CHAPTER XXVIII

LAND OF EXILE

The decades of shearing and rolling undergone by the bowling-green had rendered it of a fabulous smoothness. Yet the bowl which a cunning hand had launched with confident care trickled slowly to rest a good half-inch from its goal.

“Well, I’m hanged!” remarked Sir William Ashley, raising himself from his stooping posture. “George, you scoundrel, you’ve beaten your father. Where’s the filial respect of the present generation, hey?”

Sir William was large and ruddy. As he now gazed jollily upon his victorious offspring his face had some kinship with the westering sun, which at the moment lighted his property, and glowed upon the dull-red brick of the Queen Anne house behind him, the trim box hedge, the very green grass, and upon his own blue coat and gilt buttons.

“I’ll have no more to do with you, George,” continued his parent. “Here come the ladies—not to congratulate you, but to console me, I hope. My dears, this villain has had the effrontery to win, after all.”

“I am sure, papa, that it is good for you,” responded the voice of Miss Amelia Ashley, as, dark, bright-eyed, and clad in a rose-sprigged muslin, she came through the opening in the yard-thick hedge. “And here is Lucienne thinks the same.”

“Do you, Miss Lucy?” asked the Squire, turning towards the white figure which followed the pink. “No; I am sure that pretty head of yours never harboured such an idea.”

“But no,” said Lucienne, smiling at him, in her slow, careful English, “I do not think so, for if it is good for you to lose, then is it perhaps bad for Monsieur Georges to win, and——”

“Hear that, George?” broke in Sir William, slapping on the shoulder the tall, silent young man who had, to Lucienne’s eyes, so extraordinary a look of his cousin Gilbert. “Lucy don’t wish you ill; she has a care for your character.”

“She is too kind,” said George. “Shall I get you chairs, Amelia?”

“No, thank you, brother,” replied Miss Ashley; “we will sit upon the seat. Go on with your game, and let papa beat you this time.” She unfolded and spread upon the stone of the bench an Indian shawl which she was carrying over her arm. “Now, Lucienne, sit down, and pray that papa may have better luck. . . . No, don’t allow Rover to put his paws on your gown. Rover! Down, sir! Lie there and be quiet.”

The setter subsided at their feet, and, to the accompaniment of criticism or applause from the two girls, Sir William and his son began a fresh game.

As she sat there looking at them the golden content of that English afternoon swam into Lucienne’s soul. It was so peaceful; they were so kind to her—Sir William, George—if only he had not reminded her oddly of the Marquis—and above all Amelia, with her brisk high spirits and her warm heart. The memory of those last racking days in Paris was beginning to grow a little less unbearable, or, rather, there were things here which made it possible for her to keep from thinking of them always—even little things such as those which soothed her now, the click of the bowls, the sun on the grass, Amelia’s pleasant chatter, the silky coat of the setter at her feet. Perhaps in time such influences would lay those two spectres of her own creating—her possible betrayal of Louis to Gilbert, her certain betrayal of herself to Louis.

Presently a servant came out and spoke to the master of the house, who, when the man retired, broke off his game and came over to the girls.

“Mr Harry Trenchard of Dewlands has just ridden over to see us, my dear,” he said to his daughter, pulling down his waistcoat. “I’ve told ’em to show him out here. Can’t think what he wants; we don’t often see him in these parts. He’ll make yet another beau for Miss Lucy here, eh?”

Lucienne, looking up without any particular enthusiasm, beheld, walking along an alley, an alert and personable young man in riding costume. He came up, was greeted by Sir William and his son, paid his respects to Amelia, and was presented to Mademoiselle d’Aucourt, at whom he looked with an interest which he was at little pains to hide.

“Well, and what wind blows you here, Trenchard?” asked Sir William bluntly.

“A wind from France,” replied Harry Trenchard, smiling, inspired perhaps to this unwonted diction by the remembrance of his mission.

“Oh, ay!” assented the Squire, after staring at him for a second, “I had forgot you’d been abroad. Admired the ladies of Paris and come to see my new French niece, perhaps?”

“Papa!” exclaimed Amelia reprovingly.

Sir William laughed gently. “Lucy don’t mind my jokes, I know,” he said, patting her arm.

And Lucienne, smiling and sketching a curtsy, said: “Mais non, Monsieur mon oncle.”

“And when I was in France,” said Trenchard, directing his remarks at no one in particular, but keeping the corner of his eye on Lucienne, “I met with a little adventure, which might have proved exceedingly unpleasant had it not been for the kind offices of two French gentlemen.”

“Oh, tell us the story, sir,” urged Amelia. “Come and sit down here beside us, and make the tale as long as possible, I beg of you!”

So Trenchard, nothing loth, seated himself with the two girls on one side of him and Sir William on the other. Many exclamations greeted him at the end of his recital.

“And did you never find out who the gentlemen were?” asked Amelia, for the narrator had cunningly concealed the names of his acquaintances. “Perhaps they are in England now; so many aristocrats are over here.”

“No, they were going back to Poitou. And what would you say, Miss Ashley, if I told you that they—or at least one of them—was a very near relative of your own? . . . Yes, Sir William, it was your nephew, M. de Château-Foix, and his cousin—not so nearly connected with you, I suppose—the Vicomte de Saint-Ermay. It was he who pulled me out of bed.” And he surveyed with pride the profound sensation he had produced.

“Well, I’m . . . astounded!” said Sir William.

“Well done, Cousin Gilbert!” murmured George, where he leant over the back of the seat. And the beautiful French girl, on whom Trenchard’s gaze was fixed—she had changed colour, was staring at him with wide eyes and parted lips, had half risen and sat down again.

Trenchard got up. “I am proud, Sir William,” he said handsomely, “to be in debt to connections of yours. And as a slight token of my gratitude to Monsieur le Marquis I undertook to be the bearer of a letter from him.” His hand went to a pocket. “When we parted he gave me this—for Mademoiselle Lucienne d’Aucourt.”

He held it out, with a deep bow, towards the young lady in question, where she still sat with Amelia on the Indian shawl.

And would you not have thought, he reflected to himself afterwards, that a girl would snatch rosily at such a letter? But not a bit. All the colour had ebbed from the face of Monsieur le Marquis’ betrothed as she put out a trembling and by no means an eager hand. But Amelia instantly intervened to shield her discomposure.

“Go into the arbour, dear, and read your letter there,” she suggested kindly. And Lucienne, murmuring she knew not what, got up and left them.

They all looked after her as her white dress vanished through the hedge.

“Poor child!” said Sir William. “It is terrible for her, this separation from Gilbert. This is the first letter she has had from him. A good fellow, didn’t you think, Trenchard?”

“Excellent, sir, I am sure, if a trifle serious for his age—you’ll forgive my criticising a kinsman of yours, I hope.”

“That seriousness is just what I liked in him,” replied the Squire. “He might have been an Englishman. None of your confounded French airs and graces, like that young scamp of a cousin of his.”

“Why, papa, I am sure,” protested Amelia, “you yourself spoilt Louis de Saint-Ermay when he was over here!”

“Well, well,” said her parent, not denying the charge, “I daresay I