And a bird overhead sang "Follow"!
And a bird to the right sang "Here";
And the arch of the leaves was hollow
And the meaning of May was clear.
—Swinburne.
But good M. Legros could not contrive to sit still.
He had gone down into the parlour and worried maman, until, poor soul, she had put milk into the metheglin, in mistake for ale, and had to brew the mixture all over again, quite a quantity of good Spanish wine having been completely spoilt, owing to the fidgety temper of her lord.
He hung round her whilst she evolved the fresh bowl of posset, and made her so nervous that in desperation, fearing that more waste of expensive liquid would ensue, she ran upstairs loudly calling to Rose Marie to come down and help keep papa quiet by engaging him in a game of cribbage.
Therefore it was that when with loud clatter of hoofs on the rough pavement of the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie, my lord and his retinue drew rein outside the tailor's shop, Rose Marie was sitting in the room above playing cribbage with her father.
She heard the noise of the horses, the brief word of command as the small party halted, but not for all the treasures of this world could she at this moment have risen in order to peep out of the window and thus get a glimpse of her future husband.
[150] Papa rose in great agitation. Maman ceased fussing round the room and there was silence for a time, the while no doubt my lord dismounted. Then M. and Mme. Legros went out of the room in order to welcome the distinguished guest. But Rose Marie sat quite still, with her trembling fingers clasped tightly round the tiny bouquet of snowdrops. Through the window behind her the spring sun peeped in, pale and tender, and searching the remote corner of the homely parlour found the dainty, white-clad figure of the girl and touching her fair hair with the magic of its kiss turned it into an aureole of gold.
The door opened and Michael entered. Thus he saw her for the first time—she, the woman whom he had been paid to wrong.
He realised this the moment he saw her. In all the whirl of riotous thought which had assailed him during the past three weeks since that night which he had spent in self-communion, the impression of the woman had never been a lasting one. He had never thought of her as a distinct personality, as a creature of flesh and blood with thoughts and feelings mayhap as deep as his own.
To his mind so far she had only been a tool, a sexless means to his ends: and this man who had such a passionate attachment for his mother, such a sense of her worth and importance, had given but a very cursory thought to her who was to become his wife by a trick.
In this we must do him justice, that he did not dream of wronging the woman, who was the channel which Fortune had selected for her welcome course towards him. His cousin Stowmaries would of course repudiate her, that was understood. Undoubtedly he would be allowed to do this: but he—Michael Kestyon—would atone for his kinsman's villainy, he would keep, honour and respect her[151] as his wife and the future mother of his children, and make her—by the will of God, the King and the Lords' House of Parliament, and by the power of his newly acquired wealth—Countess of Stowmaries despite the rogues who had planned to oust her from that place.
Because of all these good resolutions, Michael had therefore anticipated his meeting with his future wife with perfect equanimity. I do not think that during the many preparations for his journey which he had to see to in the past three weeks, he ever tried even for a moment to picture to himself what she would be like.
Now she stood before him, in the full charm of her innocent girlhood, clad all in white, with her little hands clasping that bunch of flowers, the pale rays of an April sun touching her fair hair with gold. Her blue eyes were raised shyly to him just for an instant as she rose to meet him. He thought her elegant and pretty, stately, too, in her prim white gown.
"She was born to be a great lady," he thought to himself with an inward chuckl............