THE LAPSE OF THE BISHOP

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16641, 25 January 1922, Page 5

THE LAPSE OF THE BISHOP

JUR SERIAL.

By

GUY THORNE

(Author of " When It was Park,” etc.)

book n. CHAPTER 11-3IA.TSIE 3IA.TSIE RUNS AWAY. From Belieplage the way to Sto Praxede-en-Bois was by a path along the high chalk cliffs, or at least, to the little cove with its hotel and group of fishermen’s cottages for which Maisie was bound. The/ village itself could only bo reached by a long drive skirting the great forest which stretched from the sea far inland. Ecu tourists even went to the village, which presented no attractions to French visitors, who were not allowed to go over the old chateau, which was the property of the Marquis do BeaujeuxPrantigny, an old gentleman who lived there in seclusion.

As for the ‘little cove, formed by a dip in the chalk cliffs and hardly three hundred yards across, its placid beauty tempted few holiday makers from the Casino and the Plage of the watering place. A wandering artist came there now and again, and stayed with Mme Girard. She had a small clientele of people who made regular visits, but she encouraged feu chance comers and disdained to cater lor the crowd. Maisie walked the three miles on the cliff top with a swinging stride. The turf, cropped short by the sheep, was soft and springy. Little breezes eddied up from the wrinkled sea below, and the diving gulls, their harsh cries softened by the distance, came in a pleasing chorus to her ears.

There was colour in her cheeks now as sho looked down at the cove, and prepared to descend the steep path with the broken handrail which led to it. The tide was out, and there was an expanse of pure white sand. Then canio the beach, over which a stream trickled to the sea. and ou which three or four fishing boats were drawn up. Immediately beyond, on the ot|aer side of the cove, were the few stone houses of the fishermen, sheltered by the great cliff behind the little gardens, a haze of colour from fuchsia bushes, ravcnelle, and the glowing amber of giroflee (Vamour. At the end of the cove, that is the apex of the horseshoe, stood the long, low, green tiled roofs of the Hotel du Sablon, a mass of quaint gables and squat chimneys. The walls were covered with roses, and a smooth lawn edged with box went down to a low stone wall mhich separated the front

of the garden from the beach. Behind, stretched a large potager, or kitchen garden, with barriers of high box hedges, and a mellow, southern wail upon which peaches were ripening. And behind, ( losing upon the glen and stretching out on either side of the cliff $ was the foot, beginning by the sea, of the great forest of Xte Praxede. Mine Girard could walk straight out of her kitchen garden into the mysterious light and shade of the wood, through which the silver stream came laughing. Looking down upon it from her eminence, seeing it in one eyeful, as it were, clustered together so serene, silent and perfect in form and colour, the domain of Mine Girard was like a scene in a fairy tale—a happy, enchanted spot, far away from the workaday world, where only good fairies ever come.

Maisie had stumbled upon this little paradise quite by chance during the first lonely walk she had taken on her arrival at Belieplage. She had picked her wav down into the cove, sat for a while upon* the side of a. boat among a litter of oars, cordage and lobster pots and then had ventured to the house, and with some timidity, for she was quite unaccustomed to fending for herself, had asked for a cup of coffee. The servant girl who had answered her ring took her into a quaint old parlour, into which the sunlight entered with a soft apricot light through the leaden panes of the window, and in a minute Mine. Girard herself had entered. and, joy of joys, with nothing less than a cup of tea—real the To-day was the seventh visit that Maisie had made to the Hotel du Sablon. She swung down the cliff, scrambled over the pebbles of the beach and the little bare expanse before the garden, and -then pushed open the gate and entered. Mme. Girard herself was sitting under the verandah by the porch, knitting: as usual. By her side, curled into an immense ball, was Girmaud, her tom-cat. Mme. Girard was a little old lady with white hair and large horn-rimmed spectacles through which looked a pair of shrewd and merry eyes, which could bo very /tender for those sho loved. Her nose was hooked like a parrot’s beak, her mouth, thin-lipped and wide, contained a set of teeth in remarkable preservation, and she had the neatest little grey beard in the- world. Give her a steeple hat and a broomstick— Grimaud iwas already in the pictureand she would have been the exact image of a benevolent witch as portrayed by Ralph Caldicot or "Walter Vrane. She jumped up briskly ns the gate clicked, and she saw Maisie coming up the path. “ Ah, ray dear/’ she said, in a deep, mellow voice, astonishing in its volume and power coming from such a little old lady. “I have been waiting for you this half hour. Something told me you would come this afternoon. There are petits fours and fresh honey, and soon we will make the tea !” Maisie kissed her and sat down by her side taking one of the wrinkled cld hands in hers ’i —1 stroking it. “ Ma. grademere de fee, you are too good ;to me, did you really want me to come ?” “Want you to come, my dear? T always want that. I wish you would leave that villain town and those pigs, and stay with me till the summer goes

■ e >2id you must' return to England as you *3ay.” There’fe only another month, and then I shall tell them that I cannot stay, and perhaps, perhaps I will come and be with you for a little. I have had news from England since I saw you last, and I am rich too ! I have twelve hundred francs.” “ Tiens!” said the old lady, wrinkling up her face, “ a child of fortune.” “ Yes, it was a present from a dear friend a girl 1 used to know at school. 1 hadn’t heard from her for a long time, and one evening I was very unhappy and I wrote and told her. She answered it and said that I might go and stay with her and her father as long as I liked, and as she is rich now she sent me all that money. 1 would not have accepted it from any one but her, but grand mere, you can’t think what it means to have n. little money. It gives one time to turn round.”

“It is good, hein?” the old lady answered with a chuckle. /“‘But I would have given thee as much if thou hadst needed it, my white rose. For I am an old money bags, and there is no one to inherit after me except my beaufrere of the Croix d’or, and he has plenty of his own. Now tell me of the English demoiselle. You never men tioned her to me before.” Thereupon, while the neat servant girl brought the materials for tea Maisie burst into a fervent and glowing panegyric of Dorothy, and her virtues, not omitting to mention her friend’s engagement.

“It is a strange religion, the Protestant,” said Mme. Girard in final comment, “ they let their priests marry. C’est drole ca. <E° r rny part I would not like to make my confession tv» a married, priest, not T! But I am rejoiced for thee, bebe. The demoiselle is one of thine own class. An aristocrat as it should be. "When I was femme de chambre to Madame la Marquise, we stayed in several of the great chateaux of England, and I saw nothing of the English ladies of the nobility. It is the same all over the world, ina petite, bonne race, bonne cliasse, and that’s what makes me angered when I know that you are in the dirty hands of those pigs from Paris. But that makes nothing, here is Marie with the hot water. Now let me see you make the English tea as you like it.” The old lady rubbed her hands with pleasure, and they made a dry, crackling noise like withered leaves as Maisie measured out the tea and poured a little hot water into the pot, a large silver one with the stamp of a famous Regent Street silversmith upon it.

“ That- was a present from an English lady who stayed with me five years ago for the whole summer. She is dead now—que les nines des fideles reposent on paix,” and here Mme Girard crossed herself devoutly. “Yes, she is dead, but she was a good Catholic, and a true friend. AVe shall meet again.” 'f'lie tea. from a special shop in the Rue de la Paix at ten shillings a pound, was truly excellent. Maisie said, and with truth, that she had never tasted such tea in England. She did not know that this occasional luxury of hei hostess was select caravan tea especially chosen by M. Girard once a year on behalf of his bellesoeur. And the cream—fresh from the dairy of the Marquis, the little hot “oven cakes’’---how utterly different it was from the stale pastries and muddy coffee of the Villa Turquoise! “ I could live here for ever with you, grandmere,” Maisie said with a sigh of content. “ I don’t think I should ever want to leave Ste Praxede-en-Bois.” The old lady shook her head. “ You think so now, cherie, but after a time you woulkl grow tired. You would want to explore another country, my white rose!” “ Another country?” “ But yes, the Pays du Tcndrc.” The girl smiled rather sadly, and shook her head. “ I shall never have a lover,” she said seriously. “ I shall never meet any one like Dorothy lias met. There will never he any chance, and besides, no one would look at me. No, if 1 could afford to do no work I should he quite happy with you, grandmere. 1 would help you cook for your guests. I would pick the strawberries in the garden and make conserve, and tie the lavender in bunches for the linen presses, and sometimes I would go over to England and stay with Dorotheo, and perhaps if there were little ones, some day she would let me teach them their lessons. And I would tell them stories of my fairy grandmother who lives in the wood, and of Grimaud her enchanted cat who goes fishing all by himself in the moonlight.” “ Stranger things than that may come to pass yet,” said Mine Girard, with a wise little nod, “ and now I also have some news. I have heard from my brother-in-law. the good man. and he is sending me a guest who will stay for the next three months.” “That is good news indeed,” said Maisie, for she knew how particular her hostess was. and how implicitly she trusted in the judgment of the hotelier in Paris. “ I think it will work well,” Mme Girard said, complacently. “Louis is never at fault. This time he writes with more than usual certainty. It is a gentleman, mv dear, and what is more, an Englishman.” “An artist?” Maisie asked, for she knew that painters sometimes came to the old house in the cove, and that Madame scolded, mothered and loved those careless children of temperament. “ No, I think not. Indeed Louis i doesn’t say what profession Monsieur follows. Probably none at all, for Louis, who thinks as I do, and never makes a mistake, assures me that he is a veritable aristocrat, a man of high breeding, with the manners of a grand “Is he young?” Maisie really could not say why she asked that question. It was (juite involuntary. “I think not. Of young middle-age indeed. My brother describes him as a gallant and fine carriage, slim though not tall, and clean shaved like a priest. His hair is grey and thick and curly, and his hands are small and strong.” “M. Girard is quite a portrait painter in words!” “ He is a very talented man, that rascal Louis. When he was a young man in Orange of the Midi, my sister tofd me that he wrote often in the Journal of the town, and his poetry in particular was much admired. Perhaps this Monsieur is also a poet, a bon chat, bon rat—set a thief to catch a thief,” and Mme Girard, who loved a proverb and was a sort of French Martin Tupper in petticoats, chuckled again. “ I shall give him,” Madame continued. “the large room au premier ctage which looks out upon the potager and the song of the birds will wake him in the morning. I shall also get down from the lumber room the india rubber bath which the English milord who stayed here for a week last year, left by mistake, and whose address I could never find to return it. As you know, cherie, the English gentleman washes himself from head to foot in cold water every day.” “ And so do most English ladies/* Maisie answered, laughing. “At any Tate, l always do—though,” she' continued with a little sigh, “ a basin put upon a towel on tVie. floor is ail I can manage at the Vila Turqouise.” (To be Continued.)