The Orchard of Tears Part 5

"She says, 'You're a low, vulgar creature!' And Flamby says, 'Perhaps I am,' she says, 'but I ain't afraid to tell anybody where I spend my week-ends!'"

"Ah," interrupted Paul, hurriedly, "you should not have repeated that, Fawkes; but I am to blame. See to it that you are more discreet in future."

"Yes, sir," said Fawkes, all downcast immediately. "Shall I tell you what happened to the fox, sir?"

"Yes, you might tell me what happened to the fox."

"Flamby had him locked in the tool-shed, sir!"

He uttered the words as a final, crushing indictment, and ventured a swift look at Paul in order to note its effect. Paul's face was expressionless, however, as a result of the effort to retain his composure.

"An awful character, Fawkes!" he said. "Good morning."

"Good morning, sir," said Fawkes, raising the peak of his cap with that queer air of relief.

Paul set off along the lane, now smiling unrestrainedly, came to the stile where the footpath through the big apple orchard began, crossed it and stood for a moment watching a litter of tiny and alarmed pigs scampering wildly after their mother. One lost his way and went racing along distant aisles of apple trees in quest of a roundabout route of his own. Paul, who symbolised everything, found food for reflection in the incident.

He lingered in the fragrant orchard looking at a flock of sheep who grazed there, and admiring the frolics of the lambs. In the beauty of nature he always found cause for sorrow, because every living thing is born to pain. Animals knew this law instinctively and received it as a condition of their being, but men shut their eyes to so harsh a truth, and cried out upon heaven when it came home to them. He thought of Yvonne and his happiness frightened him. Gautama Buddha had left a lovely bride, to question the solitude and the sorrows of humanity respecting truth; he, Paul Mario, dared to believe that the light had come without the sacrifice. This mood bore him company to Babylon Lane, but the sight of the white gate of Dovelands Cottage terminated a train of thought. Here it was that the story related by Fawkes had had its setting.

No one responded to the ringing of the cattle-bell, and the door of the cottage was closed. In the absence of a knocker Paul rapped with his stick, and having satisfied himself that Mrs. Duveen and her daughter were not at home turned away disappointed. He had counted upon an intimate chat with Flamby, which should enable him to form some personal impression of her true character.

He returned slowly along Babylon Lane, and pa.s.sing the path through the orchard, he chose that which would lead him through the fringe of the wood wherein he and Don had first seen Flamby. Evidently the wood was a favourite haunt of the girl's, for as he crossed the adjoining meadow he saw her in front of him, lying flat upon a carpet of wild flowers, now shadowed by the trees, her chin resting in one palm and her elbow upon the ground. In her right hand she held a brush, which now and again she applied with apparent carelessness to a drawing lying on the gra.s.s before her, but without perceptibly changing her pose.

The morning was steamy and still, giving promise of another tropically hot day, but Paul approached so quietly that he came within a few yards of Flamby without disturbing her. There he stopped, watching and admiring. She was making a water-colour drawing of a tiny lamb which lay quite contentedly within reach of her hand, sometimes looking up into her face confidently and sometimes glancing at the woolly mother who grazed near the fringe of the trees. Flamby was so absorbed in her work that she noted nothing of Paul's approach, but the mother sheep looked up, startled, and the lamb made a sudden move in her direction.

"Be good, Woolly," said Flamby, and her voice had that rare vibrant note which belongs to the Celtic tongue; "I have nearly finished now."

But the lamb's courage had failed, and not even the siren voice could restore it. With the uncertain steps of extreme youth it sought its mother's side, and the two moved away towards the flock which grazed in a distant corner of the meadow.

"I fear I have disturbed you."

The effect of Paul's words was singular. Flamby dropped her brush and seemed to shrink as from a threatened blow, drawing up her shoulders and slowly turning her head to see who had spoken. As her face came into view, Paul saw that it was blanched with fear.

"Please forgive me," he said with concern; "but I did not mean to frighten you."

"Oh," moaned Flamby, "but you did. I thought----" She rose to her knees and then to her feet, the quick colour returning in a hot blush.

"What did you think?" asked Paul gently.

"I thought you were Sir Jacques."

She uttered the words impulsively and seemed to regret them as soon as spoken, standing before Paul with shyly lowered eyes. The att.i.tude surprised him. From what he had seen and heard of Flamby he had not antic.i.p.ated diffidence, and he regarded her silently for a moment, smiling in his charming way. She had evidently made some attempt this morning to arrange her rebellious hair, for it had been parted and brushed over to one side so that the rippling waves gleamed like minted copper where the sun kissed them. Flamby had remarkable hair, nut-brown in its shadows, and in the light glowing redly like embers or a newly extinguished torch.

Her face was a perfect oval, and she had the most beautifully chiselled straight little nose imaginable. Her face and as much of her neck as was exposed by a white jumper were tanned to gipsy hue; so that when, shyly raising her eyes, she responded to Paul's smile, the whiteness of her teeth was extraordinary. A harsh critic might have said that her mouth was too large; but no man of flesh and blood would have quarrelled with such lips as Flamby's. She was below medium height, but shaped like a sylph and had the airy grace of one. As Paul stood regarding her he found wonder to be growing in his mind, for such wild roses as Flamby are rare enough in the countryside, as every artist knows.

"Why," he asked, "should you be so afraid of Sir Jacques?"

"He's dead!" replied Flamby, an elfin light of mischief kindling in her eyes; yet she was by no means at her ease.

"And what made you mistake me for him?"

"Your voice."

"Ah," said Paul, to whom others had remarked on this resemblance; "but you had no cause to fear him?--alive, I mean."

"No," replied Flamby, stooping to pick up her sketching materials.

Her monosyllabic reply was not satisfactory; but recognising that if she did not wish to talk about the late Sir Jacques he must merely defeat his own purpose by endeavouring to make her do so, he abandoned the topic.

"My name is Paul Mario," he said, "and I came to see you this morning."

Flamby stood up, paint-box, brushes and sketch in hand. "To see _me_?"

"Yes! why not?"

Flamby confronted him, her natural self-confidence restored, and studied him with grave grey eyes. "What did you want to see me about?" she asked; and in the tone of the question there was a restrained anxiety which Paul could not understand. Also there was a faint and fascinating suggestion of brogue in her accent.

"About yourself, of course," he replied, and wondered more and more because of the knowledge--borne to him by that acute, almost feminine, intuition which was his--that the girl was fencing with him, and because of her strangeness and her beauty as she stood before him, hair flaming in the sunlight, and her eyes watching him observantly.

Now, her expression changed, and her pupils growing momentarily larger, he knew that her thoughts were in the past--and that they had brought relief from some secret anxiety which had been with her.

"Of course!" she said, and laughed with a sudden joyousness that was in harmony with the morning; "you came yesterday with Captain Courtier. I understand, now."

Swiftly as her laughter had come, it vanished, and her eyes grew dim with tears. Such tempestuous emotions must have nonplussed the average man, but to Paul Mario her moods read clearly as a printed page, so that almost as the image arose in Flamby's mind, it arose also in his; and he saw before him one who wore the uniform of a sergeant of Irish Guards.

Hotly pursuing the tears came brave smiles. Flamby shook her curls back from her brow, gave Paul a glance which was half apologetic and wholly appealing, then laughed again and swept him a mocking curtsey.

"I am your honour's servant," she said; "what would you with me?"

The elfin light danced in her eyes again, and in this country damsel who used the language of an obsolete va.s.salage he saw one who mocked at his manorial rights and cared naught for king or commoner. Beyond doubt, Sergeant Duveen had been a strange man, and strangely had he trained his daughter.

"May I see your drawing?"

Flamby hesitated. "Are you really interested?" she said wistfully, "or are you just trying to be kind?"

Paul was tempted to laugh outright, but his delicate sensibilities told him that laughter would give offence. "I am really interested," he a.s.sured her earnestly, "Captain Courtier is of opinion that you have a remarkable gift for portraying wild life."

He selected his words deliberately with the design of rea.s.suring her respecting the sincerity of his interest. He was aware of a vague fear that some ill-chosen remark would send Flamby flying from him, the coy wood-nymph to whom Don had likened her, and that she would disappear as she had done from Bluebell Hollow. But still she hesitated.

"You look as though you mean it," she conceded, furtively glancing down at the sketching-board in her hand. "But it's a rotter."

"I'm afraid I am to blame. I spoiled it."

"No you didn't. It was a mess before you came." She glanced at him doubtfully, keeping the drawing turned away. "You see," she continued, "the shadowy part of a lamb on a sunny morning is quite blue--_quite_ blue. Did you know that?"

"Well," replied Paul, musingly, shielding his eyes and looking toward the distant flock, "now that you have drawn my attention to the fact I perceive it to be so--yes."

"But when you haven't got many colours," explained Flamby, "it's not so easy to paint. I've made my lamb too blue for anything!" She displayed the drawing, her eyes dancing with laughter. "No man ever saw a blue lamb," she said--"while he was sober!"