But Flamby interested him keenly, and therefore he draped her in a mantle of poesy, obscuring those shades displeasing to his sensibilities; as, an occasional coarseness due to association with her father; and enhancing her charms and accomplishments. Her beauty and spirit delighted the æsthete, and her mystery enthralled the poet. She had feared Sir Jacques. Why? Paul toyed with the question in his own fashion and made of Hatton Towers a feudal keep and of his deceased uncle a baron of unsavoury repute. The maid Flamby, so called because men had likened the glory of her hair to a waving flambeau, he caused to reside in a tiny cottage beneath the very shadow of Sir Jacques' frowning fortress; and the men-at-arms looking down from battlement and bartizan marvelled when the morning wove a halo around the head of the witch's daughter. (In the poem-picture which grew thus in his mind as he swung along towards Hatton, Mrs. Duveen had become even more shrivelled than nature had made her; her eyes had grown brighter and her earrings longer).
Word of the maid's marvellous comeliness reaching Sir Jacques, he won entrance to the cottage crouching against his outer walls, disguised as a woodman; for the mighty weald had reclaimed its own in the period visited by Paul's unfettered spirit and foresters roamed the greenwood. He wooed maid Flamby, employing many an evil wile, but she was obdurate and repulsed him shrewdly. Whereupon he caused Dame Duveen to be seized as a weaver of spells and one who had danced before Asmodeus at the Witches' Sabbath to music of the magic pipe. To serve his end Sir Jacques invoked inhuman papal witch-law; the stake was set, each faggot laid. But by stratagem of a humble cowherd who loved her with a fidelity staunch unto death, Flamby secured the Dame's escape and the two fled together covertly, through the forest and by night....
VIII
A few paces beyond the giant elm, Flamby paused, breathless, looking down at the drawing which she held in her hand. Then turning, she retraced her steps until she could peep around the great trunk of the tree. Thus peeping she stood and watched Paul Mario until, coming to the stile at the end of the meadow, he climbed over and was hidden by the high hedgerow.
Flamby looked at the sketch again, seized it as if to tear the board across; then changed her mind, studied the drawing attentively, smiled, and looked straight before her, but not at anything really visible. She was dreaming, as many another had dreamed who had heard Paul Mario's voice and looked into Paul Mario's eyes. From these maiden dreams, which may not be set down because they are formless, like all spiritual things, her mind drifted into a channel of reflection.
The memory of Paul's voice came back again and thrilled her as though he had but just spoken. She grew angry because she had imagined his voice to resemble that of Sir Jacques. Poor little Flamby, the very name of Sir Jacques was sufficient to make her shudder, to cast black shadows upon the sunny fields of her dream-world. She dared not believe that Paul's interest was sincere and disinterested—yet her heart believed it.
Almost the earliest recollection of her young womanhood was of a man's interest in her welfare; that was at the big racing stables in Yorkshire where her father had trained for Lord Loamhurst. Flamby was thirteen, then, and already her beauty, later to develop into that elfin loveliness which had excited the wonder of Don, was unusual. The man in question was his lordship's nephew, and his interest had grown so marked that Michael Duveen had spoken to him, had received an insolent reply and had struck down the noble youth with one blow of his formidable fist. The episode had terminated Duveen's career as a trainer.
Thereafter had begun the nomadic life, with its recurrent phases of brawls, drunken debauches by her father, occasional brief intervals of prosperity and longer ones of abject poverty. Lower Charleswood had seemed as an oasis in the wilderness and the employment offered by Sir Jacques too bountiful to be real. Nevertheless, it was real enough, and all went well for a season. Michael Duveen gave the bottle a go-by, and the first real home that Flamby had known established its altars in Dovelands Cottage. The understanding between father and daughter was complete and was rendered more perfect by the necessity for companionship experienced by both. Poor Mrs. Duveen possessed the personality of a chameleon, readily toning with any background; but intellectually she was never present. Why Michael Duveen had selected such a mate was a mystery which Flamby, who loved her mother the more dearly for her helplessness, could never solve. It was a mystery to which Duveen, in his darker moods, devoted himself cruelly, and many were the nights that Flamby had sobbed herself to sleep, striving to deafen her ears to the hateful insults and merciless taunts which Duveen would hurl at his wife.
Following such an outburst, Michael Duveen would exhibit penitence which was almost as shocking as his brutality—but it was always to Flamby that he came for forgiveness, bringing some love-gift which he would proffer shamefacedly, tears trembling in his eyes.
"Ask your mother to come into town with me, Flamby asthore; I've seen a fine coat at Dale's that'll make her heart glad."