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.
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 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 chuckle, "and by Gad I'll make her one."
In his mind—which seemed all in a whirl now—he compared her to Mistress Julia Peyton, and thought his cousin a mighty fool for preferring the latter.
He bowed very low as Rose Marie advanced and at an encouraging word from maman, she placed her hand on his, and he kissed the tips of her ice-cold fingers.
"A snow-maiden, by my faith!" he thought to himself. "Michael, thou rogue! Thou'lt of a surety have to infuse warmth into those pale cheeks."
She felt almost paralyzed with shyness, and very angry with herself for seeming so gauche and stupid. The while she curtsied to my lord in the most approved and primmest of fashions, the little bouquet of snowdrops escaped her trembling fingers. My lord stooped and picked it up, and she held out her hand for it, but he met her swift and timid glance with a bold challenge, and raised the bouquet to his lips before he hid it in the folds of his surcoat.
Rose Marie thought her future lord picturesque in his elegant accoutrements; the fine cloth of his coat, of a dull shade of red, the cut of his garments, the delicate bit of lace at throat and wrist set off the massive strength of his figure: she was not quite sure if he were really handsome, for there was a curious look in his eyes, especially when they met hers which she had never seen in any man before, and a strange setting of mouth and jaw which did I not suggest the love-sick husband.
But she liked his easy bearing as he talked to maman with an easy familiarity that proclaimed high birth and, gentle breeding. He had declined for himself Mme. Legros' offers of refreshment in the shape of mead or aromatic wines, but accepted gratefully when she offered to take mugs of steaming ale out to his men.
Rose Marie felt as if this were all a dream, and as if she would wake anon in her narrow bed behind the cotton curtains in her room under the eaves. She took several furtive glances at her future lord, and felt not a little piqued that he took so little heed of her. After that first hand kiss, and that quick flash of his deep-set eyes, when he hid her bouquet in his coat, she had not caught him once looking at her—was it because he did not think her fair?
Papa talked incessantly, and presently maman came back, and in that same vague dream-like way Rose Marie seemed to hear them talking about the wedding ceremony. My lord seemed impatient and anxious to get through the necessary formalities prescribed by the Church, and then to take his bride away with him to England as quickly as possible. Obviously she was not to be left alone with her future husband just now; and though in her young heart, she had looked forward to the moment when she would be alone with my lord, she now felt relieved at the thought that it was not to be.
Poor Rose Marie was bitterly disappointed. It had all been so very, very different—this first meeting—to what she had anticipated. She felt very angry with herself indeed for being so childish and so timid—no doubt by now my lord had set her down as a silly goose quite unfit to be a great English lady. At this thought she felt tears of shame welling to her eyes, and was infinitely relieved when maman took hold of her hand and led her out of the room.
She bowed to my lord, and then held her head very erect as she walked past him to the door; she wanted to look proud and defiant now, for she had felt those strange deep-set eyes of his fixed upon her with an expression she could not define.
And when she was alone in her room, she went straight to the image of the Virgin Mary which hung against the wall close to her narrow bed. She knelt on the prie-dieu beneath it, and she begged the Holy Mother of God to teach her not to be rebellious, and to be ready to obey her lord in all things, to give him love and respect, "And O holy Mary, Mother of God!" she added with a pitiful little sigh, "if it be in your power to make my lord love me, then I humbly pray you tell him so to do; and whisper to me from on high what I must do to please him and to find favour in his sight.”