by Sax Rohmer
* * * * * *
Coming out into the narrow winding lane beyond the lodge gates, Paul saw ahead of him a shambling downcast figure, proceeding up the slope.
“Good morning, Fawkes,” he called.
Fawkes stopped as suddenly as Lot’s wife, but unlike Lot’s wife without looking around, and stood in the road as rigid as she. Paul came up to his side, and the gamekeeper guiltily raised the peak of his cap and remained standing there silent and downcast.
“A glorious morning, Fawkes,” said Paul, cheerily.
“Yes, sir,” agreed Fawkes, his breath bated.
“I want to tell you,” continued Paul, “whilst I remember, that Mrs. Duveen’s daughter, Flamby, is to be allowed to come and go as she likes anywhere about the place. She does no harm, Fawkes; she is a student of wild life and should be encouraged.”
Fawkes’ face assumed an expression of complete bewilderment. “Yes, sir,” he said, his reedy voice unsteady; “as you wish, sir. But I don’t know about not doing no harm. She spoils all the shootin’, alarms the birds and throws things at the beaters, she does; and this year she stopped the hounds, she did.”
“Stopped the hounds, Fawkes?”
“Yes, sir. The fox he ran to cover down Babylon Lane, and right into Dovelands Cottage. The hounds come through the hedge hard after him, they did, and all the pack jumped the gate and streamed into the garden. Colonel Wycherley and Lady James and old John Darbey, the huntsman, they was close on the pack, and they all three took the gate above Coates’ Farm and come up in a bunch, you might say.”
Fawkes paused, glanced guiltily at Paul’s face, and, reassured, lowered his head again and raced through the remainder of his story breathlessly.
“Flamby, she was peelin’ potatoes in the porch, and she jumps up and runs down to the gate all on fire. The hounds was bayin’ all round her as fierce as tigers, and she took no more notice of ’em than if they’d been flies. She see old John first, and she calls to him to get the pack out of the garden, in a way it isn’t for me to say....”
“On the contrary, Fawkes, I take an interest in Flamby Duveen, and I wish to hear exactly what she said.”
“Well, sir, if you please, sir, she hollers: ‘Call your blasted dogs out of my garden, John Darbey!’
“‘The fox is a-hiding somewhere here,’ says John.
“‘To hell with the fox and you, too!’ shouts Flamby, and pickin’ up a big stick that’s lyin’ on the ground, she slips into them dogs like a mad thing. I’m told everybody was sure they’d attack her; but would you believe it, sir, she chased ’em out like a flock of sheep. She don’t hit like a girl, Flamby don’t; she means it.”
“She loves animals, Fawkes, and knows them; therefore she has great influence over them. I don’t suppose one of them was hurt.”
“Anyway, sir, she got ’em all out in the lane and stood lookin’ over the gate. John Darbey he was speechless in his saddle, like, but Lady James she told Flamby what she thought about her.”
Fawkes paused for breath and darted a second furtive glance at Paul.
“Proceed, Fawkes,” directed the latter. “What was the end of the episode?”
“Well, sir, Flamby answered her back, but it’s not for me to repeat what she said....”
“Since the story is evidently known to the whole countryside, you need have no scruples about the matter, Fawkes. What did Lady James say to Flamby?”
“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 passing 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 grass 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.<
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“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 attitude surprised him. From what he had seen and heard of Flamby he had not anticipated 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 vassalage 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 assured 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 reassuring 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!”
The words shed a sidelight upon the domestic habits of the late Sergeant Duveen, as Paul did not fail to note; and in the masculinity of Flamby’s jesting he glimpsed something of the closeness of the intimacy which had existed between father and daughter. But, taking the drawing from her hands, he was astonished at the skill which it displayed and which surpassed that of any work he had seen outside the best exhibitions. It possessed none of the graceful insipidity of the water colours which young ladies are taught to produce at all good boarding-schools and convents, but was characterised by the same vigour which informed Flamby’s conversation. Furthermore, it represented a living animal, soft of fleece and inviting a caress and was drawn with almost insolent ease. Paul looked into the girl’s watching eyes.
“You are an artist, Flamby,” he said; “and like all artists you are unduly critical of your work.”
A rich colour glowed through the tan upon Flamby’s cheeks and she was aware of a delicious little nervous thrill. Paul Mario’s fascinating voice had laid its thrall upon her and his eyes were far more beautiful even than she had supposed, when, confronting Fawkes in Bluebell Hollow, she had suddenly looked up to find Paul watching her. That easy self-possession which she had learned from her father and which deserted her rarely enough, threatened to desert her now; also, a poisonous doubt touched her joy. With its coming came a return of confidence and Flamby laid her hand confidingly upon Paul’s arm.
“You really do mean what you say, don’t you?” she asked wistfully.
“My dear little girl, why are you so doubtful of my honesty?”
Flamby lowered her fiery head. “Except father,” she said, “I never knew anybody who really thought I could paint. Some pretended to think so; and Miss Kingsbury at High Fielding, who ought to know, laughed at me — after she had asked me to go and see her — and told me to ‘try and find a nice domestic situation.’”
The mimicry in the concluding words was delightfully funny, but Paul nodded sympathetically. A mental picture of Miss Kingsbury arose before him, and it was in vain that he sought to consider her and her kind without rancour. Beauty is a dangerous gift for any girl, making countless enemies amongst her own sex and often debarring her from harmless pleasures open to her plainer sisters. But
the Miss Kingsburys of the smaller county towns are an especial menace to such as Flamby, although charity rarely assumes the dimensions of a vice among any of the natives of England’s southern shires.
“And your father had intended that you should become a painter?”
Unconsciously, he found himself speaking of the late Michael Duveen as of one belonging to his own station in life, nor did the wild appearance and sometimes uncouth language of Flamby serve wholly to disguise the blue streak in her blood.
“When he was sober,” she replied, and suddenly bursting into gay laughter she snatched the drawing and turned away, waving her hand to Paul. “Goodbye, Mr. Mario,” she cried. “I like you heaps better than your uncle!”
Her impudence was delicious, and Paul detained her. “You must not run away like that,” he said. “Captain Courtier made me promise that I would arrange for you to pursue your art studies — —”
Flamby shook her head. “How can I do that?” she asked, in a gust of scorn. Then, as suddenly, her gaze grew wrapt and her face flushed. “But how I would love to!” she whispered.
“You shall. It is all arranged,” declared Paul earnestly. “The — special pension which your mother will receive and which Captain Courtier is arranging will be sufficient to cover all costs.”
Flamby looked up at him, her eyes aglow with excitement. “Oh, Mr. Mario,” she said, “please don’t think me ungrateful and a little beast; but — is it true?”
“Why should I mislead you in the matter, Flamby?”
