A Girl of High Adventure

by L. T. Meade

"Oh, Louise," she began, "I am not coming back any more to your beautiful school. I regret this for many reasons, but my French by the ignorant people here is considered perfect and I am in consequence to be taught the tongue of England in all its branches. Think not that I will forget you, Louise, and sometime, perhaps, your good père will allow you to come to visit me in my father's grand house. It is rich and very grand and nobly furnished. Your père Grognan can make the filet de sole, the sauce Hollandaise, the entrée bouche à la reine, but my father—ah, wait until you behold him, sweet Louise! Now then, to business. You know that little Comtesse who sells chapeaux of all sorts and descriptions and robes of all sorts and makes, at the établissement of Madame Marcelle. We call her here the little shopkeeper and she likes it not. I went to stay with her at Desmondstown, a ramshackle old place, where they played a very cruel trick on me, and when I told them that la petite Comtesse was only a little shopkeeper, they would not believe me. Now, I want you to help me, and if you do, and do the thing well, I will invite you to my gorgeous home in Angleterre next summer or perhaps even at Easter. We live close to the greatest city in the world, Londres, so big, so mighty, so powerful. It is not as graceful as Paris, but it will ravish your eyes and I will take you there day by day and you will have a glorious time. But what I want you to do now is this. The grandpère of the little Comtesse, M. le Comte St. Juste, does not know at all that his granddaughter helps at a shop. He is a very old and feeble man and he ought to be enlightened. Now, I put this into your hands, my best beloved Louise, to tell him the truth. You must call at the Château St. Juste and ask to see him. Go, I beseech of you, when the weather is cold and the bees do not hum so much and do not trouble themselves to sting. If you convey the news, thoroughly and perfectly, to the ears of the old, old man, I have in my possession forty francs, no less, which I will send you, and afterwards you shall come to see me for long weeks at Clapham Common, which is thought the most aristocratic part of all London. Now listen to me, Louise, and as you listen, Louise Grognan, obey! I will promise to you a glorious time and although the food is English, not French, it is of the best and the daintiest."

This letter was addressed to Mlle. Louise Grognan at her father's large restaurant and Tilda received an answer in due course. Louise could be sure of nothing, but she would do her best. As it happened, she owed forty francs to Madame Marcelle and she knew that her father, whose restaurant was so famous, would be furious if he knew that she had gone into debt. She did not really care for Matilda Raynes, nor was she very keen to go to Clapham Common, nor to see the cold wonders of London. She preferred la belle France—with its lovely Arles and its gay Paris. She did not care for pictures nor monuments nor ancient cathedrals. She liked dress better than anything else in the world. If she paid off her forty francs she might run up a further little bill at the établissement of Madame Marcelle.

Then it occurred to her as she replied to her friend, or rather her so-called friend, that she might raise the price for this rather nasty little job. Accordingly, she said that she would do what Matilda Raynes desired for sixty francs but not a penny under. Tilly, wild with delight, felt certain that she could secure this really small sum of money, and while Margot rode with all the happiness of her joyous little heart on Starlight and The Desmond rode by her side on the King of the Desmonds and Malachi rode a horse which he called The Pet Lamb on the other side, these miserable things were being arranged for the future unhappiness of the little Comtesse.

The day and the hour arrived. There came an afternoon when, true to his word, Uncle Jacko, beloved Uncle Jacko, appeared on the scene. Margot clasped her arms round his neck, kissed him several times and said, "Has it indeed come?"

Uncle Jacko replied with that saint-like look on his beautiful face, "It is the will of the Almighty."

Fergus suddenly appeared and said to Margot, "Keep silence for a time, my child; go and nestle into the arms of your grandfather."

Little Margot went very softly and sadly away. Uncle Jacko and Uncle Fergus went out into the yard. They found a lonely spot and began to talk very earnestly together.

"Yes, I've known all about it from the first," said Fergus Desmond. "It was not our pushkeen's fault. The Comte St. Juste married beneath him and behold the result, but it must come to an end. When you start to-morrow morning for Arles with little Margot, I will go with you, Jack Mansfield, for I have a word to say to Madame la Comtesse. It is she who is doing the mischief. She is using our little one, our dear little one, for her own worldly purposes."

"I have known it also all along," said Uncle Jacko, "but if we can keep the fact from the two old grandfathers, surely no harm can be done."