Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 37

"You look like a stranger here," he went on, in milder accents--"a sort of elf who has lost her way out of fairyland! Is anyone with you?"

"Yes," she answered, quickly--"Miss Leigh--"

"Miss Leigh? Who is she? Your aunt or your chaperone?"

She was more at her ease now, and laughed at his quick, brusque manner of speech.

"Miss Leigh is my G.o.dmother," she said--"I call her my fairy G.o.dmother because she is always so good and kind. There she is, standing by that big easel."

He looked in the direction indicated.

"Oh yes!--I see! A charming old lady! I love old ladies when they don't pretend to be young. That white hair of hers is very picturesque! So she is your G.o.dmother!--and she takes care of you! Well! She might do worse!"

He ruffled his thick crop of hair and looked at her more or less quizzically.

"You have an air of suppressed enquiry," he said--"There is something on your mind! You want to ask me a question--what is it?"

A soft colour flew over her cheeks--she was confused to find him reading her thoughts.

"It is really nothing!" she answered, quickly--"I was only wondering a little about your name--because it is one I have known all my life."

His eyebrows went up in surprise.

"Indeed? This is very interesting! I thought I was the only wearer of such a very medieval appellation! Is there another so endowed?"

"There WAS another--long, long ago"--and, unconsciously to herself her delicate features softened into a dreamy and rapt expression as she spoke,--while her voice fell into its sweetest and most persuasive tone. "He was a n.o.ble knight of France, and he came over to England with the Due d' Anjou when the great Elizabeth was Queen. He fell in love with a very beautiful Court lady, who would not care for him at all,--so, as he was unhappy and broken-hearted, he went away from London and hid himself from everybody in the far country. There he bought an old manor-house and called it Briar Farm--and he married a farmer's daughter and settled in England for good--and he had six sons and daughters. And when he died he was buried on his own land--and his effigy is on his tomb--it was sculptured by himself. I used to put flowers on it, just where his motto was carved--'Mon coeur me soutien.'

For I--I was brought up at Briar Farm... and I was quite fond of the Sieur Amadis!"

She looked up with a serious, sweet luminance in her eyes--and he was suddenly thrilled by her glance, and moved by a desire to turn her romantic idyll into something of reality. This feeling was merely the physical one of an amorously minded man,--he knew, or thought he knew, women well enough to hold them at no higher estimate than that of s.e.x-attraction,--yet, with all the cynicism he had attained through long experience of the world and its ways, he recognised a charm in this fair little creature that was strange and new and singularly fascinating, while the exquisite modulations of her voice as she told the story of the old French knight, so simply yet so eloquently, gave her words the tenderness of a soft song well sung.

"A pity you should waste fondness on a man of stone!" he said, lightly, bending his keen steel-blue eyes on hers. "But what you tell me is most curious, for your 'Sieur Amadis' must be the missing branch of my own ancestral tree. May I explain?--or will it bore you?"

She gave him a swift, eager glance.

"Bore me?" she echoed--"How could it? Oh, do please let me know everything--quickly!"

He smiled at her enthusiasm.

"We'll sit down here out of the crowd," he said,--and, taking her arm gently, he guided her to a retired corner of the studio which was curtained off to make a cosy and softly cus.h.i.+oned recess. "You have told me half a romance! Perhaps I can supply the other half." He paused, looking at her, whimsically pleased to see the warm young blood flus.h.i.+ng her cheeks as he spoke, and her eyes drooping under his penetrating gaze. "Long, long ago--as you put it--in the days of good Queen Bess, there lived a certain Hugo de Jocelin, a n.o.bleman of France, famed for fierce deeds of arms, and for making himself generally disagreeable to his neighbours with whom he was for ever at cross-purposes. This contentious personage had two sons,--Jeffrey and Amadis,--also knights-at-arms, inheriting the somewhat excitable nature of their father; and the younger of these, Amadis, whose name I bear, was selected by the Duc d'Anjou to accompany him with his train of n.o.bles and gentles, when that 'pet.i.t grenouille' as he called himself, went to England to seek Queen Elizabeth's hand in marriage. The Duke failed in his ambitious quest, as we all know, and many of his attendants got scattered and dispersed,--among them Amadis, who was entirely lost sight of, and never returned again to the home of his fathers. He was therefore supposed to be dead--"

"MY Amadis!" murmured Innocent, her eyes s.h.i.+ning like stars as she listened.

"YOUR Amadis!--yes!" And his voice softened. "Of course he must have been YOUR Amadis!--your 'Knight of old and warrior bold!' Well! None of his own people ever heard of him again--and in the family tree he is marked as missing. But Jeffrey stayed at home in France,--and in due course inherited his father's grim old castle and lands. He married, and had a large family,--much larger than the six olive-branches allotted to your friend of Briar Farm,"--and he smiled. "He, Jeffrey, is my ancestor, and I can trace myself back to him in direct lineage, so you see I have quite the right to my curious name!"

She clasped and unclasped her little hands nervously--she was shy of raising her eyes to his face.

"It is wonderful!" she murmured--"I can hardly believe it possible that I should meet here in London a real Jocelyn!--one of the family of the Sieur Amadis!"

"Does it seem strange?" He laughed. "Oh no! Nothing is strange in this queer little world! But I don't quite know what the exact connection is between me and your knight--it's too difficult for me to grasp! I suppose I'm a sort of great-great-great-grand-nephew! However, nothing can alter the fact that I am also an Amadis de Jocelyn!"

She glanced up at him quickly.

"You are, indeed!" she said. "It is you who ought to be the master of Briar Farm!"

"Ought I?" He was amused at her earnestness. "Why?"

"Because there is no direct heir now to the Sieur Amadis!" she answered, almost sadly. "His last descendant is dead. His name was Hugo--Hugo Jocelyn--and he was a farmer, and he left all he had to his nephew, the only child of his sister who died before him. The nephew is very good, and clever, too,--he was educated at Oxford,--but he is not an actually lineal descendant."

He laughed again, this time quite heartily, at the serious expression of her face.

"That's very terrible!" he said. "I don't know when I've heard anything so lamentable! And I'm afraid I can't put matters right! I should never do for a farmer--I'm a painter. I had better go down and see this famous old place, and the tomb of my ever so great-great-grand-uncle! I could make a picture of it--I ought to do that, as it belonged to the family of my ancestors. Will you take me?"

She gave him a little fleeting, reluctant smile.

"You are making fun of it all," she said. "That is not wise of you! You should not laugh at grave and n.o.ble things."

He was charmed with her quaintness.

"Was he grave and n.o.ble?--Amadis, I mean?" he asked, his blue eyes sparkling with a kind of mirthful ardour. "You are sure? Well, all honour to him! And to YOU--for believing in him! I hope you'll consider me kindly for his sake! Will you?"

A quick blush suffused her cheeks.

"Of course!--I must do so!" she answered, simply. "I owe him so much--"

then, fearful of betraying her secret of literary authors.h.i.+p, she hesitated--"I mean--he taught me all I know. I studied all his old books...."

Just then their cheery host came up.

"Well! Have you made friends? Ah!--I see you have! Mutual intelligence, mutual comprehension! Jocelyn, will you bring Miss Innocent in to supper?--I leave her in your charge."

"Miss Innocent?" repeated Jocelyn, doubtful as to whether this was said by way of a joke or not.

"Yes--some people call her Ena--but her real name is Innocent. Isn't it, little lady?"

She smiled and coloured. Jocelyn looked at her with a curious intentness.

"Really? Your name is Innocent?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered him--"I'm afraid it's a very unusual name--"

"It is indeed!" he said with emphasis. "Innocent by name and by nature!

Will you come?"

She rose at once, and they moved away together.

CHAPTER II