The Quiver 3/ 1900. Anonymous
little.
"Mamzelle, suppose he dies?"
"Jeannette, how dare you?"
"But his face is white; and"—her suspicions bursting out—"how came he to fall into mamzelle's garden?"
"Jeannette, leave the room!"
"That I will not! No, I will not! Jeannette knows what is owing to her mistress, and to leave——"
"Well, well"—quickly—"but do not dare to utter another word."
Jeannette mumbled rebelliously, but retired to a corner vanquished.
The man opened his eyes as a soft wave of air was wafted across his face.
A pair of soft, dark eyes looked down pityingly into his.
He shut his own with a murmured word of thanks, and let her fan him. Jeannette came ponderously across the room.
"Mamzelle, it is not fitting——"
"Did I not forbid you to speak?" said the haughty young voice.
"Yes, but Jeannette knows what is due to mamzelle, and——"
"Mademoiselle also knows."
Something in the tone stopped the old servant's words, and once more she retired vanquished.
The man smiled to himself.
Dr. Raunay came and pronounced a bad sprain of the left arm to be the only injury the man had received.
The doctor's sharp, black eyes were full of questions, but Mademoiselle Stéphanie met his gaze calmly, indifferently, and he dared not put one question into words.
"Monsieur, of course, will be our guest," she said when the doctor had taken his departure.
The man reddened slowly under his tan.
"I—really——" He raised himself on his right elbow.
Jeannette eyed him with sharp suspicion.
"Of course, you will stay," said mademoiselle, with her little imperious air.
"But I am quite well enough to go to an inn——"
"There is not one within five miles, and that—well——" A little expressive wave of the small hands and a whimsical smile finished her sentence.
"I do not like to trespass——"
"It is not trespassing," with pretty warmth; "indeed, monsieur, you must accept of our hospitality."
"Then thank you very much."
"And—your luggage? Is it with friends? They will be anxious—we will send——"
She was too courteous to ask with whom he was staying. Yet she wondered much, for, beyond poor cottages, there were no dwellings within many miles of Ancelles.
"I am alone," he answered; "I have walked from B—— to-day."
Jeannette snorted. She plainly did not believe him. B—— was thirty and more miles distant. The suspicion in her stare grew deeper.
"Oh," said Stéphanie.
"My luggage——" He hesitated; yet what could he do without it? "It is only a small bag—it is—er—outside your garden wall," he finished desperately.
"Jeannette, please see that it is fetched at once."
No faintest spark of surprise appeared in his hostess's small face. She seemed quite used to having strangers tumble over her wall into her garden, quite used to luggage being left outside the wall.
The man was distinctly amused, but he was touched too.
An old manservant, with a faint, indescribable old-world air, that fitted in with the château and the garden and the roses somehow, brought food to the stranger, and, after he had eaten, showed him to his room.
The stranger looked round him with interest.
It was a large apartment, large and bare and old—but everything at Ancelles was old.
But the curtains to the bed, faded now, had once been rich and handsome. The tapestry across the door of a smaller room leading from the other, was still beautiful though worn with age.
Hugh Michelhurst shivered a little as he stood there, in the dim, dark, old-world chamber. There was something pathetic in the tale it told of bygone splendour, something sad and forlorn.
Then his eye fell on a bowl of vivid red roses standing on his dressing-table, and he smiled.
They at least were not old. Their splendour was undimmed. There was nothing faded in their fresh, glowing beauty; and who had put them there?
He went closer; he bent over them and drank in their sweet scent. And as he did it the old, sunny garden rose before him again. The little twisting paths, the roses so thick and luxuriant that they trespassed forward from their beds; the old broken fountain, with the water nymph bending eternally in graceful readiness to dive, and amongst them—the roses, the sunshine, the queer paths, and the old fountain—the little mistress of them all, slim, childish, with soft dark eyes, with pretty lips made for laughter, with the sun caught in the waves of her brown hair. His hands wandered gently over the roses as he stood and thought what a gracious little hostess she was! How sweetly she had welcomed him, asking no questions!
A wave of colour surged over his white face.
But he smiled as he sank down on to a chair.
His entry into the sweet, old-world garden had been supremely ridiculous. Moreover, he was terribly ashamed of himself as well as rueful.
But his sense of humour was strong enough to save either feeling from overpowering him. His arm began to pain him badly again. He shut his lips tightly and sat still.
Outside he heard a gay young voice. "It is a pity, Jeannette, that the sun does not shine into his room now. See how glorious is its setting to-night."
A pause.
Hugh Michelhurst guessed how the pause was filled by his little hostess's mocking answer:
"Why, Jeannette, how cross you are! And, anyway, in the morning the sun will wake him."
"It may rain, mamzelle."
"Rain?" with a little burst of prettiest laughter. "Why, where are your eyes, Jeannette? Rain? With that sky—that sunset? All, no! Even ma tante would not say that, and she always predicts rain, you know."
"It is her rheumatism, mamzelle; she feels it in her bones."
"Yes," carelessly. "Jeannette, he will need assistance—how careless I am! It is that I am so unused to entertaining a guest, and yet once Ancelles was noted for its hospitality——"
The pretty voice died away into the distance, and a few minutes later there was a discreet tap at the stranger's door, and the faded old manservant appeared, and, with an air, offered monsieur his humble services.
Two mornings had Stéphanie's prophecy been fulfilled. Two mornings the sun had wakened her guest, and now he was wondering if he dared stay and let it wake him a third.
"Madame ma tante" had put in an appearance once. She had welcomed the stranger with a stiff yet courteous stateliness that was as old-worldly as the garden and the château and everything pertaining thereto.
She was a confirmed invalid, and, till she sallied forth to welcome her niece's guest (Ancelles belonged to Stéphanie), had not left her room for nearly two years.
Hugh Michelhurst was duly presented, and made a favourable impression on "Madame ma tante." In half an hour the impression had faded. In an hour it was gone. "Madame ma tante" had forgotten his existence.
He was sitting now on the old, worn steps leading to the second terrace. His right arm rested