delighted recollection of the evening before. Waking was usually such a
bore; the thought of breakfast, always a severe test to the unsociable,
was horrid to her. There would be either a solitary meal in the big dark
dining-room, or what was worse, guests to entertain (for Lady Kingsmead
never appeared until after eleven), and the disagreeable hurry and
scurry contingent on the catching of different trains. But here she
seemed to have escaped from what Tommy called Morning Horrors, and it
was delightful to lie in her bed and wonder what, in this extraordinary
house, was likely to happen next.
What did happen was, of course, quite unexpected; the door slowly opened
and a small yellow dog appeared, a note tied to his collar.
A mongrel person, this dog, with suggestions of various races in him;
his tail had intended to be long, but the hand of heredity had evidently
shortened it, and the ears, long enough to lop, pricked slightly as his
bright eyes smiled up at the girl, who laughed aloud as she took the
note he had brought.
"Oh, you dear little monster!" she said to him. "I never saw anything so
yellow as you in my life--except Lady Minturn's wig. I believe you're
dyed!"
The note, written in a peculiarly dashing hand on thick mauve paper, was
short:
"Ma Fille," it ran, "good morning to you--the first of many
happy ones with us. Yellow Dog Papillon brings this to you. He is an
angel dog, and loves you already, as does your Victor Joyselle,
"Beau-Papa."
Yellow Dog Papillon, having come to stay, was sitting up, as if he
never under any circumstances passed his time in another way. His rough,
pumpkin-coloured front feet hung genteelly limp, and his tail slowly
described a half circle on the highly polished floor.
Brigit laughed again, and patted his head. "Does he expect an answer?"
she asked seriously; but before the dog could tell her what he thought
the door opened, and Madame Joyselle entered, bearing a small lacquered
tray, on which stood a tiny coffee-pot, cup and saucer, plate and
cream-jug, of gleaming white porcelain, the edges of which glittered in
a narrow gold line, and a tall glass vase containing a very large and
faultless gardenia.
"I have brought you your coffee, Lady Brigit," said the little woman,
showing her beautiful teeth in a cheery smile, "and 'ard-boiled eggs.
Théo told me you like them 'ard-boiled. The gardenia is from my
'usband."
Her English was very bad, and the unusual exertion of speaking in the
tongue which to her, in spite of twenty-five years' residence in the
country of its birth, still remained "foreign," brought a pretty flush
to her brown cheeks. "You sleep--well?"
As she ate her breakfast Lady Brigit studied this simple woman who was
to be her mother-in-law. Madame Joyselle was, socially speaking,
absolutely unpresentable, for she had remained in every respect except
that of age what she had been born--a Norman peasant. She had acquired
no veneer of any kind, and looked, as she stood with her plump hands
folded contentedly on her apron-band, much less a lady than Mrs.
Champion, the housekeeper at Kingsmead.
But one fault Brigit had not: she was no snob, and the least worthy
thought roused in her as she contemplated her kindly hostess was that
her mother would be very much annoyed when she met her daughter's future
mother-in-law.
"Such delicious coffee," she said presently, "_and_ the rolls!"
"_Oui, oui, pas mal; c'est moi qui les ai faits._ I make myself----"
As she spoke there came a loud rap at the door, and Joyselle put in his
head, crowned with a gold-tasselled red-velvet cap of archaic shape.
"You permit, _ma fille_?" Without awaiting an answer he came in,
gorgeous from top to toe in a crimson garment between a dressing-gown
and a smoking-costume, girdled round his waist with a gold cord.
"She eats, the most beautiful!" he cried joyously, "and _petite mère_
and Yellow Dog look on! Is it not wonderful, _ma vieille_?"
Madame Joyselle smiled--sensibly. "It is delightful, my man, delightful.
But I fear you should not have come in--she may not like it."
"Not like it? Of course she does. Why should not the old beau-papa visit
his most beautiful while she breakfasts? You are a goose, Félicité!"
Brigit, vastly amused by their discussing her as if she were not
present, gave a bit of roll to the dog.
"A quaint little dog," she observed to them both.
Joyselle laughed. "Yes, yes, _il est bien drôle, ce pauvre_.
But-ter-fly. And the name, too, _hein_? Some day I will tell you the
story of why I have had nine dogs all named 'But-ter-fly.' There is so
much to tell you, so much."
He talked on, very rapidly, changing subjects with the rapidity of a
child, using his square brown hands in vivid gesture, marching about the
room, teasing the dog who, since his master had entered, had had eyes
and ears for none but him.
"The concert, you know, yesterday, was a grand success. All the papers
are full of it. Many play the violin to-day, you see, but there is only
one Joyselle."
"There is also a Kubelik," suggested Brigit slily, to see what he would
answer.
"My dear, yes; there is Kubelik, and there is Joachim still, thank God.
_Chacun dans son genre._ But Kubelik is a boy, and he has 'violin
hands'--fingers a _kilomètre_ long. Look at my hands, and you will see
why I am not his equal in execution. In other things----"
He looked gravely at his hands as he held them out to her. This was in
its turn different from the childlike vanity of a minute past; he was a
creature of a thousand moods, each one absolutely sincere.
Théo, she saw, was like his mother. From her he had his gentle voice and
quiet ways; from his father only the splendid dark eyes.
Joyselle was a remarkably handsome man in his somewhat flamboyant way,
and even the clear morning light failed to show lines in his brown face,
though his silky, wavy hair was very grey about his brow. He could be
compared to no one Brigit had ever seen; he was, even in his absurd
velvet gown, head and shoulders above anyone she knew, temperamentally
as well as physically. He could, she saw, go anywhere, among people of
any class, and find there an at least momentary niche for himself.
Gentleman? She would not answer her own mental question, but great
artist, man of the world, good fellow, remarkable man, most certainly.
"Your hair is very charming," he was saying as she came to the above
conclusion; "it seems to love being yours--as what would not? The hair
of many women looks as though it were trying hard--oh, so hard!--to get
away from them; but yours clings and--what is the word?--tendrils round
your head as if it loved you."
"Ordinary curly hair," she answered in French.
"But no--black hair is usually dry and like something burnt, or of an
oiliness to disgust. Is it not so, Félicité--is her hair not adorable?"
"_Oui, oui_, Victor; _oui, mon homme_. But we must go, for Lady Brigit
will be wishing to rise. Théo, too, awaits her downstairs."
The big man, who was crouching on the floor playing with the dog, rose
hastily. "Good God!" he cried in English words, but obviously in the
innocent French sense, "I quite forgot that unhappy child! Come,
Félicité; come Papillon, _m'ami_--let us disturb Belle-Ange no longer."
As if he had long been struggling with their reluctance to go, he
shepherded them out of the room, singing as he went downstairs, "_Salut,
demeure chaste et pure._"