A Sheaf of Bluebells

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

I

Mme. la Marquise's incredulity with regard to her niece's assertion lasted well into the afternoon. She could not bring herself to believe that de Maurel's hostile attitude towards all the inmates of Courson, which he had so steadily maintained since his first unfortunate visit, could have undergone such a material change in so short a time.

She had looked on Fernande's childish boasting as mere nonsense, and during the past week had been eating out her heart in vain regret and remorse at her own folly, her own insentient pride, which had undoubtedly precipitated the catastrophe, and turned into an open feud what had, after all, only been a kind of skulking neutrality before. Mme. la Marquise was quite sure in her own mind that if she had been present throughout the interview between the two brothers, she would have known how to avert the quarrel. Once it had occurred, she felt that nothing would ever bridge it over. The short glimpse which she had that day of Ronnay de Maurel had told her plainly that he was, indeed, the son of his father—endowed with the same passionate and violent temperament and the same obstinacy. Some latent impulse—or perhaps mere idle curiosity, she thought—had prompted him to come the once. But unfortunately he had been made unwelcome, and Madame la Marquise knew that he would resent this most bitterly, and that he would prove as irreconcilable as her husband had been, as old Gaston de Maurel still was.

Was it likely, therefore, that he would surrender at a word from a mere girl, and come and eat that humble pie at Courson which was bound to be very distasteful to him? Madame thought not; and in this she proved herself as ignorant of male temperament as her son was of feminine wiles. But Fernande was so positive that M. de Maurel would come, that something of her confidence communicated itself to the others. Her appearance in a new frock of delicate muslin, with tiny puffed sleeves and the shortest of waists, the folds of her long skirt clinging very closely to her girlish figure, finally brought Madame's incredulity to an end, and though nothing was done this time in preparation of M. de Maurel's coming, the excitement which pervaded the château was none the less acute.

The weather continued to smile the whole afternoon. It had been the warmest day of the young year, and Madame—still pretending that she was not expecting her son—ordered Annette to bring some semblance of order in the vast circular veranda that overlooked the park. In olden days this veranda had been a favourite spot on warm afternoons; the view between the stone pillars right over the ornamental water and the English garden beyond was magnificent. In those days the flagged floor was covered with soft carpets, chairs and lounges stood around, with one or two card-tables and stands for wines or coffee. Now there were neither carpets nor lounges; a few garden seats of stout wood had alone survived the years of disrepair. But after Annette had scrubbed the floor and the chairs, after Madame had ordered a table or two to be brought out and light refreshments to be disposed on them, after she had spread a couple of gaily-coloured Paisley shawls—remnants of her own depleted wardrobe—over the seats, the place looked inviting enough, and nothing could spoil the view across the park, right over an apple orchard aglow with blossom to the distant wooded heights beyond.

Madame took her seat beside the coffee-urn, her knitting in her hand. M. de Courson, feeling unaccountably restless, joined her after a while, making pretence to read the Moniteur—a week old—which a courier from Paris had brought that morning. Soon afterwards Laurent and Fernande were seen coming round the ornamental water. They came up the stone steps to the veranda, Fernande's unconcerned prattle and her merry laugh raising the echoes of the old walls.

Laurent was moody, as he always was when his brother's name was so much as mentioned; but Fernande was in the highest possible spirits, even though she masked her gaiety behind a look of sober demureness.

Everyone's nerves were on the jar. The paper rattled in M. de Courson's hands; Madame's knitting needles clicked jerkily.

Laurent sat with his two hands tightly clasped between his knees, staring down most of the time at Fernande's little feet, which were stretched out before her. They were encased in a delicious pair of heelless black alpaca sandals, with satin ribbons criss-crossing over the instep and tied in a bow just above the ankle. Her fingers were busy with a delicate piece of embroidery, and she was expounding her views to Laurent on the subject of the rearing of chickens.