Everyman's Land

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

I never mentioned my one-day romance to anybody. Only very silly, sentimental girls would put such an episode into words, and flatter themselves by calling it a romance. But now that you and Jimmy Beckett have both given your lives for the great cause, and are in the same mysterious Beyond while I'm still down here at Crucifix Corner, I can tell you the story. If you and he meet, it may make it easier for him to forgive me the thing I have done.

When Brian and I were having that great summer holiday of ours, the year before the war—one day we were in a delicious village near a cathedral town on the Belgian border. A piece of luck had fallen in our way, like a ripe apple tumbling off a tree. A rich Parisian and his wife came motoring along, and stopped out of sheer curiosity to look at a picture Brian was painting, under a white umbrella near the roadside. I was not with him. I think I must have been in the garden of our quaint old hotel by the canal side, writing letters—probably one to you; but the couple took such a fancy to Brian's "impression," that they offered to buy it. The bargain was struck, there and then. Two days later arrived a telegram from Paris asking for another picture to "match" the first at the same price. I advised Brian to choose out two or three sketches for the people to select from, and carry them to Paris himself, rather than trust the post. He went; and it was on the one day of his absence that my romance happened.

Ours was a friendly little hotel, with a darling landlady, who was almost as much interested in Brian and me as if she'd been our foster-mother. The morning after Brian left, she came waddling out to the adorable, earwiggy, rose-covered summer-house that I'd annexed as a private sitting room. "Mademoiselle," she breathlessly announced, "there is a young millionaire of a monsieur Anglais or Américain just arrived. What a pity he should be wasted because Monsieur your brother has gone! I am sure if he could but see one of the exquisite pictures he would wish to buy all!"

"How do you know that the monsieur is a millionaire, and what makes you think he would care about pictures?" I enquired.

"I know he is a millionaire because he has come in one of those grand automobiles which only millionaires ever have. And I think he cares for pictures because the first thing he did when he came into the hall was to stare at the old prints on the wall. He praised the two best which the real artists always praise, and complimented me on owning them" the dear creature explained. "Besides, he is in this neighbourhood expressly to see the cathedral; and monsieur your brother has made a most beautiful sketch of the cathedral. It is now in his portfolio. Is there nothing we can do? I have already induced the monsieur to drink a glass of milk while I have come to consult Mademoiselle."

I thought hard for a minute, because it would be grand if I could say when Brian came back, "I have sold your cathedral for you." But I might have saved myself brain fag. Madame Mounet had settled everything in her head, and was merely playing me, like a foolish fish.

"What I have thought of is this," she said. "I told the monsieur that he could see something better than my prints if he would give himself the pain of waiting till I could fetch the key of a room where an artist-client of ours has a marvellous exhibition. There is no such room yet, but there can be, and the exhibition can be, too, if Mademoiselle will make haste to pin her brother's pictures to the walls of the yellow salon. With a hammer and a few tacks—voilà the thing is done. What does Mademoiselle say?"

Mademoiselle said "Yes—yes!" to her part of the programme. But what of the millionaire monsieur? Would he not balk? Would he not refuse to be bothered?

Madame was absolutely confident that he would not do these disappointing things. She was so confident that I vaguely suspected she had something up her sleeve: but time pressed, and instead of Sherlock Holmesing I darted to my work. Afterward she confessed, with pride rather than repentance. She described graphically how the face of the monsieur had fallen when she asked him to look at an exhibition of pictures; how he had begun to make an excuse that he must be off at once to the cathedral; and how she had ventured to cut him short by remarking, "Mademoiselle the sister of the artist, she who will show the work, ah, it is a jeune fille of the most romantic beauty!" On hearing this, the monsieur had said no more about the cathedral, but had ordered the glass of milk.

In fifteen minutes the exhibition (consisting of six sketches!) was ready in the showroom of the hotel, the yellow salon which had been occupied as a bedchamber one night by the Empress Eugénie, and was always kept locked except on gala occasions. I, not knowing how I had been over-praised to the audience, was also ready, quivering with the haste I had made in pinning up the pictures and opening the musty, close room to the air. Then came in a young man.