It was, in fact, a small birth-mark, placed just below the cheek-bone, almost round, yet with a slightly indented outline. No doubt a lover (and M. de Savres was one) found warrant enough for his phrase. At ordinary times it was a very pale red in color, but (unlike the rest of her face) it was very rapidly sensitive to any change of mood or temper; in moments of excitement the shade deepened greatly, and (as Colonel Markart says in his hyperbolic strain) "it glowed like angry Venus." Without going quite that length, we are bound to allow that it was, at these moments, a conspicuous and striking mark, and such it clearly appeared to the eyes of all who saw it. "La dame à l'étoile rouge," says the Marquis. "The Red-starred Witch," said the less courteous and more hostile citizens and soldiers of Kravonia. Sophy herself appears proud of it, though she feigns to consider it a blemish. Very probably it was one of those peculiarities which become so closely associated and identified with the personality to which they belong as at once to heighten the love of friends and to attract an increased dislike or hatred from those already disposed or committed to enmity. At any rate, for good or evil, it is as "Red Star" that the name of Sophy lives to-day in the cities and mountains of Kravonia.
So much in preface; now to the story. Little historical importance can be claimed for it. But amateurs of the picturesque, if yet there be such in this business-like world, may care to follow Sophy from Morpingham to Paris, to share her flight from the doomed city, to be with her in the Street of the Fountain, at venerable Praslok, on Volseni's crumbling wall, by the banks of the swift-flowing Krath at dawn of day—to taste something of the spirit that filled, to feel something of the love that moved, the heart of Sophy Grouch of Morpingham, in the county of Essex. Still, sometimes Romance beckons back her ancient votaries.
SOPHY OF KRAVONIA
PART I
MORPINGHAM
I
ENOCH GROUCH'S DAUGHTER
Grouch! That is the name—and in the interest of euphony it is impossible not to regret the fact. Some say it should be spelled "Groutch," which would not at all mend matters, though it makes the pronunciation clear beyond doubt—the word must rhyme with "crouch" and "couch." Well might Lady Meg Duddington swear it was the ugliest name she had ever heard in her life! Sophy was not of a very different opinion, as will be shown by-and-by. She was Grouch on both sides—unmixed and unredeemed. For Enoch Grouch married his uncle's daughter Sally, and begat, as his first child, Sophy. Two other children were born to him, but they died in early infancy. Mrs. Grouch did not long survive the death of her little ones; she was herself laid in Morpingham church-yard when Sophy was no more than five years old. The child was left to the sole care of her father, a man who had married late for his class—indeed, late for any class—and was already well on in middle age. He held a very small farm, lying about half a mile behind the church. Probably he made a hard living of it, for the only servant in his household was a slip of a girl of fifteen, who had, presumably, both to cook and scrub for him and to look after the infant Sophy. Nothing is remembered of him in Morpingham. Perhaps there was nothing to remember—nothing that marked him off from thousands like him; perhaps the story of his death, which lives in the village traditions, blotted out the inconspicuous record of his laborious life.
Morpingham lies within twenty-five miles of London, but for all that it is a sequestered and primitive village. It contained, at this time at least, but three houses with pretensions to gentility—the Hall, the Rectory, and a smaller house across the village street, facing the Rectory. At the end of the street stood the Hall in its grounds. This was a handsome, red-brick house, set in a spacious garden. Along one side of the garden there ran a deep ditch, and on the other side of the ditch, between it and a large meadow, was a path which led to the church. Thus the church stood behind the Hall grounds; and again, as has been said, beyond the church was Enoch Grouch's modest farm, held of Mr. Brownlow, the owner of the Hall. The church path was the favorite resort of the villagers, and deservedly, for it was shaded and beautified by a fine double row of old elms, forming a stately avenue to the humble little house of worship.
On an autumn evening in the year 1855 Enoch Grouch was returning from the village, where he had been to buy tobacco. His little girl was with him. It was wild weather. A gale had been blowing for full twenty-four hours, and in the previous night a mighty bough had been snapped from one of the great elms and had fallen with a crash. It lay now right across the path. As they went to the village, her father had indulged Sophy with a ride on the bough, and she begged a renewal of the treat on their homeward journey. The farmer was a kind man—more kind than wise, as it proved, on this occasion. He set the child astraddle on the thick end of the bough, then went to the other end, which was much slenderer. Probably his object was to try to shake the bough and please his small tyrant with the imitation of a see-saw. The fallen bough suggested no danger to his slow-moving mind. He leaned down towards the bough with out-stretched hands—Sophy, no doubt, watching his doings with excited interest—while the wind raged and revelled among the great branches over their heads. Enoch tried to move the bough, but failed; in order to make another effort, he fell on his knees and bent his back over it.
At this moment there came a loud crash—heard in the Rectory grounds and in the dining-room at Woodbine Cottage, the small house opposite.
"There's another tree gone!" cried Basil Williamson, the Rector's second son, who was giving his retriever an evening run.
He raced through the Rectory gate, across the road, and into the avenue.
A second later the garden gate of Woodbine Cottage opened, and Julia, the ten-years-old daughter of a widow named Robins who lived there, came out at full speed. Seeing Basil just ahead of her, she called out: "Did you hear?"
He knew her voice—they were playmates—and answered without looking back: "Yes. Isn't it fun? Keep outside the trees—keep well in the meadow!"
"Stuff!" she shouted, laughing. "They don't fall every minute, silly!"
Running as they exchanged these words, they soon came to where the bough—or, rather, the two boughs—had fallen. A tragic sight met their eyes. The second bough had caught the unlucky farmer just on the nape of his neck, and had driven him down, face forward, onto the first. He lay with his neck close pinned between the two, and his arms spread out over the undermost. His face was bad to look at; he was quite dead, and apparently death must have been instantaneous. Sobered and appalled, the boy and girl stood looking from the terrible sight to each other's faces.
"Is he dead?" Julia whispered.
"I expect so," the boy answered. Neither of them had seen death before.
The next moment he raised his voice and shouted: "Help, help!" then laid hold of the upper bough and strove with all his might to raise it. The girl gave a shriller cry for assistance and then lent a hand to his efforts. But between them they could not move the great log.
Up to now neither of them had perceived Sophy.
Next on the scene was Mr. Brownlow, the master of the Hall. He had been in his greenhouse and heard the crash of the bough. Of that he took no