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    Fire in Stubble
    Fire in Stubble
    Fire in Stubble
    Ebook466 pages7 hours

    Fire in Stubble

    By Baroness Emmuska Orczy

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    The book centres on the love life of Rose Marie, the only daughter of Monsieur Legros, tailor-in-chief to His Majesty the King of France. As an infant Rose was espoused to Rupert Keyston, a mere child himself at the time. Over the years Rupert’s position has changed from one of poverty and obscurity to one of wealth, and he now holds the honorable position of the Earl of Stowmaries. Rupert has not seen his child-bride since his espousals, and on reaching manhood conceives a dastardly plot to free himself from the unwanted union by persuading his cousin Michael to impersonate him when he is finally called upon to ratify his engagement, and claim his bride. Once this has happened, he fully intends to get his marriage annulled, on the score of his wife’s unfaithfulness with his cousin.
    The mock nuptials are concluded with a dance in the workshop of Monsieur Legros.
    The wild and lawless Michael, who agreed to his part in this base deed in return for gold, is suddenly caught hopelessly in the charms of the lovely Rose Marie – but he is determined not to lose his prize. Papa Legros, on being informed of the trick that has been practiced on his child, pursues the couple hotly, and brings back his beloved daughter the same evening. So Michael’s punishment begins. His love for Rose Marie transforms him from a reprobate to a chivalrous gentleman. After a series of exciting episodes they are eventually re-united. His trial as a Papist and traitor is dramatically told, and Rose Marie’s evidence that he was with her on the dates in question saves his head from being exhibited at Tyburn.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherClassica Libris
    Release dateDec 10, 2018
    ISBN9788829571918
    Fire in Stubble
    Author

    Baroness Emmuska Orczy

    Baroness Emma Orczy was a British novelist and artist best known for her Scarlet Pimpernel novels. Educated as an artist, Orczy took on work as a translator and illustrator to supplement the family income before finding success as a playwright and writer. During her career Orczy penned more than 50 literary works including The Scarlet Pimpernel (both the novel and the play), I Will Repay, and Lady Molly of Scotland Yard. An active supporter of the British monarchy, Orczy was a founding member of the Women of England's Active Service League, which focused on the recruitment of female volunteers during the First World War. Orczy died in 1947 at the age of 82.

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      Fire in Stubble - Baroness Emmuska Orczy

      Rogue

      Copyright

      First published in 1912

      Copyright © 2018 Classica Libris

      PART ONE

      Chapter 1

      This act is an ancient tale new told.

      Shakespeare

      Monsieur Legros, tailor-in-chief to His Majesty Louis XIV and to the Court of Paris and Versailles, bowed himself out of the room; with back bent nearly double, and knees trembling in the effort, he receded towards the door even whilst Monseigneur the Archbishop spoke a final and encouraging benediction.

      Have no fear, my good Monsieur Legros, pronounced Monseigneur with urbane kindness, your affairs shall come under the special notice of the Holy Father. Be of good cheer, right and justice are on your side. Solemn vows cannot be flouted even in these days of godlessness. Go in peace, my son; you are dismissed.

      And if the Holy Father — hem — I mean if Monseigneur would take cognizance of the fact — hem — that I will place— stammered Monsieur Legros with some confusion. I mean, Monseigneur — that is — I am a man of substance — and if the sum of fifty thousand francs — or — or a hundred thousand—

      Nay, my son, what would you suggest? quoth Monseigneur with a slight lifting of elegantly-arched brows. The thought of money doth not enter into the decrees of the Holy Father.

      I know — I know, Monseigneur, said Monsieur Legros with ever-growing confusion. I only thought—

      An you thought, my son, of pleasing God by the bestowal of alms in these days of licentiousness and of evil luxury, then by all means do so in accordance with your substance — I will see to the proper distribution of those alms, good Master Legros — the two hundred thousand francs you speak of shall be worthily bestowed, our promise thereon.

      Monsieur Legros did not think of protesting. The sum mentioned by Monseigneur was a heavy one in these days, when the working and trading classes had but little left for their own pleasures once the tax collector had passed their way. But the worthy tailor had made no idle boast when he said that he was a man of substance; he was well able to pay a goodly sum for the gratification of his most cherished desire.

      He received his final congé almost on his knees, then he disappeared through the doorway. Lacqueys to the right of him, lacqueys to the left of him, lacqueys all the way along the carpeted stairs down to the massive front door, formed a living avenue through which Monsieur Legros now passed with his back not yet fully straightened out after its many humble curvatures.

      Soon he reached the narrow, ill-ventilated street on which gave the great gates of Monseigneur the Archbishop’s palace. Instinctively Monsieur Legros gave a deep sigh of content and relief, inhaling the fresh autumnal air which could not altogether be excluded-even from these close purlieus where roof almost met roof overhead, and evil-smelling gutters overflowed along the roughly-constructed pavements.

      The good master tailor had succeeded passing well in his momentous errand. Monseigneur had been overgracious, and two hundred thousand francs was after all only a small sum to come out of Rose Marie’s ample marriage portion. Monsieur Legros now walked with a brisk step along the right bank of the Seine, then crossing the Pont Neuf he found himself near the Châtelet prison, and thence by narrow by-paths at his own front door in the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie.

      Here he gave a sharp rap with the polished brass knocker, and within a very few seconds the door was opened and an anxious feminine voice hailed him from out the ‘ darkness of the narrow passage.

      Eh bien? Monseigneur? What did he say?

      Monsieur Legros closed the door behind him with great deliberation, then he turned, stretched out both arms and, catching the speaker round the shoulders, imprinted two well sounding kisses on a pair of fresh young cheeks.

      He says, said the worthy bonhomme gaily, that Rose Marie, the fairest maid in France, shall be called Countess of Stowmaries before the year is out, for right and justice and indissoluble marriage vows are all on her side.

      A little gasp — which sounded almost like a hysterical sob — broke from the woman’s throat. It seemed as if the news — evidently very anxiously expected — was overwhelmingly good. There was silence in the little passage for a moment, then the fresh voice, now quite cheerful and steady, said lightly:

      Let us go and tell maman!

      Together father and daughter went up the steep, slightly-winding stair which led to an upper story. Rose Marie, silent once more, felt as if her young heart would presently burst through her corselet, so rapidly did it beat with excitement and anticipation.

      She followed her father into the large, cheerful-looking room which gave on the first landing. Here a bright fire blazed in an open hearth; blue cotton curtains hung on each side of the single, narrow window, through which the last rays of this October day struggled faintly.

      A large iron stewpot, from which escaped a jet of savoury-smelling steam, stood invitingly upon the hob, and beside the hearth, wooden spoon in hand, her ample proportions carefully draped in a thick brown linen apron, stood Madame Legros herself, the wife of one of the wealthiest men in the whole of Paris.

      Eh bien! Legros, ’tis good news then? she asked with cheerful optimism, whilst a benevolent smile shone all over her round face, red as an Eydam cheese and quite as shiny and greasy, for Madame had been cooking and she was mightily hot.

      The best, Maman, came in hilarious accents from her husband, our daughter shall be installed in her English castle before many moons are over. The Holy Father himself will interfere, and this — this — milord Stowmaries will have to obey at once — failing which ‘twill be excommunication and nothing less than that.

      Monsieur Legros had thrown himself into the tall-backed chair, black with age and the smoke from many a previous stewpot, and had stretched out his legs before him, in order that his dutiful daughter Rose Marie might the more easily divest him of his high out-door boots.

      Kneeling before her father, she performed this little service for him with all the grace of loving girlhood, and he cocked his cropped head on one side and looked down at her with eyes in which merriment struggled with happy tears.

      She was so good to look at as she knelt thus on one knee, her fair hair — touched with the gold of the sun of her native Provence — falling in thick ringlets round her young face. She was so girlish and so pure, fresh as the hawthorn in May, and withal luscious to behold like a ripening fruit in June.

      Nay! nay! said Monsieur Legros with mock gravity, as he put his now stockinged feet to the ground and rose with a great show of ceremony, this is no place for Madame la comtesse of Stowmaries. She must not kneel at any man’s feet, not even at those of her fond old father. Come to my arms, my girl, he added, once more resuming his seat, his voice breaking in the vain endeavour to seem flippant, sit here on my knee. Maman, for the Lord’s sake put down that spoon, and sit down like a Christian and I’ll tell you both all that Monseigneur said to me.

      With a happy little sigh Rose Marie jumped to her feet. Obviously her young heart was still too full for speech. She had said nothing, practically, since her first greeting to her father, since she had heard from him the good news — the confirmation of her hopes.

      Her cheeks were glowing until they quite ached with the throbbing of the veins beneath the delicate skin, and the palms of her hands felt cold and damp with suppressed nervousness and excitement.

      Obedient to her father’s call, she came close to him and perched herself on his knee, whilst his arm sought her slender waist and clung to it with all the gentle firmness born of his fond paternal love, of his pride in the beauty and grace of his child.

      Madame Legros — somewhat reluctantly — had pulled the stewpot further away from the fire, and put her wooden spoon aside. Then she sat down opposite her lord and her daughter and said blandly:

      I am listening.

      Monseigneur was most affable, now began Monsieur Legros, speaking with some pride at the recollection of his late reception in the Archbishop’s palace, but from the first he bade me to be brief, so as I had rehearsed the whole scene in my mind over and over again, and knew exactly what I wished to say to His Greatness, I was able to put our case before him in the most direct, most straightforward way possible. Now if you will listen very attentively and not interrupt me I will tell you word for word just what passed between Monseigneur and myself.

      Go on, Armand, said Madame, I am burning with impatience and I’ll promise not to interrupt.

      As for Rose Marie, she said nothing, but from the expression in her eyes, it was obvious that she would listen attentively.

      Monseigneur sat at his desk and he was pleased to tell me to be seated. Then he said: ‘Commence, my son; I am all attention.’ He fixed his eyes upon me and I then began my narrative. ‘My wife had a distant relative,’ I said, ‘married to an officer in the army of the English king. At a time of great pecuniary distress this fashionable lady bethought herself of her connection with the humble tailor of Paris and wrote to him an amiable letter suggesting a visit to his modest home.’ That was so, was it not, Maman? he asked, turning for confirmation to his buxom wife.

      Exactly so, Armand, she replied in assent, except that the fashionable lady was at pains not to tell us that her husband was in prison for debt over in England and that she herself was almost destitute — and to think that I was such a simpleton as not to guess at the truth when she arrived with her little boy, and he with his shoes all in holes and—

      Easy — easy, Melanie, rejoined Monsieur Legros tartly.

      Am I telling you my adventures of this afternoon, or am I not?

      But of a truth thou art telling us, Armand, replied fat Madame Legros blandly.

      Then I pray you to remember that I said I would not be interrupted, else I shall lose the thread of my narration.

      But thou didst ask me a question, Armand, and I did answer.

      Then do not answer at such lengths, Melanie, quoth the tailor sententiously, or I shall be an hour getting through my tale, and that savoury stew yonder will be completely spoilt.

      Harmony being thus restored under threat of so terrible a contingency, Monsieur Legros now resumed his narrative.

      I did tell Monseigneur, he said with reproachful emphasis, that at the time that Mistress Angélique Kestyon came on a visit to us in company with her small son, then aged six and a half years, but without nurse, serving or tiring woman of any kind, we were quite unaware of the distressful position in which she was, and in which she had left her lord and master over in England. I then explained to Monseigneur how Mistress Kestyon seemed overpleased with the grace and beauty of our own child Rose Marie, who had just passed through her first birthday. She would insist on calling the wench Rosemary, pronouncing the name in an outlandish fashion, and saying that in England it stood for remembrance. A pretty conceit enough, seeing that our Rose Marie once seen would surely never be forgotten.

      And a vigorous pressure on Rose Marie’s waist brought an additional glow to the girl’s bright eyes.

      At this point, continued Monsieur Legros, it pleased Monseigneur to show such marked interest in my story, that he appeared quite impatient and said with a show of irritation — which could but be flattering to me:— ‘Yes! yes! my son, but there is no need to give me all these trifling details. I understand that you are rich, are of somewhat humble calling, and have a daughter, and that the English lady was poor, if highborn, and had a son. Ergo! the children were betrothed.’ Which, methinks showed vast penetration on the part of Monseigneur, added the worthy bonhomme naively, and gracious interest in my affairs. Whereupon, warming to my narrative, I exclaimed: ‘Not only betrothed, Monseigneur, but married with the full rites and ceremonials of our Holy Church as by law prescribed. My wife and I — so please Your Greatness — thought of the child’s future. It has pleased God to bless my work and to endow me with vast wealth which in the course of time will all pass to our Rose Marie. But here in France, the great gentlemen would always look askance at the daughter of the man who made their coats and breeches; not so in England where trade, they say, is held in high esteem, and in order that our child should one day be as great a lady as any one in the land and as noble as she is beautiful, we wedded her to a high and mighty well-born English gentleman, who was own great nephew to one of the most illustrious noblemen in that fog-ridden country — the Earl of Stowmaries, so he is called over there, Monseigneur!’ and you may be sure, continued Monsieur Legros, that I mentioned this fact with no small measure of pride.

      Well, and what did His Greatness say to that? queried Madame Legros, who would not curb her impatience, even for those few seconds whilst her man paused in order to take breath.

      Monseigneur did not seem overpleased at seeing me display quite so much pride in empty titles and meaningless earthly dignities, rejoined Monsieur Legros lightly. His Greatness was pleased to rebuke me and to inform me that he himself was well acquainted with the distinguished English family who bears the name of Kestyon of Stowmaries. The Kestyons are all good Catholics and Monseigneur thought that this fact was of far greater importance than their worldly honours and their ancient lineage, and should have weighed much more heavily with us, Maman, when we chose a husband for our daughter.

      We should not have given Rose Marie to a Protestant, Armand; you should have told that to Monseigneur. No, not if he had been the King of England himself, retorted Madame Legros indignantly.

      The King of England is as good a Catholic as any of us, so ’tis said, commented Monsieur Legros, but this is a digression, and I pray you, Mélanie, not to interrupt me again. I felt that His Greatness had lapsed into a somewhat irritable mood against me, which no doubt I fully deserved, more especially as Monseigneur did not then know — but ’tis I am digressing now, resumed the good man after a slight hesitation. In less time than I can repeat it all, I had told Monseigneur how directly after the marriage ceremony had been performed, we found out how grossly we had been deceived, that le Capitaine Kestyon, the husband of Mistress Angélique, had been in a debtor’s prison in London all the time that his wife was bragging to us about his high position and his aristocratic connections; we heard that the great Earl of Stowmaries not only refused to have anything to do with his nephew, who was a noted rogue and evil-doer, but that he had a son and three grandsons of his own, so that there were a goodly number of direct inheritors to his great title and vast estates. All this and more we heard after our darling child had been indissolubly tied to the son of the best-known scoundrel in the whole of England, and who moreover was penniless, deeply in debt, and spent the next ten years in extracting our hard-earned money from out our pockets.

      The recollection of those same ten years seemed to have even now a terrible effect on the temper of Monsieur Legros. Indignation at the memories his own last words evoked seemed momentarily to choke him. He pulled a voluminous and highly-coloured handkerchief from the pocket of his surcoat and moped his perspiring forehead, for choler had made him warm.

      Madame Legros — equally indignant in retrospect but impatient to hear Monseigneur’s final pronouncement on the great subject — was nervously rapping a devil’s tattoo on the table. Rose Marie’s fair head had fallen forward on her breast. She had said nothing all along, but sat on her father’s knee, listening with all her ears, for was not he talking about the people who would be her people henceforth, the land which would be her land, the man who of a truth was her lord and husband? But when Legros, with just indignation, recalled the deceits, the shifts, the mean, mercenary actions of those whose name she would bear through life, then the blush of excitement seemed to turn into one of shame, and two heavy tears fell from her eyes onto her tightly clasped hands.

      Father, Father! cried fat Madame Legros in horror, cannot you see that you have made the child cry?

      Then heaven punish me for a blundering ass, exclaimed Legros, with renewed cheerfulness. Nay! nay! my little cabbage, there’s naught to cry for now; have I not said that all is well? Those ten years are past and done with and eight more lie on the top of them — and if Monseigneur showed some impatience both at my pride and at my subsequent indignation, he was vastly interested, I can tell you that, when he heard that the son and three grandsons of the great English nobleman were by the will of God wrecked while pleasure-cruising together off the coast of Spain and all four of them drowned, and that the old lord himself did not long survive the terrible catastrophe, which had swept four direct inheritors of his vast wealth and ancient name off the face of the earth and into the sea. His Greatness became quite excited — and vastly amiable to me:— ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘then surely — you can not mean—?’ You see Monseigneur was so interested he scarce could find his words. ‘Yes, so please Your Greatness,’ quoth I with becoming dignity, ‘the husband of our Rose Marie, the son of the capitaine who in life had been nought but a rogue, has inherited the title and the wealth of his great-uncle. He is now styled by the English the Earl of Stowmaries and Rivaulx, Baron of Edbrooke and of Saumaresque, and he has many other titles besides, and one of the richest men in the whole of England!’ ‘Mais, comment done!’ exclaims Monseigneur, most affably, and you’ll both believe me, an you will, but I give you my word that His Greatness took my hand and shook it, so pleased did he seem with what I had told him. ‘We must see the lovely Comtesse of Stowmaries! Eighteen years ago, did you say, my son? and she was a baby then! The decrees of God are marvellous, of a truth! And your Rose Marie a great English lady now, eh? — with a quantity of money and a great love for the Church! By the Mass, my son, we must arrange for a solemn Te Deum to be sung at St. Etienne, before the beautiful comtesse leaves the sunny shores of France for her fog-wrapped home across the sea!’ Nay! but His Greatness said much more than that He spoke of the various forms which our thank offering might take, the donations which would be most acceptable to God on this occasion; he mentioned the amount of money which would most adequately express the full meed of our gratitude to Providence, by being given to the Church, and I most solemnly assure you that he simply laughed at the very thought of the Earl of Stowmaries contemplating the non-fulfilment of his marriage vows. I pointed out to His Greatness that the young man seemed inclined to repudiate the sacred bond. We had not seen him since the ceremony eighteen years ago, and after our final refusal to further help his parents with money or substance, we had even ceased to correspond. His parents had gone to live in some far, very far-off land across the ocean, where I believe cannibals and such like folk do dwell. They had taken the boy with them, of course. We thought the young man dead, or if alive then as great a rogue as his father, and mourned that our only child was either a girl-widow, or the wife of a reprobate. Tis eighteen years,’ I said, ‘since those marriage vows were spoken.’

      ‘Were they fifty,’ retorted His Greatness, ‘they would still be sacred. The Catholic Church would scorn to tie a tie which caprice of man could tear asunder. Nay! nay!’ he added with sublime eloquence, ‘ have no fear on this matter, my son. Unless the Earl of Stowmaries chooses to abjure the faith of his fathers, and thereby cause his own eternal damnation, he cannot undo the knot which by the will of his parents — he being a minor at the time — tied him indissolubly to your daughter.’ Thus spoke His Greatness, Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris, concluded Monsieur Legros, with becoming solemnity, and in such words will the message be conveyed to the man who by all laws human and divine is the husband of Rose Marie Dieudonnée Legros, our only and dearly loved child."

      There was silence in the small room now. The fast-gathering twilight had gradually softened all sharp outlines, covering every nook and cranny with a mantle of gloom and leaving the dying embers of the fire to throw a warm glow over the group of these homely folk: fat Madame Legros in cooking apron of coarse linen, her round, moist face pale with excitement, the sleeves of her worsted gown rolled back over her shapely arms; the kindly tailor with rubicund face gleaming with pride and paternal love, one arm still encircling the cherished daughter whose future had been mapped out by him on such glorious lines, and she, the girl — a mere child, fair and slender, with great, innocent eyes which mirrored the pure, naïve soul within, eyes which still looked the outer world boldly in the face, which had learned neither to shrink in terror, nor yet to waver in deceit, a child with rosy, moist lips which had not yet tasted the sweet and bitter savour of a passionate kiss.

      The silence became almost oppressive, for Madame Legros dared not speak again, lest she irritate the mightily clever man whom God had pleased to give her as husband, and Rose Marie was silent because, unknown even to herself, in the far-off land of Shadows, the Fates who sit and spin the threads of life had taken in their grim and relentless hands the first ravellings of her own.

      Vaguely now, for her ears were buzzing, she heard her father speak again, talking of Monseigneur’s graciousness, of the intervention of the French ambassador at the Court of the King of England, of an appeal to the Holy Father who would command that the great English milord shall acknowledge as his sole and lawful wife, Rose Marie Legros, the daughter of the Court tailor of Paris.

      It was so strange — almost uncanny, this intervention of great and clever gentlemen, of Monseigneur the Archbishop of Paris, whom hitherto she had only seen at a great distance passing through the streets in his glass coach or celebrating High Mass at the great altar in Notre Dame, of the King of England, whom she had once seen at a pageant in Versailles, actually talking to young King Louis himself, the greatest man in the whole world and most wonderful of all, of the Holy Father, second only on earth to le bon Dieu Himself — all, all of these great and marvellous people troubling about her, Rose Marie.

      For the moment she could not bear to think of it all, and she supposed that she must outwardly have looked as strange as she felt herself to be from within, for maman suggested that the child was overwrought and must go to her room, where presently she should partake of fricassée of chicken and a glass of good red wine with a little clove and cinnamon in it, the panacea, in good Madame Legros’ estimation, for every ailment of body, mind or heart.

      Chapter 2

      True hope is swift, and flies with swallows’ wings;

      Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.

      Richard III V. 2.

      Rose Marie hardly knew how she reached the tiny room up under the sloping roof, which room was her very own.

      She only realised that she longed to be alone to think matters out all by herself, and then to indulge in a long and happy cry.

      Oh, yes! she was quite, quite sure that she was very happy, and that it was because of this great happiness which filled her heart to bursting, that she felt so very much inclined to cry.

      Presently maman came in with the red wine and the fricassée and was horrified to find the child in tears.

      My pigeon, my little cabbage, but what ails thee, my jewel? ejaculated the good old soul, as she hastily put down the platter and bottle which she was carrying and went to kneel beside the narrow bed in the wall, from the depths of which came ominous sounds of a girl sobbing.

      Nothing, Maman, nothing! said Rose Marie, smiling at her mother’s anxiety and hastily endeavouring to dry her tears.

      Nothing — nothing— grumbled Madame Legros, one does not cry for nothing, my child—

      And I am vastly silly, Maman, for doing it — but I assure you that it is nothing — and — and—

      The young voice broke in renewed sobs, and two arms were stretched forth from out the bed and sought the mother’s kindly shoulder, whereon a strangely overburdened childish heart could sob itself out in perfect peace.

      There! there! my little cabbage, said Madame Legros, trying with tender pattings of the soft fair hair to soothe this well-nigh hysterical outburst, of a truth, thou hast been overwrought, and it was not right for father to speak of all this before thee. Thou didst not know that the young English lord had endeavoured to break his marriage vows, and that thy father and I have been working hard in order to bring influence to bear upon the rogue. Fortunately now we have succeeded, with the help of Monseigneur, so there is no need to cry, my cabbage, is there?

      No, no, Maman, it is not that, said the girl more quietly, I cannot quite explain to you what it is that made me cry — for I have known all along that milord — now that he is a milord and passing rich — was anxious to forget us humble folk, who helped his parents in their need — I have felt the shame of that before now, and it never made me cry. But today — somehow — Maman, darling, she added, sitting up quite straight in bed and looking at her mother with enquiring eyes, whilst her fine brow was puckered in a deep frown of thought, "somehow I feel — I cannot quite explain how it is — I feel as if my old life was finished — quite, quite finished — as if nothing would ever be quite the same again — my little room here, the pink curtains, that chair over there — they do not seem the same — not quite, quite the same — Maman, chérie, I suppose you don’t understand?"

      And the great childish eyes sought anxiously the mother’s face, longing for comprehension, for the explanation of an unaccountable mystery.

      No, my pigeon, I confess I do not understand, quoth worthy Madame Legros drily, for I do not see — nor would any sensible person admit — that a great English milord just because he is thy husband — can from all that distance, from the other side of the sea, change thy room and thy chair, nor yet thy curtains, though the latter, I will say, sorely need washing at the present moment, she added with sublime irrelevance.

      The girl sighed. Maman for once did not understand. Nor of a truth did she understand herself. She had tried to explain it all but had signally failed — had only succeeded in suggesting something which of course was supremely silly.

      I’ll tell thee how it is, Rose Marie, resumed Madame Legros with firm decision, thy stomach is in a disturbed condition, and a cup of cold camomile tea thou shalt drink tomorrow before rising. I’ll see to the making of it at once — for it must be brewed over-night to be truly efficacious — and come back and give thee thy supper a little later on.

      Madame Legros struggled back to her feet, happy to have found in a prospective cup of camomile tea a happy solution for Rose Marie’s curious mood. She took up the platter again, for the fricassée must be kept hot, and the child must eat some supper a little later on. The good woman’s heart was filled with that cheerful optimism which persistently seeks the good side of every eventuality and nearly always finds it. In this case Madame Legros failed to see that anything but good could come out of the present position. That same wonderful optimism of hers had not been altogether proof against the events of the past years, when she first began to realise that the marriage which she — more so than her husband — had planned in conjunction with Mistress Angélique Kestyon, was destined to prove a bar to her daughter’s happiness.

      In those far-off days eighteen years ago, Madame Legros had still fostered in her homely bosom the — since then — aborted seeds of social ambition. Well-connected on her mother’s side, with a good English family, she had wedded the Paris tailor for pecuniary rather than for sentimental reasons, and she had a sufficiency of sound common sense to understand that as a tradesman’s wife she could not in these days of arbitrary class distinction aspire to remain within that same social circle to which her connections and parentage would otherwise have entitled her. But though the seeds of ambition lay dormant in the homely soil of her husband’s back shop, they were not then altogether destroyed.

      Mélanie de Boutillier had been well past her youth when she married Armand Legros; when her baby girl was born, and the mother with justifiable pride realised that the child was passing fair, those same seeds once more began to germinate. The visit of the English relative — highborn, well-connected and accompanied by a boy not yet seven years of age, brought them to final perfection. What Mélanie de Boutillier had failed to obtain, Rose Marie Legros should possess in measureless plenty, and little Rupert Kestyon, great nephew of an English milord, should be the one to shower the golden gifts on her.

      All these schemes seemed at first so easy of accomplishment. It had been useless afterwards to cry over undue haste; at the time it seemed right, fitting and proper. Times then were troublous in England; Mistress Angélique Kestyon feared the democratic spirit there. It seems that the English were actually fighting against their king, and that the fate of the great noblemen in the country was in consequence somewhat uncertain; but only temporarily, of course, for King Charles Stuart would soon overcome his enemies and duly crush the rebellious traitors who had taken up arms against him. In the meanwhile the children would grow up, and anon when the Court of England had resumed its former splendour, Rupert Kestyon, the dearly-loved relative of the powerful Earl of Stowmaries, would introduce his beautiful bride to the charmed inner circle of English aristocracy.

      It all seemed so clear — so simple — as if, of a truth, the match and its glorious consequences had been specially designed by Providence for the glorification and social exaltation of Rose Marie Legros. Surely no one in those days would have thought that any blame could be attached to the parents for hurrying on the marriage ceremony between the two children, whose united ages fell short of a decade.

      The catastrophe came afterwards when the tale of deceit and of fraud was gradually unfolded. Then came the requests for money, the long voyage to America, the knowledge that milord Stowmaries not only had no love for these relatives of his, but had finally and irrevocably refused to help them in their distress, unless they took ship for a far distant colony and never troubled him with sight of their faces again.

      Good Armand Legros, who adored his daughter, was quite broken-hearted. Madame tried to remain hopeful against these overwhelming odds — always thinking that — though it had certainly pleased God to try the Legros family very severely for the moment — something would inevitably turn up which would be for the best.

      The immediate result of that unvarying optimism was that she continued Rose Marie’s education on the same lines as she had originally intended, as if the girl-wife was indeed destined anon to grace the Court of the King of England. The child was taught the English language by one of the many impoverished English gentlemen who had settled in France after the murder of their king. She learned to write and to read, to spell and to dance. She was taught to play on the virginals and to sing whilst playing a thorough-bass on the harpsichord. Nay! her knowledge, so ’twas said, extended even as far as geography and the Copernican system.

      Her mother kept her apart from girls of her own age, unless these belonged to one of those few families where learning was esteemed. She was never allowed to forget that some day she would leave her father’s shop and be a great lady in England.

      Whilst Madame Legros and the kindly bonhomme Armand gradually drifted in their middle age to the bourgeois manners and customs of their time and station, they jealously fostered in their only child that sense of elegance and refinement which mayhap she had inherited from one of her remote ancestors, or mayhap had received as a special gift from the fairy godmother who presided at her birth.

      Madame Legros cooked and scoured, Master Armand made surcoats and breeches, but Rose Marie was never allowed to spoil her hands with scrubbing, or to waste her time presiding over the stewpot. Her father had bought her a pair of gloves; these she always wore when she went out, and she always had stockings and leather shoes on her feet. As the girl grew up, she gradually assimilated to herself more and more this idea that she was to be a great lady. She never doubted her future for a moment. Her father from sheer fondness, her mother from positive conviction, kept the certitude alive within her.

      But it became quite impossible to keep from the girl’s growing intelligence all knowledge of the Kestyon’s misdeeds. The worthy tailor who was passing rich kept but a very small house, in which the one living room, situate just above the shop, was the family meeting ground. Rose Marie could not be kept out of the room every time her father and mother talked over the freshly-discovered deceits and frauds practised by their new relations.

      We must suppose that the subject thus became such a familiar one with the child-wife from the moment when she first began to comprehend it, that it never acquired any horror or even shame for her. Mistress Angélique Kestyon had grossly deceived papa and maman; they were not so rich or so grand just now as they had represented themselves to be, but it would all come right in the end — maman at least was quite sure of that.

      If — as time went on and Rose Marie from a child became a girl — that pleasing optimism somewhat gave way, this was no doubt due to too much book learning. Rose Marie was very fond of books, and books we all know have a tendency to destroy the innocent belief in the goodness of this world. This at least was Papa Legros’ opinion.

      Madame Legros spoke less and less on the subject. She hoped.

      She hoped resolutely and persistently, whilst the Kestyons from distant Virginia begged repeatedly for money. She went on hoping even whilst urging her husband to cut off further supplies, after ten years of this perpetual sponging. She still hoped whilst no news whatever came from the emigrants and when the rumour reached her that young Rupert Kestyon had died out there.

      At this point, however, her optimism took a fresh turn. She hoped that the rumour was true, and that Rose Marie was now free to wed some other equally high-born but more reliable gentleman. She continued to hope despite the difficulty of proving that the young man had really died, and Monseigneur the Archbishop’s refusal to grant permission for a second marriage.

      Then when the news filtered through from England as far as the back shop in the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie that Rupert Kestyon was not only alive but had — by a wonderful, almost

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