The Halo Part 7

Madame Joyselle turned quietly, after having, with a dexterous twist of her frying-pan, flopped her omelet to its other side. "Victor! And what brings you back, my man?"

Her pleasant, placid face was a great contrast to his as he rushed at her and kissed her hot cheek.

"_Va t'en_--you will make me drop Theo's omelet."

Joyselle took Theo's hands in his and looked solemnly at his son. "My dear," he said, "my very dear son, G.o.d bless you and--her."

Again Brigit longed to flee, but she knew that if she tried, Joyselle would be after her like a shot, and, she realised with an irrepressible little laugh, probably pick her up and carry her down to the kitchen.

"Are you hungry, my man?" asked Madame Joyselle, slipping the omelet onto a warmed platter, "there is some galantine de volaille truffee, and this, and some cold veal."

Joyselle patted her affectionately on the back.

"_Oui, oui, my femme_, I am hungry. But--Theo--to-night I am a wizard. I will grant you any wish you may have in your heart."

"Any wish----"

"_Pauvre pet.i.t_, tell him not that, Victor, my man. What would the poor angel desire but the impossible?"

Theo stood silently looking at them. He was evidently in no mood for farce, but as evidently he adored this noisy big father who towered above his slender height like a giant, and tried to force himself to his father's humour. "Dear papa," he murmured, "it is good that you have come. I am so happy."

Joyselle seized the opportunity, such as it was, and turning to the open door, called out in a voice trembling with pleasure and mischief, "Fairy Princess, come forth."

And the disdainful, bored, too often frankly ill-humoured Lady Brigit stepped out of the darkness into the homely light of the simple scene.

For a moment Theo plainly did not believe his eyes, and then as she advanced, scarlet with a quite unusual embarra.s.sment and sense of intrusion, he gathered himself together and met her, his hands held out, his face glowing.

"Victor--oh, Victor--this is terrible," Madame Joyselle burst out, scarlet with shyness, all her serenity gone. "You should not have brought her to the _kitchen! Mon Dieu, mon Dieu_, a countess' daughter!"

But Theo led his _fiancee_ straight to his mother, and his instinctive good taste saved the situation. "Mamma--here she is. Lady Brigit, this is my mother--the best mother in the world."

The little roundabout woman wiped her hand on her ap.r.o.n, and taking the girl's in hers, looked mutely up at her with eyes so full of timid sweetness that Brigit, touched and pleased, bent and kissed her.

"_Voyons, voyons_," cried Joyselle, rubbing his hands and executing a few steps by the fire, "here we are all one family. Felicite, my old woman, is she not wonderful?"

Madame Joyselle, the flush dying from her fresh cheeks, bowed. "She is indeed. And now--Theo, call Toinon--we must go to the dining-room."

n.o.body else, even Brigit, who had never beheld that cheerless apartment, wished to leave the kitchen, but Madame Joyselle's will was in such matters law, and the little party was soon seated round the table upstairs. And the omelet was delicious.

An hour later Brigit found herself sitting in a big red-leather armchair, in a highly modern and comfortable, if slightly gaudy apartment--Joyselle's study. There was a small grate-fire with a red club-fender, a red, patternless carpet, soft, well-draped curtains, and tables covered with books and smoking materials.

There was also a baby-grand piano, covered with music, and a huge grey parrot in a gilded and palatial cage.

It was Joyselle's translation of an English gentleman's room, even to the engravings and etchings on the wall. One thing, however, the girl had never before seen. One end of the room was gla.s.sed in as if in a huge oak frame, and the wall behind it was literally covered with signed photographs.

"Most of 'em are royalties," Joyselle explained with a certain naf pride, "beginning with your late Queen. I used to play Norman folk-songs to her. There is the Kaiser's, the late Kaiser's, the Czar's, Umberto's, Margarita's, who loves music, more than most--and _toute la boutique_.

Then there are also those of all the musicians, and--but you will see to-morrow."

He had brought his violin-case upstairs, and now opened it and took out his Amati. "I will play for you, _ma chere fille_," he declared.

And he played. Brigit watched him, amazed. Where was the rowdy, loud-voiced, amusing and almost ridiculously boyish middle-aged man with whom she had come to town?

This man's face was that of a priest adoringly performing the rites of his religion. His head thrown back, his fine mouth set in lines of ecstatic reverence, he played on and on, his eyes unseeing, or rather the eyes of one seeing visions.

He was a creature of no country, no age. His grey hair failed to make him old, big unwrinkled face failed to make him young. And as he played--to _her_, she knew--years of imprisonment and sorrow seemed to drop from the girl; she forgot all the bitterness, all the resentment that had spoiled her life hitherto, and she felt as she leaned back in her chair and listened as if she had at last come to a haven and found youth awaiting her there.

CHAPTER SEVEN

It is pleasant to wake to the sound of exquisite--and sufficiently distant--music. It is also pleasant to wake to the odour of good--and sufficiently distant--coffee.

The morning after her remarkable arrival in Golden Square Brigit Mead awoke to both these pleasant things. Somewhere downstairs someone was playing a simple, plaintive air on a violin, and still further away someone was making coffee--delicious coffee.

The girl for a moment could not remember where she was; the room, with its dark-grey paper and stiff black-walnut furniture, was foreign-looking, so were the coloured pictures of religious subjects on the walls. On the chimney-piece stood two blue gla.s.s vases filled with dried gra.s.ses, and the lace curtains flaunted their stiff cleanliness against otherwise unshaded windows.

Where was she?

And then, as the music broke off suddenly, she remembered, and smiled in delighted recollection of the evening before. Waking was usually such a bore; the thought of breakfast, always a severe test to the unsociable, was horrid to her. There would be either a solitary meal in the big dark dining-room, or what was worse, guests to entertain (for Lady Kingsmead never appeared until after eleven), and the disagreeable hurry and scurry contingent on the catching of different trains. But here she seemed to have escaped from what Tommy called Morning Horrors, and it was delightful to lie in her bed and wonder what, in this extraordinary house, was likely to happen next.

What did happen was, of course, quite unexpected; the door slowly opened and a small yellow dog appeared, a note tied to his collar.

A mongrel person, this dog, with suggestions of various races in him; his tail had intended to be long, but the hand of heredity had evidently shortened it, and the ears, long enough to lop, p.r.i.c.ked slightly as his bright eyes smiled up at the girl, who laughed aloud as she took the note he had brought.

"Oh, you dear little monster!" she said to him. "I never saw anything so yellow as you in my life--except Lady Minturn's wig. I believe you're dyed!"

The note, written in a peculiarly das.h.i.+ng hand on thick mauve paper, was short:

"Ma Fille," it ran, "good morning to you--the first of many happy ones with us. Yellow Dog Papillon brings this to you. He is an angel dog, and loves you already, as does your Victor Joyselle,

"Beau-Papa."

Yellow Dog Papillon, having come to stay, was sitting up, as if he never under any circ.u.mstances pa.s.sed his time in another way. His rough, pumpkin-coloured front feet hung genteelly limp, and his tail slowly described a half circle on the highly polished floor.

Brigit laughed again, and patted his head. "Does he expect an answer?"

she asked seriously; but before the dog could tell her what he thought the door opened, and Madame Joyselle entered, bearing a small lacquered tray, on which stood a tiny coffee-pot, cup and saucer, plate and cream-jug, of gleaming white porcelain, the edges of which glittered in a narrow gold line, and a tall gla.s.s vase containing a very large and faultless gardenia.

"I have brought you your coffee, Lady Brigit," said the little woman, showing her beautiful teeth in a cheery smile, "and 'ard-boiled eggs.

Theo told me you like them 'ard-boiled. The gardenia is from my 'usband."

Her English was very bad, and the unusual exertion of speaking in the tongue which to her, in spite of twenty-five years' residence in the country of its birth, still remained "foreign," brought a pretty flush to her brown cheeks. "You sleep--well?"

As she ate her breakfast Lady Brigit studied this simple woman who was to be her mother-in-law. Madame Joyselle was, socially speaking, absolutely unpresentable, for she had remained in every respect except that of age what she had been born--a Norman peasant. She had acquired no veneer of any kind, and looked, as she stood with her plump hands folded contentedly on her ap.r.o.n-band, much less a lady than Mrs.