Part 7

Marjolaine looked up at her with great, innocent eyes. "But it would have been the same if you had been there!"

"I suppose so," said Madame, sadly. "There is no barrier against it: not even a mother's arms."

"But what is it?" asked Marjolaine, wistfully.

Her mother looked at her searchingly, and Marjolaine met her gaze steadfastly, with her clear, truthful eyes. It was patent she did not indeed know what caused this new pain at her heart. Madame looked long. Her daughter seemed, in a way, suddenly to have become a stranger to her. This child was a child no longer, and her mother no longer held the first place in her heart. Yes! and if Marjolaine had suddenly leapt out of childhood, then she, the mother, must begin to face old age: she was the mother of a marriageable girl. She would fight against this while she could; not for unworthy or small motives, but to keep her daughter's companionship. Who was this Jack Sayle that he should come like a thief in the night and steal Marjolaine's youth, her happiness and her peace of mind, and tear the girl out of her mother's arms? "No," she said, at last, "I will not tell you. If I told you it would grow stronger; and it must not. It shall not. You must win yourself back, as I did. Oh! but sooner, and more completely!"

Marjolaine was amazed. Had her mother gone through what she was going through now? "As you did--?" she cried, in a voice which betrayed her astonishment.

Madame smiled sadly. "My dearest dear, the young never realise they are not beginning the world. Your story is mine."

With a cry of "Oh, mother!" Marjolaine nestled closer.

"Yes; but mine was longer and therefore left more pain in its track. Cherie, cherie, I am not telling you this to make light of your sorrow, but to show you I know what your pain is: to show you how to fight now, now, with all your might, to win yourself back." She paused a moment, to gather her thoughts and to gather strength. Then she continued very softly, almost as if she were speaking to herself, "It was years and years ago, in my father's garden--in the old vicarage garden--that I felt the sun and the song enter my heart. He and I were very young and very happy." Madame paused. "And then he rode away; and I never saw him again."

"Maman!" whispered Marjolaine, stroking her mother's cheek.

"We had lived in our dream a whole year; so my love--"

Marjolaine started at the word. "Love!" Was this love?--

But her mother did not notice her, and went on; "So my love had time to grow. Its roots were twined round my heart; and when he left me, and tore the roots out of me, I thought he had torn my heart out with them."

"Like me," said Marjolaine, below her breath.

Madame drew her closer, and whispered, "Would you like to know his name?"

There was something in her mother's voice which told Marjolaine her mother had some special reason for asking her. "Yes; what was it?" she asked, hushed, and very tenderly.

Her mother looked straight into her eyes and answered slowly, "Jack--Sayle."

Marjolaine recoiled in amazement. "Mother!--I don't understand!"

"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*

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.

Marjolaine answered hastily, "Oh, nothing. Nothing to speak of."

"H'm," said Miss Ruth, violently biting off a cotton-end. Then she added, "Barbara was quite upset."

"How sweet of her!" cried Marjolaine.--Dear, sympathetic little Barbara!

"Oh! Not so much about you," said Miss Ruth rather acidly. "But she looks forward to sitting with you and Mr. Pringle, when you are singing."

"Is she so fond of music?" asked Marjolaine, glad to turn the conversation into a less personal channel.

"Bless your dear heart, no!" exclaimed Miss Ruth sharply. "Now, would she sit and listen to you if she were? She does n't know one note from another."

It seemed to Marjolaine that the conversation was becoming rather personal, so she held her tongue.

But Miss Ruth evidently had something on her mind of which she was anxious to relieve herself.

"No, it is n't that," she said with a world of meaning which challenged enquiry.

Marjolaine obliged her, although she felt no interest. "What is it, then?"

Having succeeded in getting the question she wanted, Miss Ruth made a feint of retreating. "Pfft!" she said, with the action of blowing some annoying insect away, and then, cryptically, "Oh! grant me patience!"

"Ruth!" exclaimed Marjolaine, astonished at her violence.

"Well!" cried Ruth, still more sharply. "It seems to me the whole house is bewitched--that ever I should say such a thing."

Marjolaine grew more and more surprised. "Oh! I thought you were so happy!"

"I 'm happy enough," snapped Ruth, "because I 'm not a fool. But what with that feller upstairs, and Barbara down, a body has no peace of her life."

Now, what could she mean? Of course Mr. Pringle was upstairs, and of course Barbara was downstairs. How could that perfectly natural state of things affect the peace of Miss Ruth's life?

"Tell me," said Marjolaine.

"Ha' n't you noticed anything? No. I s'pose you 're too young. Don't know sheeps' eyes when you see 'em!"

What on earth had sheeps' eyes come into the story for?

"Sheeps' eyes?" Marjolaine asked, utterly puzzled.

"'T is n't for me to say anything," Miss Ruth continued, "but with him mooning about the house, like"--words failed her--"like I don't know what; and her moping, like a hen with the pip, it's enough to give a body the fantoddles--as my poor, dear mother used to say."

Marjolaine suddenly saw light. Here, under her very eyes, was another romance, like her own--only, of course, on an infinitely lower plane, because it held no thread of tragedy--and she had been blind to it. This was lovely! But she must make sure. She turned to Miss Ruth and asked eagerly--"Are they--are they fond of each other?"

Ruth quite unnecessarily bit off another cotton-end. "I don't know!" she cried crossly; but at once added, "Yes, of course they are!"

Marjolaine was more puzzled than ever. "Then, why don't they say so?" she asked, quite simply.

"That's what I want to know," said Miss Ruth.

Lovers who might be perfectly happy, kept apart for want of a word, thought Marjolaine. How wicked, and how silly! "You should speak to Mr. Basil," she said, with all the gravity of her nineteen years and of her bitter experience.

"Me!" cried Miss Ruth. "Bless your dear heart, he 'd up and run away. He 's that shy a body can't look at him but he wants to hide in a cupboard. He 's got it into his silly head he is n't good enough. As if anybody'd notice his shoulder!"

"Perhaps," said Marjolaine, pensively, "if Barbara showed him she liked him--Why don't you speak to her? Sympathetically."

"So I did, just now. Told her she was an idiot. What did she do? She burst out crying, and went and shut herself up with that parrot."

"Ah!" sighed Marjolaine, with a pathetic look at the Gazebo, where she had been so happy so short a time, so long ago, "Ah, yes! The old love!" How well she understood!

"Old frying-pan!" cried Ruth.

"Ruth!" exclaimed Marjolaine, deeply shocked. "The poor parrot."

"Oh, that bird!--Marjory!" said Ruth, firmly, as if the time had come to utter a bitter but necessary truth at all costs, "Marjory, there are times when I 'd give anybody a two-penny bit to wring that bird's neck!"

But Marjolaine had not been listening to her. The mention of the parrot had set her thoughts working; her face suddenly lighted up with the inspired look of one who has just conceived an epoch-making idea. "Ruth!" she cried, running up to her.

Ruth naturally thought she was shocked. "Well, I don't care! I mean it. If it was n't for that bird--"

But Marjolaine had snatched Ruth's needlework away and was trying to drag her from the seat by both hands. "I was n't thinking of the bird! Yes, I was thinking of the bird, but I was n't thinking what you thought I was thinking. Oh! what nonsense you make me talk!"

"Whatever's got into the child's head?" cried Miss Ruth, swept off her feet.

"Come!" insisted Marjolaine. "Quick! Come, and tell Barbara I want her."

"What do you want her for?" asked Miss Ruth, struggling.

"I must n't tell you yet, she may refuse."

"Bless us and save us!" cried Miss Ruth, now on her feet, and struck by the change in Marjolaine's appearance, "now your cheeks are glowing again!"

"Maman said they would!" laughed Marjolaine. Positively, for the moment she had forgotten her sorrows. "Come along!"

"Wait! My mouth 's full of pins!"

Seeing the two ladies under the tree, Sir Peter Antrobus had come out, anxious for a little conversation. He was much disappointed when he observed they were leaving the lawn.

"Going in, just as I'm coming out?" said he, reproachfully.

"Yes," laughed Marjolaine on the top step, and looking up at the threatening sky, "like the little people in the weather cottages: you come out for the rain; and I go in for the sunshine." Which, of course was extremely inaccurate, but the correct statement would have spoiled her meaning entirely.

"How are the peas coming on, Admiral?" asked Miss Ruth, for the sake of politeness.

Sir Peter's temper was already ruffled by the disappointment of his sociable intentions. Now he burst out, "How the doose can they come on, Ma'am, when that everlasting cat roots 'em up every night?"

I am sorry to say, Miss Ruth laughed as he disappeared into the house. The Admiral came towards Sempronius, who was now wide awake and watching the Eyesore's float with lively interest; he shook his fist at him--I mean the Admiral shook his fist at the cat--with comic fury, and found himself shaking his fist at Lord Otford, who had just turned the corner.

"Shaking your fist at me, Peter?" asked Lord Otford, with a grim laugh.

"Hulloa, Otford!" cried the Admiral, feeling rather foolish.

Moreover, he was not particularly pleased to see Otford at that precise moment. Only half-an-hour ago he had surprised Marjolaine's confidence. He had not had time to think the matter over and make up his mind, and now that he found himself without warning face to face with Jack's father, he was torn between two conflicting emotions. On the one hand he felt he ought to tell Otford about Jack and Marjolaine. That was his plain duty; but it was one of those forms of duty which everybody tries to find some plausible excuse for evading. He had surprised Marjolaine's confidence: she had not given it voluntarily. On the other hand he suspected that Jack's breach of faith in not coming near the Walk for a whole week was due to some interference on the part of his father, and he was so fond of Marjolaine, and so jealous of the status of the Walk, that he resented such interference even before he knew whether Otford had interfered. His keen eye saw, even while they were shaking hands, that there was something on his friend's mind.

"How are you?" asked Lord Otford, perfunctorily. "Have you a moment to spare?"

"All day; thanks to this confounded government," growled the Admiral.

Lord Otford plunged into the thick of his business at once. "I am in great trouble," he blurted out, in the tone of a man who expects sympathy.

He didn't get it. "Damme! you're in trouble once a week!" said the Admiral. "Here! Come into the Gazebo."

Lord Otford started at the word. "The Gazebo?--Ha! Very appropriate!"

"Eh? Why?" asked Sir Peter, sitting on the seat in the summer-house and making room for his friend beside him. Lord Otford produced a crumpled letter from his pocket. "Here! Read this!" said he, thrusting it under Sir Peter's nose.

"Can't," said the latter, curtly, "haven't my spy-glass on me!"

"Well, listen." Lord Otford read the letter aloud, with ill-suppressed fury.--"'My lord--It is my painful duty to inform your Lordship that your Lordship's son, the Hon. John Sayle, is carrying on a clandestine love-affair with Mademoiselle Marjolaine Lachesnais, of Pomander Walk--'"

The Admiral had grown purple in the face. "Belay, there!" he roared.

Lord Otford took no notice, but went on reading: "'Yesterday they were together for an hour in the Gazebo--'"

The Admiral would have no more of it. "When did you get that, and who sent it?" he roared. The fact that the information was true was quite outweighed by the implication that an inhabitant of the Walk could have been guilty of the lowest form of treachery.

"It's signed, 'Your true Friend and Well-wisher,'" said Lord Otford, "and I had it on Sunday."

The Admiral could hardly speak. "Do you mean to say that damned, anonymous, Sabbath-breaking rag came from Pomander Walk?"

"I presume so."

"Who sent it?" cried the Admiral, jumping up and walking to and fro in a towering rage. "Show me the white-livered scoundrel, and by Jehoshaphat! I 'll break every bone in his body!" He turned sharply towards Otford. "Is it a man's writing, or a woman's?"

"It's vague: might be anybody's."

The Admiral was passing the houses of the Walk in review. "Can't be Sternroyd--Brooke-Hoskyn--Pringle--We 're none of us anonymous slanderers." His eye fell on the Eyesore with momentary suspicion. "Was it the Eyesore?"

"The Eyesore?" repeated Lord Otford, not understanding.

"That scare-crow, fishing. No; of course not. He does n't know you, and I don't believe he can write.--But, what of it, Jack? You're not worried by that rubbish! Why, it's a pack o' lies!" (Oh, Admiral, Admiral!) Lord Otford tried to speak. "Don't interrupt!--I'm here all the time. Nothing happens in Pomander Walk that I don't know. Don't interrupt!--I was here when Jack came last Saturday. He went back in his boat before you could say 'Jack Robinson,' because Madame swooned!"