The Revellers

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.”