A Sheaf of Bluebells

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

I

But it was close on a fortnight before Ronnay de Maurel saw Fernande again. He went every morning to the silent pool, soon after break of day, and every morning he waited for her until the sun was high in the heavens, and he was obliged to go back to his work. He spent his time in gazing into the pool or listening to the murmur of the woods. He knew the note of every bird, he knew where each tiny couple had built its nest; he watched the crimson tips of the young chestnut unfold and turn to bronze and then to green; he read every morning in the book which God hath laid out in springtime for every one of His creatures to read. He also spent a considerable amount of time in gazing at a silk stocking and a tiny sandal shoe, which happily he thought Fernande had forgotten to claim. He would draw these treasures from out the breast pocket of his blouse and hold them in his hands and toy with them, and gaze till a mist would come to his eyes and a curious, impatient sigh would come through his parted lips.

But he never tired while he lay in wait for the beautiful fairy-like creature who had so graciously intimated to him that one day she would come. It never occurred to him to give up waiting for her; that was not his nature. The same dogged obstinacy of the de Maurels, which had driven Denise de Courson well-nigh distraught, brought Ronnay daily to the spot where he knew that he must one day meet Fernande.

Often he would wax impatient and at times anxious, but never weary; nor did he ever lose hope. He would grow anxious when two days went by and he could glean no news of her; then perhaps that self-same afternoon he would tramp over after work as far as Courson and hear from one or other of the villagers that they had seen Mademoiselle walking to church or in the orchard, or else, mayhap, he himself would catch a glimpse of her through the gates of the park or in the carriole of Père Lebrun, and he would go home satisfied.

And he would wax impatient when the sun was specially bright overhead and glinted through the trees till every tender fibre of moss looked like a tiny emerald, and the wings of the dragon-flies glistened with myriads of iridescent colours as they skimmed the surface of the pool. Then he would long for Fernande with a longing which was akin to physical pain; he longed to point out to her the play of the sun upon the tender leaves of the alder, and show her just where the white-throats had built their nest.

Then one day the sun rose behind a veil of rain-clouds, and all morning the sky was overcast. It had rained heavily during the night, and a boisterous wind stirred the branches of the trees and shook down from them the cold showers of raindrops that had lingered on the leaves. De Maurel had started out later than usual. He had no hope of meeting Fernande on such a grey day, when the clouds overhead still threatened and no gleam of sunshine came to cheer.

Yet this was the very day which she had selected for her walk in the wood. He saw her the moment he reached the clearing. She was moving slowly between the trees towards the pool. She had thrown a shawl over her shoulders and a hood over her hair; from between its folds her fair young face peeped out somewhat sober and demure.

Directly she saw him she gave a little cry of surprise and held out her hand to him.

"'Tis strange to meet again, mon cousin," she said lightly, "and on such a day as this. Brr!" she added, with a little shiver as with the other hand she drew the shawl more closely round her shoulders, "I am perished with cold. It seems more like December than May."

She noticed, with a little smile of satisfaction, that he was not slow this time in taking her hand, or clumsy in raising it to his lips.

"From what you said, Mademoiselle Fernande," he said in his abrupt way, "I knew that you would come one morning. Was I like to stay away?"

"From what I said?" she retorted with perfect surprise. "Why! What did I say, mon cousin?"

His direct and searching look brought a hot flush to her cheeks. Yet she did not know why she should blush, and was greatly angered with herself for letting him see that she was, of a truth, covered with confusion.

"Ma tante gave me leave to visit the foundries of La Frontenay," she said, with a quaint assumption of dignity, "so I came this morning, thinking, mayhap, that you would remember your promise to conduct me round the workshops ... and that perchance I might meet you here."

"I came here every morning for the past fortnight," he rejoined simply. "I hoped that you would come."

"I had to wait," she said unblushingly, "till ma tante gave me leave."

"I am sorry," he said curtly.

"Sorry? Why?"

"I loved the idea of meeting you here ... in secret ... unknown to any one...."

For some reason which she could not have accounted for, this—his first really bold speech—angered her, and she retorted coldly:

"I would not have come at all, if Laurent had not approved."

"Ah! It was Laurent then who gave you leave?"

"Yes," she replied, "it was Laurent."

Somehow she felt strangely out of tune this morning, and wished heartily that she had not come. For one thing, she hated to see him in that odious blouse which he wore; it seemed to have the effect of making him, not only clumsy and loutish, but dictatorial and arrogant. The other afternoon, when he came to Courson, she had thought him passable—in a rough and picturesque way. The faded and tarnished uniform had lent, she grudgingly admitted, a certain look of grandeur to his fine physique. To-day he looked positively ugly—one of "the great unwashed," she thought, and despised him for a demagogue—he who bore one of the finest names in France.

"Are you prepared to come to the foundry this morning?" he asked abruptly.

For the moment she had a mind to say "No!" then remembered her folk at home and the boast she had made about taming this bear. It would have been passing foolish to give up the enterprise at the first check.

"Yes, I'll come," she said, as graciously as she felt able.

He, too, felt the constraint which seemed to stand like a solid wall between her and him, and in his rough, untutored way he was seized with a sudden, wild desire to pick her up again, as he had done that other morning a fortnight ago, and to carry her through the woods which were dripping wet with the rain. He wanted to carry her through the tangled undergrowth, so that her little feet brushed against the low branches of the trees, and caused them to send down a shower of cool drops over his head, which felt hot and aching all of a sudden, as if some unseen and heavy hand had dealt him a blow between the eyes.

The exquisite fairy of two sennights ago looked like a haughty and unapproachable woman to-day, sedate and grave, with that dark shawl folded primly round her shoulders, and the folds of her hood hiding her golden hair and casting a shadow over her limpid blue eyes.

"Will you not give me your arm, mon cousin?" she asked after a while, just as he was beginning to wonder whether he would not turn on his heel and run away as the simplest way out of his present misery. He looked at her—puzzled at the sudden graciousness of her mood, and then he encountered her blue eyes, from whence all sternness had vanished as swiftly as does a snowflake under the warm kiss of the sun. He held out his arm and she placed her hand on it.