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The Cabriolet:
Marjorie Bowen:
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The Cabriolet
by
Marjorie Bowen
Cover based on a painting by John Ferneley (1782-1860)
First published in The Windsor Magazine, August 1923
This e-book edition: Project Gutenberg Australia, 2023
Lantern and flambeaux cast angry flares on
them.
JOURNEY THE FIRST, 1760
THE cabriolet spun down the well-kept road
between Versailles and Paris; two big Danish dogs ran in front to
clear the way the coachman flourished a long whip that sometimes
flicked the ankles or shoulders of pedestrians who were not deft
enough in leaping aside.
The cabriolet was so modish and elegant that everyone turned
to gaze after it. It would certainly create a new fashion; it was
closed, and the upper portion was pale lemon, the lower portion
and the great wheels black. A gilt-and-scarlet coat-of-arms
glittered on either door; the horse that so prancingly drew this
delicate carriage was of a gleaming white colour in the May
sunshine.
The one occupant carried such a large bouquet of pale lilac
that the clusters of tiny blossoms blocked the windows, and she
could not be seen.
With gay jauntiness the cabriolet swept into Versailles town
and stopped before a flat-frond pink house with white pilasters
and white swags of fruit. The little black page leapt from the
box and let down the step.
Mademoiselle Hyacinthe de St. Hilaire descended, holding high
the mass of lilac. It was tied with turquoise ribbons that
fluttered behind her. Her dress of white lace was like a handful
of foam, and her rosy hat was as a shell tilted on her loose
curls. Friends came out of the house and admired the cabriolet.
How exquisitely made it was! How finely upholstered with
lemon-coloured velvet! How beautifully swung on the leathern
straps! How commodious, fashionable, and elegant was the whole
design!
Mademoiselle St. Hilaire went upstairs to her cool, beautiful
room, where the glitter of all her gold and silver ware was
dimmed by the shadow of the jasmine and roses that overhung her
balcony, so that the blue damask-hung room was like a grotto
beneath a pool, deliciously shaded by greenish and limpid
darkness.
It was late afternoon. Beyond the balcony the garden was still
under the radiance of a westering sun, banked with flowers, with
a thicket at the end and tall Italian trees, with a fountain
casting up delicate pearls of water.
Mademoiselle de St. Hilaire changed her frock. While she
robed, she told Victorine, her maid, of her visit to her aunt in
Paris, and her sitting to the Court painter, and how he was
painting her as "Hebe" feeding an eagle from a golden
platter.
"And, Victorine, I was thinking, the while he and Madame, my
aunt, chattered, if only I could get on the back of the eagle and
be carried far, far away!
"To England, Mademoiselle?" asked Victorine slyly.
The evening came, purple and joyous. There were lutes and
violins in the house and in the garden nightingales. The stars
are as brilliant as a great lady's jewels, save where the rising
moon blots them from the sky.
Guests move about the house, that glitters in a thousand
points, crystals, gildings, sequins from the soft reflections of
a thousand candles, but Mademoiselle de St. Hilaire is in the
garden with one who is no guest, but who has scaled the wall like
a thief, and crouched hidden behind the syringa bushes and the
tall plots of lilies. She had crept out in her cunning night-blue
velvet, that hides her from all spies, and her black lace thrown
over head and shoulders.
Clasped close, wincing away from the encroaching ivory
moonlight, they whisper their eternal love, their eternal
woe—she the daughter of a peer of France, a proud, a cold,
a hard man, he a young English esquire come to Paris in the train
of an English Ambassador.
"Do you love me?" she said. "Do you love me?" And he could
hardly distinguish her voice from that of the nightingale.
"Do I love you?" he answered. "Oh, my darling! Yet who am I to
tell you that I love you, when your father's lackeys cast me from
his door?"
And they hid their young anguish among the lilies as the
mounting moon discovered them. She clasped her frail hands round
his strong, proud young neck, she clung to him with tender
desperation.
"Take me away, oh, my love! Take me away, oh, my dear!" She
pressed her face on the lace at his breast, she felt his pounding
heart, and the nightingales sang mournfully to the distant lament
of the lutes.
"Will you come with me to England?" he asked, and his voice
quivered with hope. There was an English village where he was
something. His mother, his brothers, his tenantry would stand by
him. From English soil he could defy even the King of France
himself.
In sighing whispers they made their mad plans, then dragged
themselves apart, he to disappear in the darkness, she to return
to the slow melody of the pavane which she trod gallantly with
the man who was her destined husband and the object of her
perfect hate.
A few days later the lemon-coloured cabriolet again set off on
the Paris road; there was a string of diamonds in the coachman's
pocket, and the black boy had been left behind. Mademoiselle de
St. Hilaire had the rest of her mother's jewels sewn in her
bodice, and a frivolous travelling-case and a pathetic-looking
bundle on the scat beside her; and as the cabriolet neared Paris
she trembled and prayed, and shivered and glowed.
The cabriolet flashed through poorer quarters than great
ladies usually graced, and stopped before an inn called﹃Mon
Plaisir,﹄where a likely young fellow in a travelling coat walked
up and down, biting his handsome lip in agitation.
There were only a few loungers about, and these took no
particular notice of a gallant springing into a modish cabriolet
and drawing the blinds closely after him; and the black wheels
spun round again and the elegant carriage rattled away over the
cobbles.
As he drew the blinds she cast herself into his arms. "Is it
true? Are we really going away together? Oh, my Edmund, answer
me!"
Esquire Dockura took the little creature to his heart and
strove to be manly and composed (they were neither of them twenty
years old). He told her of the arrangements he had made—of
the inn on the Calais road where his friend and his horses were
to meet them, of all his hopes and schemes, and the dear, dear
home ho had, and how they would all love her in England.
But she was not much concerned with this. It was joyous to
have him beside her, to be thus closed away from the rest of the
world, to loan against him to trust him, to know they were
driving away, away.
Swiftly went the cabriolet, when he wished to peep beneath the
prudent blinds, but in accents of terror she implored him to be
cautious. A man's hand at the window, a man's face glancing out,
and they were lost indeed!
The cabriolet stopped. "Are we there already?" cried the girl,
and "What has happened?" exclaimed the youth.
The elegant door was pulled open by her father's lackeys. The
coachman, who had betrayed them, had driven them back to the flat
pink-fronted house in Versailles with the white pilasters and
white wreaths of flowers.
Upstairs waited the two Dukes, her father and her
betrothed.
JOURNEY THE SECOND, 1793.
THE Duchesse de Sangeaunis stood at her window,
listening to a distant sound that was neither wind nor thunder,
but had the threat and volume of each.
The room behind her was dark and empty, cold and cheerless:
the heavy furniture cast deep pools of shadow, the heavy pictures
looked blank in their frames.
As the room became darker, darker, as the fine bright sickle
of the new moon rose above the dark house-tops opposite into the
steely blueness of the December sky, the distant shouts faded
into a far-off muttering, and Madame de Sangeaunis left the
window and lit a candle. As she placed this on a low cabinet of
tulip-wood, the faint beams fell on one of the portrait, and
called forth from the shadows the sparkling likeness of a young
girl in a white lace dress, carrying a bouquet of lilac tied with
turquoise-coloured ribbons.
The pretty, smiling face gazed out from the canvas above the
bowed head of the tall sad woman in the plain gown, whose white
hands wore pressed above a brow where the grey threads mingled
with the chestnut curls.
Through the silence the bell of the outer gates clanged. The
Duchess instantly sprang up and put out the candle, and stood
waiting, alerts in the folds of the long violet curtains.
A step sounded in the courtyard below. Ah, the gate had been
open, then!
Madame de Sangeaunis moved from her hiding-place; her movement
of concealment had been more instinctive than reasoned.
The footsteps halted; a man's tread, steady and sure; a firm
blow was struck on the door.
The Duchess, with a proud shrug, opened the window and stepped
on to the balcony.
"Eh, well, who is there?" she asked.
"Madame—good Heavens, it is the Duchess!" A masculine
voice, eager and pleasant, speaking with a foreign accent, came
strongly through the dusk. "Are you alone. May I come up?"
"It is Richard Dockura," she said quietly. "Now, what made you
think of coming here?"
"I saw the candle. I heard you had all left Paris. I
wondered—"
She went down and let him in. They came up the dark stairs to
the dark room, and she again lit the candle, now drawing the
heavy curtains across the windows. Once more the fair face of the
portrait gazed out across the shadows.
"It must be three years," she said, "since you were at the
Hôtel Sangeaunis."
"But I have never forgotten," he replied.
She looked at his fine young strength, and her lids drooped
over the weary eyes. "Are you safe?" she asked. "It is dangerous
to be in Paris now."
"As an Englishman I am safe. I have my passport. But you?"
"Ah, Mr. Dockura, I live here very quietly. When I can, I will
get to Normandy, perhaps to England."
"The Duke?" he asked.
She was the child and the partner of a loveless marriage; she
looked away.
"He has joined the Austrians. He thinks me safe. My brothers,
my father, my cousins—all killed."
"And you live here—alone?" There was horror in his
tone.
"No, I live in the very quiet rooms with Annette, my old
bonne, but I came back to-night to fetch
some—papers—I don't know—" she finished
listlessly.
"The people are sacking empty houses to-night," said Mr.
Dockura.
"I know. That is not news."
"You must let me take you away."
She did not answer.
The man's eyes went to the portrait.
"How alive that looks to-night!"
"My poor mother? Yes. She looks so happy. And I, somehow never
remember her as happy."
"It is a lovely face."
"I was very young when she died," said the Duchess, gazing at
the painted face, "but she told me—what do you think? That
the year that portrait was painted, when she was still Hyacinthe
de St. Claire, she was in love with an Englishman."
He laughed uneasily.
"Then there is some bond between us, Madame. My father fell in
the war when I was a little lad, but he always loved France. I
have inherited that."
"Some bond," repeated the Duchess.
She rose. They were standing very close together; the
fluttering candle-light picked them out of the vast dark
room.
"How strange," she murmured, "that you of all men should come
here to-night!"
"How strange that you, of all women, should be here
to-night!"
They stared at each other.
"Let us go," he said, and she: "I feel as if all this had
happened before."
She took some jewels out of the desk and put them in the
bodice of her dress, she fastened her cloak and quenched the
candle. The portrait of Hyacinthe de St. Hilaire was absorbed in
darkness.
As they traversed the wintry streets, he told her that this
was her best chance of leaving Paris. He had friends at one of
the barricades, and he would smuggle her through as—ah,
they must think of some disguise!—and there were friends
again, and English, waiting for him to join them at the first
halt on the Calais road.
"My daughter," said the Duchess, "is already in England; she
arrived safely with her aunt. You remember her?"
"That little child! Like your mother, too, Madame."
"Yes. I have named her, you know, Hyacinthe."
At Mr. Dockura's inn his servant was impatiently waiting; they
had missed the stage, and a coach had been difficult to find.
However, Jaspar, knowing his master was resolved to leave Paris
as soon as possible, had contrived to hire a cabriolet from a
posting stables.
And there it stood waiting for them, elegant, jaunty,
lemon-yellow and black, only a little out of fashion, only
slightly cracked and dusty, worn and battered.
Mr. Dockura explained the Duchess to Jaspar, who climbed on
the box, and the cabriolet rattled towards the gates of Paris. On
the shabby velvet cushions the woman leant back, clasping her
heart.
"All this I seem to remember," she murmured, "the
motion—you and I together in a lemon-coloured cabriolet.
Mon Dieu, what am I saying?"
"I don't know," he answered, with a kind of soft violence. "I
recall something—thwarted, ended suddenly—"
He took her cold hands; in the intermittent glare of the
street-lamps they gazed into each other's faces.
"Oh, my love, my love, in the happy days I did not dare!"
"Oh, my love, my love, I have thought of nothing but you since
you left me!"
"I was but one of your acquaintances, an obscure figure in
your sparkling salon.
"No, all the world, all the world!"
"Tell me your name, my darling!"
"Do you not know my name?" she smiled. "It is Edmée."
"Edmée! That makes me think of my father Edmund, and Edmund is
my name, too, Richard Edmund."
Away sped the cabriolet, the worn leathers swinging, the
chipped wheels swinging round and round, while the lovers sat
with clasped hands, amazed, radiant, incredulous.
At the barrier, the first hitch. Camille Dunois, on whom Mr.
Dockura relied, was not there—in fact, he was already in La
Force.
"And you, Citizen Dockura, who is this woman of whom there is
no mention in your passport?"
And you, Citizen Dockura, who is this woman
of whom there is no mention in your passport?
Lantern and flambeaux cast angry flares on them, the crowd hem
closely round the gay sides of the little cabriolet. One of the
citizens, sharp-eyed, sees traces of a coat-of-arms under the
first coat of lemon paint; he is for smashing the cabriolet as an
aristocrat, the citizen-owner, driving, fiercely protests. There
is a scuffle, oaths, shouting.
Then in the pale face of the woman so coldly facing her
enemies someone recognises a suspect.
"Edmée de Sangeaunis, wife of an emigré."
As they try to drag her out, Mr. Dockura fires, and someone
else fires, and Edmée falls at his feet. As they drag him off
raving, as they pull away Jaspar, battling like a bull, the
citizen-owner is angrily mopping up the blood that is staining
the faded yellow seat.
JOURNEY THE THIRD, 1860.
"MAMMA, I vow and declare that he is paying
attention to the governess! You may not believe it—"
"It is indeed incredible," said Mrs. Hilton, looking round at
her three blooming daughters, as they stood ready, in bonnets and
cashmere shawls, for the croquet party at the Hall.
"Everyone says so," added Miss Amelia.
"He his eyes for no one else!" cried Miss Adelaide.
"I think she has bewitched him," said Miss Amy, with a half
sob.
Mrs. Hilton did not trust herself to speak; she, too, had seen
awful, not-to-be-ignored signs that the young Squire, the best
match for miles around, was really fascinated by the plain
middle-aged governess at the Rectory. And a year ago, before this
lady made her appearance, Mrs. Hilton could have sworn that the
coveted prize would really fall to the lot of one of her
girls.
"It is indelicate to be discussing such things," she remarked
at last serenely.
"Yes, mamma," said all three girls together.
She marshalled them before her into the big family carriage;
they lowered veils over their bonnets and put up tiny parasols
against the heat of the August sun.
Thomas Dockura was so charming to his mother's guests that
even Mrs. Hilton began to think that it must be a mistake about
the governess and that, after all, dear Amy. . .
It was Amy who found the heat excessive for games and who had
to be entertained in the house. With infantile simplicity she
turned the conversation to France.
"Would you not greatly like to go to Paris, Mrs. Dockura? I
understand it is a city both instructive and amusing."
"A trip to Paris would hardly be a diversion suitable for one
of my years, my love," smiled Mrs. Dockura, "and my husband had
such an aversion to the city that I never went there in my youth.
You see, his father had been in La Force during the Revolution of
1789, and never recovered from the experience, I believe."
"Oh!" said Miss Amy. "And were not Mademoiselle Vesey's
grandparents killed in that same Revolution?"
"And who, my love," demanded the elder lady, with her
sweetness, "is Mademoiselle Vesey?"
"The governess at the Rectory," replied the girl,
blushing.
"Ah, my memory is bad for the names of that kind of
person."
"She is quite superior. She was formerly with Lady
Meugham."
"I hope," said Mrs. Dockura darkly, "Lady Meugham was
satisfied. But really, my pet, we are getting upon low
topics."
When the croquet party was over, Thomas Dockura wandered
across the summer fields towards the Rectory. At the end of the
Rector's orchard he paused.
She was there to meet him—a figure very erect and
fragile in her ugly heavy gown, with her close-banded hair and
massive brooch, and hands—he thought—the colour and
texture of hawthorn blossoms.
"I have only an hour," she said in a low voice.
"This slavery!" exclaimed the young man angrily.
They turned together, two sombre, bowed figures, across the
flowering fields, where the meadowsweet was waist-high and the
poppies were beginning to redden the corn.
"This must be the last time we come for these walks," said
Mademoiselle Vesey at length. Her English was pure, but her
accent markedly foreign. "I should have stopped them before if I
had not been weak, Mr. Dockura."
"Is it all being made so difficult for you?" he asked
miserably.
"Very difficult. These good people take me for a sort of
servant, and they think a great presumption for me to be friends
with you." Her dark eyes looked at his confused countenance; she
was pale in the depths of her shabby bonnet. "And you," she
added, with a smiling pride, "know very little about me, except
that I must earn my living. And I suppose you will have heard
queer stories—about me."
"Never! Never would anyone dare—"
Mademoiselle Vesey continued smoothly, as if he had not
interrupted.
"My father was the Comte de Vesey, who made his living as a
dancing master, my mother was the daughter of the Duc de
Sangeaunis—both he and his wife were killed in the
Revolution of 1780—on each side, you see, emigrés of a
family now extinct, save to me, and in me, penniless and very
obscure."
"You are better born than any of us," he said quickly. "I
guessed as much—your look, your carriage—"
"The women hate me," she said simply. "I cannot stay
here—better in London, where there are other poor
foreigners I may meet."
The man was silent. He thought of her as mistress of the Hall.
How gracious and lovely she would be! How he wanted her! How he
yearned for her! But he was afraid. He thought of his family, of
his neighbours, and he was afraid. To conceal his heart he made
uneasy conversation.
"My grandfather was in Paris during the Revolution, was even
thrown into La Force. He was a very sombre, taciturn man, and
never spoke of his experiences."
"One would not," said Mademoiselle Vesey simply.
They had made a circle through the fields, and now came out on
to the sunny high-road near the white-fronted inn. A little
cabriolet stood at the door, a poor dilapidated old cabriolet,
patched and mended and clumsily repainted.
"This is a queer little carriage," said the lady. "Do you know
it gives me a curious feeling when I see it?"
"I believe it is French," replied Mr. Dockura. "My grandfather
is supposed to have brought it from Paris; but he never used it,
and it became so old-fashioned that my father gave it to the inn,
and they find it convenient to hire to the rustics for their
merry-makings."
"Poor little cabriolet!" said Mademoiselle Vesey wistfully.
"Think of who may have sat in that, Mr. Dockura!"
She paused and placed her hand on the yellow side.﹃I should
like to ride in it—just once,﹄she pleaded. She looked over
her shoulder as she said this, and for a second Mr. Dockura had
an impression of a woman radiantly lovely, adored, exquisitely
dressed, looking at him with love in her eyes.
"We will ride in it together," he said quickly. He spoke to
the ostler, and told him to drive them to Darley, where there was
a fair. "I will buy you a fairing," he added, as he handed her
into the cabriolet.
It was lined with coarse brown cloth, the cushions were burst
and hard, the windows rattled, and the new springs were clumsy,
but gallantly and gaily it rattled down the long, peaceful, dusty
English road.
"My ancestors rode in carriages such as this," said the lady.
"I have the names of two of them—Edmée, my grandmother, and
Hyacinthe, her mother."
Thomas Dockura looked at her wildly; he was oppressed by a
sense of loss and desolation, of yearning and frustration.﹃I
remember so much,﹄he murmured, "that never happened to me."
"I do also," she said quietly. "I've been here
before—with you—do you
remember?—lilacs—and then—Mon Dieu, what
happened?"
"Each time we lost each other," he answered under his breath.
"I lost something twice."
They sat side by side, close together, their dropped hands
fell into each other's palms, and they did not know it. Thomas
Dockura lost sense of time and place; he could not have told
where the cabriolet was bearing them so swiftly, who was the
woman by his side. The summer sunshine that fell athwart the
windows filled him with a sense of poignant sadness that was
almost unbearable, but the presence of the woman whose hand he
touched stirred him to great depths of joy yet blurred by
unfathomable yearnings.
They reached Darley and stopped at the entrance to the fair,
where the gay pennons of the booths fluttered against the golden
blue sky of late summer afternoon, and knots and clusters of gay
and happy people wandered among the ropes and pegs of the tents
that disfigured the worn grass, and joked with the battered
clowns, and fed the piebald ponies with sugar and carrots.
Mr. Dockura and Mademoiselle Vesey descended from the
cabriolet and walked slowly, as if drugged by enchantment,
through the sweet summer air rent by the cries of charlatans and
jugglers. The woman was the first to recover herself.
"That ride," she said, "made me forget many things. I think it
took me back to very long ago. I thought all the time of Paris
and beautiful troubles. But now I must remember what I came to
tell you, Mr. Dockura."
They wandered apart from the noise, at the back of the tents,
where the children of the strolling players rolled about with the
performing animals.
The man looked keenly and wistfully at his companion. How
graceful she was, charming, how desirable, even with her faded
youth, her ugly clothes!
"I am leaving the Rectory," she added, "and returning to
London."
His handsome face grew troubled.
"There is a gentleman," continued Mademoiselle Vesey, "who is
willing to marry me—a M. Franchion, one of our little
colony. He has a great gift for glass-making and earns a
comfortable income with his tiny factory."
"But you do not love him?" asked Mr. Dockura.
"I respect him very much," she answered, "He is old—a
friend of my poor father."
It was his chance. Why should he let her go? Surely long
tiresome years had brought them together—surely they
belonged one to the other with deep ties and strong bonds.
He turned to take her hands and ask her to be his wife, when
he saw through the tents the laughing, sneering face of Jack,
Amy's brother, who was lounging about with a couple of
companions.
Thomas Dockura at once saw his behaviour as it would appear in
the eyes of his own class. This woman was a foreigner, neither
young nor pretty, an adventuress, for all he knew. They would, of
course, laugh. And he had taken that ridiculous cabriolet from
the inn. Of course they had seen him. He flushed deeply, and his
words choked in his throat.
"Let us go home," said Mademoiselle Vesey swiftly. "Let us go
home."
Stiff and embarrassed, he conducted her to the entrance to the
field. "I must really go and see some friends of mine—" he
began.
She looked at him tenderly, as if she understood and pitied
his cowardice, his denial, his betrayal.
"I will go alone," she interrupted. "It is better vis-à-vis
your friends."
"The cabriolet," he said awkwardly, "that will take
you—"
"Oh, no!" She shrank away. "Somehow—oh, I don't
know—it seemed perfumed with blood!"
THE HALT, 1923.
"I HOPE the man's some good, Riggles," said
Nancy; "the last two architects were both duds."
"I'm sure I can't see why you don't leave the place as it is,"
retorted Riggles, furiously knitting a primrose silk jumper. "I
find it quite comfortable."
Nancy lit another cigarette. "But your pose, Riggles dear, is
to be decorously old-fashioned. I happen to want a covered tennis
court, a swimming bath, a ballroom, and a few little things like
that."
"Why didn't you think of that when you bought the place?"
"You know how it appealed to me," replied the girl
reproachfully. "I felt as if I was meant to be the mistress here
but of course, it is too small."
"You've too much money," said Riggles severely.
"Well, you're not a pauper," responded Nancy
"When does your architect arrive?" asked Riggles, shaking out
her jumper.
"Now, I hope—the feast waits." She glanced at the
opulent tea-table. "I hope they'll send the senior partner, not
some wretched articled clerk."
The man-servant showed in a tall young man, announcing: "Mr.
Dockura."
Nancy, a slim creature in a white slip of a tennis frock, put
down her cigarette and held out a cool hand.
"How d'you do? This is my aunt, Miss March. I'm Nancy
Franchion—Franchion's glass works. I've got a lot of money,
so you're safe to do what you like with the old place. I bought
it three years ago. Rather fancy it, but there's lots to do to
it. You're the junior partner? Have some tea?"
She finished with a dazzling smile, slid into a cushioned seat
behind the frail tea-table, and began to pour out the sparkling
tea.
The young man smiled also. "Yes, I'm the junior partner," he
said. "I generally get this sort of job."
"You're pretty good?" queried Nancy.
"Extraordinarily good," he said.
They all laughed.
"You see," remarked Miss March, "how spoilt, rude, ill-bred
and tiresome Nancy is. I'm sorry for you, Mr. Dockura."
"I see," he replied, "but I'm interested in the house."
"Are you really? I am, too, though it is ugly, isn't it?"
Nancy handed him opulent cakes.
"It belonged to my family," said the young man.
"To your family?" she exclaimed. "But I bought it from a Mrs.
Grant."
"Oh, it has changed hands frequently during the last forty
years. My grandfather sold it. His wife was a Miss Amy Hilton, of
Hilton's Bank that crashed, and the old boy had all his money in
it. Of course I shall find it awful fun pottering about the old
place."
"But I don't want any pottering," said Nancy. "I'm extremely
efficient."
"Portrait of a modern young woman," remarked Riggles.
"So am I," said Mr. Dockura, eating macaroons. "I say, it's
jolly being here. I suppose you've got lots of the old lumber,
too?"
"Lots," replied Nancy, swinging her jade chain. "Ancestors and
such-like atrocities. We're a decent family, aren't we, Riggles?
But, being glass-works, father thought he'd like a place that
would give us ton."
"My ancestors?" asked Mr. Dockura.
"Lots," replied the lady again. "I've got no pictures of mine,
so I fill the gallery with yours. We're self-made."
"But we can trot out a duchess and duke or two," said Riggles.
"French Revolution, horrid fate, guillotine, powder, minuet, you
know the recipe—like the kind of play you go to see, but
wish you hadn't."
"I'm awfully keen on the French Revolution," announced Mr.
Dockura. "And you're really French, then, Miss Franchion?"
"My grandmother was—she used to be a governess in this
village. Can you conceive it? At the Rectory. Somewhere about
1860. Poor as a rat. Her mother was Mademoiselle de Sangeaunis,
the daughter of the Duchess of that name, who was, or ought to
have been, I've no doubt, guillotined. We simply went to bits.
Father's side, too, but grandfather, when he was shockingly old,
began to make a success of the glass-works—"
She stopped suddenly and, dropping her flippant manner, added:
"I wonder why I am telling you this?"
"I'm wondering, too," said Riggles. "Such a snobbish display
I've never heard you guilty of before."
But the two young people were looking at each other.
"It's awfully funny," he said, "but you're just like an old
print I've got at home. I bought it in the Charing Cross Road for
twopence—a kind of a French eighteenth-century thing."
"Who is it?" asked Nancy almost sharply.
"I don't know," he admitted ruefully. "There is no name on it.
It's just a girl with a bunch of lilac tied with long ribbons,
and a little hat—"
"And like me," finished Nancy. "Perhaps an
ancestress—who knows?"
He had been there a week before his sketches were anywhere
near in order, or the first rough plans anywhere near indicated,
but what he had done pleased the wilful young woman, so early
orphaned, so grotesquely wealthy, very much. She had been meaning
to fill the house with visitors before Easter, but she put them
off and devoted herself to considering the additions the
architect proposed to the Hall.
She showed him, rather forlorn in the attics, his ancestors,
ugly old paintings of no value. One was named Edmund.
"We had a tradition in our family about that name," she added.
"Some far-away grandmother was in love with an Edmund—I
believe an Englishman—and she made some kind of a vow to
have the name perpetuated in the family. Why, even I am called
Edmée, but no one could stand it, so I'm Nancy."
One day she stood beside him as he was examining the old
stables. "Do you simply hate this?" she asked bluntly. "Doing
this work for a stranger on a place that used to be yours?"
He looked at her with a frank smile on his pleasant face.﹃Of
course I feel friendly to the old place,﹄he said, "but it went
before I was born, and I'm happier as I am than tied up with
this—nowadays."
They walked together across the spring fields as Thomas
Dockura had walked with Mademoiselle Vesey, with Amy Hilton,
years before, and as one day they skirted some disused barns by
some hopfields, he pointed out a queer-looking object by a
pond.
It was a battered old wreck of a cabriolet without shafts,
with the wheels fallen flat either side, with the hood in
tatters, with the paint flaked away and the woodwork cracked.
"That poor old cab," said Nancy, "it used to be kept in the
inn stables. I suppose it wasn't worth houseroom, so they've just
turned it out."
"It looks jolly old!" he exclaimed. "Look at the shape of the
thing—like a sedan chair, now it's without wheels. I wonder
how it ever got to a place like this?"
They crossed the summer grass and walked round the miserable
derelict.
"It's full of bogies, I expect," said Nancy.
"It makes me think of my girl with the lilacs," he remarked,
"think of her in this—"
"It makes me think of my girl with the lilacs," he
remarked
He pulled open the rotting door and gazed into the tattered,
mildewed interior. There was a smell of decay, of damp, of death,
but the decay, the damp, the death of flowers, of beauty, of
love.
The girl peeped over his broad shoulders. She shivered
slightly, the manners of her little moment vanished from her; she
was just a woman, like Hyacinthe St. Hilaire, like Edmée de
Sangeaunis, like Claire Edmée Hyacinthe de Vesey.
"Look at the old velvet rags on the seat," she said in a low
voice, "the under-lining. Ah, stained, too!"
She stepped aside and looked at him through the broken
window.
"Like that," he said, "like that, with the flowers under your
face."
She sank back on the ragged seat, frightened.﹃I've been here
before,﹄she whispered. "Do you remember—"
But she could not remember herself; her mind became confused,
and she gazed blankly.
"Isn't your name Edmund?" she asked, with a puzzled frown.
"Of course, and yours Edmée?"
The wheel came full circle as the yellow cabriolet at last
sheltered their complete, their free, their happy kiss.
THE END
Project Gutenberg Australia