The Revellers

Not knowing exactly what to do with his cap, the boy had kept it in his hand. The foregoing conversation was, of course, so much Greek in his ears. He realized that they were talking about him, and was fully alive to the girl’s demure admiration. The English words came with the more surprise, seeing that they followed so quickly on some remark in an unknown tongue.

He led the way at once, hoping that his mother had regained her normal condition of busy cheerfulness.

Silence reigned in the front kitchen when he pressed the latch. The room was empty, but the clank of pattens in the yard revealed that the farmer’s thrifty wife was sparing her skirts from the dirt while she crossed to the pig tub with a pailful of garbage.

“Will you take a seat, ma’am?” said Martin politely. “I’ll tell mother you are here.”

With a slight awkwardness he pulled three oaken chairs from the serried rank they occupied along the wall beneath the high-silled windows. Feeling all eyes fixed on him quizzically, he blushed.

“Ah, v’là le p’tit. Il rougit!” laughed the nurse.

“Don’t tease him, nurse!” cried the child in English. “He is a nice boy. I like him.”

Clearly this was for Martin’s benefit. Already the young lady was a coquette.

Mrs. Bolland, hearing there were “ladies” to visit her, entered with trepidation. She expected to meet the vicar’s aunt and one of that lady’s friends. In a moment of weakness she had consented to take charge of the refreshment stall at a forthcoming bazaar in aid of certain church funds. But Bolland was told that the incumbent was adopting ritualistic practices, so he sternly forbade his better half to render any assistance whatsoever. The Established Church was bad enough; it was a positive scandal to introduce into the service aught that savored of Rome.

Poor Mrs. Bolland therefore racked her brain for a reasonable excuse as she crossed the yard, and it is not to be wondered at if she was struck almost dumb with surprise at sight of the strangers.

“Are you Mrs. Bolland?” asked the lady, without rising, and surveying her through the eyeglasses with head tilted back.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ah. Exactly. I – er – am staying at The Elms for some few weeks, and the people there recommended you as supplying excellent dairy produce. I am – er – exceedingly particular about butter and milk, as my little girl is so delicate. Have you any objection to allowing me to inspect your dairy? I may add that I will pay you well for all that I order.”

The lady’s accent, no less than the even flow of her words, joined to unpreparedness for such fashionable visitors, temporarily bereft Mrs. Bolland of a quick, if limited, understanding.

“Did ye say ye wanted soom bootermilk?” she cried vacantly.

“No, mother,” interrupted Martin anxiously. For the first time in his life he was aware of a hot and uncomfortable feeling that his mother was manifestly inferior to certain other people in the world. “The lady wishes to see the dairy.”

“Why?”

“She wants to buy things from you, and – er – I suppose she would like to see what sort of place we keep them in.”

No manner of explanation could have restored Mrs. Bolland’s normal senses so speedily as the slightest hint that uncleanliness could harbor its microbes in her house.

“My goodness, ma’am,” she cried, “wheä’s bin tellin’ you that my pleäce hez owt wrong wi’t?”

Now it was the stranger’s turn to appeal to Martin, and the boy showed his mettle by telling his mother, in exact detail, the request made by the lady and her reference to the fragile-looking child.

Mrs. Bolland’s wrath subsided, and her lips widened in a smile.

“Oah, if that’s all,” she said, “coom on, ma’am, an’ welcome. Ye canna be too careful about sike things, an’ yer little lass do look pukey, te be sure.”

The lady, gathering her skirts for the perilous passage of the yard, followed the farmer’s wife.

Martin and the girl sat and stared at each other. She it was who began the conversation.

“Have you lived here long?” she said.

“All my life,” he answered. Pretty and well-dressed as she was, he had no dread of her. He regarded girls as spiteful creatures who scratched one another like cats when angry and shrieked hysterically when they played.

“That’s not very long,” she cried.

“No; but it’s longer than you’ve lived anywhere else.”

“Me! I have lived everywhere – in London, Berlin, Paris, Nice, Montreux – O, je ne sais – I beg your pardon. Perhaps you don’t speak French?”

“No.”

“Would you like to learn?”

“Yes, very much.”

“I’ll teach you. It will be such fun. I know all sorts of naughty words. I learnt them in Monte Carlo, where I could hear the servants chattering when I was put to bed. Watch me wake up nurse. Françoise, mon chou! Cré nom d’un pipe, mais que vous êtes triste aujourd’hui!”

The bonne started. She shook the child angrily.

“You wicked girl!” she cried in French. “If madame heard you, she would blame me.”

The imp cuddled her bare knees in a paroxysm of glee.

“You see,” she shrilled. “I told you so.”

“Was all that swearing?” demanded Martin gravely.

“Some of it.”

“Then you shouldn’t do it. If I were your brother, I’d hammer you.”

“Oh, would you, indeed! I’d like to see any boy lay a finger on me. I’d tear his hair out by the roots.”

Naturally, the talk languished for a while, until Martin thought he had perhaps been rude in speaking so brusquely.

“I’m sorry if I offended you,” he said.

The saucy, wide-open eyes sparkled.

“I forgive you,” she said. “How old are you?”

“Fourteen. And you?”

“Twelve.”

He was surprised. “I thought you were younger,” he said.

“So does everybody. You see, I’m tiny, and mamma dresses me in this baby way. I don’t mind. I know your name. You haven’t asked me mine.”

“Tell me,” he said with a smile.

“Angèle. Angèle Saumarez.”

“I’ll never be able to say that,” he protested.

“Oh, yes, you will. It’s quite easy. It sounds Frenchy, but I am English, except in my ways, mother says. Now try. Say ‘An’ – ”

“Ang – ”

“Not so much through your nose. This way – ‘An-gèle.’”

The next effort was better, but tuition halted abruptly when Martin discovered that Angèle’s mother, instead of being “Mrs. Saumarez,” was “the Baroness Irma von Edelstein.”

“Oh, crikey!” he blurted out. “How can that be?”

Angèle laughed at his blank astonishment.

“Mamma is a German baroness,” she explained. “My papa was a colonel in the British army, but mamma did not lose her courtesy title when she married. Of course, she is Mrs. Saumarez, too.”

These subtleties of Burke and the Almanach de Gotha went over Martin’s head.

“It sounds a bit like an entry in a stock catalogue,” he said.

Angèle, in turn, was befogged, but saw instantly that the village youth was not sufficiently reverent to the claims of rank.

“You can never be a gentleman unless you learn these things,” she announced airily.

“You don’t say,” retorted Martin with a smile. He was really far more intelligent than this pert monitress, and had detected a curious expression on the stolid face of Françoise when the Baroness von Edelstein’s name cropped up in a talk which she could not understand. The truth was that the canny Norman woman, though willing enough to take a German mistress’s gold, thoroughly disliked the lady’s nationality. Martin could only guess vaguely at something of the sort, but the mere guess sufficed.

Angèle, however, wanted no more bickering just then. She was about to resume the lesson when the Baroness and Mrs. Bolland re-entered the house. Evidently the inspection of the dairy had been satisfactory, and the lady had signified her approval in words that pleased the older woman greatly.

The visitor was delighted, too, with the old-world appearance of the kitchen, the heavy rafters with their load of hams and sides of bacon, the oaken furniture, the spotless white of the well-scrubbed ash-topped table, the solemn grandfather’s clock, and the rough stone floor, over which soft red sandstone had been rubbed when wet.

By this time the tact of the woman of society had accommodated her words and utterance to the limited comprehension of her hearer, and she displayed such genuine interest in the farm and its belongings that Mrs. Bolland gave her a hearty invitation to come next morning, when the light would be stronger. Then “John” would let her see his prize stock and the extensive buildings on “t’ other side o’ t’ road… T’ kye (the cows) were fastened up for t’ neet” by this time.

The baroness was puzzled, but managed to catch the speaker’s drift.

“I do not rise very early,” she said. “I breakfast about eleven” – she could not imagine what a sensation this statement caused in a house where breakfast was served never later than seven o’clock – “and it takes me an hour to dress; but I can call about twelve, if that will suit.”

“Ay, do, ma’am,” was the cheery agreement. “You’ll be able te see t’ farmhands havin’ their dinner. It’s a fair treat te watch them men an’ lads puttin’ away a beefsteak pie.”

“And this is your little boy?” said the other, evidently inclined for gossip.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He is a splendid little fellow. What a nice name you gave him – Martin Court Bolland – so unusual. How came you to select his Christian names?”

The question caused the farmer’s wife a good deal of unnoticed embarrassment. The baroness was looking idly at an old colored print of York Castle, and the boy himself was far too taken up with Angèle to listen to the chat of his elders.

Mrs. Bolland laughed confusedly.

“Martin,” she said. “Tak t’ young leddy an’ t’ nurse as far as t’ brig, an’ show ’em t’ mill.”

The baroness was surprised at this order, but an explanation was soon forthcoming. In her labored speech and broad dialect, the farmer’s wife revealed a startling romance. Thirteen years ago her husband’s brother died suddenly while attending a show at Islington, and the funeral took John and herself to London. They found the place so vast and noisy that it overwhelmed them; but in the evening, after the ceremony at Abney Park, they strolled out from their hotel near King’s Cross Station to see the sights.

Not knowing whither they were drifting, they found themselves, an hour later, gazing at St. Paul’s Cathedral from the foot of Ludgate Hill. They were walking toward the stately edifice, when a terrible thing happened.

A young woman fell, or threw herself, from a fourth-floor window onto the pavement of St. Martin’s Court. In her arms was an infant, a boy twelve months old. Providence saved him from the instant death met by his mother. A projecting signboard caught his clothing, tore him from the encircling arms, and held him a precarious second until the rent frock gave way.

But John Bolland’s sharp eyes had noted the child’s momentary escape. He sprang forward and caught the tiny body as it dropped. At that hour, nearly nine o’clock, the court was deserted, and Ludgate Hill had lost much of its daily crowd. Of course, a number of passers-by gathered; and a policeman took the names and address of the farmer and his wife, they being the only actual witnesses of the tragedy.

But what was to be done with the baby? Mrs. Bolland volunteered to take care of it for the night, and the policeman was glad enough to leave it with her when he ascertained that no one in the house from which the woman fell knew anything about her save that she was a “Mrs. Martineau,” and rented a furnished room beneath the attic.

The inquest detained the Bollands another day in town. Police inquiries showed that the unfortunate young woman had committed suicide. A letter, stuck to a dressing-table with a hatpin, stated her intention, and that her name was not Martineau. Would the lady like to see the letter?

“Oh, dear, no!” said the baroness hastily. “Your story is awfully interesting, but I could not bear to read the poor creature’s words.”

Well, the rest was obvious. Mrs. Bolland was childless after twenty years of married life. She begged for the bairn, and her husband allowed her to adopt it. They gave the boy their own name, but christened him after the scene of his mother’s death and his own miraculous escape. And there he was now, coming up the village street, leading Angèle confidently by the hand – a fine, intelligent lad, and wholly different from every other boy in the village.

Not even the squire’s sons equaled him in any respect, and the teacher of the village school gave him special lessons. Perhaps the lady had noticed the way he spoke. The teacher was proud of Martin’s abilities, and he tried to please her by not using the Yorkshire dialect.

“Ah, I see,” said the baroness quietly. “His history is quite romantic. But what will he become when he grows up – a farmer, like his adopted father?”

“John thinks te mak’ him a minister,” said Mrs. Bolland with genial pride.

“A minister! Do you mean a preacher, a Nonconformist person?”

“Why, yes, ma’am. John wouldn’t hear of his bein’ a parson.”

“Grand Dieu! Quelle bêtise! I beg your pardon. Of course, you will do what is best for him… Well, ma belle, have you enjoyed your little walk?”

“Oh, so much, mamma. The miller has such lovely pigs, so fat, so tight that you can’t pinch them. And there’s a beautiful dog, with four puppy dogs. I’m so glad we came here. J’en suis bien aise.”

“She’s a queer little girl,” said Mrs. Bolland, as Martin and she watched the party walking back to The Elms. “I couldn’t tell half what she said.”

“No, mother,” he replied. “She goes off into French without thinking, and her mother’s a German baroness, who married an English officer. The nurse doesn’t speak any English. I wish I knew French and German. French, at any rate.”

CHAPTER III

THE SEEDS OF MISCHIEF

Preparations for the forthcoming “Feast” were varied by gossip concerning “the baroness,” her daughter, and the Normandy bonne. Elmsdale had never before set eyes on any human beings quite so foreign to its environment. At first, the canny Yorkshire folk were much intrigued by the lady’s title. A princess or a duchess they had read of; a marchioness and a countess they had seen, because the county of broad acres finds room for a great many noble houses; and baronets’ wives, each a “Lady” by perspective right, were so plentiful as to arouse no special comment.

But a “baroness” was rather un-English, while Elmsdale frankly refused to pronounce her name other than “Eedelsteen.” The village was ready to allude to her as “her ladyship,” but was still doubtful whether or not to grant her the prefix “Lady,” when the question was settled in a wholly unexpected way by the announcement that the baroness preferred to be addressed as “Mrs. Saumarez.” In fact, she was rather annoyed that Angèle should have flaunted the title at all.

“I am English by marriage, and proud of my husband’s name,” she explained. “He was a gallant officer, who fell in the Boer War, and I have long since left the use of my German rank for purely official occasions. It is no secret, of course, but Angèle should not have mentioned it.”

Elmsdale liked this democratic utterance. It made these blunt Yorkshire folk far readier to address her as “your ladyship” than would have been the case otherwise, and, truth to tell, she never chided them for any lapse of the sort, though, in accordance with her wish, she became generally known as Mrs. Saumarez.

She rented a suite at The Elms, a once pretentious country mansion owned by a family named Walker. The males had died, the revenues had dwindled, and two elderly maiden ladies, after taking counsel with the vicar, had advertised their house in a society newspaper.

Mrs. Saumarez said she was an invalid. She required rest and good air. Françoise, since Angèle had outgrown the attentions of a nurse, was employed mainly as her mistress’s confidential servant. Françoise either could not or would not speak English; Mrs. Saumarez gave excellent references and no information as to her past, while Angèle’s volatile reminiscences of continental society had no meaning for Elmsdale.

But it was abundantly clear that Mrs. Saumarez was rich. She swept aside the arrangements made by the Misses Walker for her comfort, chose her own set of apartments, ordered things wholly her own way, and paid double the terms originally demanded.

The day following her visit to the White House she descended on the chief grocer, whose shop was an emporium of many articles outside his trade, but mostly of a cheap order.

“Mr. Webster,” she said in her grand manner, “few of the goods you stock will meet my requirements. I prefer to deal with local tradesmen, but they must meet my wants. Now, if you are prepared to cater for me, you will not only save me the trouble of ordering supplies from London, but make some extra profit. You have proper agents, no doubt, so you must obtain everything of the best quality. You understand. I shall never grumble at the prices; but the least inferiority will lead me to withdraw my custom.”

It was a sore point with Mr. Webster that “the squire” dealt with the Stores. He promised implicit obedience, and wrote such instructions to Leeds, his supply town, that the wholesale house there wondered who had come to live at Elmsdale.

The proprietress of the “Black Lion,” hearing the golden tales that circulated through the village, dressed in her best one afternoon and called at The Elms in the hope of obtaining patronage for wines, bottled beer, and mineral waters. Mrs. Saumarez was resting. The elder Miss Walker conveyed Mrs. Atkinson’s name and business. Some conversation took place between Mrs. Saumarez and Françoise, with the result that Mrs. Atkinson was instructed to supply Schweppe’s soda water, but “no intoxicants.”

So Mrs. Saumarez was a teetotaller. The secretary of the local branch of the Good Templars donned a faded black coat and a rusty tall hat and sent in a subscription list. It came out with a guinea. The vicar was at The Elms next day. Mrs. Saumarez received him graciously and gave him a five-pound note toward the funds of the bazaar which would be opened next week. Most decidedly the lady was an acquisition. When Miss Martha Walker was enjoined by her sister, Miss Emmy, to find out how long Mrs. Saumarez intended to remain at Elmsdale – on the plausible pretext that the terms would be lowered for a monthly tenancy – she was given a curt reply.

“I am a creature of moods. I may be here a day, a year. At present the place suits me. And Angèle is brimming over with health. But it is fatal if I am told I must remain a precise period anywhere. That is why I never go to Carlsbad.”

Miss Martha did not understand the reference to Carlsbad; but the nature of the reply stopped effectually all further curiosity as to Mrs. Saumarez’s plans. It also insured unflagging service.

Hardly a day passed that the newcomer did not call at the White House. She astounded John Bolland by the accuracy of her knowledge concerning stock, and annoyed him, too, by remarking that some of his land required draining.

“Your lower pastures are too rank,” she said. “So long as there is a succession of fine seasons it does not matter, but a wet spring and summer will trouble you. You will have fifty acres of water-sodden meadows, and nothing breeds disease more quickly.”

“None o’ my cattle hev had a day’s illness, short o’ bein’ a trifle overfed wi’ oil cake,” he said testily.

“Quite so. You told me that in former years you raised wheat and oats there. I’m talking about grass.”

Martin and Angèle became close friends. The only children of the girl’s social rank in the neighborhood were the vicar’s daughter, Elsie Herbert, and the squire’s two sons, Frank and Ernest Beckett-Smythe. Mr. Beckett-Smythe was a widower. He lived at the Hall, three-quarters of a mile away, and had not as yet met Mrs. Saumarez. Angèle would have nothing to do with Elsie.

“I don’t like her,” she confided to Martin. “She doesn’t care for boys, and I adore them. She’s trop reglée for me.”

“What is that?”

“Well, she holds her nose – so.”

Angèle tilted her head and cast down her eyes.

“Of course, I don’t know her, but she seems to be a nice girl,” said Martin.

“Why do you say, ‘Of course, I don’t know her’? She lives here, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, but my father is a farmer. She has a governess, and goes to tea at the Hall. I’ve met her driving from the Castle. She’s above me, you see.”

Angèle laughed maliciously.

“O là là! c’est pour rire! I’m sorry. She is – what do you say – a little snob.”

“No, no,” protested Martin. “I think she would be very nice, if I knew her. You’ll like her fine when you play with her.”

“Me! Play with her, so prim, so pious. I prefer Jim Bates. He winked at me yesterday.”

“Did he? Next time I see him I’ll make it hard for him to wink.”

Angèle clapped her hands and pirouetted.

“What,” she cried, “you will fight him, and for me! What joy! It’s just like a story book. You must kick him, so, and he will fall down, and I will kiss you.”

“I will not kick him,” said the indignant Martin. “Boys don’t kick in England. And I don’t want to be kissed.”

“Don’t boys kiss in England?”

“Well … anyhow, I don’t.”

“Then we are not sweethearts. I shan’t kiss you, and you must just leave Jim Bates alone.”

Martin was humiliated. He remained silent and angry during the next minute. By a quick turn in the conversation Angèle had placed him in a position of rivalry with another boy, one with whom she had not exchanged a word.

“Look here,” he said, after taking thought, “if I kiss your cheek, may I lick Jim Bates?”

This magnanimous offer was received with derision.

“I forbid you to do either. If you do, I’ll tell your father.”

The child had discovered already the fear with which Martin regarded the stern, uncompromising Methodist yeoman – a fear, almost a resentment, due to Bolland’s injudicious attempts to guide a mere boy into the path of serious and precise religion. Never had Martin found the daily reading of Scripture such a burden as during the past few days. The preparations for the feast, the cricket-playing, running and jumping of the boys practicing for prizes – these disturbing influences interfered sadly with the record of David’s declining years.

Even now, with Angèle’s sarcastic laughter ringing in his ears, he was compelled to leave her and hurry to the front kitchen, where the farmer was waiting with the Bible opened. At the back door he paused and looked at her. She blew him a kiss.

“Good boy!” she cried. “Mind you learn your lesson.”

“And mind you keep away from those cowsheds. Your nurse ought to have been here. It’s tea time.”

“I don’t want any tea. I’m going to smell the milk. I love the smell of a farmyard. Don’t you? But, there! You have never smelt anything else. Every place has its own smell. Paris smells like smoky wood. London smells of beer. Here there is always the smell of cows…”

“Martin!” called a harsh voice from the interior, and the boy perforce brought his wandering wits to bear on the wrongdoing of David in taking a census of the people of Israel.

He read steadily through the chapter which described how a pestilence swept from Dan to Beersheba and destroyed seventy thousand men, all because David wished to know how many troops he could muster.

He could hear Angèle talking to the maids and making them laugh. A caravan lumbered through the street; he caught a glimpse of carved wooden horses’ heads and gilded moldings. His quick and retentive brain mastered the words of the chapter, but to-day there was no mysterious and soul-awakening glimpse of its spirit.

“What did David say te t’ Lord when t’ angel smote t’ people?” said Bolland when the moment came to question his pupil.

“He said, ‘Lo, I have sinned; but what have these sheep done?’”

“And what sin had he deän?”

“I don’t know. I think the whole thing was jolly unfair.”

“What!” John Bolland laid down the Bible and rested both hands on the arms of the chair to steady himself. Had he heard aright? Was the boy daring to criticize the written word?

But Martin’s brain raced ahead of the farmer’s slow-rising wrath. He trembled at the abyss into which he had almost fallen. What horror if he lost an hour on this Saturday, the Saturday before the Feast, of all days in the year!