For a moment we ceased talking, and looked at the old carved stone basin in which the successors of Roger de Montgomery’s Clugniac monks bathed in the twelfth century. On the broken shaft which supported the basin are three carved panels; one represents the miraculous draught of fishes and the other two St. Paul and St. Peter.
Bess shook her head and repeated sadly, “Of course I should like to be a saint, but there must not be too much pain. It isn’t fair of God to want too much.”
Then we wandered round to the east side of the old house, and I looked up and pointed out to Bess the old stone gargoyles. And Bess looked too.
“Those,” she said, “are Christian devils. Nana says we never could get on here without a Devil, and the monks had theirs too.”
There are many times in life, I find, when it is wiser not to answer a child, and this was just one. Strong light often dazzles, and, after all, are we not all children groping in the dark?
We peeped into the kitchen from outside, and saw the coppers glimmering like red gold on the shelves of the old oak dresser. Auguste, the cook, was chopping some meat, and the blows he gave resounded merrily through the crisp frosty air. I called through the mullion window and asked if the little soiled suit of yesterday was dry, as Fred the groom was to ride over to Hawkmoor and take it there in the afternoon.
“Oui, madame la comtesse,” cried Auguste, for by that title he always addressed me; not that I have a title, but that Auguste thinks it kind and polite so to address me. Besides, he has a confused belief that every English woman has a title of some kind, and that its exact nature is immaterial. As he spoke he opened the little oak door that communicates with the garden and exclaimed joyously—
AUGUSTE’S SECRET
“Voyez, madame, le jeune comte will still be a joli garçon in it. See, he will still rejoice the heart of his father and mother in grenat foncé.” So saying good-natured Auguste passed into the garden displaying in his arms the red suit. A miracle seemed to have been performed. There it was, spotless and dry, and as good as it was when made by Messrs. Tags and Buttons of New Bond Street. Auguste laughed and talked excitedly, gesticulated wildly, and assured me that he had saved the costume by un secret—mais un secret suprême known alone to him and to his family. “See, madame,” he cried superbly, “le bon Dieu ne pourrait pas mieux faire.” Then he told me in confidence that it was not in vain that his mother had been over thirty years gouvernante in the household of Madame la Princesse de P——. She knew everything, he asserted, “mais tous les secrets de ménage.”
I bowed my head, and happily had the tact not to press for an explanation, for I knew Auguste’s recipes were real secrets, and as jealously guarded as those of any War Office in Europe.