"My dear Sister--On Tuesday we shall arrive, I, my wife, our
boy, and his _fiancée_, Lady Brigit Mead. She is a very beautiful and
charming young lady, and I am sure you will all admire her. Félicité,
who is very wise, fears that she, Lady Brigit, may not care for Falaise,
for she is, my dear sister, the daughter of a Count. But I, who am even
wiser, know that she will. Dear Falaise, to me always the most beautiful
town in the world, who could help loving thee? Now, my good Bathilde, I
wish you to go to Berton of the Chevreuil d'Or and engage rooms for Lady
Brigit. Two rooms, one without a bed, for a _salon_. Tell him they must
be very nice, and you, I know, will see that they are clean. We, of
course, will lodge in the Rue Victor Hugo with the old people. My
affectionate salutations to you all, my dear sister, from your devoted
brother,
"Victor."


"He is a charming personality, isn't he, Colibris?" asked Madame
Chalumeau, folding the letter and beaming with satisfaction. "I am
curious to see this lady. The daughter of a Count, _fichtre_! And very
beautiful. That must please Victor; he has an eye for beauty."

"Yes, yes," returned Jacques Colibris absently, filling his glass with
cider, "it is an excellent thing. I, too, have it, the eye for beauty.
Only the other day, looking at the new blue wash I have put on the
walls, old Madame Thibaut was saying----"

"What an eye for beauty you have!" cut short Madame Chalumeau
ruthlessly. "Well, Jacques, I must now make myself presentable and go to
the Rue d'Argentin. Berton will no doubt be very proud to have a lady in
his inn--although many English people stop there. It is curious," she
added, putting her plate on his and carrying them to a distant table,
"what an interest _ces Anglais_ take in le Conquérant. As an enemy, one
who conquered their country, one would think they would dislike his
memory, but they do not. Very generous of them, I always think."




CHAPTER THREE


Joyselle's party arrived at Falaise the next evening, and leaving Brigit
at the inn in the Rue d'Argentin, the others drove on to old M.
Joyselle's house in the Rue Victor Hugo.

Brigit was very tired and glad to rest, for the day's journey had been
long, and Joyselle's interest in her interest in his country had taken
the form of a restless desire to have her see everything possible from
both sides of the compartment. For hours, therefore, she had been
springing from one window to another, admiring everything to which he
pointed, in a mad attempt to satisfy his pride in _ici-bas_.

Her coming at all had been entirely his idea, and her faint refusals he
had laughed to scorn, easily enlisting Théo, and, with a trifle more
difficulty, his wife, to his cause.

"Of course you will go with us," he had cried, beaming with joy and
tossing Papillon nearly to the ceiling as some outlet for his feelings,
"and it will be glorious; and think of the ecstasy of my old people and
the rest!"

"Remember, Victor--they are simple people," Félicité had ventured, but
he had laughed again.

"And so is she! They are peasants, and she is a great lady. _Ça se
comprend._ But extremes meet, and Brigit has none of the British
middle-class snobbism. It is well that she should see the people from
whom we come. She shall go with us."

And she had come.

Things had gone very well of late, and as she lay on her narrow bed
resting and waiting for Théo to fetch her, she reviewed the events that
had occurred since her great quarrel with Victor, and drew a deep breath
of satisfaction at the state of affairs.

She and Joyselle, both of them remembering the horror of the quarrel,
had been exceptionally gentle to each other, and as so often happens
when a situation is apparently unbearable, it had suddenly become quite
smooth and pleasant. Restraining himself from demonstrativeness,
Joyselle had been able to keep his emotions well in hand, and the tacit
avoidance of _têtes-à-tête_ had also proved most helpful.

Félicité's innocent interpretation of their feelings had gone far, too,
towards quieting those feelings almost to her conception of them. There
were times, Brigit had seen, not without amusement, when Victor had
nearly felt for her the paternal solicitude his wife believed him to
feel, and even though she smiled at this susceptibility to impression in
him, the girl more than once caught herself semi-unconsciously playing
the _rôle_ of youthful hero-worshipper cast for her by the older woman.

The position should have been untenable, but it was not. As yet no
remorse had come to Brigit regarding Félicité, although she frequently
experienced a pang of self-loathing on meeting Théo's honest and
trusting eyes. Her upbringing had been such that she really believed
herself to be as yet quite guiltless of anything more than an almost
inevitable deceit, and even when she did regret the deceit, the thought
that she was going to marry Théo gave her instant comfort, as though she
were contemplating some noble act of atonement.

"Victor is very good now," she thought, turning her flat, hard pillow,
"and I am much less nervous and irritable. Things always do straighten
themselves out, I suppose--for those who know how to wait. Mere waiting
does no good, it's the knowing how that counts. And I think we are
learning now. If only Théo would fall in love with someone else. The
minute he becomes unhappy or even impatient Victor will grow paternal,
and that is horrible. Théo seems happy enough now----"

Her room was small and high, with orange-coloured stencillings on a grey
ground, and thin, dangerously movable strips of carpet on the slippery
floor. The curtains were of blue flannel and thoroughly unbeautiful.

The sitting-room was exactly like the bedroom, except that its
stencilling was bright green and that it had no bed. There was in each
room a big bunch of dahlias of gorgeous hues--offerings from Madame
Chalumeau.

Yellow Dog Papillon, who had been left with Brigit to keep her company,
lay on one of the rugs and snapped rudely at flies. It was very warm,
and the tea had proved quite undrinkable. Brigit thought that she did
not greatly care for the Chevreuil d'Or.

Then eight o'clock struck and she rose and rang for hot water. The
"maid," who was incidentally a grandmother, wore a blue skirt and a red
blouse and smiled cheerfully and toothlessly.

"Yes, yes, mademoiselle, _de l'eau chaude_. I have brought it! _Je
connais ma clientèle, moi._" With a proud smile she set down a jug about
as large as a milk-jug for two coffee-drinkers, and withdrew.

Smiling to herself, Brigit dressed and then went into her sitting-room,
and opening a window looked down into the street.

It is a most important thoroughfare, this Rue d'Argentin; the Rue de la
Paix de Falaise.

Leaning out the window and looking to her left Brigit beheld the Place
St. Gervais, with its fountain, its market-place, now of course empty,
and its church steps, on which beggars sleep by day. Opposite her was a
_café_, at present enlivened by the dashing presence of two
foot-soldiers and an old man playing dominoes with himself.

Above the houses the sky was pale and clear, and from a garden off to
the right at the end of the street came a cooing of wood-pigeons.

Two little boys in black blouses came running up the street, their
sabots clacking against the rough cobbles. Someone was playing a
mandolin, and at the foot of the street, near the bridge, a girl in a
pink apron was flirting with a youth with curly red hair.

People stood by their shop doors, the men smoking small clay pipes, the
women usually with a child or two at their skirts. A quiet scene, dull
and homely, this birthplace of the Conqueror, and at this humble end of
the great street rather pathetic in its aspect of simple relaxation.

Suddenly a little ripple of excited interest touched the groups in the
street. The two soldiers rose and stared hard to their left; M. Perret
of the Pharmacie Normale came out at a quick call from his wife, and
stood, pestle in hand, as she struggled with a maddening knot in the
strings of her black apron.

Brigit, leaning out still further, laughed aloud.

"Victor," she said under her breath. "Oh, _look_ at him! You old
sabreur!"

Joyselle, a great purple flower in his coat, came swinging down the
street, bowing right and left, his grey felt hat in his gloved hand. He
looked amazingly young and amazingly handsome, and there was no
mistaking the fact that, great man though he undoubtedly was, he was
hugely enjoying the homage of his townspeople.

When he reached the Pharmacie Normale he paused, and shaking hands
politely with Madame Perret, he met M. Perret with open arms, and the
little apothecary, bounding at him, was caught and kissed on either
cheek.

"_Ce cher_ Anatole!" Brigit heard him exclaim, "and how art thou, old
one?"

Perret, greatly delighted, skipped about in rapture, inquiring in a high
piping voice for Félicité and the boy, and asking many questions for
which he waited for no answer.

Then there was a lady from the shop, _Au Bonheur des chers Petits_, to
be greeted very cordially, and the old domino-player, who, Brigit
learned, was a cousin.

There was something very charming in the simplicity of Joyselle's
pleasure in seeing his boyhood's friends, and something almost ludicrous
in his perfectly obvious joy in their homage.

Looking down at him in his oft-interrupted progress, Brigit told herself
that things must turn out all right. "He is so good-natured and generous
and strong," she reflected, with glad shifting of all responsibility,
"he will surely find some way out."

When at last she heard his light, regular footfall coming down the
passage she rose and went to meet him.

"So the Conquering Hero has come," she teased. "I have been watching
your advance down the street. Such a strut!"

"Did I strut? I daresay. They are my own people and I love their
affection. Also, as you say, it pleases my vanity. _Hélas_, my dear, I
am very vain."

She put on her hat and took up her gloves.

"I thought Théo was coming for me, Glorieux."

His face changed. "No, my dear love. It is _my_ town, this. Here I was
born, here I lived as a child. I must show it to you."

Taking her hand he laid it on his arm with a gentle little pat and led
her proudly downstairs.




CHAPTER FOUR


Opposite No. 6 Rue Victor Hugo is a long black wall, and in the middle
of this wall an old-fashioned gas lantern was glowing red when Joyselle
and Brigit arrived.

The moon had risen, and mingling with the red of the gas made that part
of the narrow street almost as light as if it had been high noon.

"There is the house, ma Brigitte," murmured Joyselle, pressing her hand
close to his side. When she had left the inn arm-in-arm with him, she
had felt as though they must look perilously like a German bride and
groom, but there was in his old-fashioned bearing as he guided her
through the streets a kind of chivalrous courtesy that she liked, and
she began to feel like a princess being presented to his people by her
lord.

"There is their house. I gave it to them twenty-five years ago. It is
their palace, their country-place, their world, to my old people."

Through a half-door in the opposite wall the girl could just catch a
glimpse of the left side of the house. It was hung with trumpet flowers.

Beyond, a clearly defined square of moonlight showed her a smooth patch
of lawn, beyond which the side of a creeper-clad arbour blocked the
view.

"The dinner is to be in the garden; they are to sit in the arbour, and
there will be many narrow tables all over the lawn, which is rather
large behind the house. They are very much interested in it; all of us
will be there, and our children, and--theirs. I am old, ma Brigitte----"

His voice fell sadly as this idea occurred to him, and she pressed his
arm and smiled up at him, her face ruddy in the gaslight.

"You are young, my man; you will never grow old. And you will play at
the dinner? And you will play to me? I always know when you play to me."

"Yes, for it is always. You are good to me now, _bien-aimée_."

His gentleness was wonderfully appealing, as it always was to her. The
long respite from nerve-racking misunderstandings had allowed her to see
more clearly the real beauty of his faulty character, and a wave of
compunction came over her as she thought how little she, with her bad
qualities of jealousy, selfishness and cruelty, deserved this beautiful
love.

For she fully understood that only a deep, real love could so vanquish
the lower part of his nature as to let the nobler triumph as it had of
late.

"I adore you, my great man," she said, very low, and their eyes met.

Then they crossed the street and he, leaning over the closed half of the
door in the wall, opened it and they went in.

It was nine o'clock, and the old people had had their supper. Brigit who
had, thinking of their great age, rather expected to find them more or
less mummy-like, sitting in comfortable chairs tended by a middle-aged
relation, was somewhat amused to find them squabbling fiercely over a
game of dominoes, each with a glass of cider at hand.

"_Mon père--la voici_," announced Joyselle, with a kind of simple
pomposity eminently fitted to the occasion.

Old Joyselle finished his act of adding a domino to the long line before
him and then looked up. He was a rather small, bent old man, with
quantities of rough, curly grey hair and a petulant expression.

"Ugh!" he said rudely.

"Shake hands with him, Brigit," suggested Victor pulling his moustache
to suppress a smile. Brigit held out her hand.

"I am very glad to meet you," she said in French.

The old man stared. Then he smiled, showing one snow-white tooth. "_Tu
parles_," he murmured. Then he went back to his game.

The old woman, more polite, had risen, and was waiting her turn. She was
very tall and had a heavy moustache.

"They told me you were beautiful," she began courteously, whereupon the
old man interrupted, repeating her words but, by a change in emphasis,
casting derisive doubts on whoever "they" might be. "They _told_ me you
were _beautiful_."

Brigit burst out laughing, and leaning forward smiled at the speaker.

"Well--am I not beautiful?" she asked with an infectious chuckle of
sincere amusement.

But old Joyselle was a man of character, apparently, and not to be
beguiled.

"_Belle? Non, non. Pas ça. Mais_--Victor, _petit_, surely you can't be
going to marry a real lady?"

Joyselle flushed, and she knew his flush had to do only with his
father's lapse of memory, not his reference to her ladyhood.

"Not I, _mon père_. I married Félicité, you know. It is our boy who is
going to marry this--ugly lady."

His father shook his head. "Not ugly, _mon fils_." he declared solemnly,
"not ugly. Only _plain_."

This time Brigit did not laugh. Something in the old man's half-vacant
face touched her. He was Victor's father; he had held, as a little baby,
the man she loved; he had worked for him and helped to make him what he
was. Laying her hand on his, she smiled down at him.

"You are quite right," she said gently, "only plain. Will you show me
how to play dominoes?"

"He can't," retorted Madame Joyselle, eagerly, "he has forgotten, and,
besides, he cheats."

Joyselle walked to the window, his shoulders shaking, and before the old
man could retort, Théo came into the room carrying a lacquered tin tray
with a jug of cider and some glasses on it.

"Ah, you have come? _Grand-père, grand-mère_, what do you think of my
_fiancée_?"

But Brigit drew him away and sat down on the ingeniously uncomfortable
sofa with him.

"Fighting again, are they? Poor old dears, it really is quite dreadful.
You see, grandfather used to be a fearful tyrant, though he is so
little, and grandmother was deathly afraid of him until his health began
to fail. So now she is getting even with him. They adore each other,
however. Isn't the house quaint? Have you seen the garden?"

She shook her head. "No, show it to me."

Leaving the room they crossed to the oilclothed passage and went into
the dining-room, a small apartment enlivened by an oleograph of Leo
XIII., and some gay chromos.

The windows opened to the ground, and opening one the young people went
out into the moonlight. Brigit was feeling very happy, and therefore
very kind. When Théo put his arm round her and drew her to him she did
not protest.

"Brigitte," he whispered, "I do so love you."

"Dear Théo----" Suddenly she remembered that other moonlight night, nearly
a year before, when she had accepted him. She recalled the look of the
beautiful old house, the sound of Tommy at the pianola, the splashing of
the fountain, the sun-dial at which, in his boyish grief, he had knelt.

And she had accepted his love, not because she loved him but because she
hated her home and because, besides being sufficiently rich to satisfy
her needs, he was nice and straight and kind. She had taken everything
he had, and what had she given him? Nothing.

In the moonlight she saw as if with new eyes that he had changed. The
young contours of his cheek were less round, his eyes had a deeper
expression. He had suffered, and he had not complained.

"Théo," she said suddenly, smitten with pity, "I--have been horrid to
you. I--I am so frightfully selfish. Will you forgive me?"

His eyes glistened as he looked at her.

"Forgive you? You angel!"

"No, no. I _have_ been horrid. But--I will be nicer. And--you are so
good to me."

He was silent for a moment, then he said slowly:

"Brigitte--you are never horrid. But--if you do not--care for me at
all--will you tell me now?"

She was abashed and then shivered. Here was the chance she had longed
for. He would, she knew, give her up without a word if she asked him to;
and she had also learned to know that whatever Joyselle might have done
in like case a few months before, he would not refuse to see her now if
she told him that she and Théo had agreed to separate.

Here was freedom to go her own way, unrebuked by her own conscience or
the conscience of the man she loved.

Théo had turned away and stood with folded arms, awaiting her answer.

And she let her chance go by, for she could not bear to say the words
that should hurt him, and in the quiet night under the shadow of the old
house, it seemed to her that, after all, her happiness lay in this boy's
hands. Not the wild rapture she had once or twice felt with Joyselle,
but the kind of happiness that builds homes, and--she wanted a home.

Inexplicably tangled with her feelings for Théo, too, was that anything
binding her to him bound her to his father. They were more than father
and son, these two, they belonged together.

"I--do care for you," she said quietly. "I am not in love with you, but
I will marry you."

As he turned and held out his arms to her, Joyselle appeared at the end
of the lawn. Brigit did not see him, and going slowly to her lover
allowed him to embrace her.

"Ma Brigitte, _mon ange_--I--how can I thank you. Ah, what I have felt
these last five months! I have thought--oh, many things, of late."

His voice shook and was good to hear in its sincere emotion. For the
moment in her new-born wish to be good to him she felt that she had done
the wise thing, and was happy. He was good, and she would marry him
and--life would go on for ever, as it had been the last few weeks.

Joyselle, standing quite still in the shadow, watched them for a moment.
Then he turned and went back into the house.




CHAPTER FIVE


The morning of the eighth of September dawned that year very gloriously,
and Brigit Mead saw it dawn. Théo had begged her the evening before to
go with him to the castle to see the sunrise, and pleased by the
originality of the idea, she had accepted.

So while the sweet summer night still held sway over the pleasant Norman
land, the two climbed the steep street leading to the gates under the
ivy-grown bastions.

"The _concièrge_ always goes with visitors," the young man explained as
they passed the little house and began mounting. "But father was at
school with him, so I got a permit to go up alone."

"Is your father all right to-day, I wonder? Or will he be?" returned
Brigit thoughtfully. "I never knew him to have a headache before."

"No more did I," answered Théo, running his words together as he did
when he had been speaking much French. "He looked very seedy yesterday,
but last night Tante Bathilde went in to see him while you and I were
walking, and she said he was better."

They had reached the grassy ramparts and turned to the right. Night was
now melting into day, only the great Tower of Talbot (who alas! never
was in Falaise in his life) stood out against a faintly moonlit sky.
And glancing over his right shoulder at the mantling west, Théo hurried
Brigit past the Breach of Henri IV., with its crown of lilac trees, up
the steep causeway to the Tower itself. "We must climb to see the sun,
dearest," he said, "let us make haste. I am glad to be with you while
you for the first time see it come up over the edge." He was very happy
and looked rather splendid in his triumphant youth. Brigit smiled at
him.

"I like your town," she answered, "and I like this view of it."

Through the little dungeon they ran and up the narrow crumbling stairs,
laughing or crying out as they slipped or lost their breath, racing with
the sun; a very remarkable thing for Brigit Mead to be doing, as she
fully appreciated. And then, at the top, high in the splendid air, the
town in its greenery looking like half a dozen eggs in a green nest,
asleep below them.

And then, for the race was theirs, they watched the sun creep up until
he set the east on fire.

Brigit, her hat off, her eyes bravely set to the east, stood motionless,
and Théo, after saluting the risen king, drew back so that he got her
profile against the sky and watched it.

She wore a short grey skirt and a grey silk shirt; there was about her
not one touch of colour except for a beautiful pink the unwonted
climbing had brought to her cheeks. Théo realised how great a mistake
most women make in obliterating by bright tints the natural colours of
their eyes and skins.

"You are so wonderful," he said suddenly.

She started, for there was in his tone something that vaguely disquieted
her. It was like his father's voice, and like his father's when he was
impatient and superficially stirred.

"A wonderful person, am I not?" she laughed, picking up her hat and
putting it on, dashing a great cruel-looking hat-pin apparently straight
through her brain. "I am also a hungry person, Théo. Are we to have
food? I suppose no one will be awake for hours!"

It was indeed too early to hope for coffee, so they amused themselves by
wandering up and down the stairs, throwing burning paper down the famous
oubliette, and crossing perilously narrow ledges hand-in-hand.

"So William was born in this horrid little room? I don't believe it!"

"_On le dit._ And down there--see? by the tan-yards, Arlette was washing
clothes when Robert the Devil saw her and fell in love with her."

"Remarkably fine eyesight he must have had to see enough to fall in love
with!"

"Exactly. But that is the story. My mother's father was a tanner down
there somewhere. He was fairly well-to-do for his position, and father
was considered most audacious for aspiring to her hand!"

He laughed tenderly. "My dear old father! I am so proud of him, dear
love, I can't express it at all."

"I know."

"And I am proud of _petite mère_, too. She was so brave and patient
always, and he has led her a sad life at times. They were desperately
poor, for her father left most of his money to his other daughter, who
married Jacques Colibris. You must see my Uncle Jacques, he is quite
delightful--and father was a gambler--and so on. I can myself remember
one morning when he came in and told her he had lost two hundred pounds,
and that was a fortune then."

"She told me about those times," answered Brigit, slowly. "She is very
dear and good."

They were now going slowly down towards the town. It was five o'clock,
and the _concièrge's_ children were scampering about, uncombed, as they
passed the cottage.

"We'll go to the Musée and knock up old Malaumain," declared Théo
suddenly. "He won't mind, and she will give us a good _déjeuner_. I
could eat a horse."

"And I a carriage! But why go to a museum for breakfast?"

"It is a _café_--old Malaumain is a collector."

"Of what?"

"Of everything. From bird's eggs to souvenirs of Guillaume, whom he
adores. The house is supposed to have been at one time lived in by the
Conqueror, and old Malaumain has made busts of him, and pictures, and
all kinds of things. He will talk to you about _l'Entente cordiale_ and
the crossing of the two races, and the Friendly Hand, until you muzzle
him. He is a dear old chap, and his wife is a very excellent cook. I
used to run away when I was a little kid visiting _grand-mère_, and go
and beg her for sandcakes with the Conqueror's head done on top in
sugar!"

Madame Malaumain, contrary to expectation, appeared at an upper window
at the first knock, came down in a neat white _peignoir_, and after a
quick stare at Théo held out her hand.

"_C'est le petit Joyselle_," she said cordially, "_avec sa future?_"

"Yes--but if you don't give us breakfast, she will die, and then where
shall I be?" he answered, laughing. "How is M. Malaumain?"

"He is well, thank you, M. Théo. He has made many more interesting
discoveries about the Conqueror. He is very superior, M. Malaumain," she
added, turning to Brigit. "He was in service with many great people, so
he is never shy, as I am."

Chatting cheerfully, she set a small iron-table outside the door for
them, and then looking thoughtfully at them and murmuring, "Coffee,
boiled eggs, fresh bread and honey," disappeared, leaving them alone in
the slowly awakening Palace St. Gervais.

"What time is the Mass?" asked Brigit, as a tall cart clattered up to
the fountain and a brisk middle-aged woman climbed down from it and
began setting up her stand for the day's market.

"At ten. I hope _grand-père_ will behave well. I sometimes think he is
more mischievous than--than silly, poor old man. The curé who married
them called yesterday and congratulated him, whereupon _grand-père_
looked up and remarked that he didn't mind being married again, but that
most men got a new wife the second time! Poor old M. Cléry almost died."

"And what did _grand-mère_ say?" asked Brigit.

"Nothing. Just looked at him. _Petite mère_ said it was a dreadful
scene, but _grand-père_ was much pleased with himself, and chuckled all
day."

"I rather suspect his--sincerity, too, since I saw him trying to make
Papillon eat a domino. Oh, what's that?"

Up the street came a small procession; two brown-faced little boys, one
of them ringing a bell, followed by a priest in a well-washed and darned
white garment.

Théo rose and took off his hat. "It is the Viaticum," he said simply,
crossing himself.

The town was waking now; everywhere shop shutters were being taken down
and people in sabots clattered about, while a steady stream of high
carts, each with a big-boned horse between its shafts, drew up near the
fountain and deposited their owners in the market-place.

"A little later on in the year the apples make a splendid
colour-effect," commented Théo, breaking off to add in surprise, "Why,
here is father!"

It was indeed Joyselle hurrying towards them, a soft hat jammed down
over his eyes, so that he did not see them till his son accosted him.

"Father!"

"Théo!"

"Is anything wrong?" asked the young man rising.

Joyselle shook his head with a frown. "Wrong? What should be wrong?" he
returned harshly.

"But you look----"

"Hungry, probably. _Bonjour_, Brigitte. Yes, I _am_ hungry. I have been