The silence was broken by a sudden outburst of merry childish laughter and the sharp barks of a dog. Gardiner laughed too, releasing her. "And now come on. Round this corner—mind the gate, it'll pinch your fingers, better let me. There: what do you think of that?"
They were clear of the wood and out on the open hill-side, looking down into a valley, a green crease among velvet-green hills softly molded, falling away to a line of trees, among which tinkled the crystal cascades of a brook. On the upward slope beyond rose a group of buildings. A round squat tower, a line of loopholed wall; the low white front of a dwelling-house, rising among golden ricks; the flickering brightness of a bonfire, a tall, slender ribbon of golden incandescence, burning in a golden fume, gilding the dark branches of the orchard, loosing flakes of flame and drifts of lavender-gray smoke into the lavender-blue of the sky. Two children and a dog were dancing round it, feeding it with masses of golden bracken; it was their laughter which had broken into the enchanted wood.
"When the Bellevue started life as a convent, that was the convent farm," said Gardiner. "Fortified—Lord, yes, they needed forts in those days; it dates from Spanish times. Didn't you know that? There's not much of the old stuff left in my Bellevue, bar the gateway and the salle, which is substantially the old refectory. But that old tower down there is pretty much as it was in the beginning. Ferme de la Croix, they call it; Convent of the Holy Cross, you'd say, but I don't myself believe that's the origin of the name. Come on down and I'll show you."
Lettice had not contributed much in words to the conversation, but she had done her part for all that, in following the quick turns of his mind. They went down, crossed a bridge built of slabs of uncut stone, and were greeted at the door by a woman of fifty who looked seventy. She had not a tooth in her head; it was hard to believe she was the mother and not the grandmother of the two tow-headed children. "Eh, monsieur, quelles nouvelles?" But the sweetness of her smile redeemed the plainness of her face.
Gardiner followed her down a white passage, not one line of which was true, into a low-pitched, pleasant living-room, with scarlet geraniums in the window. There beside the open hearth stood the bureau, black as bog oak and richly carved, with shining brass handles on drawers that slipped in and out at the touch of a finger. Madame chattered in her abominable Walloon French, Gardiner laughed and argued back; it was sadly plain to Lettice, who could distinguish such niceties, that he had picked up the accent of the country. There are disadvantages in being imitative. They came to the question of price, and Lettice, feeling herself de trop, withdrew to the open door. She waited there, between rose and crimson hollyhocks, making love to a lean flanked sandy cat who rushed effusively out of the stable-yard, and reared herself on hind legs to press her hard head against the visitor's hand. The children had disappeared, but their voices were heard in the orchard. In the west, soft bluish clouds were floating on lakes of burning rose. A big star was born above the dark spires of the enchanted wood, keen silver in the faint and fading gold.
Gardiner came out in high good-humor. "You've brought me luck," he said. "Madame's given in at last. I've had my eye on the bureau ever since the first time I came up here—haven't I, madame? And now, when's the four-poster coming? When I've been at you about it for another couple of years—is that the idea?"
"Jamis, ja-mais," said madame, vigorously shaking her head, laughing all over her wrinkles. "Non, monsieur, non. Je tiens à mon lit, savez-vous!"
"Et moi aussi, j'y tiens, et je vas l'avoir, savez-vous?" Gardiner laughed back, cheerfully ungrammatical. He laid his hand again on Lettice's arm—a small elegant brown hand: in nothing was he more un-English than in the shape and size of his hands and feet: Lettice looked down on it with an insulted expression which was quite wasted, as he wheeled her round to face the house—"Here's what I said I'd show you; it really is rather queer. That stone above the arch—do you see?"
The farm had a square-shouldered doorway; the headpiece was a single massive block of stone. Deep carved thereon, in the same old-fashioned numerals which appeared on the lintel of the Bellevue, was the same date: 1548. Above the date was lettering, moss-grown and indistinct.
"Can you read it?" asked Gardiner.