The Long Night | Page 9

But when she had skimmed the last
jar and set it back, and screwed it down among the embers, she
remained on her knees, staring absently at a thin flame which had
sprung up under the black pot. She had forgotten his presence,
forgotten him utterly; forgotten him, he judged, in thoughts as deep and
gloomy as the wide dark cavern of chimney which yawned above her
head and dwarfed the slight figure kneeling Cinderella-like among the
ashes.
Claude Mercier looked and looked, and wondered, and at last longed:
longed to comfort, to cherish, to draw to himself and shelter the
budding womanhood before him, so fragile now, so full of promise for
the future. And quick as the flame had sprung up under her breath, a
magic flame awoke in his heart, and burned high and hot. If he did not
lodge here,
The sky might fall, fish fly, and sheep pursue The tawny monarch of
the Libyan strand!
But he would lodge here. He coughed.

She started and turned, and seeing him, seeing that he had not gone, she
rose with a frown. "What is it?" she said. "For what are you waiting,
sir?"
"I have something in charge for Madame Royaume," he answered.
"I will give it her," she returned sharply. "Why did you not say so at
once?" And she held out her hand.
"No," he said hardily. "I have it in charge for her hand only."
"I am her daughter."
He shook his head stubbornly.
What she would have done on that--her face was hard and promised
nothing--is uncertain. Fortunately for the young man's hopes, a dull
report as of a stick striking the floor in some room above reached their
ears; he saw her eyes flicker, alter, grow soft. "Wait!" she said
imperiously; and stooping to take one of the pipkins from the fire, she
poured its contents into a wooden bowl which stood beside her on the
table. She added a horn-spoon and a pinch of salt, fetched a slice of
coarse bread from a cupboard in one of the dressers, and taking all in
skilled steady hands, hands childishly small, though brown as nuts, she
disappeared through the door of the staircase.
He waited, looking about the room, and at this, and at that, with a new
interest. He took up the book which lay on the settle: it was a learned
volume, part of the works of Paracelsus, with strange figures and
diagrams interwoven with the crabbed Latin text. A passage which he
deciphered, abashed him by its profundity, and he laid the book down,
and went from one to another of the black-framed engravings; from
these to an oval piece in coarse Limoges enamel, which hung over the
little shelf of books. At length he heard a step descending from the
upper floors, and presently she appeared in the doorway.
"My mother will see you," she said, her tone as ungracious as her look.
"But you will say nothing of lodging here, if it please you. Do you

hear?" she added, her voice rising to a more imperious note.
He nodded.
She turned on the lowest step. "She is bed-ridden," she muttered, as if
she felt the need of explanation. "She is not to be disturbed with house
matters, or who comes or goes. You understand that, do you?"
He nodded, with a mental reservation, and followed her up the confined
staircase. Turning sharply at the head of the first flight he saw before
him a long narrow passage, lighted by a window that looked to the back.
On the left of the passage which led to a second set of stairs, were two
doors, one near the head of the lower flight, the other at the foot of the
second. She led him past both--they were closed--and up the second
stairs and into a room under the tiles, a room of good size but with a
roof which sloped in unexpected places.
A woman lay there, not uncomely; rather comely with the beauty of
advancing years, though weak and frail if not ill. It was the woman of
whom he had so often heard his father speak with gratitude and respect.
It was neither of his father, however, nor of her, that Claude Mercier
thought as he stood holding Madame Royaume's hand and looking
down at her. For the girl who had gone before him into the room had
passed to the other side of the bed, and the glance which she and her
mother exchanged as the daughter leant over the couch, the message of
love and protection on one side, of love and confidence on the
other--that message and the tone, wondrous gentle, in which the girl, so
curt and abrupt below, named him--these revealed a bond and an