Dark Rosaleen by Marjorie Bowen Page B

discovering this rural retreat.
    A perfect summer stillness lay over everything. There was no one in sight, and no sound except the song of the captive thrushes.
    The stranger paused at the small gate; he seemed in half a mind to return without executing his errand, but, putting this aside, he advanced with a firm step up the gravel path to the toy-like white house. The two bay windows were wide open, the fine muslin curtains stirred faintly in the warm air. On one of the bottom sills was a stand of auriculas and mignonette; by it was a gilt work-box on which were baby’s caps in lace and cambric.
    The stranger again hesitated. He could find no means of attracting attention in this place so invitingly open to all the world, so unprotected and, it seemed, so empty. But as he stood undecided and a little embarrassed, a lady appeared in the open doorway and stood between the waving tendrils of honeysuckle.
    She wore a frilled muslin jacket and a gown of white lawn with a lilac sprig. She had an ivory thimble on her finger, and a pair of delicate scissors hung by a blue ribbon to her waist.
    Her face was lovely and at the corner of her lips she had a little patch, a fashionable coquetry which seemed out of place with her simple dress.
    ‘Lady Edward Fitzgerald?’ asked the stranger.
    ‘I am she,’ the lady replied readily, in an English which had a foreign accent. ‘But I expect it is my husband you want. Will you come inside, sir?’
    He followed her into a parlour which was, even more than the garden and exterior of the house, touching in its simplicity.
    Everywhere there were flowers, growing in pots, arranged on stands and carefully tended (no cut bouquets or formal arrangements), with such a lavishness of bloom, that with its open window and fine breeze blowing in, the room just seemed to be a continuation of the garden.
    A child of a little over a year old sat on the sofa and played with a large shell, which he now and then held to his ear to listen to the murmur of the sea, and now and then caressed with his fingers to feel the glossy surface.
    The only expensive thing in the room was a service of fine china which had just been unpacked; cups and saucers still swathed in straw stood about on the table.
    ‘That is a present from my good mother-in-law,’ said the lady. She had the kind of manner which treats everybody alike and no one with either great coldness or great confidence. ‘It has been sent me to-day from England. See how pretty it is, fine as eggshell and the colours so bright. What name shall I give my husband?’ she added, fixing her large, clear eyes on the stranger. ‘He is out in the garden with Tony working at his beds. Of course he will be pleased to see you, yet I am sure he will be sorry to be disturbed. He is his own under-gardener, you see, and loves his work.’
    ‘I don’t know if Lord Edward will remember me, Madame. My name is Sheares, Mr. John Sheares. I didn’t know that I should be disturbing Lord Edward. Your home, Madame, I confess, puts me out of humour with my business.’
    ‘You come on politics?’ She frowned instantly. ‘Well, we have had enough of those.’
    ‘Politics! I will give it a less tedious name, Madame. Say, the affairs of Ireland. I am not very well known to Lord Edward, but I represent many friends of his.’
    The lady looked at her child, her glance was poignant; the stranger interpreted it and said with emphasis: ‘Friends, Madame; believe me, I could intend no harm to this obvious felicity.’
    ‘My husband,’ replied Pamela briefly, ‘is, I believe, very happy here. Come, sir, let us find him.’
    Mr. John Sheares followed her out of the little house and discovered the man whom he had come from Dublin to see at the back of the courtyard in a small flower garden, his coat off and a spade in his hand, on which he rested, while, under his directions, a huge Negro was delicately digging in the border of primroses, polyanthus, pinks and cloves.
    Edward